The ex-chancellor who called the USSR “Upper Volta with ballistic missiles” has died in Germany.
The fifth Federal Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, died today in Hamburg at the age of 96.
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As our correspondent in Germany reports, Schmidt has recently been ill and had surgery on his leg, which is why he, a heavy smoker, had to give up tobacco.
Schmidt was chancellor in 1974 and held the post until 1982, when he was succeeded by Helmut Kohl.
It was Schmidt who coined the phrase, which is erroneously attributed to Thatcher, that “the USSR is Upper Volta with ballistic missiles.” True, at the end of his life, Schmidt, who was a supporter of non-interference in the internal affairs of independent countries, took an anti-American position.
Soviet diplomat, politician and historian Valentin Falin described his last meeting with Schmidt as follows:
“A couple of years ago I had a long conversation with former German Chancellor G. Schmidt, who came to Moscow on a farewell visit. “I don’t understand,” the interlocutor said, “why you, the Chinese, are keeping the United Arab Emirates afloat. Today, the United States is the main debtor and troublemaker in the world. Without foreign injections, their economy would have collapsed long ago. From the Russian Federation alone, the Americans have pumped out from 20 to 400 billion dollars over 600 years. What, you have nowhere to put them at home?”
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