Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

The Alliance and NATO is two different things. France is a member of the Alliance. NATO is an organization not mentioned in the North Atlantic Treaty, has been built up in the course of history, in the course of history France has left that organization. Normally the Alliance has been lead by consent, building up consensus on important issues of questions, in many instances over the last 30 years that I have followed events closely. In many, many cases was being done under the spiritual guidance of the American President, that is true, but sometimes also at the guidance of others.

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.

Some of the American military obviously were thinking in terms of fighting a nuclear war. I was opposed to that.

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

Population growth and the proliferation of mega-cities around the world redefines the entire global security agenda.