Commentary In October 1985, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visited France where he met with French President François Mitterrand. In candid conversations, Gorbachev told Mitterrand that the USSR was a Third World country with nuclear weapons, a conclusion that startled Mitterrand and other Western leaders when Gorbachev’s description was privately circulated. How could it be that the all-powerful USSR saw itself as a Third World country, but a nuclear power? Around the same time, I was speaking to a Jewish group in Washington. In the 1980s, I was a senior official in the Defense Department responsible for technology security. In my presentation, I showed 35 mm slides depicting the best Soviet weapons, and how many of them were copies of American systems. My message: The USSR was a powerful country investing heavily in weapons. A lady in the back of the room raised her hand. Recognizing her, she said the following: …