Trust, but verify as a signature phrase by Reagan, who subsequently used it frequently when discussing U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. Using proverbs that the Russians could relate to may have helped relations between the two leaders. After Reagan used the phrase to emphasize "the extensive verification procedures that would enable both sides to monitor compliance with the treaty", at the signing of the INF Treaty, on 8 December 1987, his counterpart General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev responded, "You repeat that at every meeting," to which Reagan answered, "I like it." While Reagan quoted Russian proverbs, Mr. Gorbachev quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
The war to end war used the phrase in an ironic way in the novel "The Bulpington of Blup" (1932). Walter Lippmann wrote in "Newsweek" in 1967, "The delusion is that whatever war we are fighting is the war to end war", while U.S. President Richard Nixon, in his "Silent Majority" speech (1969), said, "I do not tell you that the war in Vietnam is the war to end wars". Since at least the last third of the 20th century, the alternative wording "the war to end all wars" has become more popular. "The War to End War" was the title of Laurence Stallings's 1959