Helmut Schmidt Quotes

#1. Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.

Helmut Schmidt

#2. In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.

Helmut Schmidt

#3. Ronad Reagan might go down to history as a man who in the end of this administration brought about the first nuclear arms reduction treaty, the first arms reduction treaty at all in the modern world, and this is quite something.

Helmut Schmidt

#4. I have had and still do have every confidence in Paul Nitze, a man whom I have known for decades, one of the wisest servants of the American nation but always willing and capable of taking into account the interests of their allies, whoever: the British, or the French or the Germans or others.

Helmut Schmidt

#5. Leonid Breznev was an old man and despite his own military experience in World War II, he on the other hand was not very close to the military.

Helmut Schmidt

#6. I hate the idea that someone think the destruction of Chicago as strategic affair, the destruction of Hamburg as a tactical one.

Helmut Schmidt

#7. Some of the American military obviously were thinking in terms of fighting a nuclear war. I was opposed to that.

Helmut Schmidt

#8. Admirals and Generals always want more ships and more weapons and they take the arguments where they can find them.

Helmut Schmidt

#9. President [Ronald] Reagan told me he would negotiate and negotiate and negotiate with the Soviets, and I believed him.

Helmut Schmidt

#10. If somewhere is a deficiency the normal American answer would have been well then, let's spend some more money, build some more weapons and deploy them. That's the normal way of thinking of the military, in America not only but also all over the place, but America or Russia or other countries.

Helmut Schmidt

#11. Leonid Brezhnev did not understand the enormous political importance of the decision to produce and afterwards deploy the SS-20s.

Helmut Schmidt

#12. I think that the solution of the question of numerical superiority of Russian conventional forces has to be solved.

Helmut Schmidt

#13. Population growth and the proliferation of mega-cities around the world redefines the entire global security agenda.

Helmut Schmidt

#14. People who have visions should go see a doctor.

Helmut Schmidt

#15. [Ronald] Reagan seems to be a man of some basic convictions and on the other hand willing to let others do the ground homework, the detailed work.

Helmut Schmidt

#16. Politicians and journalists share the same fate in that they often understand tomorrow the things they talk about today.

Helmut Schmidt

#17. I've never been a classic Gaulist! Not a Gaulist at all.

Helmut Schmidt

#18. The catch word is equilibrium again, informed the field what are conventional weapons or nuclear weapons of different qualities. You cannot make up for a actual or perceived disequilibrium in the conventional field by having more nuclear weapons.

Helmut Schmidt