To get a sense of the propaganda aspect of this "promised" business you need to ask yourself the question "Why did not the Soviets/Russians accept verbal privat

To get a sense of the propaganda aspect of this "promised" business you need to ask yourself the question "Why did not the Soviets/Russians accept verbal private promises as the basis for arms control?" Agreements regarding matters of such strategic gravity are always written down and signed by the involved parties. The expansion of NATO clearly was and remains as strategic a concern (to all parties) whether then or now. Note, for example, Russia's current demand for a "written legally binding response". So we are either to assume Soviet team (Gorbachev et al.) were either incompetent or assets of the West, or, USSR capitulated and was not in a position to make legal binding demands regarding NATO and had to be satisfied with warm non-binding backroom reassurances. I think it is the latter, and now, post Soviet Russia (caught between a pincer of Europe and China) believes it has a stronger hand and wants to re-negotiate.