In November 1984, roughly a year after the downing of KAL 007, the Soviets walked out of the Geneva talks on intermediate-range missiles. They then walked out of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty discussions on long-range missiles, breaking off all contact with the United States. There was now no personal contact between American and Soviet leaders.
This extraordinarily dangerous impasse, Thatcher believed, made it incumbent upon her to take the diplomatic initiative. She rejected Geoffrey Howe’s suggestion that she invite the Soviet premier, Konstantin Chernenko, to visit Britain. She was not prepared to be that friendly. Instead, she issued invitations to several lower-ranking members of the Politburo. The Soviet agricultural secretary, a man by the name of Gorbachev, responded with interest.
Thatcher knew little about Gorbachev save that his wife was reputed to be less unattractive than the wives of the other Soviet leaders. In 1984, there was no reason beyond this to expect that Gorbachev would be much different from the other walking corpses of the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev had never visited the United States. He had never met Reagan. Still furious with the Soviets, Reagan had shown no interest in meeting him. But this Gorbachev fellow seemed keen to come to Britain, so Thatcher asked him to join her for lunch, at Chequers, on December 16.
Charles Powell remembers Gorbachev’s arrival at Chequers vividly. “It was an extraordinary moment. You won’t have seen Chequers, but it’s an old English country house, with a great hall at the entrance, a huge fire, a few members of the government standing there—and nobody had any clue what to expect. I mean, Gorbachev was not known outside the Soviet Union. He’d once been outside to Canada.211 Nobody had taken any notice of him. He came into this room, beaming, bouncing on the balls of his feet, this smartly dressed wife with him, and everyone present just simply had to change gear . . . this is not Khrushchev, this is not Andropov, this is not Chernenko, this is an entirely new sort of person. He engaged from the beginning in jovial banter with people and ordered a drink before lunch. Then he and Margaret Thatcher sat next to each other at lunch, and neither of them ate a thing. They spent the whole time talking at each other, and arguing about things—”
Thatcher walking with Gorbachev at the Brize Norton Air Force base in 1987. “Certainly the two leaders were attracted to each other, relished each other’s company,” recalled her Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe. “But neither Margaret nor Mikhail ever completely lowered their guard.” (Courtesy of Graham Wiltshire)
“Right from the start? Arguing right from the start?”
“Well, arguing was sort of Thatcher’s raison d’être—”
“It sounds as if he sort of got that right away, understood it, related to it?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely. He enjoyed it. And then we retired into another room. It was just him, and her, and me, and the then Soviet ambassador here, and that man from the Politburo who was Gorbachev’s great ally, he’d been exiled to be ambassador to Canada, and whose name now escapes me, began with K.212 And in that small room, they talked for two and a half hours as against the half-hour scheduled. Gorbachev—immediately, again, you saw the difference. I mean, the advisors just shut up. He had no briefs, no documents, he had a few little handwritten notes in green ink, which he occasionally produced, the odd newspaper clipping from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times—one was about nuclear war, I remember particularly. About nuclear winter. And he talked absolutely self-confidently and assuredly, and he wasn’t even leader at the time. Chernenko was still in charge. Gorbachev was still just a member of the Politburo, technically in charge of agriculture. This was new ground . . . I mean, we’d had this succession of geriatrics, Chernenko, and before him Andropov and Brezhnev, who could barely stand up and who just sort of read from bits of paper. Here was a man who talked and argued like a Western politician, didn’t need briefs and notes and advisors—and he sat there and slugged it out with her! This was somebody you could really engage with.”
The then Soviet ambassador to whom Powell is referring was a man named Leonid Zamyatin. “This was how it went,” Zamyatin remembered. “They sat down in armchairs at a fireplace, Thatcher took off her patent-leather shoes, tucked her feet under her chair and got out her handbag.”213
I’ve spoken now to many men who specifically remember Thatcher kicking off her shoes and curling up her feet in that flirtatious way. I have looked in vain for a photo or video clip that shows her doing this. It seems she never did it with a camera present. She was obviously well aware that it was a coquettish and provocative gesture, and well aware, too, that “barefoot and cuddly” was not the image she wished, as a world leader, to project widely.
I have pieced together what happened next from several different accounts—her memoirs, Gorbachev’s memoirs, Powell’s recollections, Zamyatin’s, various official memoranda of the meeting. I am fairly sure that it went roughly this way:
Gorbachev suddenly suggested they both get rid of their briefing papers.
“Gladly!” replied Thatcher, putting her papers back in her handbag.
Gorbachev told Thatcher it was time to end the Cold War.
Thatcher told Gorbachev it was time to end communism.
Gorbachev told Thatcher that communism was superior to capitalism.
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Gorbachev. You can barely feed your own citizens.”
“To the contrary, Mrs. Thatcher! Our people live joyfully.”
“Oh, do they? Then why do so many of them want to leave? And why do you prevent them from leaving?”
“They can leave if they want to!”
“That’s not what I hear. And by the way, we’re not happy about the money you’re sending to Arthur Scargill.”
“We have nothing to do with that.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding? You and I both know that your economy is centrally controlled. Not a kopeck leaves without the Politburo’s knowledge.”
“Nyet, nyet, you misunderstand. It’s not centrally controlled.”
“Oh, no? How does a Russian factory decide how much to produce?”
“We tell them.”
Perhaps Thatcher laughed. Perhaps she snorted. I like to imagine that her gifted mimic of a translator laughed or snorted along with her even as the Soviet translator remained a leaden lump. “The Soviet Union and the West,” she said, “have entirely different ways of life and government. You don’t like ours, we don’t like yours. But it is in our common interest—indeed it is our duty—to avoid a conflict.”
“But the United States has been targeting us with missiles since the 1950s!”
“Of course it has. You’ve been trying to export communism by force. Your missiles are aimed at us. What did you expect?”
I can’t determine what Gorbachev said next. But something prompted Thatcher to tell him that Reagan was an honorable man. When he took office, he had put his heart and soul into writing a letter to Brezhnev. He had written it by hand. After months of silence, he received only a typed, pro forma reply.
Perhaps Gorbachev was moved. Or perhaps he rolled his eyes—how just like a woman to be offended because we didn’t hand-write the letter.
Thatcher, recalled Zamyatin, “had a definite womanish feeling towards Gorbachev.”
“I found myself liking him,” recalled Thatcher.
Gorbachev’s Version:
I unfolded a large diagram representing all nuclear arsenals, grouped into a thousand little squares.
“Each of these squares,” I told Mrs. Thatcher, “suffices to eradicate all life on earth. Consequently, the available nuclear arsenals have a capacity to wipe out all life a thousand times.”
Her reaction was very eloquent and emotional. I believe she was quite sincere.214
Thatcher’s Version:
At one point, with a touch of theater, he pulled out a full page diagram from The New York Times, illustrating the explosive power of the weapons of the two superpowers compared with the explosive power available in the Second World War.
He was well versed in the fashionable arguments then raging about the prospect of a “nuclear winter” resulting from a nuclear exchange. I was not much moved by all this.215
Obviously, I cannot say exactly what transpired at that meeting. But this much we know for sure: Thatcher emerged from that meeting and declared, “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business with him.”
This was one of the great turning points in the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher had met a communist she didn’t hate.
Later that month, Thatcher visited Reagan at Camp David. She told Reagan that Gorbachev was “an unusual Russian.” He was “much less constrained, more charming, open to discussion and debate.” He did not “cry or complain” when she criticized the Soviet record on human rights.216
Gorbachev, she told Reagan, had asked her to give him a message : “Tell your friend President Reagan not to go ahead with space weapons.” She reported this to Reagan and told him that she had, in turn, told Gorbachev that Britain supported Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) research. A White House scribe took detailed notes of this meeting:Mrs. Thatcher underlined that she had told Gorbachev there is no point in trying to divide Britain from the United States. This ploy will never succeed . . . She also told Gorbachev that she and the President have known each other since long before they assumed their current positions and dividing Europe from America is simply “not on.”217
Reagan responded with great pleasure. He was “simply amazed” by the parallels in their thought; it was wonderful that she had told Gorbachev exactly what he would have said. How gratified he was, he added, that Thatcher supported his much-misunderstood SDI program.
Yes, yes, Thatcher assured him. “The wretched press has tried to make out that we have major differences. This is simply not true.” Then, very gently, she added that while of course her solidarity went without saying, she did have some . . . concerns. Nothing serious, mind you. It was just that Mutual Assured Destruction was a doctrine with a proven record. There had thus far been no nuclear war between the superpowers. Was Reagan entirely sure it was wise to tamper with this formula?
Mrs. Thatcher noted that the President said earlier that initial indications are that an SDI program is feasible. Mrs. Thatcher said she must admit that personally she had some doubts. In the past, scientific genius had always developed a counter system. Even if an SDI system proved 95 percent successful—a significant success rate—over 60 million people would still die from those weapons that got through . . .
The President said we need to address the points Mrs. Thatcher had raised and to reach agreement on SDI, a program he called worth pursuing . . . He recognized that the Soviets have great respect for our technology. They also must be concerned about our economic strength. It will be especially difficult for them to keep spending such vast sums on defense. Such spending is in neither of our interests.
The President continued that he also recognized the great losses the Soviets suffered in World War II—20 million or more—and accepted their obsession with security. But . . . Common sense tells us that one needs negotiating tools when bargaining with the Soviets, or anyone else for that matter . . . We must deal with the Soviets from a position of strength. But we also know that in a nuclear war there would be no winners.
Mrs. Thatcher interjected that this is why she had emphasized and praised the deterrence system that has worked so well for so many years. Strength is our best deterrence.
The President agreed and said he is trying to convince the Soviets that we mean them no harm . . .
Mrs. Thatcher replied that it is correct to emphasize military balance, not superiority. Balance gives us security . . . Saying she didn’t wish to debate strategic theory, Mrs. Thatcher noted that some claim SDI would be an incentive for the Soviets to produce more offensive systems and could encourage the Soviets to launch a preemptive first strike. From our point of view, said Mrs. Thatcher, deterrence remains our fundamental objective.218
From a woman not generally known for her tact, this is an impressively circumspect way of putting it. “Some” claim SDI would encourage the Soviets to launch a first strike. Yes, yes, of course I support you, Mr. President, we are absolutely as one, SDI is a marvelous idea, simply marvelous, but have you perhaps thought about the 60 million people who would die even if this harebrained fantasy of yours works, which it won’t?
In her memoirs, Thatcher engages in some rather striking revisionism about SDI. “I had no doubt,” she writes, “about the rightness of his commitment to press ahead with the program. Looking back, it is now clear to me that Ronald Reagan’s original decision on SDI was the single most important of his presidency.”219 It is true that she supported Reagan and defended SDI against its critics both in Britain and America. It is obviously not true that she had no doubts.
Following this meeting, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger sent Thatcher a brief note. “Dear Mrs. Thatcher,” he wrote. “I wanted to especially thank you for the opposition [sic] to present the technical side of the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative. We feel that very substantial progress is being made, although there is a long way to go.”220 Perhaps the substitution of the word “opposition” for “opportunity” was just a typo; perhaps it was a classic Freudian slip.
Although Thatcher did not persuade Reagan to abandon SDI—indeed, he managed at this meeting to persuade her that there might be some merit to the idea—she did convey to him a message that proved enormously important when Reagan subsequently met Gorbachev. There was, she pointed out, a certain logic to the Soviet Union’s suspicions about this program. If Reagan was to insist upon it, he must succeed in convincing Gorbachev that he was a man of peace.
Chernenko expired in 1985. Gorbachev became the new general secretary of the Communist Party. Some historians believe that Gorbachev’s election was a direct response to the Reagan-era arms buildup; it was this, they argue, that convinced the Soviets they must embrace radical economic reform so better to compete with the West. I do not know whether this is true. It is certainly true that by this time, anxiety within the Kremlin about the state of the Soviet economy was acute. It cannot have helped that both Britain and the United States appeared to be reversing the dire economic trends of the 1970s, which had been hopefully interpreted in the Kremlin (and in much of the West) as capitalism’s death rattle. Capitalism now seemed to be up and about and crankily demanding its boiled egg, even as the Soviet Union was frantically creating commissions to solve the problem of women’s pantyhose.
In 1985, impressed by Thatcher’s favorable evaluation of the new Soviet premier, Reagan invited Gorbachev to Geneva. “Reagan and Gorbachev each spoke in direct and positive terms,” recalls Secretary of State George Shultz. “The personal chemistry was apparent.”
Expectations matter: If a trusted friend assures you that you’ll find a man likeable, you will be more apt to find the likeability in the man. “As we shook hands for the first time,” Reagan recalled, “I had to admit—as Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada predicted I would—that there was something likable about Gorbachev.”221
Compare the tone of Reagan’s speech following the downing of KAL 007 to the letter he sent to Gorbachev immediately after the summit:. . . I found our meetings of great value . . . a better understanding of your attitudes . . . struck by your concern that [SDI] is somehow designed to secure a strategic advantage—even to permit a first-strike capability . . . I can understand, as you explained so eloquently, that these are matters which cannot be taken on faith . . . [but] we should find a way, in practical terms, to relieve the concerns you have expressed . . . we will find a solution . . . I can assure you that the United States does not believe that the Soviet Union is the cause of all the world’s ills . . . genuinely enjoyed meeting you . . . already looking forward to showing you something of our country next year . . . 222
When Reagan returned from Geneva, he convened the National Security Council. The head of the American arms negotiation delegati
on, Max Kampelman, recalls the scene: “Sitting in the situation room, the president began by saying: ‘Maggie was right. We can do business with this man.’ His reference to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher prompted nods of assent. Then, in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, he reported that he had suggested to Mr. Gorbachev that their negotiations could possibly lead to the United States and the Soviet Union eliminating all their nuclear weapons.”223
I am not saying that Reagan would not have liked Gorbachev if Thatcher had not told him he ought to, nor am I saying that he would not have taken Gorbachev’s concerns seriously if Thatcher had not taken pains to explain them to him, but—well, yes, maybe I am saying just that. That is the kind of influence she had on him.
Thatcher’s friendship with Reagan has been widely described, so I will add only a few more details to the portrait. I was surprised to hear from so many people that she envied Reagan. “More than anyone else,” stresses Charles Powell. “She thought he had this incredible ability to get over a very tough message in very gentle language and tones. It was quite true, if you listen to him speak, I mean, the content and the tone were completely at odds with each other. This gentle, avuncular tone about condemning communism to fire and brimstone was remarkable, and she knew she couldn’t do that.”
“That’s right, exactly,” agrees Nigel Lawson. “He had all these warm, lovable qualities which she lacked.” There is something poignant about this image of Margaret Thatcher, wishing she could be loved as Reagan was loved, and knowing she simply wasn’t lovable.
In Lawson’s memoirs, he remarks that Thatcher found George Bush—the elder one—a less inspiring figure than Reagan, and as a result, when Bush was elected, simply transferred her affections wholesale to Gorbachev. Lawson seems to be hinting at a compulsion, in Thatcher’s makeup, to look up to at least one man, a need that clearly could not be satisfied within her own political circle, given that she was primus inter pares. If you are inclined to look at people through a certain prism, you might wonder, reading this, if Thatcher felt the need to have in her life a father figure. Given Thatcher’s well-known veneration of her father, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Was she perhaps reprising in her relationships with Reagan and Gorbachev a familiar family role?
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