Booknotes

FORMER PRESIDENT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV (SOVIET UNION), AUTHOR, "MEMOIRS:" (Through Translator) Everyone is writing books. I sometimes wrote read read books about perestroika and saw my name in those books, but the rest was totally false, stupid, silly, a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation. Some other books are quite serious, of course. I don't want to overdramatize it but anyway, I thought I thought that I am the principal witness and the principal person who bears responsibility for what happened, and I believed that it was important for me to explain my position about how I started reforms, why I came around to the view that reforms were necessary; why did I decide and how that decision emerged about reforms and how difficult the process was.

So I thought that it is important to write a book about the time of perestroika because perestroika had far reaching consequences for my country and for the world. I cannot accept it when people speak but Gorbachev is silent. I had to speak out and I did that and I tried to avoid the temptation of the writers of many memoirs to prettify myself, to show myself in better life. I tried to keep within the facts. I have a lot of facts about various events, about all that happened and about my relationship with various people in domestic and international politics. I could say a lot. I tried to write about the most important things. At first I dictated 10,000 pages of material. Here, this book is equivalent to 1,000 pages of typewritten text.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, for us, relations relations that we have had with Germany after the war bore the imprint of what happened in the past, the war for which Nazism was responsible, the bloodshed, the bloodbath in which our country and your country, too, was involved. Twenty seven million Russians and people of other nationalities of the former Soviet Union died in the war or in the camps or were killed in bombings, etc. That, given the fact that the gene pool of our country, whole generations were killed for example, males born in 1922, '23 only a few of them survived. So the war was an extremely painful experience and therefore building relations with Germany after such a tragedy this is something that all of us had to do a lot of thinking about, we and the Germans, and a lot had to change in our country and in Germany.

And when I visited, even the German's Democratic Republic, the country that was our ally at that time, as a Russian as a Russian, you know, heart my heart began to beat faster. There was that building of Reichstag, the burnt building of Reichstag. We saw that mound of earth over the Reich Chancellory, the Brandenburg Gate, where there were those goose stepping soldiers there used to be those goose stepping soldiers. And I remembered the war. I was 10 years old when the war started and the memory of a child remembers all that, imprints all that.

I remembered how the war started on a Sunday. Everyone was planning to go out and to have fun. The grownups had their own fun. We kids had our children's fun and then suddenly stopped. All of us were gathered together in the center of our village, the village of Privolnoye, which is my birthplace, and we listened. There was no radio at home at that time so we were listening from the loudspeaker a special loudspeaker that broadcast the speech of Malenkov. That is how it began.

And then we had very difficult years. So the war was a shocking a shocking experience, an upheaval, and it was not difficult to get over that experience with Germany, even though in the history of our relations there's a lot of periods of cooperation and of positive positive interaction. But building a new relationship, a partnership of cooperation that was a difficult process. And when I went there, I really, you know, watched all of it through a special perspective. I tried to understand and I remembered a lot.

Nevertheless, I saw we saw that Germans are people like us, that they, too, even then, understood the kind of tragedy that Nazism was for them and for the world based on those delirious ideas of race superiority, exclusivity, etc. So emotionally it was a difficult experience. Politically, of course, it was, at that time, quite clear that things have changed. But emotionally that is difficult because other than our head, we have our heart.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, I would not want to do it this way. I really do not want to give all the praise to one city. I visited many cities. I've traveled throughout the world. I love Moscow, even though there were some years of neglect in Moscow and some buildings in Moscow are very simplistic, this kind of prefab construction. Today, Moscow, particularly its center, the historic part of Moscow, is being rebuilt. It is rising again and this is wonderful. I welcome this. It is a lot of joy to walk the streets of Moscow, the narrow lanes of Moscow. Those were the years of that when I was a student I first came to Moscow, that those I I met Raisa in Moscow.

Overall, in my life, I lived a quarter of a century in Moscow. Both my granddaughters were born in Moscow. So Moscow University, my young years, are connected with Moscow.

On the other hand hand, St. Petersburg is also a wonderful city Kiev, Odessa, I have also visited many of your wonderful cities, really beautiful cities, big and small San Francisco. Or I thought that, you know, Vancouver, the Canadian city of Vancouver, I thought that it was a town, but when I came I saw it was a city. It was a marvelous city with beautiful bays, with a nature that is similar to ours. And I could go on and on. I could speak about many wonderful cities that I visited, including Istanbul. Yes, I visited that city, too.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Perhaps sometimes the person the individual associates a city with some event, with some experience. On the other hand, there are such wonderful cities, like Paris, for example, or as I write in my memoirs, you walk the streets in that city and you see the you walk the cities of streets of Rome and you feel as though you are a part of history. Florence Florence, when you look at that city from the hill and you feel the music of those tile roofs and it's a wonderful, light city, a city of flowers and music.

So I would not single out one city and give all the praise, all the laurels to one city. That would be unfair. It is good there are many wonderful cities. It is the diversity that we have to protect, we have to preserve. It would be terrible if someone tried it would be stupid if someone tried, once again, steamroll the world to equalize everything into one model of society. We tried to force a Communist model of society on the people and tried to make people happy in this kind of barracks. Or, if someone tried to Westernize the entire world, that would be equally stupid. We must see the world as a diverse world with very different nations, very different histories, cultures.

Now we have an opportunity after the Cold War after the end of the Cold War to build a very diverse world with all that multiplicity. Even though there are still dangers, I after the end of the Cold War, I hope that we will avoid the new division of the world. I hope we'll take advantage of the opportunities because this is why we did what we did in working together with your country in overcoming, surmounting the barriers, the terrible barriers that we had to overcome; not only those mountains of weapons, but there were the mountains of lies about each other that we had to set aside the stereotypes.

When people met, then they saw that all of us are the same in that we want to live, we want to enjoy life, and I'm very glad I recently on this visit, I have seen I have been to eight states of the United States and I had some very private meetings and I once talked to 20,000 people to a group of 20,000 people and there was enormous interest, many questions. People are very open open minded, and they applaud the fact that they can now breathe after this sword of Damocles the nuclear sword of Damocles had been averted.

But people, again, are also worried because we see some kind of players you know, you started on this question, but, of course, I went on to contemporary politics. Of course, my book is more about past events. But you cannot divide the past and the present.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) No. No. He only participated in the editing of the English edition, trying to make the book more concise, so some ideas about the structure of the book. But the book is mine. All this book was done by me. Many people helped me because it takes a lot of work to complete this book, but the main burden of the work was mine and I had to decide eventually about what kind of book it's going to be, what will be left out of the initial 10,000 pages, what will be left in the German edition, what will be in the English edition, and finally, this English edition was born after a good and friendly cooperation, but sometimes we had a lot of debate a lot of sharp debate because those people who know publishing they said that I should produce a more concise edition for English and American readers. I eventually agreed, but I disagreed with some other suggestions. I am a democratically minded person, but the decisions eventually the decisions I take myself. It's my decision.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, what can we do? I don't want us all to speak one language. I don't want us to abandon all the other languages. I cannot agree with having in the world some kind of superculture and all the other cultures to be subordinate to it. That would be very dangerous. We want a a united world and the world is globalizing. The world is getting smaller. We, today, see things in real time because of the communications media, television, etc., etc. But we should preserve the diversity and the multiplicity that exists in the world.

In nature it's very important, but similarly in the human world, in the world of nations, people should meet, people should work together. That's a source of great happiness, of course, and diversity, too, should be preserved. It should not be the kind of Communist barracks which some people wanted to create because barracks is still a prison, a big prison. And prison one feels bad in prison always. And therefore, we should preserve languages and there should be translation, therefore.

I am sorry that, at a time when we didn't have enough time during the war and later to study languages, I I I studied German a little bit, but because of lack of time, I didn't have a chance to learn any of the foreign languages. And I regret that because translation can constrain you. Translation can constrain because I tried to elaborate. I am a temperamental person, I come from the South, and then I have to stop and listen to the translation. And the translator has to keep pace with me. When one speaks to a person and looks that person in his eyes, I I prefer that. So I I'm sorry that I don't know foreign languages that my generation many people didn't have a chance to learn those languages. But I would say that Pavel, my translator I would like to say to the others what I said to you. He worked for many years as a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spent a few years working with Mr. Shevardnadze, the foreign ministry minister. He had worked before that as interpreter in the UN secretariat in New York, the city that he loves very much and he is saying that this is the best city in America. And then when I became general secretary and then president, all my contacts over the past 10 years, including after I stepped down, have been through him and I value very much his wide range in knowledge because I have to discuss things that are very complex political and philosophical things that are quite complex, and, therefore, I need a person who's not just an interpreter, a but a person who has wide ranging knowledge in the various subjects. And he is that kind of person. And he is also a person who can work very, very hard. It's amazing.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) To some extent, yes. When one meets with people often and when you talk about things and you translated being translated, you begin to learn. It's a kind of teaching process and at some point I began to feel that I'm beginning to understand the point, the main content. Of course, not those matters that require great precision where positions are being laid out. That requires very precise translation and precision in translation; really defines the consequences, the implications political consequences. But in terms of human give and take, yes, at some, I started to understand certain things, to get certain phrases and words.

We were driving here in the car in New York and I asked my colleague, who accompanies me, Dr. Lichadahl, who knows English quite well, and I was reading various signs and I tried to translate or understand some of those signs. And then I said, `You know, I I already know quite a few English words,' and the difficulty is that it's not like in Russian or in German you can read easily. But in in English sometimes you write Liverpool, but you should read Boston. But I can already read some and understand some and I said, `I have quite a few English words already.' And he said, `Well, the next phase, of course, is to connect all those words.' Yes, to connect is more difficult. It's probably too late to start.

But I have an interest in languages. In Germany for example, in Germany since I studied German when I was younger and even read German, unfortunately later I had no chance for 20, 25 years to use the language, but in Germany when I go there, the next day two, three days afterwards I begin to understand a lot and to speak a little. So it's that way.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, it is true it is true that probably I am more solid physically and in terms of my nervous system. Men, unlike women, are are different. Friedrich Engels said that women are a different civilization. They are more sensitive and to me, to a person who was steeped in politics I spent 40 years in politics that's a real ordeal for and and not all can go through this. I was able to endure. I was able to avoid panic. I never panicked in in any situation. Whatever the danger, I always tried to concentrate and to think about a solution to any problem.

As for her and our daughter, she took our isolation during the coup very hard and that affected her health and her strength. And it took her two years, indeed, to recover, to start traveling with me and she does. I want her to be with me because she is the person who is probably the most important person in my life. She gives me a lot of support and, of course, those who say that she took decisions for me that, of course, is not true. She was far from politics. But she was a very and is a very educated person and it so happens that we have always been together and supported each other. We are close, not only personally intimate but we are also friends intellectually. This is the way it was and is.

Today she is working on some charitable programs within the Gorbachev Foundation because today the situation in Russia is difficult and people from other countries try to help and we appreciate this. Of course, what Russia needs most is not so much charity but cooperation based on ground rules, based on real partnership. But there are some people in Russia who have been hard hit by the current situation the recent situation. And the humanitarian charitable assistance that we receive is only to be welcomed. I really believe that this is something that the American people can do very well. And I appreciate it this very much. I like this very much. I think that without this without this feature of the American character, which I think is very spiritual, without this a nation cannot really work. And in America, this works very much. And the fact that people here came from different places, different continents and they understood that they should, of course, take the initiative that they also should help each other. And that, I think, created this morality of mutual help initiative on the one hand, but solidarity on the other hand toward those who cannot make it.

So this is what she's doing, and right now we she is working actively with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and they are working hard to make sure that the assistance that we receive from other countries really goes to those who are in need. We found that initially some people whose hands are not clean tried to do business, to make a profit from this charitable assistance and they actually sold at a profit some of that humanitarian shipments. And, therefore, my foundation, even though mostly it is a think tank and it is a research center on political science and international relations, we also have a special group within the Gorbachev Foundation that helps those who'd like to give this kind of assistance. And we cannot do everything, but we're working together with a number of humanitarian organizations because they trust us, because they know that people who work with Gorbachev are good and decent people, people with a good conscience, people who were with me through thick and thin. So Raisa is doing this, too.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Russian spoken)

MR. GORBACHEV: (Russian spoken)

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) First of all, you ought to know that this is really our great hobby and, because of this, we have an enormous library. We have been buying books all our life. We have in our library a lot of fiction, a lot of books about history and philosophy, because Mrs. Gorbachev had a PhD in philosophy, a lot of material of a reference kind. So my library is of great help to me. It helps me out in difficult situations. We have the Encyclopaedia Britannica and we use it because our daughter speaks English and Mrs. Gorbachev can read a little English, so we use that as a source. So we do have a big library.

My hobby particularly is Russian fiction, but also European and American classics. I have read many of the books by your writers Theodore Dreiser, Scott Fitzgerald, to say nothing of Mark Twain and Jack London and I could go on and on. And I read them; I read more than one book by each author. If I started reading Jack London, I wanted to read all that he wrote. I also like European fiction. I read many books by European authors, fewer books by Asian authors. I would say I read some books on Eastern history and philosophy. I like books on history. I like historical fiction, memoirs. I have a lot of books, a lot of memoirs; read them all, and I sometimes go back to those books. Recently, for example, I started to reread Dostoyevsky, particularly "The Devils," "The Possessed," "The Karamazov Brothers." And there's a lot there that's extremely extremely instructive. I am amazed at the magnitude of that writer, and he was able to render human sufferings and he really was on a quest to study the human so soul. And I think he is probably probably the best on that score. Tolstoy, Chekhov, too, are great writers, so it's it's amazing what they can do.

And I continue to read a great deal. We used to be a closed society ideologically very closed, controlled society. And that meant that even well educated people did not get a chance to read some of the many of the books of Russian philosophers because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did not like it because our ideologue our ideologues did not like those philosophers. But when we began perestroika, we very quickly published 30 volumes of all the philosophers of pre revolutionary Russia. And I have those 30 volumes, and I read a lot by them. They were great minds: Ilian, Solovyov, Perdiyev. They said a great deal of what today we are only rehashing. So sometimes we are reinventing the wheel. That is our problem. We reinvent the wheel. We sometimes think as though there were no thinkers before us, and that can be tragic. We really have to have to go back to those thinkers and writers.

It's very important that whatever we say about TV it's important, of course, but books are should not be replaced by anything, by TV or something, because the books make it possible to think more deeply. Probably American audiences will say, `Well, Gorbachev knows that we're reading less than we used to.' Well, I know that in all countries people are spending more time watching TV than reading. But still, I think that books will continue to exist. There will be books. Television has a role, of course. Television has a role in terms of, you know, allowing people to spend time at leisure. But in terms of formative work for the individual, it's very important to read books. And I read also detective stories, crime stories. I like them. James Hadley Chase, George Simenon and some of our writers, Agatha Christie. So I'm quite curious.

MR. GORBACHEV: Mm. (Russian spoken)

MR. GORBACHEV: (Russian spoken)

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, that was a meeting of people who are very respectable, very credible. And we had people also from our country there; for example, the famous writer Chingiz Aitmatov and other people. Also, Federico Mayor, who is now the head of UNESCO. We had a number of people from Italy representing Italian culture. We had also Alexander King from the club of Rome. We had some Asian thinkers people with a very broad vision. I don't remember all of those names, but it is true Chingiz Aitmatov, who is my friend, asked me to meet with those people, and he said, `Well, it will be just a brief meeting.' But we spent several hours together in my Kremlin office. It was a fascinating conversation for all of us.

And during that meeting, when I was listening to them and when I also became involved in that discussion, I saw that we were thinking about the same things. We said that we had already entered upon a new world and that that we should understand that it's a very different world, that it's a world where we are threatened by nuclear weapons and also by environmental deterioration. We live in a world where the economy is globalizing, in an information age, and so we are, more than ever before, in one boat together. Of course, nations have their own interests, but those interests cannot be realized they cannot be realized properly if you don't understand that the world has changed. And therefore, the universal values become more important. They gain priority over the national interests. And it was then that I said that the values common to all of mankind is something that we need to emphasize, is something that should be our guidepost, our lodestar, in building our philosophy and building our policy and and in preparing our action. At that time, to say so meant that the general secretary was saying something that was very unorthodox, unconventional.

But they transcribed our talk and they published what I said. And in the Soviet Union, the thinking people, particularly those who were associated with the Marxist philosophy and ideology people were shocked. Some were mildly shocked and others were very shocked. They said, `Well, this general secretary Gorbachev is saying things that are heresy.' And I used this, as I sometimes did; I used Lenin, because I read a lot of Lenin and I felt that sometimes he was right, but sometimes he violated the truth because of political and ideological considerations. I read Lenin in a new way, not in a way in the way I read him when I was a student. I was general secretary. I was in Lenin's shoes, in a way. And I used one of his one of the quotations from Lenin. Lenin said one day that the proletariat sometimes must subordinate its interest to the interests of the nation as a whole. And that reference to Lenin made it possible to smooth the reaction. But people said, `Well, he's saying something incredible. This general secretary is saying something unbelievable.' But what was at that time incredible to many of us, of course, had already been said by Einstein. Einstein said that nuclear weapons changed everything but, unfortunately the human mind had not changed. `Our thinking,' he said, `has not changed, even though the survival of mankind is at stake.'

And therefore, I think that Alvin Toffler is right in many of his writings. I recently read the translation of "The Third Wave" by him and his wife, and Speaker Gingrich wrote a preface to that book. And it's extremely interesting, because they speak about the human civilization, which is entering a new phase of its development. And we must find a way to adjust to it. We cannot stop the process of the evolution of our stip civilization. If we do not adjust, if we do not understand both the positive aspects and the dangers, if we do not change our behavior, our action, that could be very dangerous. We should understand how civilization is evolving. If we do so, then we will be able to take advantage of the positive aspects and to limit the negative aspects of those changes. I think he provides very interesting illustrations to that and I agree with him.

In America, I I think it's wonderful that many books have been published that are extremely interesting. For example, some economists have published books that question the entire paradigm of the development of laissez faire society, laissez faire economics. Those are people who really think freely. They are free thinkers. They're not like cowboys. I don't want, of course, to offend cowboys. I like cowboys. But what I what what what I mean is that they are not cowboys, but they are putting things very starkly. And I I am thinking also not only of Alvin Toffler but of others. So my feeling is, we should not put spokes in the wool wheel of the development of civilization. And we decided that one day, people who met had met then, including Peter Ustinov and some others, that we will meet again. This year, we wanted to meet, but we were not able to. But we will definitely meet with them with some of them. That conference was called Issyk Kul Forum because it was held that conference of intellectuals was held near Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan.

So we'd like to have Issyk Kul II. And the president of Kyrgyzstan has already invited us to come and to talk, to have another discussion. But we want to prepare, to prepare well. We want this discussion to culminate in some kind of paper, of an appeal to mankind by people who, it so happens, are particularly sensitive to what is happening and who will be able to speak out and to say something important to mankind.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well my God you first have to sort out whether there is a real difference between the two parties. Frankly frankly, I see no big difference between them. Perhaps now some difference is emerging, perhaps. I think that I am a democratic person. My nature is democratic. My experience of working and interacting with the Americans was working with two Republican presidents, and I must say that we were able to work together, to cooperate. We were able to go very far. And I will not recount all of that; you know very well that my opinion of President Reagan is very high, even though he is a Republican traditionalist, perhaps I can say, and he represents the Republican Party right wing. But it was this president, President Reagan, who who really, I I think, understood that he had to do something and even to buck the trend. And therefore, I can only say that I am committed to democracy, and within the old system that we had when I was in politics, this is something that people are recognized. I was I I I had this fame. Well, it's not a question of fame, but I was recognized as a person whose style and whose thinking are democratic from the start; from my very young years, I was like this.

So maybe that's my nature. I come from a peasant family. I come from the soil. From my young years, I saw a great deal; I've worked a great a deal. I know what it is to earn one's bread, to earn one's salary. I know what it is to build a home; for a peasant, it's not simple. And I must say, I had a talk with Tom Brokaw here and we talked about land, because he comes from the heartland, from South Dakota. He worked on the combine, on the harvesting combine. And we started to, you know, discuss this and talked about our memories. And I said that I don't forget where I come from. To me, this is the most important moral test, and I have never forgotten that I come from among very, very people of working people, from simple people. And you know Speaker O'Neill? I recently heard from a friend of Speaker O'Neill, whom you probably know. He was a very colorful politician who was one of the first American visitors whom I saw in Moscow when I became general secretary. His friends told me that Speaker O'Neill, when he spoke about people, he said, `I have a very important test. This man this man has not forgotten where he comes from. When a person doesn't forget where he comes from, that's very important.' And from that standpoint, I can say I don't forget where I come from, and that probably is the foundation of my democratic spirit. What I did, what Raisa did we come from working families we took advantage of the opportunities that existed in the Soviet period for such people we were able to take advantage, and this is our life, despite all of the tribulations and problems inherent in that Soviet system.

You know, you cannot just say, `Well, it was a bad system and, therefore people could do nothing and what people could do didn't matter.' No. The first thing is that you have a life. You have a life and you have to live this life. You have to continue the human race. And this is what people do, even in the most difficult conditions, in the most difficult situations, under the most harsh regimes. And we had a very harsh regime. So the lessons of those generations that lived under that old regime and that developed the country, that industrialized the country under that whole regime, that created our science, our education system, that created opportunities and access to education for all, despite the incomes and status of those people. This is something that you cannot negate. You cannot throw out one word from a song, and you cannot negate what actually happened. But, by the way, that old system, by giving people those opportunities, created the prerequisites and the forces that eventually buried that system because we, the better educated people, people of my generation and people of the generations that followed, we had education, we had knowledge, but we could not realize our potential. The system was really fettering our potential. So the system in that way created preconditions for its own demise for its own demise. And that is because it was in conflict with the culture and with the education and with the intellect of the people.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) No.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Nikita Khrushchev was under house arrest, and he wrote his memoirs in secret and he was not able to publish them in the Soviet Union. And, of course, he was not able to leave the country or even to leave Moscow. And I once joked that it is known that 128 groups of mountain climbers climbed Mount Everest; one third died. But 40 percent of those who died died during descent. I mounted and climbed Mount Everest, and then I descended from Mount Everest politically and I am still active. And in that sense, this too is a kind of a revolution that is associated with Mikhail Gorbachev. Many people in Russia say that while Gorbachev is in Russia, while Gorbachev is there despite all the problems that are being created for him, despite the information blackout to which he is subjected, if he is still here, if he is not leaving Russia, this is very important for all of us. This is an important reference point. So when people ask me, `Would you like to move, to go to live abroad? Why involve yourself in the struggles, in proving again to those reactionaries or to the current authorities, to the rulers of Russia, who I don't think who they say don't deserve, you know, you, why to do that? Go abroad.' No. I don't do that. I of course, I travel abroad, but I live in Russia. This is my country. This is my land. This is my fate. I will not go anywhere because this is my moral principle.

Last year, I buried my mother. She died when she was with us in Moscow. We were providing treatment for her. She was 84 years old. But despite all the problems and difficulties of our life now, I did my best. And then when she died, I took her body to my native village, and she lies where my father lies, in this land where she was born, where she lived all her life. This is very important for me. She also wanted to be buried near my father. So I can say that human beings are human only when they are not regarded as some don't regard themselves as some will o' the wisp or dust in the wind.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Because it was unusual. Before me, that never happened. If they answered questions, they did that in writing. They received questions in writing, and then they answered questions and gave them to reporters. But there were never the kind of exchanges in which I was ready to engage. And I was new to that thing. It was not easy. It was not simple for me then. We've been talking for almost an hour now, and I liked this atmosphere; I like this talk. It's not important for me whether or not the camera is on. But in the past, when I was beginning, when I saw the camera, I first became almost speechless. It took all that changed to change that. So glasnost became began with the general secretary. And the general secretary who spoke sometimes in awkward phrases, who spoke sometimes not maybe very properly, but he spoke out, he spoke he expressed his emotions and his thoughts, and that too struck many people as very unusual, shocked many people. That began in Leningrad, where I went right after the election as general secretary, and I spoke to people and someone taped it. And then they show showed the entire tape on TV, you know? They didn't intend to do that initially, but then that tape was shown, and all people in the Soviet Union were kind of set in motion. That was the beginning.

MR. GORBACHEV: (Through Translator) Well, I would like to say that a few days ago, I had a meeting with the officials from XXX, the publishers. And I and my colleagues, my associates for many years, Anatoly Chernayev and Vadim Zagladen, we wrote a book which I believe is a very necessary book for political leaders, for those who are interested in the problems. And that is called "The New Thinking: Yesterday, To Today and Tomorrow." I am convinced that we will not be able to break through the jungle of the stereotypes and the cliches that exist today if we do not sort things out in our minds. We need a revolution in our minds. And I believe that that can happen only on the basis of the new thinking based on the new situation, based on the understanding of the global challenges that mankind is facing. So this book is a very different book, but I'd like to see it published.

And in Japan also, a book was published of my dialogues with Mr. Ikeda, who is the founder of Sokerg gai University. He had other philosophical discussions, for example, with Chingiz Aitmatov, whom I mentioned. And we had a very long dialogue with him for eight months, both oral dialogue and exchange of letters. We discussed moral values with him. And the Japanese published two volumes, and 150,000 books copies have been sold in Japan of that volume. So I continue to write and I will continue to write. And I have still a lot to say.

And what happens sometimes is, you know, like this: You have the Bible, and the Bible is not a very big book, but you have many volumes of commentary of the Bible. So this book is not that big, but there's a lot in that book that I could elaborate on. For example, the drama that happened in Reykjavik in Reykjavik, it's a long story, but here it's just a few pages. In fact, it was a real drama. And there were many events here in this book which I described very concisely but which could be elaborated upon. And if you add here the human dimension, the human dimension that is, to say my opinions and views of my counterparts, of my partners, of people with whom I worked together yes, I would have a lot to say. I don't know whether I will have the strength. I don't know how many how many years God will be giving me, what his plans are. But, of course, I spend my life in politics, I made political speeches and I did not write books in the past. Now I am more interested in in sharing my views and emotions and my thoughts, and I will continue doing it.