The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.

What is applicable is to understand that first of all China has undergone a huge revolution in the last years. Anyone who saw China as I did in 1971 - and for that matter even in 1979, because not much had changed between 1971 and 1979 - and sees China today, knows one is in a different economic system.

I grew up in Germany during the Nazi period, and I came to this country when I was 15. And then I had to work in a factory because we had no resources. And I went to night school. So, it was not a rational ambition for me to become a world statesman.

I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.

For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be.

In Asia, the nation state still is extremely vital, and of course, then in Africa, a whole new pattern is emerging because the states in Africa reflected the preferences of the colonial powers when they were established.

I think China will do nothing to obstruct it, and they probably will go along with it.