"You know, Michael, what I really wanted was to get the presidential nomination and then win the presidency in November because I was looking forward to negotiating the SALT treaty with Brezhnev. It has been a long time since an American president has stood up to the Soviet Union. It seems that every time we get into negotiations, the Soviets are telling us what we are going to have to give up in order for us to get along with them, and we forget who we are. I wanted to become president of the United States, so I could sit down with Brezhnev. And I was going to let him pick out the size of the table, and I was going to listen to him tell me, the American president, what we were going to have to give up. And I was going to listen to him for maybe twenty minutes, and then I was going to get up from my side of the table, walk around to the other side, and lean over and whisper in his ear "Nyet.' It has been a long time since they've heard 'nyet' from an American president."
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Heads of stateGeneral Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet UnionPeople of the Cold WarCommunist Party of the Soviet Union membersLenin Peace Prize recipients
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ronald Reagan, as quoted by Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism (2003), p. 91
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
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Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union as General Secretary of the governing Communist Party (1964–1982) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1960–1964, 1977–1982). His 18-year term as general secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration.
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