The Downing Street Years (41 page)

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.

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.
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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.

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.
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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.