Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [291]
REYKJAVIK
The following month (March 1985) saw the death of Mr Chernenko and, with remarkably little delay, the succession of Mr Gorbachev to the Soviet leadership. Once again I attended a Moscow funeral: the weather was, if anything, even colder than at Yuri Andropov’s. Mr Gorbachev had a large number of foreign dignitaries to see. But I had almost an hour’s talk with him that evening in St Katherine’s Hall in the Kremlin. The atmosphere was more formal than at Chequers and the silent, sardonic presence of Mr Gromyko did not help. But I was able to explain to them the implications of the policy I had agreed with President Reagan the previous December at Camp David. It was clear that SDI was now the main preoccupation of the Soviets in arms control.
Mr Gorbachev brought, as we had expected, a new style to the Soviet Government. He spoke openly of the terrible state of the Soviet economy, though at this stage he was still relying on the methods associated with Mr Andropov’s drive for greater efficiency rather than radical reform. An example of this was the draconian measures he took against alcoholism. As the year wore on, however, there was no evidence of improvement in conditions in the Soviet Union. Indeed, as our new — and first-class — ambassador to Moscow, Bryan Cart-ledge, who had been my foreign affairs private secretary when I first became Prime Minister, pointed out in one of his first despatches, it was a matter of, ‘jam tomorrow and, meanwhile, no vodka today’.
A distinct chill entered into Britain’s relations with the Soviet Union as a result of expulsions which I authorized of Soviet officials who had been spying. The defection of Oleg Gordievsky, a former top KGB officer, meant that the Soviets knew how well informed we were about their activities. I had several meetings with Mr Gordievsky and had the highest regard for his judgement about events in the USSR. I repeatedly tried — without success — to have the Soviets release his family to join him in the West. (They eventually came after the failed coup in August 1991.)
In November President Reagan and Mr Gorbachev had their first meeting in Geneva. Not much of substance came out of it — the Soviets insisted on linking cuts in strategic nuclear weapons to an end to SDI research — but a good personal rapport quickly developed between the two leaders (though not, sadly, between their wives). There had been some concern expressed that President Reagan might be outmanoeuvred by his sharp-witted and younger Soviet counterpart. But he was not, which I found not at all surprising. For Ronald Reagan had had plenty of practice in his early years as President of the Screen Actors Guild in dealing with hard-headed trade union negotiations — and no one was more hard-headed than Mr Gorbachev.
During 1986 Mr Gorbachev showed great subtlety in playing on western public opinion by bringing forward tempting, but unacceptable, proposals on arms control. Relatively little was said by the Soviets on the link between SDI and cuts in nuclear weapons. But they were given no reason to believe that the Americans were prepared to suspend or stop SDI research. Late in the year it was agreed that President Reagan and Mr Gorbachev — with their Foreign ministers — should meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss substantive proposals.
In retrospect, the Reykjavik summit on that weekend of 11 and 12 October can be seen to have a quite different significance than most of the commentators at the time realized. A trap had been prepared for the Americans. Ever greater Soviet concessions were made during the summit: they agreed for the first time that the British and French deterrents should be excluded from the INF negotiations; and that cuts in