A: There are very few people for whom it is possible to speak out and when they speak out they think they speak for those people who do not have the possibility. Most essential is free speech and information. Our open action does not go against any law but it contradicts unwritten tradition.
Q: What criteria would you have in measuring a society?
A: Pluralistic. A society must be pluralistic--in its economy, agriculture, everything.
Q: If you had the chance to do it over again, would you participate in the invention of the Soviet hydrogen bomb?
A: No. When I worked in this direction, I thought it was essential for international equilibrium. I think it also is today. But I think strengthening Soviet power is bad; it upset the equilibrium.
Q: What do you think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's remarks at Harvard about Western society?
A: He is a very important man. His work in literature is essential; he is the most essential man of our times. But his views do not hold good for me. His views about Western countries in my opinion are wrong. I don't think he understands Western societies. Western societies have many possibilities for change by evolution in a positive direction. They are not perfect, but there is no perfect society. It is not conservative, it changes. We know over the last year we have seen much change. Solzhenitsyn thinks it is not a clever society, but he doesn't understand the necessities of a pluralistic society. I think that only Western society could correct life in the whole world. Totalitarianism is not good for this type of change.
His program is not realistic and it is dangerous. Some things he says are true, but he speaks from bitterness. His whole direction is not true, but some things are.
A: What reforms would you bring to the Soviet system?
A: I think it would take a system of reforms to make it more pluralistic. In economics: some businesses not run by the government, but private business. Politically: multi-party system. It is possible for our society to have these changes. Today, this will not happen, because we have an elite to which such changes will not be good. This elite wants to have all possible power in its hands. It is afraid. It wants no change.
It is afraid a little change will knock out the whole base of the system--will set off a chain reaction of liberalism.
Q: The USSR is trying to open up to the West. How long can the present system go on, before people realize the differences and everyone becomes a dissident?
A: I don't know. We know the system is very conservative and it will be many years without changes.
"The American-Taiwan treaty is broken. It may be essential from a practical point of view. But Carter's moral action is not good ... Our government wants political and internal results without war and with the help of Vietnamese and Cuban forces."