"I decided to give Michael his big chance and put him into Defence. There Michael's strengths and weaknesses were both apparent. He defended our approach to nuclear arms with great panache and inflicted a series of defeats on CND and the Labour Left. He reorganized the MoD, rationalizing its traditional federal structure. Supported by me in the face of departmental obstruction, he brought in Peter Levene to run defence procurement on sound business lines. These were real achievements. But Michael's sense of priorities was gravely distorted by his personal ambitions and political obsessions."