Moshe Milhstein was an officer in Soviet military Intelligence, the GRU. In this interview, he offers his view on the Soviets relative advantage in conventional numbers early in the post-war period, saying that the justification was that the United States had a nuclear monopoly. Reflecting on the causes of Cold War, he generally points to the U.S. and the West as initiating the competition. He discusses the impact of the rearmament of Germany, and notes that the formation of NATO represented a turning point in the period, leading eventually to the creation of the Warsaw Pact. He then explains the Pacts response to massive retaliation and to the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Two other major events in the Cold War, in his view, were Britain and Frances acquisition of nuclear weapons, which had a marked effect on Soviet military thinking. He denies the Soviets made a nuclear threat over Suez. In general, he views Soviet weapons decisions as responses to Western moves, and he contends that the missile gap was deliberately manufactured by the Kennedy administration to justify a buildup of Minuteman, Polaris and other systems.