The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  That evening a dinner was given for me by Mr Trudeau in Toronto. A problem I was to find throughout this visit first surfaced acutely on this occasion. The dinner was preceded by a walkabout through a large crowd of Liberal Party supporters and the guests at the dinner itself seemed similarly partisan, though very welcoming. Although it was polite and friendly, Mr Trudeau’ speech emphasized the political differences between us. As he spoke, I took notes and used these as the basis of my off-the-cuff reply which took the form of a forthright defence of free enterprise. This brought cheers from the back of the hall though, as one of my party remarked, whether these came from Conservatives who had infiltrated the gathering or from Liberals who had been converted was unclear.

  From Canada I flew to Washington for a meeting with President Reagan. Overall, the President’ domestic political position was strong. In spite of the difficulties which the US budget deficit was causing, the American economy was in remarkably good shape. It was growing faster with markedly less inflation than when he came into office and there was widespread appreciation of this. As he himself used to say: ‘now that it is working, how come they don’t call it Reaganomics any more?’ The President had also set his imprint on East-West relations. The Soviets were now definitely on the defensive in international relations. They were the ones who would have to decide how to react to the forthcoming deployment by NATO of intermediate-range nuclear weapons. And they were in the dock as a result of the shooting down of the Korean Airliner. In Central America the Government of El Salvador which the United States had been backing against communist insurgency was looking stronger. Perhaps only in the Middle East had the Administration’ policy not proved even a qualified success. Arab-Israeli peace talks were unlikely to be resumed and there was a growing danger of the US and its allies becoming irrevocably sucked into the turbulent politics of the Lebanon. The President had yet to announce whether he would stand for a second term, but I thought and hoped that he would and it looked as if he would win.

  Our discussion that morning and over the lunch which followed covered a wide canvas. The President was optimistic about events in Central America. As he put it, El Salvador had not been in the news for a long time — because the Government there was winning and so the American media were deprived of their nightly stories told from the viewpoint of the guerillas. I raised the question of the US resuming the supply of arms to Argentina, telling him that a decision to do this would simply not be understood in Britain. The President said that he was aware of that, but there would be great pressure for the resumption of arms supplies if a civilian regime were established in Buenos Aires.

  I also took the opportunity to explain our opposition, which hitherto the Americans had always supported, to the inclusion of the British and French independent nuclear deterrents in the arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet insistence on the inclusion of our deterrents was simply a device to divert attention from the American proposal for deep reductions in strategic nuclear weapons. From the point of view of Britain, our deterrent constituted an irreducible minimum, but it was only 2.5 per cent of the Soviet strategic arsenal. I repeated what I had told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that morning: the inclusion of the British deterrent would logically mean that the United States could not have parity with the Soviet Union. Would that really be acceptable to the United States? Or if, say, the French decided to increase their nuclear weapons, would the United States really be prepared to cut its by an equivalent amount? The President seemed to take my point, which I found reassuring. I for my part was able to reassure him as regards the timetable for deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He had been concerned to learn that the crucial debate on this matter in the Bundestag had been delayed. He had no doubt about the firmness of Chancellor Kohl but he was not so sure about some of those around him. He was convinced that the whole Soviet strategy was still aimed at preventing deployment. I said that he should be in no doubt that Britain would deploy the intermediate-range nuclear missiles as planned, and I believed that West Germany would do the same.

  However, our discussion turned on the strategy we should pursue towards the Soviet Union generally over the years ahead. I had been giving a good deal of thought to this matter and had discussed it with the experts at a Chequers seminar.* I began by saying that we had to make the most accurate assessment of the Soviet system and the Soviet leadership — there was plenty of evidence available about both subjects — so as to establish a realistic relationship: whatever we thought of them, we all had to live on the same planet. I congratulated the President on his speech to the UN General Assembly after the shooting down of the Korean Airliner and said how right he was to insist that despite this outrage the arms control negotiations in Geneva should continue. The President agreed that now was not the time to isolate ourselves from the Soviet Union. When the USSR failed to prevent NATO’ INF deployment they might start to negotiate seriously. Like me, he had clearly been considering the way in which we should deal with the Soviets once that happened.

  The President argued that there were two points on which we had to form a judgement. First, the Russians seemed paranoid about their own security: did they really feel threatened by the West or were they merely trying to keep the offensive edge? The second question related to the control of Soviet power itself. He had always assumed that in the Soviet Union the Politburo controlled the military. But did the fact that the first public comments on the Korean Airliner incident had come from the military indicate that the Politburo was now dominated by the generals? As regards negotiation with the Soviets, we should never forget that the main reason why they were at the negotiating table in Geneva at all was the build-up of American defences. They would never be influenced by sweet reason. However, if they saw that the United States had the will and the determination to build up its defences as far as necessary, the Soviet attitude might change because they knew they could not keep up the pace. He believed that the Russians were now close to the limit in their expenditure on defence: their internal economic difficulties were such that they could not substantially increase the proportion of their resources devoted to the military. The United States, on the other hand, had the capacity to double its military output. The task was to convince Moscow that the only way it could remain equal was by negotiations because they could not afford to compete in weaponry for very much longer. The President recalled a cartoon which had Mr Brezhnev saying to a Russian general, ‘I liked the arms race better when we were the only ones in it.’

  Now that the Soviet system has crumbled along the lines he envisaged, his words seem prophetic. It may be that one reason why President Reagan and I made such a good team was that, although we shared the same analysis of the way the world worked, we were very different people. He had an accurate grasp of the strategic picture but left the tactical detail to others. I was conscious that we must manage our relations with the communists on a day-to-day basis in such a way that events never got out of control. This was why throughout my discussion with the President I kept on coming back to the need to consider precisely how we should deal with the Soviets when they faced up to reality and returned to the negotiating table in a more reasonable frame of mind.

  That evening I made a speech at a dinner held by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States in which I set out my views on these questions:

  We have to deal with the Soviet Union. But we must deal with it not as we would like it to be, but as it is. We live on the same planet and we have to go on sharing it. We stand ready therefore, if and when the circumstances are right, to talk to the Soviet leadership. But we must not fall into the trap of projecting our own morality on to the Soviet leaders. They do not share our aspirations; they are not constrained by our ethics; they have always considered themselves exempt from the rules that bind other states.

  I also had a slightly different message which I wanted those who did not share all of President Reagan’ and my analys
is to heed:

  Does it need saying that the Soviet Union has nothing to fear from us? For several years after the war the United States had a monopoly of nuclear weapons, but it was a threat to no one. Democracies are naturally peace-loving. There is so much which our people wish to do with their lives, so many uses for our resources other than military equipment. The use of force and the threat of force to advance our beliefs are no part of our philosophy.

  The speech was widely reported and generally well received in the United States. But I was soon to feel, in the light of America’ response to a political crisis in a small island in the Caribbean, that at least part of the message had not been understood.

  PROBLEMS IN THE TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONSHIP: LEBANON AND GRENADA

  Unexpectedly, the autumn of 1983 turned out to be a testing time for Anglo-US relations. This was because we adopted different attitudes towards crises in the Lebanon and in Grenada.

  These events took place against the background of great strategic decisions for the West. November 1983 was the time we had agreed for the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Britain and West Germany: I had to ensure that nothing interfered with it. Doing so depended to a large degree on demonstrating that the United States could indeed be relied upon as a trustworthy ally.

  I had wider objectives as well. I needed to ensure that whatever short-term difficulties we had with the United States, the long-term relationship between our two countries, on which I knew Britain’ security and the free West’ interests depended, would not be damaged. I was equally determined that international law should be respected and that relations between states should not be allowed to degenerate into a game of realpolitik played out between contesting power blocs. Britain had fought the Falklands War in defence of a principle of international law — as well as to defend our people.

  This is not the place to describe the full tragedy of the Lebanon. That formerly prosperous and democratic state has been shattered by civil war since the early 1970s and made to serve as the battleground for the competing ambitions of Syrians, Palestinians, Islamic fundamentalists, Israelis and local warlords.

  Shortly before the end of the Falklands War Israel had launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, which led in August 1982 to the deployment of a mainly American Multi-National Force (MNF) in Beirut. The MNF was withdrawn after a brief period but returned in September following the massacres that took place in the Palestinian refugee camps in the suburbs of Beirut which shocked the world. At this point it consisted of American, French and Italian forces. The Lebanese Government asked Britain to make a contribution too. I was reluctant, and explained that in my view we were overextended as it was. But they sent a special envoy to see me who told me that Britain held a unique position and that it was vital that it be represented in the Force. So I agreed, with the support of Michael Heseltine and Geoffrey Howe, that about 100 of our men currently stationed in Cyprus with the UN should join the MNF. In practice, the British contingent had a slightly different role from the others, manning no substantial fixed positions. The mandate of the MNF was to assist the Lebanese Government and the Lebanese Armed Forces to restore their authority over the Beirut area and so help to ensure the safety of the population there.

  I am always uneasy about any commitment of British forces if it is made without very clear objectives. The original limited mandate of the MNF was indeed clear, at least on paper. But later in September we came under strong pressure from the Americans and the Italians to increase our commitment and to extend the mandate. The doubt in everyone’ mind was whether the current force would be sufficient to allow the Lebanese Government and Army to restore their authority. But if it was not sufficient, that fact was, of course, as much an argument for withdrawing the MNF as for expanding it. I held a meeting to discuss these matters with ministers and advisers at Chequers on Friday 9 September. I was alarmed by reports that the US seemed determined to take a much tougher line with the Syrians than seemed sensible. Although Syria was certainly an obstacle to progress, its support for any solution to the Lebanese crisis would be essential.

  The military and political situation in the Lebanon was deteriorating. In the Chouf mountains south of Beirut, the forces of the Druze minority, historically friendly to Britain, were locked in a conflict with the Lebanese Army which neither side seemed able to win: it looked like a military stalemate. The Druze were under pressure from their Syrian backers to secure wider objectives than they themselves probably wanted. Certainly, they had no quarrel of their own with the British and sought to avoid firing on our position. On one occasion during a small lunch party at Downing Street I was told that a Druze shell had fallen close to our troops. Michael Heseltine was at the lunch, so I asked him to telephone the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, to have the shelling stopped — and it was. Our force was small, exposed and isolated, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about what might happen.

  For their part, the Lebanese Government and the Christian President Amin Gemayel were unable to free themselves from their identification with the old Phalange movement and so could not draw on wider Lebanese support. As a result they had to lean increasingly on the Americans. Three-quarters of the Lebanon was now occupied by the Syrians or the Israelis and the prospects for peace and stability for the remainder seemed bleak.

  Then on Sunday 23 October a suicide bomber drove a lorry laden with explosives into the basement of the US Marine headquarters in Beirut. The building was totally destroyed. A second bomb shortly afterwards did the same to the headquarters of the French Paratroopers. Altogether 242 American and 58 French troops were killed — in total more than Britain had lost in the Falklands War. Responsibility was claimed by two militant Shia Muslim groups. My immediate reaction was one of shock at the carnage and disgust at the fanatics who had caused it. But I was also conscious of the impact it would have on the position and morale of the MNF. On the one hand, it would be wrong to give the terrorists the satisfaction of seeing the international force driven out. On the other, what had happened highlighted the enormous dangers of our continued presence and the question arose about whether we were justified in continuing to risk the lives of our troops for what was increasingly no clear purpose.

  At this point my attention was abruptly diverted by events on the other side of the world. The humiliation inflicted on the United States by the Beirut bombing undoubtedly influenced its reaction to the events which were taking place on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean.

  On Wednesday 19 October 1983 a pro-Soviet military coup had overthrown the Government of Grenada. The new regime were certainly a vicious and unstable bunch. With the exception of General Austin, who led the coup, they were all in their twenties and a number of them had a record of violence and torture. Maurice Bishop, the overthrown Prime Minister, and five of his close supporters were shot dead. There was outrage at what had happened among most of the other Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Barbados wanted military intervention in which they would have liked the Americans and us to take part. My immediate reaction was that it would be most unwise of the Americans, let alone us, to accede to this suggestion. I was afraid that it would put foreign communities in Grenada at severe risk. There were some 200 British civilians there and many more Americans. The main organization of Caribbean States, CARICOM, was not prepared to agree to military intervention in Grenada. However, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the OECS, decided unanimously to put together a force and called on other governments to help in restoring peace and order in the island. Clearly, the American reaction would be crucial.

  It was easy to see why the United States might be tempted to go in and deal with the thugs who had taken over in Grenada. But as I always pointed out to the Americans afterwards, though apparently to little effect, Grenada was not transformed from a democratic island paradise into a Soviet surrogate overnight in October 1983. The Marxist Maurice Bishop had already come to power there through an earlier coup in March 1979: he h
ad suspended the Constitution and put many of his opponents in gaol. He was, indeed, a personal friend of Fidel Castro. The Americans had had hostile relations with his Government for years. Bishop was, admittedly, something of a pragmatist and had even made a visit to the United States at the end of May 1983. It seems that it was, in part, a dispute about the Grenada Government’ attitude to private enterprise which brought about the clash with his colleagues in the Marxist ‘New Jewel Movement’ that ultimately led to his fall.

  The new ‘hemispheric’ strategy which President Reagan’ Administration was pursuing, combined with experience of living beside the Soviet satellite of Cuba, in our view led the United States to exaggerate the threat which a Marxist Grenada posed. Our intelligence suggested that the Soviets had only a peripheral interest in the island. By contrast, the Government of Cuba certainly was deeply involved. A new airfield was being constructed as an extension to the existing airport. It was due to open in March 1984, though aircraft would be able to land there from about January. The Americans saw this as having a military purpose. It did indeed seem likely that the Cubans, who were providing the workforce for the project — and an uncertain number of Cuban military personnel also — regarded it in this light. For them, it would be a way of managing more easily the traffic of their thousands of troops in Angola and Ethiopia back and forth to Cuba. It would also be useful if the Cubans wished to intervene closer to home. But our view remained that the Grenada Government’ main purpose was, as they claimed, a commercial one, planning to cater for the undoubtedly exaggerated projections of their currently minimal tourist industry. So the position on the eve of the overthrow of Maurice Bishop was that Grenada had an unsavoury and undemocratic regime with close and friendly relations with Cuba. On such an analysis, the coup of 19 October 1983, morally objectionable as it was, was a change in degree rather than in kind.