In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.

President [Ronald] Reagan told me he would negotiate and negotiate and negotiate with the Soviets, and I believed him.

In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.

[Ronald] Reagan seems to be a man of some basic convictions and on the other hand willing to let others do the ground homework, the detailed work.

Leonid Breznev was an old man and despite his own military experience in World War II, he on the other hand was not very close to the military.

Leonid Brezhnev did not understand the enormous political importance of the decision to produce and afterwards deploy the SS-20s.

I have talked about the deterioration of the atmosphere between Washington and Moscow. It was quite clear that in the year 1980, which at the same time was an election year in America, these negotiations would not go very far, but immediately after the start of the Reagan administration we in Bonn started to try influencing them on the medium-range nuclear weapons negotiations, and we told them that in our view the best outcome would be zero-zero, zero on either side.