When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was very much a child of the Cold War.
I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse.
The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons.
We won the Cold War because we showed nuclear vigilance and diligence.
My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.
We were fortunate to have the Russians as our childhood enemies. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they had the temerity to drop a nuclear weapon.
One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war.
I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government - the Kennedy administration at that time - into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen.
The lesson of the Cold War is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace.
The Cold War was a boring thing. Nobody gets better for it. Tremendous money is wasted. Our lives get more difficult. We look at each other as enemies. What's good in that? In any case, I will do anything in my power in order to stop another Cold War, with the U.S. or any other country in the world.