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For years, I had a top secret clearance and never left Russia. Just once did I go to Bulgaria with my wife for a holiday at the Golden Sands resort, but I could not mention my real name. I was allowed to travel abroad only in the early 1990s.

I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don't readily advertise themselves unless they're not living in Moscow, and even then. I'm sure I've met some without realizing it.

To say that you now trust the Russian military command and control system because some Russian general told you from the bottom of his heart that's the case, strikes me as most unrealistic.

I don't have many Russian friends. My childhood friends are dead - either from bad health, or they died in perestroika.

If our interests - our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians - have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia, for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in accordance with international law.

There has been growing quite a strain of irritating feeling between our government and the Russians and it seems to me that it is a time for me to use all the restraint I can on these other people who have been apparently getting a little more irritated.

I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.

In the first day of the Soviet Army's arrival, I and the other comrades were isolated and then found ourselves here, not knowing anything... I can only conjecture what could have happened.