What We Have To Understand About Russian Leaders

What We Have To Understand About Russian Leaders

What we have to understand that as far

as The Russians are concerned 

uh, that they at one moment can

be very Russian and another woman can be

very communist uh it's like a Dr Joo Mr

Hyde syndrome that works uh I have such

vivid Recollections of that both with

regard to Kruschev but also with regard to

Brezhnev uh we would have for example 

a very very tough argument uh with

Brezhnev uh and then we go up to dinner as we

did at adasha afterwards and he would be

raising his glass and toasting the

grandchildren etc etc etc now I don't

mean by that that it was an act either

the first time or the second time what I

mean is that there are split

personalities there and my conclusion

basically is this we have to understand

the world as it is Russians and

Americans can be friends

and everybody must remember that we were

friends and we were allies too Russians

and Americans were were

too but the governments of the United

States and the Soviet Union can never be

friends because our goals are totally

different so what we have to do then is

to find a way uh to deal with the

Russian leaders as much as we can as

Russians recognizing also that as

Communists uh that they do not have our

best interest to put it mildly in mind I

think too that uh another recollection

that I have of brf that is interesting

is the way that he was so physical in

his contact he he was a man uh who was

always grabby in his conversation or

when I was riding along uh after being

in the Crimea to the airport in the car

and he put his hand over on my leg and

this and it I felt that I was in the

Oval Office with Lyndon Johnson uh cuz

Johnson also I did I just think it's a

shame that those two never got together

it would really been a a a bear wrestle

uh but uh the but on the other hand I

would say

that that while

brf uh was without question a ruthless

tough uh communist he could be a very

warm generous Uh Russian he could be

like a little boy with his collection of

cars for example uh and he drove like a

madman practically scared me to death

one time when we' given him a new lincol

and he drove over the single Lane roads

up in Camp David uh going around curves

that I wouldn't even take a 30 mil hour

we were going 60 and he got after we got

out of the car he said you know this car

handles very

well one of the prices of

diplomacy