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Quote by Mikhail Gorbachev

“Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs. Many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.”

Book:Perestroika: how new is Gorbachev's new thinking? : Mikhail Gorbachev's views and responses from Zbigniew Brezinski ... [and others]

Work

Perestroika: how new is Gorbachev's new thinking? : Mikhail Gorbachev's views and responses from Zbigniew Brezinski ... [and others]

The volume includes Mikhail Gorbachev's own insights into his policies of perestroika and glasnost, alongside commentary and critiques from various experts and political figures, including Zbigniew Brezinski. more

Author

Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, born on March 2, 1931, was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He is a significant figure in Soviet history, known for his reform policies of 'New Thinking' and for ending the Cold War. more

“I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”

Want Important War Ends Today Individual Danger Cold Destruction Luck Nuclear Rational Cold War Nuclear War Castro

Author:Robert McNamara

“For 40 years we were led to think of the Russians as godless, materialistic and an evil empire. When the Cold War ended, we suddenly discovered that Russia was a poor Third World country. They had not been equipped to take over the world. In fact, they were just trying to improve a miserable standard of oppressive living, and couldn't. They had to spend too much on arms build-up. We didn't win the Cold War; we bankrupted the Russians. In effect, it was a big bank exhausting the reserves of a smaller one.”