Interviewer
Prime Minister, how deep is your confidence that President Gorbachev and his reforms will survive and prosper?
Prime Minister
I believe Mikhail Gorbachevhe will get through. I believe they will survive. I believe that the elections that he has just held indicated that there is a totally new spirit and a new determination and feeling of independence in the Soviet Union among the people. That is good.
Interviewer
There are dangers—he indicated that in his speech on Thursday night. You think he has the confidence and capacity to see it through and to make the necessary changes? [end p1]
Prime Minister
There are dangers in any great endeavour. I think it was easier to bring about the greater freedom of speech, freedom of movement and political freedom than it is to bring about the economic freedom, they being the sort of economy where no-one does anything until they are told to do it and they only do what they are told to do.
To change from that to people using their own initiative, their own enterprise, to having to sell the things they produce as distinct from just producing them and leaving them in piles, is quite a different sort of economy and that is going to be much more difficult and take longer, but I think the fact that they have got this far with their political reform will bring about the ideas and the determination to take it through.
Interviewer
Your talks have been described as warm, even passionate. Is this the start now of a new special relationship?
Prime Minister
No. I think it is a kind of pattern of meetings. We got on very well right at the beginning because we were able to discuss without any animosity, but with a complete candour, and trying to get to grips with the issues and not trying to do the impossible. [end p2] That is to say, I remember right from the beginning saying: “Mr. Gorbachev, look! Do not try to separate us from the United States! You will not succeed! We are totally loyal to the United States, the United States to us and totally loyal to NATO, so there is no point in doing that and I do not try to prise you away from your particular allies. Now let us see what we can do because we believe that the relationship between us should be more than an arms control one, getting down the number of weapons. It should be on a wider basis than that and therefore more constructive!” That, in fact, has come about.
The arms control measures are the obvious ones and getting the Intermediate Nuclear Weapons Agreement, which was a great step forward, but the other things, the wider relationship both bilaterally and with the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council working together, has gone ahead very well and it is on this firm basis that we built it.
Interviewer
Do you implicitly trust him?
Prime Minister
If he promised me that he would do certain things, he has carried out those promises. Therefore, I come to the conclusion that he is not the sort of person who will make a promise unless he is resolved to carry it through. That is a very good basis for personal trust between two leaders. [end p3]
Interviewer
And yet, there is this fundamental difference is there not, in terms of your world vision—you believe that we still have to have nuclear weapons; he believes in a nuclear-free world?
Are you feeling or suggesting that he is being a little bit naive or perhaps even dishonest in believing in a world without nuclear weapons?
Prime Minister
You cannot dis-invent the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons any more than you can dis-invent the knowledge of how to make dynamite or any kind of explosive. You just cannot!
Human nature is not going to change that much. People have been born who wish to control other parts of the world. They use terrorist methods; they use barbaric methods. They are not going to stop suddenly being born now.
What we have to do—those who believe in freedom and justice and peace—is to make certain that we are strong enough and stay strong enough, in spite of all blandishments or good intentions, stay strong enough to deter that kind of person who is totally unpredictable. We do not know what will befall us. What we do know is that if we stay strong, we are in a position to say to them: “Don't you start anything! If you do, you will be destroyed because we are strong enough to fight back!” and we shall keep the nuclear weapon. [end p4]
Interviewer
Are you in any sense concerned that his nuclear-free message presented by such a charming leader—and you will admit that he has a certain amount of charm—might in a sense undermine public resolve within the NATO countries to take the necessary steps as you see it in terms of modernising weapons?
Prime Minister
No, I am not. He came out very strongly against us modernising our weapons, but as I told him: “You have modernised yours. Not only that, you have far more than we have! Not only that, you have far more of all kinds of nuclear weapons than we have! That is what you have got to look at and I do not expect you just to give them up, because I think you perhaps believe that they have a deterrent value just as much as we do!”
But you know, the place to get lower levels of weaponry is at the negotiating table and there are three negotiations going on: one between the United States and the Soviet Union to get down the intercontinental ballistic missiles—the big ones—to 50 percent of what they are now. If we achieve that, it will be a great practical step forward. No airy-fairy stuff, but a great practical step forward. [end p5]
We are also negotiating on trying to get rid of chemical weapons. They have got far more than we have. We got rid of ours—they did not follow—so they are not in a position to lecture us on chemical weapons. Right! We want clear verification and the knowledge that if we go to inspect something over there, they will not say: “No, no, you cannot go into that building, only this one!” We shall have an effective inspection.
And the third negotiations that have just opened in Vienna are on conventional weapons, but they have already got twice as much as we have—that is our figuring—and therefore they will have to come down much further than we do before they get to parity.
Practical progress on those negotiations in fact means far more than the kind of talking in speeches.
Interviewer
You go to Germany at the end of April to talk to a reluctant Chancellor Kohl on this question of modernising short-range missiles and then we have the full NATO Summit in May. Do you think that Chancellor Kohl and the other European leaders will have been listening closely to President Gorbachev when he said on Friday in the Guildhall that he did not believe a decision on modernising would help the position in Europe at present? Will they listen to him or to you? [end p6]
Prime Minister
I shall put the argument to Helmut Kohlhim again and again. The Soviet Union has modernised her weapons. We believe in the nuclear weapon. It is part of NATO's flexible response. Obsolete weapons do not deter. You do not base a defence policy on someone else's good intentions. You base it on their armoury and what they have got and you also look around the rest of the world and there are some pretty unpleasant people around with some pretty heavy weaponry and at the moment they are also being sold some pretty nasty attack aircraft. So you have to have a defence strong enough, whatever unpredictable events may happen, and if you do not keep it you may find that other people are quietly accumulating weapons and in a position to use them long before we could turn round and make them. Today's weapons are so much more complicated, it would take years and years both to design and produce them. So you stay strong. That is the lesson of history, that is the history of keeping the peace with freedom and justice.
Interviewer
Finally, Prime Minister, on the question of the Queen being invited to go to Moscow, you described your reaction as being one of happiness. So these stories we heard some time back that Downing Street might be unhappy if the Queen did go to Moscow were untrue? [end p7]
Prime Minister
I read the press with amazement but, then, quite often I do read the press with amazement. It is like a journey into the unknown! They were quite untrue.
Interviewer
Thank you very much, Prime Minister!