Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Prime Minister, what is your attitude toward the current arms control treaty?
Prime Minister
I am very much in favour of the Intermediate Nuclear Weapons treaty. You know there would not have been any unless the Soviet Union had put them up.
First, when she put them up, we said “You take them down or we deploy some similar ones”. She did not take them down so we deployed and now they are all going to go away in that particular range. That is good. It is a triumph for our firmness but I believe we can take those out without it having any damaging effect on the doctrine of NATO and flexible response.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Do you think that the European partners will be willing to pay more for conventional defence once the nuclear missiles are removed?
Prime Minister
Now let's get one thing absolutely clear: it is only one [end p1] group of nuclear missiles that are going to be removed and let me make it equally clear that in my view what has kept the peace in Europe for over forty years, is the nuclear deterrent. I agree with the John GalvinAmerican General in charge of NATO when he says “We do not seek a nuclear-free Europe, we seek a war-free Europe” and the way to that is to keep an effective nuclear deterrent. So the French and British independent nuclear deterrent must stay. So too must a considerable number of American nuclear weapons in Europe because we could never come up to the number of conventional forces that the Soviet Union has, nor would we have the room for them.
Look at the size of the Soviet Union; well over twice the size of the United States. Look at the size of Europe; it is almost a comparatively small peninsula off the edge of this very great land mass. There is no way that it could come up to the level of conventional forces that she has, so to get parity, the Soviet Union must substantially reduce her conventional forces and also - don't forget - she has the biggest stockpile of the most modern chemical weapons that exists the world over and when we have got rid of our stockpile - the United States, a very small old-fashioned stockpile - she has been going on producing more, modernising them and they are deadly weapons and our only response is nuclear. So certainly we have to say before any more reductions in nuclear weapons beyond the strategic, the inter-continental ones which can come down by 50% , then you have to come down to us in conventional weapons and you have to get rid of chemical weapons. And the difficulty there is verification.
You can make them so easily. [end p2]
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Are you at all confident that the Soviets will move - or at any time soon would move - toward this kind of parity?
Prime Minister
I think that the Soviet Union needs to spend less on armaments because she wants to raise the standard of living of her people and therefore she does need - would like to have some reductions. She obviously has to take her military along with her because she is doing so many fundamental changes within the Soviet Union and I hope they would come down.
My point is this: we do not go any further beyond the intermediate and the 50% strategic that are currently in discussion and in play, no further with reductions of nuclear weapons in Europe unless and until she does come down on conventional to parity with us and gets rid of chemical. So it is up to her.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Why do you think that you have been so successful as far as defence matters and maintaining your defence budget when some other European leaders have bowed to pressure and have reduced their military defence budgets?
Prime Minister
I think it is the reputation which Britain has. We have never faltered. We did not falter in the last war. We just remained fighting. We have never faltered. We have always reckoned that you cannot rely on the rightness of your course; you can only rely on the security of your defence and it is this characteristic of Britain; she is a reliable ally and in times of trouble and in [end p3] times of danger, she will be there - and as I am constantly saying in Parliament - whereas in days gone by, you could perhaps reduce some of your weaponry, now it is so sophisticated that the lead times to get it are so long that you dare not reduce them. You always have to keep enough to deter any aggressor. So you dare not reduce yours unless he reduces his proportionately and strategically across the whole range because it is the whole concept of defence you have to look at.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Why do you think Mr Gorbachev has been so successful in portraying himself as a man of peace?
Prime Minister
I think Mikhail Gorbachevhe is a quite different leader of the Soviet Union from any we have ever had before. He is very much more appealing to people in the West because he is, I think, a leader who for the first time has been prepared to discuss openly and argue openly without a tightly written brief in front of him which he reads through. We do not get that, he can range so easily across all of the subjects - and will.
When I met him before he was Secretary-General, I instantly recognised that he was a totally different person. Now that is one reason.
I think the second is this: I think there is a great admiration for the courage of this man to go to the Soviet Union seventy years after their October revolution and say, “Look, the system is not working; it is not working on standard of living, it is not working on technology, it is not working on the standard of social [end p4] security or health; it is not working. We have got to change it. You have got to take more personal responsibility, more sense of initiative, less central planning”. That is a bold couragous move and, you know, we do admire people who take that sort of bold couragous decision.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Do you think he will be successful?
Prime Minister
I think he will have very great difficulties because the difficulty is with a bureaucracy like that, and something that has always been run on the basis of, “Look, you do not do anything unless you are told to do it,” and then you turn round and say, “You have got to use your own initiative.” Some of them will be lost for quite a considerable time and the great bureaucracy which has quite a vested interest, not based on merit, responsibility or initiative but based on the fact that party membership, preferment and so on - not preferment on merit but on party membership. These are great obstacles and the acid test is how far are they prepared to let go of the central control and genuinely let go because, you know, once you have got a little bit of freedom, it will go on and the question is, “Will they clamp down then or not?” I do not know.
What I do know is that every little bit of increased liberty and freedom and human rights in the Soviet Union is worth encouraging in human terms.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
How far do you think they might be willing to go as far as Eastern Europe is concerned? [end p5]
Prime Minister
It is very interesting because some, I think, of the Eastern Europe Communist states - the satellite states - are quite concerned because if it has started to run there, it could run quite quickly and I think that they will be quite reluctant to let go by the necessary amount.
Hungary has a little bit more economic liberty than the rest but it is strictly limited liberty - if I might put it that way and you know when you go there, that compared with ours, is very limited indeed. I think I have raised a very interesting question because they did not like it when Poland wanted a little bit more. They are quite strict in East Germany. Look what they did to Hungary in 1956, to Czechoslavakia in the late 1960's and my guess is that some of the Communist Governments in power there will be a little bit fearful of letting this freedom go too far and therefore they will limit it very strictly.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Switching to a somewhat different area, what are the constraints on European leaders such as yourself in assisting other NATO partners out of area?
Prime Minister
We do quite a lot of out of area work because our duties were never confined to NATO. We have had a large navy for years. It sails the world. We have had what is called the Armilla Naval Patrol since 1980. We have had troops in Hong Kong, in Brunei, troops in Cyprus in Sinai. As a matter of fact, we have some of the army in thirty countries in the world either as advisers, as personnel [end p6] or as troops - troops in Hong Kong, by invitation in Brunei, a lot in United Nations: troops in Belize at their request. That is one of our contributions which Europe makes to democracy in Central America.
When Belize became independent, I had hoped to be able to take our troops out when we had trained them after two years. Now they plead “Please do not take them out, they are our security” and so they are still there and also of course troops in Falklands. So we are used to having them really from Hong Kong to Falklands and Belize and as I say, advice in many other countries, and of course like the United States, we perform our full duties with the United Nations forces and we have our big bases in Cyprus and of course 66,000 troops on the central front in Germany; so some in NATO area and some right outside.
We train the Zimbabwe armed forces at the invitation of Mr Mugabe.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Some Americans feel that we do not get enough support from our European allies in areas like the Gulf.
Prime Minister
I think, as I say, we have been there since 1980, quietly doing a job and we strengthened the Armilla Patrol when the trouble came and now, when it was perfectly clear that we were not going to get a quick response from Iran on the Security Council Resolution to end the Iran-Iraq war, as you know we sent down minesweepers together with support staff. So we have done that. France also has sent some, the Dutch also, so I think we are supporting as far as [end p7] those countries are concerned. We spend 5% of our gross national product on defence.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
That is a very high level for European …
Prime Minister
Yes it is, you are quite right, it is high but again it is part of the reliable ally of Britain and that is important to us. It was important in the regaining of freedom for Europe. After the last war when we stood alone and then the United States came in and together we went and regained Europe with all of the resistance forces that there were there. It is just part of the whole character of Britain.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
It is a very heavy burden though. Do you think that the younger generation and the generations that are coming to power in the next few years are going to be willing to continue to carry that kind of defence burden?
Prime Minister
Yes, I do. Now defence formed a large part of our last election campaign. I find a great understanding in Britain that if you value your freedom and justice, you must be prepared to defend it and you have to be prepared to defend it to a sufficient level of strength to deter any potential aggressor.
They expect Governments to do this. They know it will cost quite a bit and they are prepared to pay that because that is their security and the return to power of the Government which I am privileged to lead, is really a great vote of confidence in that [end p8] kind of defence policy and in NATO.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
And do you think that young people are as aware or as concerned about the Soviet Union and about defence matters as people, say, of my generation?
Prime Minister
Yes I do. I think that young people are very interesting and very different today from say the beginning of the 1970s. Do you remember the beginning of the 1970s? We had trouble on the student campuses in the United States and here and in a way it was a time when they were just - I don't know - having a bit of a fling and rebelling against things. I think now they are just beginning to realise what freedom and justice means. They are beginning to know that there are other people in the world nothing like as fortunate as we are, and I think that they are becoming - if I might put it this way - much more interested in retaining those fundamental values, fundamental liberties and in trying to spread the opportunity of freedom to other peoples the world over.
Also, I think they are beginning to know that any society which is to endure, must have some rules by which to live, some courtesies, some conventions, some customs. It is that which gives it its importance, its significance as a nation, that which gives it the permanence, the continuity of the family without which no nation can survive, and I think there has been a massive change. I find young people sometimes complaining there are not any rules any more and I say “Oh yes, they are coming back”, and in some ways young people are asking for them and standing up for them. [end p9]
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Do you think that the institutions of our society are doing enough as far as inculcating common values and setting moral standards?
Prime Minister
We are trying all the time now to say, “Look, people have talked about rights for a very long time,” but, you know, the whole development of the United States and the great development of this country in the last century was as people took advantage of the opportunities and prospered themselves, so they began to recognise their obligations to the community and they carried them out.
So you will hear such a phrase as “The City Fathers”. The City Fathers were people who recognised those obligations and went out to meet them, to help young people who said “As I have profited from opportunity, so it is my task to help others”. It is that which is the whole warp and weft of society, the whole tapestry of society on which the particular picture is woven and it is that which is a strength of the United States and of the free countries of the world.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Do you think the Church is doing enough in this regard?
Prime Minister
I think the Church too is once again realising that you cannot do without those values which it always knew. We are shy about talking about the things we believe in aren't we? We are very shy and I think that sometimes affected us all. I think there now is much more willingness to talk about those things. Of course the [end p10] Church is interested in the well-being of society and in seeing that enough is done equally for poor people but the Church has a message even greater than social welfare and that message is that all the liberties, all the human rights do not come from Governments, they come from one's religious beliefs and it is the acceptance - the broad general acceptance of these beliefs which are greater than any country which has given us particular characterics from which we have derived our strength and our continuity.
Dr James Leutze, North Carolina Public TV Service
Do you think that these common values that you are referring to are an important element of the NATO Alliance?
Prime Minister
Yes, very much so. That is an alliance which is there to defend freedom and justice and all the nations that believe in them that those values may not perish, that one day other people who do not have them may see that we are determined to preserve them and therefore that they one day have hope that they may have them. It is this fundamental thing that Governments are there not to totally dominate and dictate to people but to serve the fundamental liberties. The frontier of freedom goes across the continent of Europe. It is your frontier of freedom as well as ours. On our side of the frontier, it is the sanctity of the human being which counts and the Governments are there to serve the life, liberty in pursuit of happiness of the individual. On the other side it is that the Governments are dominant in the Communist countries and the only rights the people have are rights which the Government gives to them. It is a very sharp frontier. It is the frontier, it is the [end p11] pursuit of liberty and justice that informs all of NATO's activities which is at once the inspiration of their activities and the reason and certainty that that alliance will continue.