TV Interview for BBC1 (visiting Moscow)

John Simpson, BBC

Prime Minister, you have described this as a fascinating visit, absolutely the most fascinating visit you have ever made, but could it be perhaps the most important foreign visit you have ever made?

Prime Minister

It certainly is very very important indeed, although I have done some pretty crucial ones to the United States as well. But this is a different kind of visit from those, because it has come at a critical time in Russian affairs as well.

They are beginning to realise that after seventy years since the Revolution they have not got the results they expected and so I think Mr. Gorbachev has dubbed it a turning point in history and they are having the courage to make some changes.

This makes it specially significant because they are trying to change some of the internal things and [end p1] naturally, we want to know how it will change their external things as well.

John Simpson, BBC

Where is this going to take the Soviet Union, this whole process?

Prime Minister

I do not think we can tell yet. They said they want a more open society and certainly things are much much more openly discussed; films are made which had not been made before discussing some of the questions of the day. They are beginning to have much more incentive in their economic system and they are beginning to release the central controls a little. Do not run away with the idea it is a great deal but they are beginning to release them and give managers a little more power in the way in which their enterprises are run.

One does not know what will happen. I think it needs some time to discover whether the change will work and sometimes you know the difficulties happen first. For example, if you are putting on quality control, then you start by throwing out everything that does not come up to quality and the production figures go down. Then the quality gets better, the production comes up, and you see the results showing. So it is going to take a time and we must be patient, but you know, it was a very courageous step to take. [end p2]

John Simpson, BBC

What about in the field of human rights though, like Dr. Sakharov with whom you had lunch today, who says that it is all right for those who like himself are out of prison, but for those who are inside prison it is still extremely unpleasant?

Prime Minister

Yes, of course it is. We welcome those who have been released and we hope for more and, of course, one raises this because the Soviet Union signed the Helsinki Accords in 1975 and after that far many more people were allowed to leave the Soviet Union. In recent years, they have clamped down on the numbers and we hope the numbers will improve again, because the Helsinki Accords were about the free movement of people and ideas and, of course, one raises personal cases - people who want to go back and see their families, people who want to leave to go back to Israel, other people who want to leave; people who monitored the Helsinki Accords, and every person I know who has been released from prison is worried about those who are still inside. So are we and we hope that they soon will be let out if their offences are only what would not be offences under our law, political, or offences connected with freedom of worship. But they have made a start and we hope most earnestly that it will improve and of course we will [end p3] continue to raise the cases and the principle.

John Simpson, BBC

You must have hoped before you came here to come away from this whole visit with something tangible about, for instance, arms control, possibly about shorter-range nuclear weapons.

Now, you have not actually come away with anything tangible, have you?

Prime Minister

Well, I think we have an understanding about intermediate range and understanding about chemical weapons, because we put up the idea, which the Soviet Union has accepted, on challenge inspection. We have no chemical weapons, as you know. We abolished ours in the 1950s. As I point out to the Soviet Union, they did not abolish theirs. They modernised them and stockpiled them.

Where we have difficulty still on the intermediate range is the associated, what are called shorter-range missiles, but they are still ones that could have a devastating effect on the United Kingdom. We would like to match the shorter-range ones in Western Europe. They are jibbing about that. They want a freeze on them which would give them a great preponderance, but that is still for negotiation and it will have to be negotiated [end p4] at the table in Geneva, but we simply cannot have the intermediate ones, leaving a preponderance of short-range ones on their side.

John Simpson, BBC

How much more has there been to your talks with Mr. Gorbachev than an agreement on the things that you would agree on and an agreement to disagree on other things and have you actually come closer on any individual subjects?

Prime Minister

No, we have had a fundamental discussion on the different systems, the communist system and our system. The communist system will stay as it is, a system in which differing parties are not permitted. Communism is written into their constitution and they have far more central control than we shall ever have.

They have spoken most interestingly enough about an independent judiciary. That is absolutely vital and I think it was a development of the Common Law that gave Britain its freedom. It was long before we had one person-one vote. And they realise the importance of that. How it will develop we do not know.

John Simpson, BBC

In a single sentence, what is the memory that you will take back that is strongest? [end p5]

Prime Minister

I can tell you three memories very vividly.

First, the concentration and the breadth of the talks with Mr. Gorbachev so that one forgot the time.

Second, I think the most heartwarming thing, the way in which the Russian people have come out and waved as I have gone up to be with them; so totally genuine, and they have been wonderful.

And thirdly, as you know, we went to see a particular production of “Swan Lake” by the Bolshoi Ballet. It was exquisite, it was lovely, it was beautiful. I will never forget it.