The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990

PEACE AND ARMAMENTS

On Wednesday 23 June 1982 I travelled to New York to attend a special session of the General Assembly on disarmament, which the United Nations had called while the Falklands campaign was still in progress. The speech I made expressed my view of the role of defence and negotiations on disarmament with singular clarity. I had become increasingly unhappy about the language used on such occasions. Everyone talked about peace as if that in itself were the sole aim. But peace is not enough without freedom and justice and sometimes — as we were demonstrating in the Falklands — it was necessary to sacrifice peace if freedom and justice were to prevail. I was also convinced that much cant was spoken about the arms race, as if by slowing down the process of improving our defences we would make peace more certain. History had repeatedly demonstrated quite the opposite.

I began by quoting President Roosevelt: ‘We, born to freedom and believing in freedom, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.’ I then went on to note that nuclear war was indeed a terrible threat, but conventional war a terrible reality. Since the atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima and Nagasaki there had been no conflicts in which nuclear weapons had been used — but some 140 conflicts fought with conventional weapons in which approaching 10 million people had died. In any case:

This was the analysis which underlay the defence and security policies I intended the Government to pursue. It provided me with a view of international power politics without which we would have had no clear sense of direction. But of course it did not of itself resolve particular problems. Throughout my first years in office I repeatedly found myself trying to reconcile five different objectives. First, there could only be strictly limited resources available for defence, particularly when the economy was growing slowly or not at all. This meant that although defence expenditure was increased, it was vital that better value for money be obtained. Second, we had regularly to assess the priority we would give to the demands of NATO policy and those other areas of British interest outside the NATO area. Third, Britain had to help ensure that NATO responded effectively to the steadily increasing Soviet military threat. Fourth, as part of this, it was vital to maintain western unity behind American leadership. Britain, among European countries, and I, among European leaders, were uniquely placed to do that. Finally, nowhere more than in defence and foreign policy does what I have come to consider ‘Thatcher’s law’ apply — in politics the unexpected happens. You have to be prepared and able to face it. There was to be no lack of examples in my years in office.

THE MILITARY BALANCE

Well before I entered Downing Street I was preoccupied with the balance of military power between the NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact. NATO has always been a defensive alliance of western style democracies. It was founded in April 1949 in response to the growing aggression of Soviet policy, made plain by events such as the Soviet-backed communist takeover in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin blockade the previous year. Although the United States is the leading power in NATO, ultimately it can only seek to persuade not coerce. In such a relationship the danger of dissension always exists. The Soviet aim, only thinly disguised, right up until the time when a united Germany remained in NATO, was to drive a wedge between America and her European allies. I always regarded it as one of Britain’s most important roles to see that such a strategy failed.

There are other fundamental differences between NATO and its opponents. The democratic freedoms our peoples enjoy make it in practice impossible for the state to take more than a certain share of national income for military purposes. Moreover, the openness of our western societies, though they make us stronger perhaps when sacrifice is required in a manifest crisis, also make us slow to respond to insidious threats. Democracies do not, with very few exceptions, start wars. The only threat NATO ever posed to the Soviet bloc is the threat that ideas of freedom and justice pose to the masters of captive nations.

But from its foundation in May 1955 the Warsaw Pact was always an instrument of Soviet power. In 1956 in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia the Soviets had shown that any movement in eastern Europe which might threaten their own military interests would be crushed without mercy or apology. The experts might and did argue about the precise details of Soviet military doctrine. But what was clear to me and to anyone prepared to reflect on past events and present circumstances was that the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact ‘allies’ could not be trusted to refrain from adventurism in Europe any more than in the Third World.

Moreover, by the time we took office the Soviets were ruthlessly pressing ahead to gain military advantage. Soviet military spending, which was believed to be some five times the published figures, took between 12 and 14 per cent of the Soviet Union’s GNP.[38] The Warsaw Pact outnumbered NATO by three-to-one in main battle tanks and artillery and by more than two-to-one in tactical aircraft. Moreover, the Soviets were rapidly improving the quality of their equipment — tanks, submarines, surface ships and aircraft. The build-up of the Soviet Navy enabled them to project their power across the world. Improvements in Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences threatened the credibility of the alliance’s nuclear deterrent — not least the British independent deterrent — at the same time as the Soviets were approaching parity in strategic missiles with the United States.

INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR WEAPONS (INF)

It was, however, in what in the jargon are known as ‘long-range theatre nuclear forces’ (LRTNF) — usually called intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) — that the most pressing and difficult decisions were required. The so-called ‘dual-track’ agreement to modernize NATO’s medium-range nuclear weapons, while engaging in talks with the Soviet Union on arms control, had been taken in principle by the previous Labour Government; whether they would have seen the decision through to deployment I somewhat doubt.

This agreement was needed to deal with the threat from new Soviet nuclear weapons. The Soviet SS-20 mobile ballistic missiles and their new supersonic Backfire bomber could strike western European targets from the territory of the Soviet Union. But the Americans had no equivalent weapons stationed on European soil. The only NATO weapons able to strike the USSR from Europe were those carried by the ageing UK Vulcan bombers and the F1–11s stationed in Britain. Both forces could be vulnerable to a Soviet first strike. Of course, the United States could be expected by an attacking Soviet army at some point to have recourse to its own strategic nuclear weapons. But the essence of deterrence is its credibility. Now that the Soviet Union had achieved a broad parity in strategic nuclear weapons, some thought that this reduced the likelihood of the United States taking such action. In any case, there were many in Europe who suggested that the United States would not risk its own cities in defence of Europe.

Why would the Soviets wish to acquire this new capability to win nuclear war in Europe? The answer was that they hoped ultimately to split the alliance.

For NATO, however, the possession of effective medium-range nuclear forces in Europe had a very different purpose. NATO’s strategy was based on having a range of conventional and nuclear weapons so that the USSR could never be confident of overcoming NATO at one level of weaponry without triggering a response at a higher level leading ultimately to full-scale nuclear war. This strategy of ‘flexible response’ would not be effective if there were no Europe-based nuclear weapons as a link between the conventional and strategic nuclear response. NATO knew that the Warsaw Pact forces would never be held for more than a short time if they attacked with all the strength at their disposal in central Europe. That is why NATO repeatedly pledged that although it would never use military force first, it could not play into the Soviet hands of renouncing first use of nuclear weapons once it had been attacked. So only by modernizing its intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe could NATO’s strategy retain its credibility. It was clear from the first that this would not be easy.

On the morning of Friday 11 May 1979 I discussed the issue with Helmut Schmidt in London. He was very concerned at the effect on German public opinion of stationing more nuclear missiles on German soil, although of course he had been one of the principal authors of the strategy. The Americans had developed a longer range equivalent of the Pershing missiles already stationed in West Germany and Cruise missiles, which could be launched from the air, sea or land. At this stage Helmut Schmidt still hankered after a sea-based system, though he later reluctantly accepted the advantages of the ground-launched Cruise missile (GLCM). He was under strong pressure from within his own party and placed equal emphasis on the second aspect of the ‘dual track’ approach — that is for the US to negotiate for the removal of the Soviet threat at the same time as we were preparing to deploy our own weapons. He also insisted that West Germany should not be the only recipient of these missiles which was a non-nuclear state.[39] In sharp contrast to future debate in Britain, the Germans were adamant that the nuclear weapons should have no ‘dual key’: they must be able to say to the rest of the world that they did not own or control nuclear weapons.

On the morning of Wednesday 13 June I saw Al Haig, who was at that time the outgoing Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. We discussed not only questions of nuclear policy but also what we knew of the threat posed by Soviet preparations for offensive chemical warfare, which I found deeply disquieting. I said that although my initial reaction to my first briefings on the East/West military balance had been one of concern, my considered conclusion was that the West’s superiority in human and material resources would enable us to respond to any challenge. But that did not diminish my worry about our immediate problems. On the evening of Tuesday 24 July I saw General Haig’s successor, General Bernard Rogers, and expressed my anxiety about the lead enjoyed by the Warsaw Pact forces in the matter of standardization of weapons and equipment and about the vulnerability of NATO’s own organization to Soviet penetration.

The deadline which NATO had set itself for achieving a firm decision on the new intermediate-range missiles was the end of that year, 1979. The longer we waited, the greater the opportunities for Soviet campaigns of propaganda and disinformation to do their work. On Wednesday 19 September the small group of ministers which I chaired to consider nuclear policy decided that the UK would accept the basing of our allotted 144 American owned GLCMs. I had received a telephone call from Helmut Schmidt asking if we could accept a further flight of 16 Cruise missiles. The Germans wished to reduce their own number and in order to prevent any further time being lost in argument I immediately agreed to the request. With Britain and West Germany remaining solid the West’s strategy could be accounted a success. But would others follow our lead?

A week earlier I had already seen Prime Minister Martens of Belgium for talks in Downing Street. The Belgians were looking over their shoulder at the Dutch, whose Government’s future was endangered by rifts and popular agitation against deployment of nuclear weapons. The Belgians were particularly important because if the Dutch, and possibly also the Italians, failed to go along with the decision which would soon be required, Chancellor Schmidt’s own position would become perilous and it was of crucial importance to the alliance to shore up West German commitment. I told M. Martens that I wondered whether western European leaders were giving a sufficiently effective lead to public opinion. My own experience was that audiences were always quick to respond when addressed about the extent of the Soviet threat and about the need for us to have credible defences. I thought it was all a matter of resolve.

By contrast, I felt reassured — and said so — by the resolute attitude of the Italian Prime Minister, Sig. Cossiga, when I talked with him in Rome on Friday 5 October. He told me that Italy would make a positive decision on deployment. He intended to exert maximum pressure at his forthcoming meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Van Agt, and hoped that I would do the same.

However, during this time the Soviets were at work trying to undermine NATO’s unity. As I frequently pointed out in my discussions, they had been brilliantly successful in rousing popular feeling against the neutron bomb which President Carter had been considering deploying. In the months and years to come it would be clear that they had by no means lost their touch.

On Saturday 6 October, President Brezhnev made a speech in East Berlin containing a number of proposals. He announced the withdrawal of 20,000 Soviet troops and 1,000 tanks from East Germany in the next 12 months. He also offered to reduce Soviet intermediate-range nuclear systems if no ‘additional’ medium-range nuclear weapons were deployed in western Europe. Judged against the huge Soviet superiority in conventional forces the reductions, though of course welcome, were more cosmetic than of substance. But the proposals on theatre nuclear weapons were a good deal worse. We knew that the accuracy, ability to penetrate, mobility and the range of targets covered by these Soviet missiles and aircraft had increased enormously. Moreover, such missiles were targeted on western Europe from points beyond the Urals. Mr Brezhnev’s proposals — like those which followed them — would have left the Soviets in possession of a weapon which could strike at Europe and to which we had no equivalent effective response. However, such proposals inevitably increased the temptation, in the Netherlands for example, to put all the emphasis on arms control and delay the decision on modernization and deployment.

I discussed the situation with Chancellor Schmidt again — in Bonn this time — on Wednesday 31 October. How were we to help the Dutch take the right decision at the forthcoming NATO meeting? I suggested that the whole of the Dutch Cabinet, which appeared to be split, should see the impressive NATO presentation on the military balance in Europe. Helmut Schmidt was pressing for the United States to offer to withdraw unilaterally 1,000 obsolete nuclear warheads from the Federal Republic. The Americans agreed with this and President Carter wrote to me about it. All my instincts were against unilateral gestures of this sort. But I could see the practical arguments for it and with some reluctance supported the offer — not that it had much noticeable effect on Dutch opinion or the Dutch Government. In fact, the Germans at about this time seemed to become reconciled to the prospect of the Dutch failing to agree to deployment, though it was clear that they themselves would remain firm as long as the Italians and Belgians did so. On Friday 23 November Mr Gromyko visited Bonn and gave a press conference which was evidently intended to shake European and particularly German opinion, warning that arms control negotiations could not take place if the West pursued what he described as a ‘new arms race’.

On the evening of Thursday 6 December I met the Dutch Prime Minister for talks and dinner in Downing Street. I always got on well with him, but I did not envy his position. The notorious instability of coalition governments of the sort he led makes it immensely difficult to get clear decisions and stick to them. On this occasion, Mr Van Agt explained to me in some detail the difficulties he was facing. Apparently, half the sermons in Dutch churches were now dealing with nuclear disarmament and the issue of deployment was endangering his Government’s survival. I agreed with him that the fall of a NATO member government on a NATO issue would be a very serious development. But I added that NATO would have to go ahead with the decision to deploy theatre nuclear weapons or else the alliance would lose its credibility and its purpose. The Netherlands could reserve its position while waiting to see what the attitude of the Soviet Government was in arms control negotiations. The Russians were playing their traditional psychological game to discourage NATO from taking decisions and they must not be allowed to get away with it.

In fact, in an act of remarkable courage in the face of so much domestic and Soviet opposition, the NATO ministers made the required decision in Brussels on 12 December. The arms control proposals, including the American offer to withdraw 1,000 nuclear warheads from Europe, were agreed. Most important, the alliance agreed to the deployment in Europe of all the 572 new American missiles which had been envisaged. The reservations entered by the Belgian and Dutch Governments were less serious than at one time had seemed likely. The Belgians agreed to accept a share of these missiles, subject to reconsideration after six months in the light of the progress of arms control negotiations. The Dutch Government accepted the proposals as a whole but postponed the decision to take a share of the missiles in Holland until the end of 1981. The latter date was in any case well before any proposed deployment could in practice begin.

Of course, this was not the end of the matter. In June the following year we announced the sites of the Cruise missiles in Britain — Greenham Common in Berkshire and Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. From that time on Greenham was to be the focus for an increasingly strident unilateralist campaign.

The Soviet Union’s own alternating bribes and threats continued to work on European public opinion. I was asked in a Dutch television interview on 4 February 1981, when I was on a return visit to see Mr Van Agt, about resistance to stationing Cruise missiles in Holland and Germany. I replied:

I learnt afterwards that such plain speaking as this was a rare thing in the Netherlands.

THE PURCHASE OF TRIDENT

Another early decision which we had to take, with the greatest long-term consequence for Britain, related to our independent nuclear deterrent. Britain had four nuclear-armed Polaris submarines. The previous Conservative and Labour governments had pressed ahead with a programme of improvement to our Polaris missiles. The programme, code-named Chevaline, had been paid for and managed by the United Kingdom in co-operation with the United States, using some of their facilities for trials and tests. The upgraded Polaris system would maintain the full effectiveness of our strategic deterrent into the 1990s, though at a cost which had alarmingly escalated as the development continued. However, for a variety of technical and operational reasons we could not responsibly plan for the continuance of this system much into the 1990s. If Britain was to retain its deterrent a decision would shortly have to be made about Polaris’s ultimate replacement, given the time required to design or obtain new strategic nuclear forces of the sophistication necessary.

We began to look at the options from almost the first days in government. These quickly proved a good deal narrower than they at first appeared, though inevitably they seemed wider to those without access to all the information. By late September 1979 we had discarded the option of a successor force of air-launched Cruise missiles because they would be too vulnerable to attack. The possibility of co-operation with France, which retained its own independent deterrent, was rejected for technological reasons. From an early stage the American Trident looked the most promising option.

We had received firm assurances that the SALT II Agreement, reached between Presidents Carter and Brezhnev in June 1979, would not affect the situation regarding our own deterrent. But our aim was, if possible, to conclude an agreement with the Americans on purchasing Trident before the end of that year, so that it could not get caught up in the argument in the run-up to the expected ratification by the US Senate of the treaty. We also wished to have the decision made before President Carter became too preoccupied with the 1980 presidential election. The Trident missile included the advanced and very important technology of multiple nuclear warheads, each separately targetted (MIRVs). Not only was this the most up-to-date and therefore credible system — as measured against Soviet anti-submarine warfare capability and anti-ballistic missile defences — but by purchasing it from the Americans we could hope to avoid immensely expensive improvement programmes like Chevaline. On 6 December 1979 the ministers concerned agreed that the best system to replace Polaris was the Trident I (C4) MIRV system if it could be purchased from the US, less the warheads and the submarines carrying the system which would be produced in Britain. The decision was later confirmed by Cabinet.

But at this point the most troublesome and annoying complications began. Although President Carter told me that he would supply us with whatever we needed he was desperately worried that news of his decision would cause him political difficulties. He had invested great political capital in the SALT II Agreement whose chances of being ratified by the Senate were already in doubt. He was worried that the Soviets might respond to his agreement to supply Trident with some action which would result in a failure to ratify. Consequently, I was not able to speak openly about the matter when I saw him with his colleagues in Washington. The Americans were also keen to ensure that the announcement on Trident did not occur before the scheduled 12 December meeting of NATO to decide on deploying Cruise and Pershing. I could see the sense of this. But in view of the problems which SALT II was facing I began to be anxious lest the decision on Trident be postponed well into 1980.

With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the year the prospects of ratifying SALT II immediately sharply receded. But at this point the US Administration said that it was reluctant to announce the Trident decision because it could be seen as an overreaction to events in Afghanistan. The Americans were similarly unduly worried about the attitude of Chancellor Schmidt to the Trident decision. More hard-headedly, the Carter Administration also pressed strongly for both political and financial returns on the decision to supply us with Trident. They wanted us to agree to a form of words which would commit us to expanding our defence efforts. They were also keen to develop their defence facilities at our island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — something for which I had a good deal of sympathy. There was the matter of a substantial levy which we would be charged for American research and development costs which they were not prepared to waive.

I was not happy about some of these demands: it seemed to me that it was as much in America’s interests as ours that we should have an independent strategic deterrent which would, like Polaris, be assigned to NATO and, except where the UK Government decided that supreme national interests were at stake, would be used for the purposes of international defence of the western alliance. As with the question of theatre nuclear weapons, it was the Soviet perception of the strategic threat which would ultimately determine its credibility — and whatever doubts they might have about America’s willingness to launch strategic nuclear weapons in defence of Britain, they would never doubt that a British Conservative Government would do so.

On the afternoon of Monday 2 June 1980, however, I finalized the terms in discussion with Dr Harold Brown, the able US Defence Secretary, in Downing Street. I said that Britain wanted to purchase the Trident I missile on the same terms as regards research and development as Polaris, that is paying a 5 per cent levy. Dr Brown would not agree to this and said that it would have been severely criticized in Congress. But he would accept it providing the British Government bore the cost of manning the Rapier Air Defence Systems which the US intended to purchase for their bases in Britain. I agreed. I also agreed with the objective of extending and increasing US use of the base at Diego Garcia; but this made sense on its own merits and had nothing to do with the Trident decision. Dr Brown accepted this. At last the decision was effectively made and I wrote formally to President Carter requesting purchase of Trident, simultaneously informing President Giscard, Chancellor Schmidt and Prime Minister Cossiga. The decision was announced to the House by Francis Pym on 15 July and at Francis’s suggestion fully debated and endorsed on 3 March 1981.

In the summer of 1980 we thought that we had made our final decision on the independent nuclear deterrent. But it was not to be. President Reagan came into office in 1981 with a programme of modernizing US strategic nuclear forces, including Trident. On 24 August the new US Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, wrote to me to confirm that President Reagan had now decided to use the Trident II (D5) missile in the Trident submarines. The US Administration would make this missile available to us if we wished to buy it. On 1 October President Reagan formally told me of his decision.

I well understood and indeed supported President Reagan’s decision to improve the US strategic nuclear capability. I was worried about the advances which the Soviet Union had made both in their technology and in numbers of weapons. However, we now faced a new situation. If we were still to go ahead with Trident I we risked spending huge sums on a system that would be outdated and increasingly difficult to maintain as the Americans went over to Trident II. But if we were to accept President Reagan’s generous offer of the new technology represented by Trident II we risked the increasing costs of any new project. Moreover, a number of political difficulties arose.

In November 1981 a group of ministers met to discuss what we should do. We argued out all the questions between us; and all the arguments which would be raised in the outside world were discussed, including some feeble and unrealistic ones. One colleague was concerned at the impact on public opinion of choosing a still more powerful missile. Another raised the question whether it would be more difficult to keep a Trident II nuclear strategic force out of future arms control negotiations, as we had managed hitherto. A third was inclined to support the case for Trident II but with fewer missiles. Yet another, while accepting that Trident II was better than the alternatives, felt that the choice raised the more fundamental question of whether the UK could afford to continue to maintain an independent strategic nuclear deterrent at all. For my part I had two anxieties. One was, as I noted above, that the cost of a completely new missile now being developed was bound to be uncertain and on past performance was likely to escalate. The other was my unease about the implications for the strategic deterrent of Soviet developments in anti-ballistic missile defence, including particle beam and laser weapons — a possibility to which I had been alerted some years earlier but which became a matter of public debate only when President Reagan proposed his SDI initiative in March 1983.

In January 1982 we had a further and fuller discussion based on a presentation. The more we considered the question the more it seemed that if we were to maintain a credible deterrent, which I was utterly determined we should do, we must indeed have the Trident II. But we must get it on the best possible terms. The issue was put to Cabinet later that month and on 1 February I sent a message to President Reagan saying that I would send officials to Washington to discuss terms.

Again, as with President Carter’s Administration, there was plenty of hard bargaining. But I always knew that President Reagan and Caspar Weinberger would be conscious of Britain’s and the alliance’s long-term interests and would ultimately do what they believed to be right in defence terms, rather than just expedient or popular with the Congress. As before, the whole question of charges and levies arose. We for our part pressed hard for a fixed percentage of the work on the development of Trident to go to UK sub-contractors. The Americans who were building up their own navy were anxious to discourage us from reducing our surface fleet which we were intending to do following the Defence Review that year. We indicated the possibility of reprieving the amphibious landing ships HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid, which pleased them. They also pressed for an extension of our armed forces’ engagement in Belize, which has now become a virtually permanent commitment.

In the end, we concluded an agreement with the United States to buy Trident II on more advantageous terms than Trident I. The missile was to be purchased by us at the same price as the United States Navy’s own requirements in accordance with the Polaris Sales Agreement. But the additional overheads and levies would be lower than would have been the case under the 1980 Agreement to purchase Trident I. In particular, the so-called R & D levy would be a fixed sum in real terms and there would be a complete waiver of the facilities charge which was part of the Trident I deal. The terms protected us completely from the escalation of the development cost. The United States would set up a liaison office in London to advise British industry on how to compete on equal terms with US industry for sub-contracts for the Trident II programme as a whole, including the American programme. We also decided to improve and increase the size of the submarines which would carry Trident, making them more efficient and less detectable, and by running longer between refits make them more available for patrol. The total cost of Trident II and the other changes over the whole period would be £7.5 billion, just over 3 per cent of the total defence budget over the same period. When I learnt of the terms now being offered I was delighted and I gladly authorized their acceptance.

THE DEFENCE REVIEW

It is sometimes forgotten, now that the map of Europe and indeed the world has been reshaped with the fall of communism, just how painful were the consequences of the West’s efforts to strengthen its defence effort in the 1980s. The United States was as a result unable to reduce its public spending, with the consequence that the world faced higher interest rates, threatening economic recovery. We in Britain, for our part, had to match the necessary commitment to strengthen our defence with rigorous evaluation of what we could afford and where resources could be best applied. Economic, strategic and technical arguments alike pointed towards a thorough review of our defence commitments and how they should be fulfilled — and not only ours but those of the other NATO allies. Yet, at the same time, I was conscious of the danger that the wrong signals might be given to left-wing opponents of strong defence at home and to our enemies abroad.

In early November 1980 I chaired a meeting of the Overseas and Defence Committee of the Cabinet (OD) to consider a paper from Peter Carrington and Francis Pym which argued that Britain should take the initiative in proposing a wide-ranging review of NATO to make it more relevant to western defence requirements and more cost effective. In the longer term the members of the alliance should move towards greater specialization. Attractive as the idea was from our viewpoint, it quickly became clear that Chancellor Schmidt was opposed to it, on the grounds that he believed that it would weaken not strengthen NATO. Moreover, with the election of President Reagan, committed to radically different policies from his predecessor, my main emphasis came to be on keeping the alliance together, united behind American leadership. However, whether matched by international action or not, Britain was forced by pressures of circumstance to conduct its own and — as it turned out — highly controversial defence review.

I appointed John Nott to Defence in January 1981 with the remit of getting better value for money from the huge sums spent on defence. In February John, Peter Carrington and I had an initial discussion about what would be our 1981 Defence Review. John had already concluded that the defence budget was hopelessly overextended both in the short and long term. The real cost of ever more sophisticated weapons was remorselessly increasing the pressure. More sales of defence equipment could help a little — particularly if we were able to produce equipment more suited to the needs of potential overseas customers. However, defence orders were running way ahead of budget and would have to be cut back if we were to keep within any kind of financial discipline. Some fundamental strategic issues also had to be faced. There was very little scope for reducing our commitment to West Germany. A policy of forward defence was crucial to the alliance’s strategy: moreover the political implications of cuts here for NATO as a whole could be very serious. Nor could savings be found in home defence: indeed the effort here would have to be increased, for example by strengthening the Territorial Army. There was no room for savings on the RAF: on the contrary, additional expenditure would probably be required. This left the navy. The navy needed more submarines and more minesweepers. But it is extremely expensive to keep up a large surface fleet and so that was plainly the area to look for cuts. None of us had any illusions about the sensitivities involved in the approach John proposed, but it was difficult to fault his analysis.

In early May I had another discussion with John about the options emerging clearly from his review. He believed that his proposals would provide the basis for a far more effective defence force for the needs of the future. But it was already clear that opposition within the armed forces and in the Conservative Party would be strong. I would have to see the Defence Chiefs of Staff to discuss with them their reactions to what was proposed. Moreover, many marginal seats would be involved, especially in dockyard closures. We would have to make every effort to explain our priorities both in the country and to our NATO allies, particularly the Americans.

What I had not expected was that the most public opposition would come from a Defence minister. On Friday 15 May Keith Speed, the Navy minister, made a speech which effectively disowned the whole strategy of the review. John Nott did not want him to resign at once and suggested that he should be moved to another department. I said that there was no question of this: if he was going to be disloyal to the Government in one department, he would in another. I saw him very late on the night of Monday 18 May and told him he must go.

In early June I met the Chiefs of the Defence Staff, at their request, with John and Peter Carrington. The press had been full of stories about my ‘fury’ at their lobbying against the review. But in fact I had found the behaviour of the Chiefs of Staff throughout impeccable, and I said so. No one at the meeting openly contested that the NATO central front was bound to be the decisive arena. Scenarios of conflict in the Third World might be more likely: but only on the central front could the war be lost in an afternoon. It was argued that we should again press for a full-scale NATO review. But we could not afford to postpone decisions in the hope that a NATO review might help us: moreover such a review at this time could itself destabilize the alliance.

On the morning of Monday 8 June John Nott and I met Sir Henry Leach, the First Sea Lord, who argued vigorously the importance of the surface fleet. I have the greatest respect for his judgement. He could well argue that the Falklands War proved him right. He could certainly argue today that with the end of the Cold War and events in the Gulf there is now a need for mobile forces and a strong navy. At that time I had to disagree with him because I could see no other way of meeting our NATO obligations within the financial constraints.

John announced the conclusions of the Defence Review to the House of Commons on the afternoon of Thursday 25 June. The decisions — particularly to cut the number of ships and to close the base and dockyard in Chatham — ran into fierce opposition, not least from Members of Parliament whose constituencies were affected. The closure of the dockyard went ahead. But after the Falklands campaign the following year some of the decisions of the Defence Review were altered. Certainly no one who lived through that campaign could be in any doubt about the importance of a country such as Britain with far-flung interests being able to project its military power swiftly and effectively across the globe.

THE POLISH CRISIS

No matter how effectively Britain managed its defence effort it was on the unity, strength and credibility of NATO that our security ultimately depended. It was of the utmost importance that American public opinion remained committed to western Europe. So the tensions and divisions which arose in the alliance at this time were of great concern to me. My view was that ultimately we must support American leadership: but that did not mean that the Americans could pursue their interests regardless of the opinion of their European allies.

The need to decide how to react to the imposition of martial law by General Jaruzelski’s Government in Poland on 13 December 1981 highlighted problems which had been growing throughout 1981. Some European countries, most importantly the Germans, were hostile to President Reagan’s economic policy and mistrustful of his rhetoric on defence and arms control. I, of course, did not share these attitudes, though I wanted tougher action to control the widening US budget deficit. What I found irritating and on occasion quite unjustified was the way in which the actions the Americans preferred inflicted a good deal more pain on their allies than on themselves and, one might argue, the communists in Poland and the Soviet Union. The first such issue was the Polish Government’s crackdown on Solidarity.

I was from the first acutely aware of the importance of the Polish question. Like most people in Britain, I have always liked and admired the Poles, many of whom settled in this country during and after the war. But there was more to it than that. On 9 December 1980 I talked quite frankly to the Polish Deputy Prime Minister who visited London. I said that I was conscious of witnessing a change in a socialist state of a kind that had not occurred in the last sixty years. A new group of people — the Solidarity movement — were challenging the communists’ monopoly on power on their own terms. I told him how closely we were watching events in Poland and how excited I was by what was happening. I said that the socialist system had succeeded in suppressing the human spirit for a surprisingly long time but that I had always been confident that there would be a breakthrough.

But these happy signs were not to last. The Soviets brought increasing pressure to bear on the Poles. From the end of 1980 the Americans became convinced that the Soviet Union was planning direct military intervention to crush the Polish reform movement, just as they had crushed the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968.

From about the same time we began to draw up measures to punish the Soviet Union in such an eventuality. Peter Carrington and I agreed that we should respond in a measured, graduated way depending on the situation we faced. We foresaw four possibilities: a situation in which the use of force by the Polish Government against Polish workers was imminent, or had already taken place, or one in which Soviet intervention was imminent, or had already taken place. We agreed that ineffective sanctions would be worse than useless, but sanctions would have to hit the Soviets harder than they hit us. Meanwhile, we had to make a number of complex judgements about Soviet and the Polish Government’s intentions. Was the present ostentatious Warsaw Pact activity the prelude to armed intervention or a means of bringing political pressure to bear on the Polish Communist Party? If we continued to provide food aid and to proceed with plans for Polish debt relief would this benefit the Polish people or play into the hands of the hardliners in Poland who were struggling to survive the consequences of their own misgovernment? These were not easy judgements to make.

Suddenly the situation changed. Martial law was declared in Poland from midnight on 12–13 December 1981 and a ‘Military Council for National Salvation’ consisting of military leaders was set up under the Prime Minister, General Jaruzelski. The borders were sealed, telex and telephone links severed, a curfew imposed, strikes and assemblies banned, the broadcasting system brought under tight control. There was no doubt in my mind that all of this was morally unacceptable but that did not make it easier to gauge the correct response. After all, in order to warn off Soviet intervention, we had consistently said that the Poles must be allowed to decide on their own internal affairs. Were the Soviets themselves behind it, intending to use the crackdown as a means of turning the clock back to hardline communism and subordination to Moscow? Or was this really a temporary decision, as the Jaruzelski Government claimed, forced upon them to bring some kind of order to Poland, with the implication that this would prevent a Soviet takeover? At this early stage there was a severe shortage of information not just to illuminate these questions but even as to the whereabouts and safety of leading Polish dissidents.

The more we learnt of the background to what had happened, however, the worse it appeared. President Reagan was personally outraged by what had occurred, believed that the Soviet Union was behind it and was determined to take swift action. I received a message from him on 19 December to this effect. Al Haig sent a parallel message to Peter Carrington pointing out that the Americans were not proposing that the West should now implement the far-reaching measures to meet Soviet military intervention that had already been agreed in NATO. What they wanted were some political and economic measures at once and others in reserve if the situation worsened. Without any further reference to us, the Americans would be announcing sanctions against the Soviet Union later that day. These, we were were glad to note, rightly did not include abandonment of the disarmament talks going on in Geneva. But they did include measures such as the cancellation of Aeroflot landing rights, a halt to negotiations on a new long-term grain agreement (though an existing agreement would remain in place) and a halt to the export of material for the construction of the planned natural gas pipelines on which work had already begun.

It was this last point which was to be the cause of great anger in Britain and other European countries. British, German and Italian firms had legally binding contracts to provide equipment for the West Siberian Gas Pipeline, which involved components made in the United States or under United States licence. It was not clear at this stage whether the measures announced by President Reagan against the Soviet Union applied to existing contracts as well as new ones. If the ban extended to existing contracts this would deprive British firms of over £200 million of business with the Soviet Union. Worst affected would be a contract of John Brown Engineering for pump equipment for the pipeline project on which large numbers of jobs depended.

While pressing the Americans on this particular point, I ensured that we gave them the strongest possible backing both in NATO and the European Community for the general line they wanted to take. This was by no means easy. Initially, the Germans were reluctant to take any measures against the Polish Government, let alone against the Soviet Union. The French were pressing hard for continuing the sale of food at special subsidized prices by the European Community to the Soviet Union. But I still felt that if we could persuade the Americans to take a more reasonable line over the pipeline project we would be able to demonstrate a fairly impressive western unity. The trouble was that there were those in the American Administration whose opposition to the pipeline project had nothing much to do with events in Poland. These people believed that if it went ahead the Germans and the French would be dangerously dependent on Soviet energy supplies, which would have damaging strategic implications. There was some force in this argument; but it was exaggerated. Although Russia would be providing just over a quarter of Germany’s and just under a third of France’s gas, this would be no more than 5 per cent of either country’s total energy consumption. But in any case neither the Germans nor the French were going to accede to American pressure. Such pressure would therefore be counter-productive as well as irrelevant to the specific problem we faced in Poland. There was also American talk, which seriously worried the Bank of England, of forcing Poland to default on her international debts, which would have had severe effects on European banks.

At OD towards the end of January 1982 we discussed these possibilities. I said that there was a clear danger of the American Government’s present policy damaging western interests more than those of the East and provoking a major transatlantic quarrel of precisely the sort that it had long been the main objective of Soviet policy to bring about. Britain had already offered to do more to meet American wishes than our European partners were likely to accept. This was no longer a time for concessions but for some straight talking to our American friends. I decided to approach President Reagan. I also asked other ministers to try to influence their American counterparts. An urgent invitation would be extended to Al Haig to visit London on the way back from his current visit to the Middle East.

In fact, Al Haig joined me for a late lunch at Downing Street on Friday 29 January. I told him that the single most important aim must be to keep the western alliance together. The most recent meeting of the NATO Council had gone well. But the measures now being proposed by the United States were causing concern. Anything that the West did must be designed to harm the Soviet Union more than ourselves. The reports of possible steps by the US to bring about a default on Polish debts and indeed the debts of other East European countries were worrying: although this would doubtless bring about difficulties for the countries concerned it would also create incalculable problems for the western banking system, which was so important to the reputation of the western world as a whole. I also said that whatever the Americans felt about the matter we had to face the fact that the French and the Germans were never going to abandon their contracts for the Siberian Gas Pipeline. Nearer the bone, I noted that the Americans had not included a grain embargo in their first round of measures because this would clearly hurt their own people. Indeed, few of the measures adopted by the United States would have any serious effect at home — but they would hurt Europe. To say the least there was a certain lack of symmetry.

I gained the strong impression that Mr Haig basically agreed with my analysis. I also had the sense that he was feeling increasingly isolated and powerless in the American Administration, which indeed he was to leave later in the year. He said that he thought that it would be useful if I sent a message to President Reagan about these matters, which I did later that day. I believe that the pressure I applied had some effect, but unfortunately it proved to be temporary.

Meanwhile, the West’s response to events in Poland was becoming increasingly entangled with the wider question of our political and economic stance towards the Soviet Union. President Reagan sent a message to me on 8 March stressing the need to halt or at least restrict the grant of export credit to the Soviet Union, particularly credit subsidized by our Governments. The American argument was that not only was the USSR economically weak, it was suffering from an acute shortage of foreign exchange. European and other governments which provided the Soviet Union with subsidized credit were cushioning their failing system from economic realities which would otherwise have forced its reform. The Administration had a good argument here, though our assessment was that restricting credit would not have the dramatic impact which some US experts imagined. At this time we were receiving conflicting and confusing signals from the US Administration about its intentions. But I hoped that tighter controls by European governments on credit for the Soviet Union might allow us to secure the undertaking we wanted that the US restrictions on contracts for the Siberian Pipeline would not be retrospective.

Out of the blue, however, the Americans announced on 18 June that the ban on the supply of oil and gas technology to the Soviet Union was to apply not only to US companies but also to their foreign subsidiaries and to foreign companies manufacturing American-designed components under licence. I was appalled when I learnt of this decision. I condemned it in public. The reaction of the Europeans generally was still more hostile.

Britain took legislative action under the Protection of Trading Interests Act to resist what was in effect the extension of US extra-territorial authority. Then European irritation was increased still further by the news that the Americans were intending to renew grain sales to the USSR on the pretext that this would drain the USSR of hard currency — but transparently because it was in the interests of American farmers to sell their grain. The Administration was somewhat taken aback by the strength of opposition they faced and it was left to the excellent new Secretary of State, George Shultz, to find a way out of the difficulties, which he did later in the year, allowing the existing contracts for the pipeline to go ahead. But it had all been a lesson in how not to conduct alliance business.

THE VERSAILLES G7 SUMMIT

I like to think that my own relationship with President Reagan and the efforts I made to try to establish common ground between the United States and the Europeans helped to prevent disagreements over the pipeline and other trading issues from poisoning western co-operation at this critical juncture. Certainly, the summer of 1982 saw some useful international diplomacy. Between 4 and 6 June the heads of government of the G7 countries met amid the splendid opulence of Versailles. The rooms of the Palace itself were used for meetings and relaxation. There was a final banquet in the Hall of Mirrors followed by after-dinner entertainment of opera and fireworks. (In fact, I left early: it would not have been right to stay for all this while our troops were still fighting in the Falklands.)

President Mitterrand, who chaired the summit, had prepared a paper on the impact of new technology on employment. It quite often happened that the country in the chair at summit meetings felt that they must introduce some new initiatives even at the cost of extra government intervention and increased bureaucracy. This was no exception. For my part, I had no doubt about the attitude to take to technological innovation: it must be welcomed not resisted. There might be ‘new’ technology but technological progress itself was nothing new, and over the years it had not destroyed jobs but created them. Our task was not to make grand plans for technological innovation but rather to see how public opinion could be influenced in order to embrace not recoil from it. Fortunately, therefore, President Mitterrand’s paper was kicked into touch in the form of a working group.

I had a candid bilateral discussion with Helmut Schmidt while I was at Versailles about the European Community budget — to which West Germany and Britain seemed destined to remain net contributors — and about the CAP on which so much of our money was spent. This was a particularly sore point for me, because only a few weeks before Britain had been overridden in the Agriculture Council when we had sought to invoke the Luxemburg compromise against farm price rises. Helmut Schmidt said that he wanted to maintain the Luxemburg compromise, though he doubted whether it should be applied as we wished. But he added that the CAP was a price which had to be paid, however high, to persuade members like France and Italy to come into the Community from the beginning.

As it happened, this was Chancellor Schmidt’s last G7 summit. In September his governing coalition broke up when the liberal Free Democrats changed sides and put the Christian Democrat Leader, Helmut Kohl, in as Chancellor. Although I had had serious disagreements with him, I always had the highest regard for Helmut Schmidt’s wisdom, straightforwardness and grasp of international economics. Sadly, I never developed quite the same relationship with Chancellor Kohl, though it was some time before the implications of this became important.

But my most vivid recollection of the proceedings at Versailles is of the impression made by President Reagan. At one point he spoke for twenty minutes or so without notes, outlining his economic vision. His quiet but powerful words provided those who did not yet know him with some insight into the qualities which made him such a remarkable political leader. After he had finished, President Mitterrand acknowledged that no one would criticize President Reagan for being true to his beliefs. Given President Mitterrand’s socialist policies, that was almost a compliment.

From Paris President Reagan flew to London for an official visit where he addressed both Houses of Parliament in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster. The speech itself was a remarkable one. It marked a decisive stage in the battle of ideas which he and I wished to wage against socialism, above all the socialism of the Soviet Union. Both of us were convinced that strong defence was a necessary, but not sufficient, means of overcoming the communist threat. Instead of seeking merely to contain communism, which had been the West’s doctrine in the past, we wished to put freedom on the offensive. In his speech President Reagan proposed a worldwide campaign for democracy to support ‘the democratic revolution [which was] gathering new strength’. In retrospect, however, that speech had a larger significance. It marked a new direction in the West’s battle against communism. It was the manifesto of the Reagan doctrine — the very obverse of the Brezhnev doctrine — under which the West would not abandon those countries which had had communism forced upon them.

I remember the speech for another reason as well. I was full of admiration that he seemed to have delivered it without a single note.

‘I congratulate you on your actor’s memory,’ I said.

He replied, ‘I read the whole speech from those two perspex screens’ — referring to what we had taken to be some security device. ‘Don’t you know it? It’s a British invention.’ And so it was that I made my first acquaintance with Autocue.

THE BONN NATO SUMMIT, JUNE 1982

The NATO summit of heads of government in Bonn on 10 June was generally linked to the Versailles summit. At Versailles the G7 had demonstrated that with one or two exceptions, such as France, the major countries were committed to a return to sound economic policies. At Bonn the West was similarly able to demonstrate its commitment to strong defence.

Of course, all of us wanted both strong defence and successful negotiations with the Soviet Union to reduce the level of armaments. But there was a real question about which should come first. There continued to be a muted but important argument about the ‘dual track’ policy. Some countries hoped to be able to delay virtually indefinitely the implementation of the decision to deploy Cruise and Pershing missiles. For example, in the dying days of the Schmidt Government there were strong voices in Germany arguing that deployment would jeopardize the prospect of successful negotiations. By contrast, the Americans and we in Britain felt that a strong defence posture is an absolute prerequisite for any constructive relationship with the USSR and therefore deterrence is the condition for détente. Indeed, the original idea for the Bonn summit had come from us in Britain because we believed that it was vital to demonstrate the unity of purpose of NATO at this time. The result more or less fulfilled that intention.

But there continued to be Soviet pressure, supported by demonstrations by the so-called ‘peace movement’ and encouraged by the appeasement of the left-wing politicians in Europe right up to the moment when Cruise and Pershing were deployed. We were never able to rest our argument or relax our efforts.

HONG KONG AND CHINA

By the time I visited the Far East in September 1982 Britain’s standing in the world, and my own, had been transformed as a result of victory in the Falklands. But one issue on which this was, if anything, a drawback was in talking to the Chinese over Hong Kong. The Chinese leaders were out to demonstrate that the Falklands was no precedent for dealing with the Colony. I was well aware of that myself, both from the military and the legal viewpoints.

On the morning of Wednesday 22 September I and my party took off from Tokyo, where I had been visiting, for Peking. Fifteen years remained of the lease to Britain of the New Territories which constitute over 90 per cent of the land of the Colony of Hong Kong. The island of Hong Kong itself is British sovereign territory, but, like the rest of the Colony, dependent on the mainland for water and other supplies. The People’s Republic of China refused to recognize the Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1842, by which the island of Hong Kong had been acquired by Britain. Consequently, although my negotiating stance was founded on Britain’s sovereign claim to at least part of the territory of Hong Kong, I knew that I could not ultimately rely on this as a means of ensuring the future prosperity and security of the Colony. Our negotiating aim was to exchange sovereignty over the island of Hong Kong in return for continued British administration of the entire Colony well into the future. This I knew from my many consultations with politicians and business leaders of Hong Kong was the solution which would suit them best.

The immediate danger, which had already been illustrated by reaction in Hong Kong to the provisions of our Nationality Bill and to various remarks by the Chinese communists, was that financial confidence would evaporate and that money and in due course key personnel would flee the Colony, impoverishing and destabilizing it well before the lease of the New Territories came to an end. Moreover, it was necessary to act now if new investment was to be made, since investors would be looking some fifteen years or so ahead in judging what decisions to make.

I had visited Peking in April 1977 as Leader of the Opposition. The ‘Gang of Four’ had been deposed a few months before and Hua Guo Feng was Chairman. Deng Xiaoping, who had suffered so much during the Cultural Revolution, had been ousted by the ‘Gang of Four’ the previous year and was still in detention. But on the occasion of this, my first visit as Prime Minister — indeed the first visit of any British prime minister while still in office — Deng Xiaoping was indisputably in charge.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 22 September I had my first meeting which was with the Chinese Prime Minister, Zhao Ziyang — whose moderation and reasonableness proved to be a great handicap to him in his subsequent career. We had a discussion of the world scene in which, because of the Chinese hostility to Soviet hegemony, we found much to agree about. However, the Chinese Prime Minister and I were aware that the following morning’s meeting we were to have on Hong Kong would be a very different matter.

I began that meeting with a prepared statement setting out the British position. I said that Hong Kong was a unique example of successful Sino-British co-operation. I noted that the two main elements of the Chinese view concerned sovereignty and the continued prosperity of Hong Kong. Prosperity depended on confidence. If drastic changes in the administrative control of Hong Kong were to be introduced or even announced now there would certainly be a wholesale flight of capital. This was not something which Britain would prompt — far from it. But nor was it something we could prevent. A collapse of Hong Kong would be to the discredit of both our countries. Confidence and prosperity depended on British administration. If our two Governments could agree on arrangements for the future administration of Hong Kong; if those arrangements would work and command confidence among the people of the Colony; and if they satisfied the British Parliament — we would then consider the question of sovereignty.

I had hoped that this practical and realistic line of argument would prove persuasive. After all, China gained large amounts of foreign currency and investment by having a capitalist Hong Kong on her doorstep. Even at the height of the Cultural Revolution, though riots had been fomented in the Colony by the communists, the Red Guards had never been permitted to launch a full-scale attack on Hong Kong. I tried to persuade Mr Zhao that we should agree a fairly noncommittal joint public statement saying that our common objective was to maintain the prosperity of Hong Kong and that there would be early official talks between us about this.

However, it was quite clear from the Chinese Prime Minister’s opening remarks that they would not compromise on sovereignty and that they intended to recover their sovereignty over the whole of Hong Kong — the island as well as the New Territories — in 1997 and no later. The fundamental position underlying the Chinese position was that the people of Hong Kong were Chinese and not British. That said, Hong Kong could become a special administrative zone administered by local people with its existing economic and social system unchanged. The capitalist system in Hong Kong would remain, as would its free port and its function as an international financial centre. The Hong Kong dollar would continue to be used and to be convertible. In answer to my vigorous intervention about the loss of confidence which such a position, if announced, would bring, he said that if it came to a choice between sovereignty on the one hand and prosperity and stability on the other China would put sovereignty first. The meeting was courteous enough. But the Chinese refused to budge an inch.

I knew that the substance of what had been said would be conveyed to Deng Xiaoping whom I met the next day. Mr Deng was known as a realist. Indeed, it was he who effectively unlocked the way to a solution in Hong Kong. He had accepted that two different economic systems could exist in one country, a fact demonstrated by the setting up of special economic zones behind Hong Kong, within China itself. On this occasion, however, he was obdurate. He reiterated that the Chinese were not prepared to discuss sovereignty. He said that the decision that Hong Kong would return to Chinese sovereignty need not be announced now, but that in one or two years’ time the Chinese Government would formally announce their decision to recover it. I repeated that what I wanted was agreement in further talks that after 1997 British administration would continue with the same system of law, the same political system, and the same independent currency. If we could at a later stage reach such an agreement there would be a tremendous upsurge in confidence. I could then go to the British Parliament and have the whole question of sovereignty dealt with to China’s satisfaction.

But he was not to be persuaded. At one point he said that the Chinese could walk in and take Hong Kong later today if they wanted to. I retorted that they could indeed do so, I could not stop them. But this would bring about Hong Kong’s collapse. The world would then see what followed a change from British to Chinese rule.

For the first time he seemed taken aback: his mood became more accommodating. But he had still not grasped the essential point, going on to insist that the British should stop money leaving Hong Kong. I tried to explain that as soon as you stop money going out you effectively end the prospect of new money coming in. Investors lose all confidence and that would be the end of Hong Kong. It was becoming very clear to me that the Chinese had little understanding of the legal and political conditions for capitalism. They would need to be educated slowly and thoroughly in how it worked if they were to keep Hong Kong prosperous and stable. I also felt throughout these discussions that the Chinese, believing their own slogans about the evils of colonialism, just did not realize that we in Britain considered we had a moral duty to do our best to protect the free way of life of the people of Hong Kong.

For all the difficulties, however, the talks were not the damaging failure which they might have been. Although I failed to achieve my initial objective, I managed to get Deng Xiaoping to agree to a short statement which, while not pretending that we had reached agreement, announced the beginning of talks with the common aim of maintaining the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong. It was essential that something of the sort be said to bolster the fragile confidence back in Hong Kong. Neither the people of the colony nor I had secured all that we wanted, but I felt that we had at least laid the basis for reasonable negotiations. We each knew where the other stood.

The visit had been a full and tiring one. It was not all business, however, and there was time for a little sightseeing. While I was in China I had been able to visit the extraordinarily beautiful Summer Palace on the north-western outskirts of Peking, known in Chinese as the Garden of Peaceful Easy Life. I felt that this was a less than accurate description of my own visit to the Far East.

THE BERLIN WALL

The following month I visited another monument which, unlike the Summer Palace, has now crumbled into rubble and dust. After talks with Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Bonn, I flew to Berlin and gained my first sight of the Berlin Wall and of the grey, bleak and devastated land beyond it in which dogs prowled under the gaze of armed Russian guards. Chancellor Kohl accompanied me on this visit and, whatever difficulties would arise in the future, on matters like the evils of communism and commitment to our American allies we were as one. I suspect that the German press understood, as their comments later suggested, how powerfully moved I was by Berlin. The city was vibrant and exciting, larger than I had thought, surrounded by beautiful woods — yet uniquely scarred by the two totalitarian creeds of the twentieth century.

In my speech that afternoon — Friday 29 October — I said:

My prophesy has been vindicated earlier than I could ever have expected.