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.

I have had and still do have every confidence in Paul Nitze, a man whom I have known for decades, one of the wisest servants of the American nation but always willing and capable of taking into account the interests of their allies, whoever: the British, or the French or the Germans or others.

President [Ronald] Reagan never has tried to become an expert on military matters. He never has endeavored to learn the most important details in that field, which lead to a situation in which his aides played a much greater roles than aides would have played under President Ford or let us say in the whole Nixon-Ford-Kissinger era.

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.

Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

The catch word is equilibrium again, informed the field what are conventional weapons or nuclear weapons of different qualities. You cannot make up for a actual or perceived disequilibrium in the conventional field by having more nuclear weapons.

[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.