Suspicious Pointer Conversion joke

[Steve Elias]

an associate of mine who was raised in the Soviet Union is 
learning how to program in C.  naturally, he soon began getting
his share of suspicious pointer conversions.  

he finally asked me what was going on, explaining that he was
getting tired of looking over his shoulder every time he
compiled his code...  

somehow, i don't think that's what K & R had in mind; 
did the original C (B?) compilers issue this warning, as well ?