Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for Sky TV (Gorbachev visit)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: ?Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, London
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: John Stapleton, Sky TV
Editorial comments:

Between 1620 and 1820.

Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 1606
Themes: Foreign policy (USSR & successor states), Monarchy, Defence (general), Defence (arms control)

Interviewer

Mrs. Thatcher, first of all, your response to the news that the Queen is to be invited to Moscow. How significant a development do you think it represents in East-West relations?

Prime Minister

I think very significant. It will take some time to bring about because Her Majesty is in great demand and her programme is heavily booked, but I think it is significant.

Interviewer

It is a question I ask because there were reports - they may or may not have not been correct - some time ago that Downing Street was against such a visit.

Prime Minister

I read those reports, really, with amazement, but then. I quite often read the press with amazement. [end p1]

Interviewer

There were not true?

Prime Minister

Not in any way!

Interviewer

When you say it will take some time, when do you think it likely? When do you think it realistic for the Queen to visit Moscow?

Prime Minister

Her Majesty is in very great demand. So many countries would like a state visit from Her Majesty and many have invited her and several have been arranged so I think it will be a matter of years yet. I should think she is fully booked for at least two years.

Interviewer

Could we just turn to Mr. Gorbachev's speech this morning.

What, for you, in all of that - in that thirty-five minutes of oratory - was the most significant thing he said? [end p2]

Prime Minister

I do not think it was the particular significance of what he said, although I was fascinated at some of the things he said about perestroika. I think it was the whole occasion, the timing of the occasion and the fact of the recent elections in the Soviet Union and how people responded. Ninety percent came out to vote. It is an object lesson, isn't it? Where only one person put up, he had to get a certain minimum number - 50 percent of the votes - to be elected and I think in about thirty-two cases they did not. So they did not fear to hit out at someone whom they did not like. It was remarkable. They are enjoying the new freedom. They are not going to let it go.

And so it was this whole atmosphere, not one particular thing but the whole atmosphere, the success, the warmth of the visit, the fact that we can talk easily, the fact that somehow we know a new way ahead has opened up and it is going to be highly significant not only for the Soviet Union, but for the whole world.

Look! Communism - old-style Communism - has failed. They know it. They are starting a new path. They have already got far enough down that path for us to be pretty certain that they will continue. That is very good news! [end p3]

Interviewer

No doubt changes are afoot and no doubt there is a very warm relationship between you and Mr. Gorbachev. Nevertheless, I think he made it very clear in that speech this morning that he is rigidly opposed to any modernisation of short-range nuclear weapons in Europe and has said that in his view, if that modernisation does go ahead, the whole peace process could to some degree or other be threatened. What is your response to that?

Prime Minister

I would not be too worried about those words in his speech for the simple reason he has already modernised his short-range nuclear weapons and he has got far more than we have. Indeed, he has got far more nuclear weapons. So there is a little bit of a gap between the rhetoric and the reality, and if he has already modernised his short-range nuclear weapons then we too must modernise ours.

The nuclear deterrent has kept the peace in fact for forty years against whatever may befall and we would be extremely rash, indeed reckless - indeed, I think a Government irresponsible - if we let that nuclear weapon go.

Interviewer

To put it in very simple language, Mrs. Thatcher, are you saying that in that regard he is bluffing? [end p4]

Prime Minister

I do not think he will in fact stop the conventional weapons negotiations at all and he did not say he would.

Interviewer

Nevertheless, is there not a danger that if we carry on with our policy in the West of modernising the short-range nuclear weapons, then some of the initiatives he announced today with regard to materials for nuclear weapons, his hope to end the manufacture of chemical weapons, may go off the table?

Prime Minister

The danger would be if he, having modernised his short-range nuclear weapons, we are afraid to modernise ours. That is the point. Never - never - give in to that kind of threat!

Interviewer

I hear what you say, but I suspect that many people watching this programme will be a little confused by this. They will be encouraged that both of you want peace but confused that he wants peace in a nuclear-free world, you insist that peace only comes if we maintain a nuclear deterrent. Does that not mean that this peace process is actually on a collision course - it cannot happen? [end p5]

Prime Minister

No, it does not at all! He has two-to-one. He has twice as many conventional weapons as we have; he has more nuclear weapons than we have; he has more chemical weapons than we have. Just remember that! Just remember that, and remember something else: you only keep a peace if you are strong, so strong that no-one will attack you. In order to prevent someone from attacking you or deter someone from attacking you, you need both conventional and nuclear weapons.

Conventional weapons were not enough to stop war in September 1939. Since the end of the War, we have had nuclear weapons. We have had over forty years of peace. Do not let us let it go and let us preserve the formula with the nuclear weapons and the NATO Alliance and the friendship with America!

A nuclear-free world I think would be a more dangerous world for as far as I can see than one with nuclear weapons, they are the greatest deterrent we have ever known.

Interviewer

But given his posture on this and given your honestly-felt and very firm views on it, where is the common ground going to be found, Mrs. Thatcher? [end p6]

Prime Minister

The common ground is in keeping security at a lower level of weaponry than we have got now. We have got more than we need.

In nuclear, the negotiations are on between the United States and the Soviet Union for a reduction of 50 percent. We are fully behind that, but do not forget that he has still got more - and they are all more modernised - than anyone else.

But look at the reality! You determine defence on the reality and on being prepared for any situation which may arise, so if you take it in a more measured way, in a more practical way, and say: “Right! We are going to negotiate from the 100 percent down to the 50 percent nuclear!” Great success when that is achieved.

We are also, in fact, negotiating on conventional because they are two-to-one with us, so they have got to come down to parity with us and that is much more important than talk - that is doing something at the negotiating table. Not a speech, but at the negotiating table.

Then, we gave up our chemical weapons in 1958. The United States is now starting to modernise some of hers because of the Soviet Union having kept hers. We gave ours up, so we have got to try to negotiate no chemical weapons.

Just get down to the negotiating table and get that complete and then we shall be a lot further on than we are now and then we will have a look and see what comes next. [end p7]

Interviewer

Do you think, though, that we can have the united Europe that he wants and I suspect you want while we both still have nuclear weapons pointing at each other?

Prime Minister

Your nuclear weapons are to deter anyone. The fact that you have a strong defence and nuclear weapons does not mean that you brand the Soviet Union as an aggressor. The world is pretty unpredictable and there are some pretty unpleasant people in it and they are getting hold of some pretty unpleasant weapons, including chemical and someone has got to deter them and stand up to these people whom we could not possibly trust.

Interviewer

One final question: you have said that you can do business with him; you said this afternoon that you would like to continue to do business with Mr. Gorbachev. Do you trust him?

Prime Minister

Anything that Mikhail Gorbachevhe has promised me that he would do or said to me that he intended to do, he has carried out. He assured me that he would come out of Afghanistan - he has. He assured me that he would go ahead with perestroika - he is going ahead with it. And so if we have a difficulty, we are in the position where, yes, we [end p8] can discuss it. We cannot always resolve it, but we will come back to it because what we have established now is a kind of pattern of meetings and the kind of feeling that we can discuss with a view to finding a solution. But I do not want the solution up there in the stars - I want a solution steadily at each stage, us being able to defend our freedom and justice and deter anyone who would attack us and I have always said to him: “Every nation has a right to a secure defence and I expect you to defend your country against whoever you might think could be a danger just as we defend ours!” and I think, in fact, he understands that.

Right now, he would like to get the number of weapons down - so would I. That is for the negotiating table.

Interviewer

Mrs. Thatcher, thank you very much indeed! We hope to see you again on SKY!

Prime Minister

Thank you! My pleasure!