To what extent was Soviet military strategy and nuclear strategy changed by or affected by the...the Sino-Soviet split? What did it mean to the rest of the world?

You know, the fact is that we have to... to take into account that ah, ah, the Chinese government started to... to conduct a... hostile policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and of course this is a tremendously important change from the strategic point of view. So the Soviet Union had to... to sort of to to think accordingly. You know, we have to, at that time to increase it's ah, military forces on the far east and so on and so forth. So ah, of course the... the stage is overcome now, but nevertheless we have to take into account the potential of China, we have to understand that the United States we are again trying to play on this balance of forces and ah, ah, actually that at one time going almost into alignment with China and so on. So that is a... that is a situation which have to be taken into account, you see. We have to take into account even the much smaller forces or threats to the Soviet Union like say the... the Iran in the period there was Shah. Of course one would say, why are you afraid over a Shah? We are not afraid over the Shah, but nevertheless if ah....the Iranian monarchy had some military forces, had some addressed American planes which they couldn't even use now against the Iraqi but were only usable with the American hand vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. So when the Americans are saying to us, why you having ah, such a big army and we have a small army, the... the geostrategic situation is different. The geostrategic situation is different. We have to cope from the threats from any direction. It's not necessary that the countries around us want to declare war, but they're concrete military potentials, you see. And they...we are all then telling, you see, the United States ah, what would you do if instead of Mexico you have a country with the potential of China. Whatever the... whatever the current um, policy of that country was. So that... that... that changed the strategic thinking. But I think one of the strategic changes is which you downplayed you see, and which is constantly being -- we are being amused. The fact is that you see that when the Soviet, no the current talk or the current how you say, the current saying is that -- No, the Soviet, the... the... the... the Soviet threat to the... to the Western Europe increases from year to year. And I am saying, you see, one time when the Soviet Union was really great power with tremendous military forces and Western Europe was lying in urines... in ruins it was one thing. And the second thing is, the present situation with Western Europe but is having its own military mmmm, industry, is having gigantic army. And ah, it's having it's own... own nuclear weapons. And the Soviet Union has to split its attention between Western Europe and the threat from the east and to keep one third of its army in the east. And they say, how come then the threat to the Western Europe increased? It diminished actually in the... in the logical terms, not increased. But we are always hearing this ah, this ah talk this um, that it... it... it... it only increasing. Though strategically it's quite a different way.

Tell me about how did... how -- it's sort of a military question but I think it has a political implication, and that's what... at the time when the Soviet Union lacked the means of delivery to what extent was or can you think about cases in which policy were affected by the American nuclear presence? Other than sort of one -- I don't know if it's a question, you probably cannot answer very well. But i'm thinking about on those occasion like Berlin in which bombers were flown to Europe. Nobody knows whether they were armed or not, you know, it's something -- I'm looking for some evidence whether there was utility to it in Berlin.

You see, there is...that's a perennial question. The Americans often say and what... what did you, what actually what did they do with our atomic monopoly. We couldn't use it. It was used very well you see. You know atomic, I couldn't give you instance by instance but the atomic monopoly and the positions of strength of the United States was used to the extent that the United States actually supplemented all the former um, colonial powers in their... in their ah, colonies, not because of the United States uses military weapons, but because United States regiments were with European powers actually allowed them to go into those colonies, with their capital, with their um, with their um, management, with everything, and be...and create a neo-colonial, as we say, empire. And ah, this Soviet Union at that time was not even able you see to... to help the people struggling for its liberation, and with... with ah, economic help, with... with military aid. Because we were ah, not that strong, you see. And the Americans could care less what we saying at that time on certain issues because they were thinking that they were ah, are six feet tall or whatever you say. So the...the American nuc...nuclear monopoly was utilized to the extent that the United States managed in the...ah, large parts of the non-socialist world to create actually a pax Americana condition. To... to...to create the American...American sanc -- ah, American empire. That was the situation. Of course United States even behind with its preponderance never lacked that sufficient strength in order to wipe out the Soviet Union and its satellites. That was... that was the limit to which the United States, but otherwise it would impose all these decisions or... it could block all the decisions that were in the... in the interest of a compromise and so on and so forth. And each time United States actually saw a... went to some steps towards the Soviet Union, only the situation when they were understanding the United States preponderance is...is on the wane, is on the wane. Because when...when President Eisenhower who understood or was told by the Gaither Reports and so on, and later Kennedy used some of it, that the American military preponderance, nuclear preponderance would be disappearing, and let's fix it now, let's... let's make some fixture from the positions of now than five years hence, they made this ah, steps trying to impose on the Soviet Union from the...from the ah, um, position of time. Even the... even the, you see the meeting in Geneva in 1955, which was actually a full meeting between equals. The United States ah, after that meeting were trying to utilize it in order to pressure the Soviet Union. So the problem is that whenever the United States felt itself preponderant, they... made a lot of things ah, that ah, they wouldn't get away with if they were equal. And if they -- if they were a country among the international players and not the country that the United States used to think of itself, for about quarter of a century after the end of the second world war. So in every instance, whether it be some solution in the Middle East, whether it be some European problem, or whether it be some problem away site United States could behave itself unretrainedly or think they could behave themselves unrestrainedly because of the very... very big preponderance. That's how the United States mmmm, United States force was translated into politics. And it only was necessary for American weakening during the Vietnam War, and then ah, rethinking the whole concept of military force for a... Mr. Kissinger to say that you can't trans... translate the nuclear ah, mmm, power into political influence. It was, it... you... United States ought to be educated you know, and to understand, maybe on the... where there was no equ... equal force on the other side, where there was no parity, the United States feel un... felt unrestrained. When there is a lot of weapons in the world and on both sides, then you have to of necessity be more constrained in your behavior. More... more ah, choosing and more ah, more thinking well the other guy's interests.

Tell me how the Soviet Union viewed Eisenhower in terms of his, both his attitudes on Soviet Union himself and his propensity to for weaponry and such?

You know, I couldn't tell you how the Soviet Union -- really I could tell you my personal view of Eisenhower. You know, Eisenhower was not a bad American President. You know, he was popular, he was... he was kind, you know, he was considerate you know. He was ah, I would even say even as a general he... he was restraining upon the military to a certain extent. You see, to... not for nothing that Eisenhower was the first American President to come to some sort of a detente to the Soviet Union. He... ah, with the Soviet Union. You... Eisenhower, ah, um, was not very much enchanted by nuclear power I would say. He himself was still thinking in traditional terms of conventional power. I remember I was struck by one saying of the Eisenhower in the press conference when he said you see, they didn't let me go to the atomic test site, you see. And ah, I guess because they didn't want that they -- the sight of this terrible explosion you see would influence Eisenhower's thinking in a peaceful way. That was one slip of tongue shall we say, "they" didn't let me go. Who they? Is impossible to say. But he was a kind man. But he was not so ah, operator of the American foreign policy. There were dollars, there were much more aggressive forces ah, around ah Eisenhower. There were ah, also you see all this ah, at the beginning where it was McCarthy, [repop] of this anti-communist hysteria which actually even in this kind of a climate you see when a reasonable person starts to behave in a... mmmm... not reasonable way. So why would even say it took you see some courage for Eisenhower, you see to... to do what he did, you see to stop the war in Korea, to come to some sort of a... accommodation with the Soviet Union and to... to start to proceed from this ah, ah, from this, to... to... to find some grounds for cooperation like in the...in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. So too it related, you see, as I say, he is not the sole operator. There is a military pressure, there are some other pressures and so on. But the... mmm, the man was um, more or less reasonable. One could do business with him if he worked personally for Eisenhower. And not for his surrounding.

Tell me again the... tell me about the first time you heard about the Sputnik, and again a kind of a personal statement and the implication of it in strategic terms.

You see, but the Sputnik was somehow you see, very... very... very big amount of the population was not considered to be in strategic terms, you know. It, first of all it was simply the proudness for the achievement of the Soviet Union. When will we get to see even we have all the time in the Soviet Union. We have some sort of a some... msome admiration before the American know-how, before the American technique, we could do, as you see that we are the same thing as Americans, you see. We also have cars and so on. But somehow in our soul we think you know that United States could do better, you know. And for the first time, when the Soviet man thought you see, we are -- could do whatever the Americans could do, was in the time of Sputnik, or we've done better, you see. Americans are still on the ground, and we are in the space. You know it is... it was tremendous, tremendous psychological -- I don't know how joy, because we've done it not with anybody else, but with Americans who were -- were um, you know secretly always envying for this technical progress. And now we are American, actually you know. That was... that was ah, tremendous impression you know. I remember you see, my kids were exciting it was the second phase when Gagarin was over ah... ah, already flying, there was some... some childish re... rhymes like something like, ah, "Flying and flying is missile around the world, and on this missile there is a... ah, Comrade Gagarin, is just a common Russian folk", you know? And that is... that was the... the joy of achievement. That actually when we first thought that we leveled up with the United States was the time of Sputnik. After that, you see, all this leveling up was already in the minds of more -- of professionals, you see. All these tiny bits of pieces, a change of balance, what so on. But for the country at large to feel itself on an equal footing with American technically was the launching of Sputnik.

What were the strategic implications and how were they understood to your people?

Well, the strategic implications was that you know, it's now we could reach the United States literally, literally with the atomic weapons. And that...that changed everything you see. Maybe Krushchev was trying to utilize this in advance so to say, but nevertheless the...the actual fact was that now we are starting to be on a par with the United States, on a par with the United -- military. That we somehow made the tremendous step in securing or in... in...in um, in insuring our own security. That was...that was the... the... the... main implication.

Let's go through the American... to the next administration. Let's talk about McNamara. In 1962, I think when McNamara came into that administration, he came into a strategy of massive retaliation. And that seemed to be I guess by Kennedy totally unacceptable and then so on. You know, I don't know, again, it's possible that this kind of information is not available in the Soviet Union, but one almost suspects that something like that has to take place everywhere. That when a president or a party chairman comes to power and he asks what can we do and somebody says, we can blow the world apart, he says, well can you give me another option? And it's this kind of thinking to the extent that it existed in the Soviet Union at a time when it started to exist in America that I would like to know about.

You see the...United States switch from massive retaliation to flexible response was actually a recognition of the changed strategic situation. That was actually direct result of the Sputnik to me, more in a...in a...in a nutshell. Because united States ah, leaders understood and it was actually what Kennedy and McNamara did, did they define what has already been mmmm, brewing up in scientific community and in military circles, that you... it is useless you see, to threaten the Soviet Union or a smaller country with nuclear weaponry, for a... for every kind of encounter. That you have to ah, step back from ah a nuclear weaponry. You have to... to... to treat it more cautiously you see, and ah, arriving at a head I would say that the... the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the final you see, element which mmm, increased the awareness or the... increased the attraction of the American ah... leaders to the strategy of flexible response. But it started gradually, that you have... the balance of power has changed, that you actually you maybe you still could threaten, but you couldn't actually mmmm, wage meaningful atomic war against the Soviet Union. You can't have this direct big war, so we have to be... be cautious even in the local conflicts and other types of conflicts would not escalate to direct military And you have to devise some strategy which would... ah, would leave you the option of using nuclear weapons as a last resort, when really you are ah, ah, do or die, you see, when the... the whole fate of the country is threatened. Otherwise you have to be more restrained, that was the... that was the essence of the ah, United States change.