Former White House photographer resurfaces mysterious photo of a ‘young Putin’ spying on Ronald Reagan in 1988

An incredible photo of what appears to be a “young Vladimir Putin” spying on US president Ronald Reagan back in 1988 has resurfaced online.

Former Obama and Reagan photographer Pete Souza was the photographer who captured the potentially extraordinary moment, and recently shared the image on his Instagram page.

He describes in the caption the circumstances that led to the seemingly remarkable photograph.

“In 1988, I photographed President Reagan during his visit to Moscow.

“Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the then Soviet Union, gave Reagan a tour of Red Square where groups of “tourists” (KGB agents?) were positioned around the square.”

The photo shows President Reagan shaking hands with a young boy and with several men surrounding the US president.

He tells his followers to “note the man on the left with the camera around his neck.⁣”

But, it wasn’t until a decade later that Souza would come to recognise how historically significant his photograph could be.

“In 1993, I published a book of photographs (“Unguarded Moments”) from my tenure at the White House during the Reagan administration.

“Some ten years later, I received a random letter in the mail from someone who asked if I knew I had captured a picture of Reagan and Vladimir Putin as shown on page 145 in my book. (Putin had by then become the President of Russia). I was astounded by this letter.⁣⁣”

In a bid to confirm the identity of the man with the camera, Souza contacted both the Reagan Library and a NSC official in the Bush 43 administration.

“No one could definitively say whether it was Putin. In 1988, Putin was in fact in the KGB, though he was apparently stationed in East Germany,” he wrote.

Souza was hired as the chief White House photograph for President Obama in January 2009.

A few days before the inauguration, he was interviewed by Steve Inskeep of NPR.

“I was telling this story as an example of how the relevance of presidential photos can change over time.

“‘And as soon as you see the photo you go, oh, my gosh, it really is him (Putin),’ were my exact words. A big mistake; I never should have said that, because in fact it had never been verified.⁣⁣

“The Kremlin apparently listens to NPR and almost immediately denied it was Putin.”

Souza then describes a strange incident that occurred after the interview.

⁣⁣⁣⁣”About a month after the NPR interview, I received a postcard to my home address.

“The Red Square photo was on the front of the postcard. The man in the camera was circled with a red marker, and someone had written the word “spy” and drawn an arrow to the man.

“I turned the postcard over to the Secret Service; nothing ever came of it.⁣⁣⁣⁣”

In July 2009, Souza traveled to Russia with President Obama who met with Putin at his dacha.

“No Russian official ever said anything to me, though Robert Gibbs had teased me that I would be detained.