Nicholas Daniloff was a Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post, UPI and U.S. News and World Report. No stranger to political unrest, Daniloff became embroiled in Cold War politics in l986, when he was arrested by Soviet authorities in retaliation for the arrest in New York of Gennadiy Zakharov, who was found guilty of espionage. Daniloff was released in exchange for Zakharov, and charges against him were dropped as a result of a Soviet America agreement. In l988, Daniloff wrote Two Lives, One Russia, an account of his imprisonment in Moscow. Later, he resigned from reporting and the director of Northeastern University's School of Journalism in 1992.

At the time of the spy/journalist trade, Howard Phillips, Chairman of the Conservative Caucus, said "[The Reagan] administration�s foreign policy has been to kiss the Russian bear�s bottom, and he keeps turning the other cheek.," in the Oct. 13, 1986, edition of Time.