Gorby 2: Audacious Imposter - Paperback

by Ronald V. Knapp (Author)

In December of 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, Secretary General of the Soviet Union, came to address the United Nations. I went to New York for one day to do a segment on Fox TV with Gordon Elliott's "Good Day, New York." Fox thought it would be fun to see what would happen if they took Gorby 2 to New Jersey knocking on doors the same day Gorbachev was arriving. I was so successful that Fox said, "Let's hire limos and turn him loose on New York- totally unplanned and serendipitous. The Gorbachev motorcade was on one street, and I was on another. As Gorby 2, I shook hands with 100,000 New Yorkers who thought they shook hands with Gorbachev. The prime moment was when Donald Trump came out of Trump Tower to greet me in front of about 5000 people. The Fox TV cameras captured it for the evening news on Maury Povich's "Current Affairs." Everywhere I went in Manhattan, people would stop me on the street and say, "You're the guy who got Trump."

Author Biography

Ronald V. Knapp was born in Windsor, Ontario to an Irish mother and spirited Seneca Indian father who burned their house down on his first birthday for payment by an insurance company for advertisement. When he was five years old, his Irish grandmother came to Canada, seized his mother and the three children, and took them under pursuit to Detroit to live with his grandparents. . That was the last contact he had with his father who moved to Montreal, owned the Blue Bonnet Race Track and the Upsal Chemical company, served as Under-Secretary of State for Prime Minister Pearson, got mixed up with the wrong people, and was murdered when Ron was 28. His grandfather, James J. O'Callaghan, was Henry Ford's first worker; and during the war his mother worked as Rosie the Riveter. Ron attended Catholic schools and at 16 was a Holy Cross Brother for Notre Dame. He received too many letters from girls and went back to Detroit where his first job, while attending the University of Detroit, was with the U.S. Gypsom Company, measuring ship loads on the Great Lakes. He was drafted in 1961 and served in the U.S. Army during the Viet Nam era, even though he had dual citizenship. He spent the majority of his military service close to God and away from the front as Head Chaplin Assistant at Fort Lewis, Washington. He married and fathered six children while working and going part-time to school. When he finally graduated from Cal State Fullerton the Business Department acknowledged him as the student with the most responsibilities and had his whole family come up on the stage. For twenty years Ron worked as Plant Manager for McDonnell Douglas in Overhaul and Repair, with hundreds of DC9's and 10's under his supervision. He is the inventor of the Emergency Exit System currently in every commercial aircraft in the world. In 1987 his resemblance to Mikhael Gorbachev catapulted him into a celebrity position that unfolded serendipitously. He was invited by Fox television to NYC for Good Day, New York with Gordon Eliot on the day that Gorbachev came to address the UN. Fox took him to New Jersey at 7:00 a.m. and had him knock on doors and talk to people. He was so successful that Fox hired a limo and took him to NYC with three TV cameras at the same time that Gorbachev's entourage was arriving. They had parallel parade routes, and Ron shook hands with thousands of New Yorkers who thought he was Gorbachev, including Donald Trump.