In november 1943, as Allied leaders met in teheran to plan the defeat of Nazism, Franklin Roosevelt asked Joseph Stalin to join in a toast. Inevitably, at that moment in history, the drink the American President offered was a dry martini.

Stalin was grudging. “Well, all right,” he is reported to have said, “but it is cold on the stomach.” Anyway, it worked. An administration official characterized U.S.-Soviet relations under DR as the “four martinis and let’s have an agreement” era. The President liked his with a teaspoon of olive brine.

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