“Immediately after being deposed, but before going into exile, Khruschev had a brief and secret meeting with Brezhnez in the Kremlin.

He gave his successor the key to a secret drawer in his desk and told him: “I’m leaving you three letters numbered one to three in that drawer; if there’s some huge crisis in the USSR, a crisis that you cannot solve in the usual ways and with which you cannot cope at all, open the first letter and follow the instructions; do the same with the next letters if there are further crises”.

Some years later Brezhnev sees himself in the midst of such a crisis and opens the first letter. It says: “Blame me. Yours truly, Khruschev”. That’s what he does and he overcomes the crisis. Time passes and there’s a second crisis. The second letter reads: “Blame the Jews”. It works. Eventually, there’s a third crisis, even worse than the earlier ones. Brezhnev sees no way out and opens the third letter. It says: “Write three letters”.

Since it doesn’t look as if the cartoon crisis could be blamed on the US, Bush, the Jews, Sharon, the usual suspects, what will Europe and the MSM [NYT] do now: write three letters?”