Helmut Schmidt Quotes
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Some of the American military obviously were thinking in terms of fighting a nuclear war. I was opposed to that.
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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Politicians and journalists share the same fate in that they often understand tomorrow the things they talk about today.
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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.
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Leonid Brezhnev did not understand the enormous political importance of the decision to produce and afterwards deploy the SS-20s.
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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.
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People who have visions should go see a doctor.
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Population growth and the proliferation of mega-cities around the world redefines the entire global security agenda.
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I've never been a classic Gaulist! Not a Gaulist at all.
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Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.
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Admirals and Generals always want more ships and more weapons and they take the arguments where they can find them.
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President [Ronald] Reagan told me he would negotiate and negotiate and negotiate with the Soviets, and I believed him.
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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.
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In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.
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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.
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I think that the solution of the question of numerical superiority of Russian conventional forces has to be solved.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I hate the idea that someone think the destruction of Chicago as strategic affair, the destruction of Hamburg as a tactical one.
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Helmut Schmidt
- Born: December 23, 1918
- Died: November 10, 2015
- Occupation: Former Chancellor of Germany
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