David Spanier
Prime Minister, let's begin with the fact that the Commonwealth conference has just ended and a very important part of it was security. You've just received a letter from Mr. Andropov but you haven't replied to it yet.
Mrs. Thatcher
Indeed we will reply when we return, but obviously I have read and inwardly digested the content. We shall deploy Cruise and Pershing. As you know we've made that decision. It was the Soviet Union that chose to discontinue the disarmament talks. We didn't want them to discontinue. They walked out and you know we had continuous negotiations with them all the time they were deploying SS20s at the rate of one a week. So they're not in a position to criticise us now at the end of that time for deploying our answer to that. After all we have to have something to deter them at all levels.
D. Spanier
Do you think as far as the Commonwealth conference is concerned that the question of security has made the world a slightly safer place?
Mrs. Thatcher
… . all of us understood first that although we want disarmament passionately because it would be very nice to be able to spend less on weapons of war, that we must nevertheless keep our security, the purpose for armament is only to keep your security and to deter other people from attacking you. So, yes, you want disarmament but it means that other people have to disarm to the same extent, otherwise you don't keep your security. Now we also discussed one other matter and again we managed to get our own view across, so we have to try to make arrangements … regional arrangements, for security of very small states, they can't defend themselves and we're going to have to consider this in much more detail than we have hitherto.
D. Spanier
It is true you got the British point of view across on Grenada, very strongly, but do you feel a little bit concerned that after all British policy has been much criticised both from the American side and from the Commonwealth side, in the attitude we took to the invasion of Grenada?
Mrs. Thatcher
We would have been criticised from both sides, according to which view you look, the important thing is that we were able to persuade everyone here—look, don't waste time debating about the past, just take it that Grenada now has a chance to be a democratic country once again, the countries in the Caribbean tend to be democratic, they don't make natural dictatorships, they're democratic countries, Grenada was the exception, I've never sat at a Commonwealth conference with a democratic Prime Minister of Grenada although this is my third: now let's just say we're all believers in democracy, let's do everything we can between us to help Grenada come to democracy [Word missing.] [end p1] Head of State and Head of government would have the right to invite in someone else to help them, after all Julius Nyerere, soon after independence in Tanzania, not long after, invited we British to go there because he had a mutiny on his hands. We did go there, sorted it out and handed it back over to him.
D. Spanier
I think that one of the most difficult questions at this whole conference was the future of Namibia. Is it one of those issues where perhaps you have slightly modified your views in that you were before the conference saying there was some kind of a link or at least a political reality, in that the Americans wanted the Cubans to leave, whereas now the communique does not really specify that point, on the contrary?
Mrs. Thatcher
No, we've never said an actual linkage, indeed I think Geoffrey Howe 's speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society, dealt with it accurately. But you have to recognise that the Americans have not backed us and made a link, so although one's partner does not recognise one, it is there and it won't go away.
D. Spanier
Finally, Prime Minister, if you look back at this conference as a whole, a great many words have been written and published about it but not a lot has changed. What do you think you've got out of it yourself?
Mrs. Thatcher
It's always useful for 33 heads of government, plus other governments represented by their consuls to meet together and to discuss the great issues of the day and the specific issues. Now we did both, the great issues of international security and world economy and the special issues of Cyprus and Grenada and Namibia and we came to agreed results. … it was very valuable for the whole Caribbean to have this conference and also for Cyprus on this specific thing. It was valuable to us all to hear one another's viewpoints on the world economy. Of course everyone wants more money towards more grants, more loans. You do have to sit down and explain that you really couldn't run a bank … . merely by having people representing the overdraft sitting on the board, you know, you've got to have some depository. It's commonsense because if you're not careful enthusiasm and passions run away. All right, you recognise that when we're dealing with things like poverty and how in the world they could get some capital in their country. How in the world they can build power stations, roads, get irrigation, unless they get some aid and … . (interference)
D. Spanier
Thank you, Prime Minister.