When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

The lesson of the Cold War is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace.

After the Cold War ended, there was an agreement between the former Soviet Union and America to convert weapons-grade nuclear materials into reactor-grade materials. So disarmament and nuclear energy actually are strongly linked.

The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons.

What we asked for were weapons so that we could defend ourselves -- that's what we asked of the Soviet Union, of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, of the Algerians, of the Vietnamese; and that's what we received so that we could arm the Nicaraguan people and defend ourselves in that war imposed on us by Ronald Reagan's Administration over a number of years.

If ever there was an unnecessary weapon after the Cold War, it's nuclear weapons. We have nuclear capability to burn. This is a situation where the broader policy issues are more important than the job loss.