Peter Murphy, IRN
Prime Minister, has it been a successful meeting?
Prime Minister
Very successful. It was far too short. We got down to issues straight away and with our customary vigour, both discussion and debate.
Peter Murphy, IRN
Why did Mr. Gorbachev stop off here? Was there anything special he wanted to achieve?
Prime Minister
I think he values the relationship that we have built up between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom and also values the fact that we are very staunch on our views as far as European defence is concerned, and knows always that I will speak very frankly and that there will be no bitterness and rancour between us in the discussion and debate and that I will give him my clear views. But then if I say I will do something, I will do it, and I know that if he undertakes anything to me that he also will carry it out. [end p1]
Peter Murphy, IRN
Mr. Gorbachev expressed the desire to eventually achieve a nuclear-free world. Do you really think that is possible?
Prime Minister
I do not think it is possible and I do not think they have got their eye on the right target.
Let me take it as far as Europe is concerned. I want a war-free Europe, not a nuclear-free Europe, because I believe we are more likely to have a war-free Europe if there is a nuclear deterrent, nothing like as many weapons as there are now, but if there is a nuclear deterrent, because the last forty years have shown that it is the strongest and best security for peace that we have ever had.
Peter Murphy, IRN
Was the question of Britain's nuclear weapons raised at all?
Prime Minister
Yes. I was very grateful that Mr. Gorbachev had indicated quite clearly that the British and French independent nuclear deterrents were not in the negotiations. I went on to say that we must always have our own last-resort defence. Experience had taught us in the last war that we just had to stand alone and if we had not stood alone the history of the world might have been different, and therefore we must always have our last-resort defence. [end p2]
We have not got a lot; we have only got four submarines, and that is pretty well an irreducible minimum. As far as the submarines are concerned, you want at least a minimum of two on station and then sometimes either of your others is coming back or going out or being refitted or the weapons are being maintained, so I thought we were pretty well on an irreducible minimum.
Peter Murphy, IRN
Did you get anywhere at all with your own aim of seeing a reduction in conventional forces in Europe?
Prime Minister
Yes. I made it clear that I thought that by the time he has completed the next phase of arms reductions, that is fifty percent of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles and fifty percent of the United States ones, that really, we must deal with the enormous superiority that the Soviet Union has in both conventional and colossal superiority in chemical and really, defence was a whole concept, and we just really could not go on with the Soviet Union having that massive chemical stockpile of weapons and modernising the whole time and we having virtually none, and we must deal with that by the same kind of formula that we have dealt with the intermediate nuclear weapons. And also, we must go further in getting down their superiority in conventional, otherwise we are uncertain, we fear their superiority. [end p3]
Peter Murphy, IRN
Mr. Gorbachev has now flown off to Washington for the summit. Do you think at the end of that summit, the world will be a safer place to live in?
Prime Minister
Yes I do, and I hope that not only will it be enormously successful but the world, at the end of this very difficult year, will have cause to be grateful and thankful for this treaty both for itself and for the promise of more to come, realising that the determination, the hard negotiation, not giving anything without getting something which has animated both sides, the realisation that that can succeed will give us a promise of more, and I think that is a very good way both to end this year and start the next.