Then In 1969, I Spent The Spring

I Was Paid To Read Western Economic Texts. In A Way, The Regime Paid For Their Own Undermining.

But How Can You Speed Up The Transformation Of Society In A Country As Large As Russia? Those Sounding The Moral Outcry Are The Ones Who Are Trying To Dictate Their Standards From The Outside. Of Course, That Isn't The Right Way To Go Either. One Cannot Impose Democracy From The Other Side Of National Borders, Which Is Something We Ourselves Experienced During The Communist Era. The West's Policies Toward Eastern Europe, The Helsinki Process - None Of That Really Helped Us.

Then In 1969, I Spent The Spring Term At Cornell University In New York. The Invasion Of August 1968 Had Already Happened, But The Hardline Regime Took Several Months To Crack Down On Dissidents.

I Never Intended To Be A Politician Or Office-seeker.

Human Relations Tend To Be More Difficult When You're Dealing With Someone Who Weighs 30 Kilograms More Than You Do. That's When You Worry About Whether A Well-meaning Gesture Could Produce Complications. We Have No Problems With Countries Like Madagascar Or Bolivia, For Example. But Germany Is Our Neighbor And We Have A Shared Past. Besides, Germany Is Powerful And Ambitious And More Than Four Times As Large As We Are. It Makes Complete Sense That We Would Act Cautiously. It's Simply Realpolitik.