If somewhere is a deficiency the normal American answer would have been well then, let's spend some more money, build some more weapons and deploy them. That's the normal way of thinking of the military, in America not only but also all over the place, but America or Russia or other countries.

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've never been a classic Gaulist! Not a Gaulist at all.

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.

Ronad Reagan might go down to history as a man who in the end of this administration brought about the first nuclear arms reduction treaty, the first arms reduction treaty at all in the modern world, and this is quite something.

What I do see, for instance, is that the French are not very happy with the ... I am happy but they are not and I understand why they are not happy. They still believe in some nuclear strategic formulas which they have inherited from General De Gaulle and they have started the process of rethinking, they haven't gone very far.

[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.