Trust, but verify Trust, but verify Trust, but verify (; "Doveryat, no proverit") is a Russian proverb. The phrase became well known in English when used by President Ronald Reagan on multiple occasions in the context of nuclear disarmament. Suzanne Massie, an American writer, met with President Ronald Reagan many times between 1984 and 1987. She taught him the Russian proverb "Doveryai, no proveryai" (; "Trust, but verify"), advising him that "The Russians like to talk in proverbs. It would be nice of you to know a few. You are an actor – you can learn them very quickly." The proverb was adopted
Maxim D. Shrayer Maxim D. Shrayer Shrayer, Maxim D. (; born June 5, 1967, Moscow, USSR) is a bilingual Russian-American author, translator, and literary scholar, and a professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College. Maxim D. Shrayer was born and grew up in Moscow, USSR, in the family of the writer David Shrayer-Petrov, and the translator Emilia Shrayer. Together with his parents he spent almost nine years as a refusenik before immigrating to the US in the summer of 1987. Shrayer attended Moscow University, Brown University (BA 1989), Rutgers University (MA 1990), and Yale University (Ph.D. 1995). Since 1996 he