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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

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.