Sit down, and write two letters

When Nikita Khrushchev was forced out as leader of the Soviet Union, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor Leonid Brezhnev. He said, “When you get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of, open the first letter, and you’ll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can’t get out of, open the second letter”. Brezhnev soon found himself in a difficult situation, so he opened the first letter. It said, “Blame everything on me”. So he blamed Khrushchev for everything, and it worked. Eventually, he got himself into a second difficult situation he couldn’t get out of, so he opened the second letter. It said, “Sit down, and write two letters”.