Did you write this book . Mr. Gorbachev everyone is writing books. I sometimes read books about perestroika, and so 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 dont want to over dramatize it. But i thought that i am the principal witness and the principal person who bears responsibility for what happened, and i believed it was important for me to ask plane my position about how i started reforms and why i came around to the view that reforms were necessary. Why did i decide, and how did that decision about reforms emerge, and how difficult that process was. So i thought it was important to write a book about the time of perestroika because perestroika had farreaching consequences for my country and for the world. I could not accept it when people speak of gorbachev. I had to speak out. I had to avoid the temptation of writers to show myself in better light. I tried to keep within the facts , and i have a lot of facts about various events, about all that happened and about my relationship with various people in the domestic and international politics. I could say a lot. I tried to write about the most important things. First i dictated 10,000 pages of material. This book is equivalent to 1000 pages of typewritten text. Brian i notice that the German Company bought this book, and now it is published in the United States by doubleday. One of the first countries you ever went to in your life was germany, in berlin. You said it was an Emotional Experience for you. Why is that . Mr. Gorbachev well mr. Gorbachev well, for us, relations that we have had with germany after the war for the imprint the war bore the imprint of what happened in the past. The bloodshed, the bloodbath in which our country and your country was involved. 27 million russians and people of other nationalities died in the war or in the camps or were killed in bombings, etc. That affected the gene pool of our country. A whole generation whole generations were killed. For example, males born in 1922, 1923, 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. A lot had changed in our country and in germany. When i visited even the german democratic republic, as a russian, my heart again to beat faster. My heart began to beat faster. There was the burned building of rice tog of reichstag. We saw the mound of earth over the brandenburg gate, where there were those goosestepping soldiers. I remembered the war. I was 10 years old when the war started, and the memory of a child remembers all of that, imprints all of that. I remember how the war started on a sunday. Everyone was planning to go out and have fun. The grownups had their own fun. We kids had our childrens fun. And that suddenly stopped. All of us were gathered together in the center of our village, my birthplace. We listened. There was no radio at home at that time, so we were listening from the loudspeaker, a special loudspeaker that brought past that broadcast the speech. That is how it began. And then we had very difficult years. The war was a shocking experience and upheaval. It was difficult to get over that experience with germany, even though in the history of our relations, there are lots of periods of cooperation and positive interaction. But building a new relationship, a partnership of cooperation, that was a difficult process. When i went there, i really watched all of it through a special perspective. I tried to understand, and i remember a lot i remembered a lot. Nevertheless, he saw that germans are People Like Us 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, a cetera exclusivity, etc. So it was a difficult periods. Politically, it was clear that things had changed. But emotionally, that is difficult because other than our head, we have our heart. Brian i asked what his favorite town was, or city. He said it was a stumble. However it was istanbul. How about yours . What is your favorite city . Mr. Gorbachev well, i would not want to do it this way. I do not want to give all the praise to one city. I have visited many cities. I have 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 it is wonderful. I welcome this. It is a lot of joy to walk the streets of moscow, the narrow lanes of moscow. And i could go on and on. I can speak about many of the wonderful cities i visited. Perhaps sometimes the individual associates the city with some event or some experience. There are such wonderful cities, like paris for example. To walk the streets of the city, you walk the streets of rome. Florence, when you look at the city from the hill and you feel the music on those tiled roads, it is a wonderful city. I would not give all the praise to one city. It is the diversity that we have to protect and preserve. It would be terrible if someone tried to bash the world to equalize everything into one model of society. Or if someone tried to westernize the entire world, that would be equally stupid. We must see the world as a diverse world from different nations, histories, countries. Now we have an opportunity after the coal war to build even though there are still dangers. I hope we will take advantage of the opportunity. This is why we did what we did working together and overcoming several barriers and 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 im 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 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. Lamb you say in your you just told us earlier that you dictated some 10,000 pages of material. When did you start dictating . And then how did you put the book together . Theres a preface in here by Martin Mccullough from the university of london. What role did he play in putting the book together . Mr. Gorbachev 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 its 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. Its my decision. Mr. Lamb before we started you said that the gentleman doing the translation for both of us, pavel, helped you on the book. I want to show the audience what he looks like and theyll remember him. They can see it on the screen right there. Hes there on the monitor. And he is now translating my english to your russian and then when you speak, he translates your russian to my english. Do you think that when you have a translator, which we all need when most of the time when language is does that cut down on the ability to communicate as well as we should . Mr. Gorbachev well, what can we do . [laughter] i dont want us all to speak one language. I dont want us to abandon all the other languages. I cannot agree with having in the world some kind of super culture and all the other cultures to be subordinate to it. That would be very dangerous. We want 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 its very important, but similarly in the human world, in the world of nations, people should meet, people should work together. Thats 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 didnt have enough time during the war and later to study languages, i studied german a little bit, but because of lack of time, i didnt 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 im sorry that i dont know Foreign Languages that my generation many people didnt 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 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 whos not just an interpreter, but a person who has wide ranging knowledge in the various subjects. And heres the person who can work very hard. Its amazing. Mr. Lamb when we watched you, when you were the leader of the soviet union, we always wanted to know if you understood any english and whether or not in the meetings you could understand president reagan or president bush at all. Do you understand english . Mr. Gorbachev 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. Its a kind of teaching process and at some point i began to feel that im beginning to understand the point, the main content. Of course, not those matters that require great precision out. 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 its 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. Its 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 its that way. Mr. Lamb you mentioned raisa, your wife, mrs. Gorbachev, earlier, and you mention in the book that it took her two years to recover her health after the coup. I want to ask you how she is how is she today . And what is she doing today . Mr. Gorbachev 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 , i spent 40 years in politics thats 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 shes 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. D, 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 whod like to give this kind of assistance. And we cannot do everything, but were 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. Lamb you say that your hobby both of your hobbies early in your life was reading, and id be interested in knowing what kind of books you read. And you even said that your daughter, irina, read almost all the books, all the russian classics and all in in your what kind of books did you read early . Mr. Gorbachev 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, f. 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 theres a lot there thats 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 tha