Interviewer
Prime Minister, there is an impression about that you have had to make a pretty considerable climb-down to achieve a successful Summit.
Prime Minister
No, I think other people have moved much further than I have. We have got a very very good agreement, that we have to have a mix of conventional and nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future, that we have to have a mix of nuclear, not only the big strategic but short-range nuclear, that we have also to have land-based nuclear missiles, short-range, those for the foreseeable future, and there is authority ......
Interviewer
What does that mean, the foreseeable future? [end p1]
Prime Minister
Just exactly what it means.
Interviewer
It could be a year or two.
Prime Minister
Hardly, hardly, for the foreseeable future. You are as good at interpreting as I am, but for a very long time I would have thought.
Interviewer
We spoke just now to the German spokesman and he thinks it could mean as soon as 1992.
Prime Minister
The foreseeable future&em;he would think that you could foresee everything in 1992? I would not. But in any case we have also put in quite rigorous conditions about when negotiations can start, no short-range nuclear negotiations until after all the agreements on the conventional weapons, as you know they are very very extensive, and how to verify them. And even then that is not enough to trigger negotiations, they have got to be partially implemented, then you can start negotiations on short-range. But you cannot in fact take out a single short-range nuclear weapon until all of the conventional agreements have been fully implemented. [end p2]
I am very satisfied with that. And even on top of that then there is a third section which says you cannot obviate the need for the short-range land-based nuclear missiles, and that is very good.
Interviewer
Even so, Herr Genscher, the German Foreign Minister, in a sense your chief opponent on this broad issue, is delighted this morning. He is saying we started with modernisation without negotiations, we now have negotiation without modernisation. Isn't he right?
Prime Minister
We do not in fact have any short-range nuclear weapons taken out until after full conventional have in fact been implemented. Secondly, we agree in the document that the weapons must be kept up-to-date, and thirdly we agree in the document that there will continue to be a need for land-based nuclear missiles, the short-range.
Interviewer
But no commitment to modernisation, no decision on modernisation … [end p3]
Prime Minister
I am sorry, but there is plenty of commitment to modernisation, right throughout the document. Go through it. We all agree, as we did last time, that obsolete weapons do not deter, that they must be kept up-to-date, and what is more, the Germans have agreed, as has everyone else, to point to the work on research and development that the United States is doing on a follow-on to Lance and to point to it approvingly because when we first arranged this meeting we thought it possible that Congress would not go ahead with doing that work unless they got a commitment for the whole of NATO to deploy. It turned out that Congress would and of course that gives us the chance of taking the decision in 1992.
Interviewer
What do you say to the German claim that you have failed to get your absolute commitment against a third zero, against the total elimination of these missiles, into the NATO Agreement.
Prime Minister
I say flat out they have failed to get a third zero and they have failed absolutely.
Interviewer
But you failed to get a commitment against a third zero did you not? [end p4]
Prime Minister
No, no, I am sorry …
Interviewer
A specific one.
Prime Minister
If you look at that document it is quite clear the only authority on the part of the United States to negotiate is partial negotiation and as I said this morning, that and other parts of the document exclude a third zero and President Bush agreed. So the only authority which President Bush, who is the person who would do the negotiations, or the country, agrees.
Secondly, it says elsewhere there will continue to be a need for short range nuclear weapons as part of our deterrence, and thirdly it says you cannot obviate the need for those. So that is pretty clear.
Interviewer
Sir Geoffrey Howe did reserve your position on the third zero at the end of the meeting last night. Why then did you lift that reservation when you got back to the meeting this morning? Would you not, in a sense, in the light of your strong and full-hearted commitment against that third zero, would you not have looked better if you had kept that reservation in right the way through? [end p5]
Prime Minister
No because that reservation is really in in the words, that you cannot obviate, it is in paragraph 63, the need for short-range nuclear weapons, you cannot obviate them, cannot obviate the need. Well, that is pretty clear. It is very clear. And no-one challenged my interpretation when I raised it, no-one.
And President Bush, after all it is the United States that does the negotiations, specifically agreed with me and of course as you heard, the Chairman, the Director-General, Manfred Wörnerthe Secretary General, in fact specifically agreed, partial means partial and not entire. So aren't you playing with words?
Interviewer
In a sense, the extraordinary thing about the NATO Summit is that it is all a play of words is it not?
Prime Minister
No, it is the reality. I am concerned …
Interviewer
You do not think you have got a fudge here?
Prime Minister
No, oh no, I am concerned with the reality. That we have ensured. [end p6]
Interviewer
Do you accept the broad German characterisation of your attitude to them here as a failure to understand their position? Do you sympathise with the political predicament of their government?
Prime Minister
I do not understand anyone who is not fully prepared to defend liberty and justice and I believe they are, I believe they are.
As you know, I have never found any difficulty in putting to the British people that it is weakness that attracts aggressors, not strength and you want weapons not to fight wars but to prevent them. And it is strength that prevents anyone from attacking you.
I have never found any difficulty with that and Germany has signed up to this document in its entirety.
Interviewer
Are you entirely happy to move on with President Bush's initiative on conventional weapons?
Prime Minister
Yes. George BushHe did consult with us before he made it so we were aware that it was happening.
Interviewer
Rather briefly did he not, were you not rather bounced off it? [end p7]
Prime Minister
Yes, but in fact you know if you look at the proposals on the table there, from the other side they have put forward proposals for planes that we could not possibly accept because they really would go to the heart of our defence and weaken it.
And so I thought that President Bush was quite right to broach this problem very carefully and not undermining the effectiveness of our defence. And the point that I was concerned with, and so was President Mitterrand, was that the reduction in aircraft must not go to dual-capable weapons, the nuclear ones, because that approaches our nuclear capability as well. And we have both made that quite clear.
Interviewer
But otherwise you think that this is a far-reaching, imaginative, and could be a decisive view?
Prime Minister
I think it makes quite clear the kind of movement on aircraft and helicopters we can reasonably make without undermining the effectiveness of our defence.
Interviewer
Finally, the question I must ask you about all this is the timetable that Mr Bush envisages. Do you think that he is being realistic in saying that he hopes to achieve completion of a conventional arms agreement in six months to a year? [end p8]
Prime Minister
I think that is a little bit optimistic. If you think that you also have to verify, a scheme for verifying the destruction of the weapons, because it fails if you merely say we agree to reduce these tanks, the armoured personnel vehicles, the artillery and so on, the aircraft, and you do not have an absolute water-tight system for veryifying that.
You just do not want them to go back behind the Urals and then they can be brought forward. Aircraft, it only takes three hours to fly them to the Western front. So you have got to have a pretty good system of veryifying. That is going to take some time.
And also I have not the slightest shadow of doubt that the United States Congress will want to look at it very very carefully indeed and usually when we have these agreements we have to pass some legislation with regard to them in the House of Commons and I think, well perhaps it is as well to start off optimistically, but not be too concerned. The important thing is to get an effective agreement that enhances our defence and does not undermine it and to make certain that the other side is honouring that agreement and that you have a system to see that they do.
Interviewer
But could Mr Bush's timetable rush you into an agreement which you might think is … [end p9]
Prime Minister
Oh no no no, certainly not, certainly not. We have negotiated very toughly and if I might say so I do not think we should have got anything like such a good agreement, such a well drafted agreement, if it had not been for the detailed negotiations that Geoffrey Howe did. He was absolutely superb, absolutely superb. They know he is a very good negotiator. We never risk anything with defence.