Interviewer
Prime Minister, first of all the Royal Visit that is now contemplated to the Soviet Union, is that a measure of the leap forward that Anglo-Soviet relations have made?
Prime Minister
I think it is a mark of the advances in the Soviet Union towards freeing things up, towards more regard for human rights, towards giving more freedom of choice and into the change of the law with regard to having those things embodied in law which can be enforced. And of the very different spirit towards solving the world's problems that we are now seeing in all countries.
Interviewer
Is it your hope that The Queen will visit the Soviet Union much as it is now or when it has done a bit more on things, particularly on human rights? [end p1]
Prime Minister
I think it will almost certainly have done some more on things, because as you know so many people want Her Majesty to go and the programme is rather …
Interviewer
Is that a condition of the visit?
Prime Minister
No, it is not a condition of the visit. Her Majesty accepted today and we have not got a great deal further than that. As you know, so many people want her to go and a number of acceptances have already been made and programmes made up. So we will have to look into what is the best time to go.
In the meantime, I think that the Soviet Union will continue to make progress.
Interviewer
One of the most striking things Mr Gorbachev said in his Guildhall speech was: “any fears or misgivings about the Soviet military threat are groundless” . Do you believe him? [end p2]
Prime Minister
When they have rather a lot of weapons and rather a lot of conventional forces, even after their reductions, their unilateral reductions, they still have twice as many as we have. That is a pretty big preponderance and you cannot and should not ignore it.
Interviewer
He said they only had a superiority in NATO in tanks.
Prime Minister
I think that there will be some argument about the figures and the place for that argument is the negotiations which are taking place in Vienna. Moreover, the Soviet Union has completed its programme of modernisation of nuclear weapons. We have not. Our short-range nuclear weapons, which will be modernised within the next few years, by the time they are modernised they will be twenty years old. Obsolete weapons do not deter.
I accept that Mr Gorbachev 's intentions are good but one cannot in fact create a defence system on good intentions. The world is unpredictable, terrible events happen. You always have to be prepared with a strong defence if you really and truly value the freedom and justice that we enjoy.
Interviewer
Was not your view that his intentions are good shaken by the news that he is still supplying arms to Libya? [end p3]
Prime Minister
We are very deeply concerned that attack light bombers have been supplied, or are being supplied, to a country like Libya which as a state has supported terrorism and as a state is producing chemical weapons, very concerned indeed.
Interviewer
Can we take him seriously then when he says that he is looking for an age in which the use of force to settle disputes will be obsolete?
Prime Minister
I think he is hoping, as we all are, that we should not have another war in Europe of the kind which developed into a world war that we have seen twice this century.
My point is a simple one. Had we been much much stronger in 1939, and had we then had the nuclear weapon, I do not think that that war would have broken out. Nuclear weapons have been the strongest deterrent to war we have ever known.
When you think that you had the Second World War starting. what, twenty-one years after the first one had ended, it is horrific. But since we have had the NATO Alliance and the nuclear weapon and kept everything up-to-date, that has been the most powerful deterrent, through times when the Soviet Union has been very belligerent indeed. Even in my time the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan. [end p4]
So you need a strong defence. The world is unpredictable. You do not know what may befall. What you must be sure is that we have a strong defence, kept up-to-date, in both conventional and nuclear.
Interviewer
Have you made up your mind whether, when he says he believes the world can rid itself of nuclear weapons by the turn of the century, whether he is just misguided or he is deliberately trying to get you and the rest to lower their guard?
Prime Minister
I must say I tried to put it to him in this way.
First, conventional weapons have not deterred war, we know that from the 1914–18 War and from the 1939–45 War. They started with conventional weapons. The possession of conventional weapons did not stop the aggressor from going to war. So he cannot say that conventional weapons are enough to deter war, that is not correct.
Secondly, you cannot disinvent the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons. So if you were to get anyone in power with designs of dominating or conquering other nations, they could have both strong conventional and would know how to make a nuclear weapon. That you cannot ignore. The only thing to deter those people is that there are other people who are ready with equally strong nuclear weapons, so they could never win. [end p5]
What stops an aggressor, an ambitious, ruthless aggressor, is the knowledge that he cannot win and would be destroyed. For that you must have the weapons and keep them up-to-date.
Interviewer
But the Soviets appear to have warned you that by insisting on modernising NATO's short-range nuclear weapons could jeopardise or sabotage the Vienna talks on the reduction of conventional forces in Europe.
Prime Minister
I doubt it, I doubt it very much and the answer is they have just completed their modernisation of short-range nuclear weapons. By the time ours are modernised they will have been in our armoury for twenty years. That is not a very modern, up-to-date weapon. I do not believe the Soviet Union has any nuclear weapons in her armoury which have been there for so long, they have up-dated them already.
Interviewer
Are there circumstances in which you would not insist upon modernisation, or at least not on deploying modernised weapons? [end p6]
Prime Minister
You will not in fact get the United States making this particular one unless it would be agreed that it should be deployed in Europe. That is why it is important.
If you are to deter war you do not do it with obsolete weapons, whether your weapons are tanks, aircraft, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, whatever they are, or nuclear weapons. They must be modernised. That is the surest defence to peace.
I believe we need peace, not a peace at any price, but with freedom and justice. We need peace to make progress. The world is unpredictable. No-one could have said in 1930 we would have been at war again in 1939. It came up very quickly. Modern weapons take a long time to design and produce. We must keep well defended and up-to-date. That is the surest guarantee of peace.
Interviewer
Yesterday Mr Gerasimov was attacking Mr Brzezinski and Dr Kissinger for being the old style Cold War warriors who are holding up progress towards disarmament. Is there not just a touch of that about you? [end p7]
Prime Minister
No. There is a passionate believer in freedom and a determination that it shall be defended with a view to deterring anyone from attacking us. We cannot do it alone, we need NATO. NATO and the nuclear deterrent which is part of its strategy, has kept the peace for forty years.
And the people who argue against it cannot get over that fact. That when, for example, the Berlin Airlift had to be put into place because Stalin stopped the normal supply routes, he was testing us. Shortly after that NATO was formed—it has kept the peace.
Interviewer
What you admire, and you are on-the-record as saying it, about Mr Gorbachev is his willingness to take political risks and his courage once he has made up his mind. But a lot of people watching you will think, well who are the people in the West who are showing that political courage, who are willing to take political risks to push the disarmament process further?
Prime Minister
You are looking at his glasnost and perestroika just from the disarmament point of view. Glasnost and perestroika are the greater freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and political freedom inside the Soviet Union. [end p8]
That is vitally important and they are going to start to incorporate in their law the kind of guarantees of liberty and enforcement that we have in ours. It is not in there yet. We look forward to getting that through.
That is on the political freedom side. The perestroika is trying to bring about greater prosperity, not by everyone waiting for instructions on what to do, because sometimes then the things they make just will not sell anywhere. But for something much freer, much more enterprising, something much more like the United States and like ourselves, which does give greater prosperity, now for that he needs to have more resources into the civil side, and for that he does need to have a measure of disarmament.
I am all for having security at a lower level of weaponry and that is why we negotiate steadily and heavily both on conventional and nuclear. But we must never fall for the ploy of trying to get American nuclear weapons out of Europe. Western Europe would not be free were it not for the United States and we must never have anyone succeeding in dividing Europe from the United States.
Interviewer
Do you regard this talk of a common European home as such a ploy?
Prime Minister
No I do not think it is a ploy. I think that the things that Mr Gorbachev is doing, and it is courageous, it is bold, he has a vision and he is going towards it and he is not going to be stopped and he is not going to be deflected, and that I understand, that kind of courage I understand.
So things are gradually going to change. Already we are putting hands across the divide. We have trading agreements and many relationships with, for example, Hungary and more now with Poland, than we used to have. Gradually one hopes that as they come up to more freedom, more justice, more human rights, gradually that they will come nearer to our way of life and therefore the barrier will go down.
Interviewer
Is it inconceivable that they could one day, twenty-five years maybe, join the Common Market?
Prime Minister
Europe of course is larger than the Common Market, we always have to remember that. I do not know, they will have to have a market economy before they do that and that is a very considerable change. [end p9]
But the important thing is that things are moving in the right direction, but never let down your guard, never. There is a whole lot of other countries in the wider world and I am afraid hostilities can start anywhere. Always keep up your guard.
Interviewer
One final question. You seem to get on very well with Mr Gorbachev. Are you close to having some sort of special personal relationship with him? Is there a personal chemistry?
Prime Minister
We both debate and argue the same way, with no animosity at all, but with great interest in the arguments themselves and trying to get some resolution. Mikhail GorbachevHe did, right from the beginning, it was most unusual for a Soviet statesman to do that when he came four years ago. And I also made it clear that there was no way in which we in this country could ever be separated from the United States so there is no point in trying to do that and I did not try to break his relationships within the Warsaw Pact countries at all.
So we started on that basis. Now look, let us not get at one another, let us just see what we can do where we are now to improve the relationship, to try to carry out the Helsinki Agreements which were more freedom of movement, ideas and of people, to get more human rights. [end p10]
I mean I said to him: “We do not understand that you do not let people out. Our problem is not to have so many coming in.” And so we started very frankly and I made the relationship with the United States clear.
And so yes, it was a very unusual relationship, but no animosity, keen interest on developing these arguments, and then later, all of a sudden, he must have been thinking about it for a very long time, out of the blue, came these refreshing, historic, speeches. And it seemed as if he had a determination to match the vision.
And I think you know future generations will say that he was a man of destiny. It is very important, we must encourage it.