Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

by Margaret Thatcher

  Looking back, I think that this initial response was probably too negative. But it had the practical benefit of making the Americans think through precisely what their objectives were and how they were to justify them. Two other considerations influenced me. First, I felt that there was an inclination to precipitate action in the United States, which was doubtless mirrored there by a perception of lethargy in Europe. Second, I knew that the political cost to me of giving permission for the use of US bases by the United States in their strikes against Libya would be high. I could not take this decision lightly.

  Some time after midnight President Reagan’s response came through on the hotline. It was a powerful and not uncritical answer to the points I had raised. He stressed that the action he planned would not set off a new cycle of revenge: for the cycle of violence began a long time ago, as the story of Gaddafi’s terrorist actions demonstrated. He drew attention to what we knew from intelligence about Libyan direction of terrorist violence. He argued that it was the lack of a firm western response which had encouraged this. He felt that the legal justification for such action was clear. The US action would be aimed at Gaddafi’s primary headquarters and immediate security forces, rather than the Libyan people. The strikes would be at limited targets. I was particularly impressed by the President’s sober assessment of the likely effect of what was planned. He wrote:

  I have no illusion that these actions will eliminate entirely the terrorist threat. But it will show that officially sponsored terrorist actions by a government – such as Libya has repeatedly perpetrated – will not be without cost. The loss of such state sponsorship will inevitably weaken the ability of terrorist organizations to carry out their criminal attacks even as we work through diplomatic, political, and economic channels to alleviate the more fundamental cause of such terrorism.

  The more I considered the matter, the clearer the justification for America’s approach to Libya seemed.

  That afternoon I sent a further message to President Reagan. I pledged ‘our unqualified support for action directed against specific Libyan targets demonstrably involved in the conduct and support of terrorist activities’. I pledged support for the use of US aircraft from their bases in the UK, as long as that criterion was met. But I questioned some of the proposed targets and warned that if there ensued more wide-ranging action the Americans should recognize that even those most keen to give them all possible support would then find themselves in a difficult position.

  Now that America was actually asking the Europeans for assistance which involved a political price they showed themselves in a less than glorious light. Chancellor Kohl apparently told the Americans that the US should not expect the wholehearted support of its European allies and said that everything would turn on whether the action succeeded. The French refused to allow the F1–11s to cross French air space. The Spanish said that the American aircraft could fly over Spain, but only if it was done in a way which would not be noticed. Since this condition could not be met, they had to fly through the Straits of Gibraltar.

  Speculation was now rife. We could not confirm or deny our exchanges with the Americans. The Labour and Liberal Parties insisted that we should rule out the use of American bases in the UK for the action which everyone now seemed to expect. It was important to ensure that senior members of the Cabinet had my decision. At midday on Monday (14 April) I told the Cabinet’s Overseas and Defence Committee what had been happening in recent days. I said that it was clear that the US was justified in acting in self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Treaty. Finally, I stressed that we had to stand by the Americans as they had stood by us over the Falklands.

  That afternoon it was confirmed from Washington that American aircraft would soon take off from their British bases.

  Late that night I received a message from President Reagan saying that the US aircraft would shortly strike at five named terrorist-associated targets in Libya. The President confirmed that the text of his televised statement to the American people took into account our advice to stress the element of self-defence to get the legal position right. My own statement to the House of Commons on the raid for the following day was already being drafted.

  The American attack was carried out principally by sixteen F1–11s based in the UK, though a number of other aircraft were also used. The attack lasted forty minutes. Libyan missiles and guns were fired but their air defence radars were successfully jammed. The raid was undoubtedly a success, though sadly there were civilian casualties and one aircraft was lost. Television reports, however, concentrated all but exclusively not on the strategic importance of the targets but on weeping mothers and children.

  The initial impact on public opinion in Britain was even worse than I had feared. Public sympathy for Libyan civilians was mixed with fear of terrorist retaliation by Libya.

  I was to speak in the emergency debate on the Libyan raid in the House on Wednesday afternoon. It was intellectually and technically the most difficult speech to prepare because it depended heavily on describing the intelligence on Libya’s terrorist activities and we had to marshal the arguments for self-defence in such circumstances. Every word of the speech had to be checked by the relevant intelligence services to see that it was accurate and that it did not place sources at risk.

  The debate was rank with anti-American prejudice but my speech steadied the Party and the debate was a success. There was still a large measure of incomprehension even among our supporters. Yet the Libyan raid was also a turning point; and three direct benefits flowed from it.

  First, it turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. We are all too inclined to forget that tyrants rule by force and fear and are kept in check in the same way. There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter-attack did not take place. Gaddafi had not been destroyed but he had been humbled. There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.

  Second, there was a wave of gratitude from the United States which is still serving this country well. The Wall Street Journal flatteringly described me as ‘magnificent’. Senators wrote to thank me. Our Washington embassy’s switchboard was jammed with congratulatory telephone calls. And it was made quite clear by the Administration that Britain’s voice would be accorded special weight in arms control negotiations. The Extradition Treaty, which we regarded as vital in bringing IRA terrorists back from America, was to receive stronger Administration support against filibustering opposition. The fact that so few had stuck by America in her time of trial strengthened the ‘special relationship’, which will always be special because of the cultural and historical links between our two countries, but which had a particular closeness for as long as President Reagan was in the White House.

  The third benefit, oddly enough, was domestic, though it was by no means immediate. However unpopular, no one could doubt that our action had been strong and decisive. I had set my course and stuck to it.

  As the spring of 1986 moved into summer the political climate began slowly, but unmistakably, to improve.

  * The principal sub-committee of ‘E’.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Men to Do Business With

  East-West relations during the second term 1983–1987

  AS 1983 DREW ON, the Soviets must have begun to realize that their game of manipulation and intimidation would soon be up. European governments were not prepared to fall into the trap opened by the Soviet proposal of a ‘nuclear-free zone’ for Europe. In March President Reagan announced American plans for a Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) whose technological and financial implications for the USSR were devastating. Then, at the beginning of September the Soviets shot down a South Korean civilian airliner, killing 269 passengers. Not just the callousness but the incompetence of the Soviet regime, which could not even bring itself to apologize, was exposed. Perhaps for the first time since the Sec
ond World War, the Soviet Union started to be described, even in liberal western circles, as sick and on the defensive.

  We had entered a dangerous phase. Both Ronald Reagan and I knew that the strategy of matching the Soviets in military strength and beating them on the battlefield of ideas was succeeding and that it must go on. But we had to win the Cold War without running unnecessary risks in the meantime.

  Such was the thinking which lay behind my decision to arrange a seminar at Chequers on Thursday 8 September 1983 to pick the brains of experts on the Soviet Union. We discussed the Soviet economy, its technological inertia and the consequences of that, the impact of religious issues, Soviet military doctrine and expenditure on defence, and the benefits and costs to the Soviet Union of their control over eastern Europe. The purpose of this seminar was to provide me with the information on which to shape policy towards the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc in the months and years ahead. There were always two opposite outlooks among the Sovietologists.

  At the risk of oversimplification, these were as follows. On the one hand, there were those who played down the differences between the western and Soviet systems and who were generally drawn from political analysis and systems analysis. They were the people who appeared on our television screens, analysing the Soviet Union in terms borrowed from liberal democracies. These were the optimists, confident that somehow, somewhere, within the Soviet totalitarian system rationality and compromise were about to break out. I remember a remark of Bob Conquest’s that the trouble with systems analysis is that if you analyse the systems of a horse and a tiger, you find them pretty much the same: but it would be a great mistake to treat a tiger like a horse. On the other hand, there were those – mainly the historians – who grasped that totalitarian systems are different in kind, not just degree, from liberal democracies and that approaches relevant to the one are irrelevant to the other. These analysts argued that a totalitarian system generates a different kind of political leader from a democratic one and that the ability of any one individual to change that system is almost negligible.

  My own view was much closer to the second, but with one very important difference. I always believed that our western system would ultimately triumph, if we did not throw our advantages away, because it rested on the unique, almost limitless, creativity and vitality of individuals. Even a system like that of the Soviets, which set out to crush the individual, could never totally succeed in doing so, as was shown by the Solzhenitsyns, Sakharovs, Bukovskys, Ratushinskayas and thousands of other dissidents and refuseniks. This also implied that at some time the right individual could challenge even the system which he had used to attain power. For this reason I was convinced that we must seek out the most likely person in the rising generation of Soviet leaders and then cultivate and sustain him, while recognizing the clear limits of our power to do so. That is why those who subsequently considered that I was led astray from my original approach to the Soviet Union because I was dazzled by Mr Gorbachev were wrong. I spotted him because I was searching for someone like him.

  At the time of my Chequers seminar it did seem that there would soon be important changes in the Soviet leadership. Mr Andropov, though he was no liberal, did undoubtedly want to revive the Soviet economy, which was in fact in a far worse state than any of us realized at the time. In order to do this he wanted to cut back bureaucracy and improve efficiency. Although he had inherited a top leadership which he could not instantly change, the high average age of the Politburo would present him with the opportunity of filling vacancies with those amenable to his objective. There were already doubts about Andropov’s health. If he lived for just a few more years, however, it seemed likely that the leadership would pass to a new generation. The two main contenders appeared to be Grigory Romanov and Mikhail Gorbachev. I asked for all the information we had about these two.

  It was soon obvious to me that – attractive as was the idea of seeing a Romanov back in the Kremlin – there would probably be unpleasant consequences. Romanov as First Secretary of the Communist Party in Leningrad had won a reputation for efficiency but also as a hardline Marxist which, like many of the sort, he combined with an extravagant lifestyle. And I confess that when I read about those priceless crystal glasses from the Hermitage being smashed at the celebration of his daughter’s wedding some of the attraction of the name was lost as well.

  Of Mr Gorbachev what little we knew seemed modestly encouraging. He was clearly the best educated member of the Politburo, not that anybody would have described this group as intellectuals. He had acquired a reputation for being open-minded; but of course this might be just a matter of style. He had risen steadily through the Party under Khrushchev, Brezhnev and now Andropov, of whom he was clearly a special protégé; but that might well be a sign of conformity rather than talent. Nevertheless, I heard favourable reports of him from Pierre Trudeau in Canada later that month. I began to take special notice when his name was mentioned in reports on the Soviet Union.

  For the moment, however, relations with the Soviets were so bad that direct contact with them was almost impossible. It seemed to me that it was through eastern Europe that we would have to work.

  Hungary was the choice for my first visit as Prime Minister to a Warsaw Pact country for several reasons. The Hungarians had gone furthest along the path of economic reform and a certain amount of liberalization had occurred, though outright dissent was punished. János Kádár, officially First Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party but in fact unchallenged leader, used economic links with the West to provide his people with a tolerable standard of living while constantly asserting Hungary’s loyalty to the Warsaw Pact, socialism and the Soviet Union: a necessary consideration, given that some 60,000 Soviet troops had been ‘temporarily’ stationed in Hungary since 1948.

  I stepped off the plane at 10 o’clock on the night of Thursday 2 February 1984 to be met by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Lázár. My first official engagement the next morning was a private discussion with him. He gave every sign of loyalty to the communist system. But what he had to say showed the roots of that loyalty. He warned me that the worst possible thing I could do on my visit was to cast doubt on Hungary’s remaining part of the socialist bloc. The Hungarians had been concerned at what Vice-President George Bush had said to this effect in Vienna after making a successful visit to the country. I realized that formal adherence to the Soviet system was the price of the limted reforms they had been able to make. I immediately said that I understood and I was careful to keep my word.

  Later that morning I saw Mr Kádár. He was a square-faced, large-boned, healthy-complexioned man with an air of easy authority and an apparently reasonable frame of mind in discussion. I hoped to gain from him a clear picture of the situation in the USSR.

  The one surprise – and disappointment – of my visit was how far even Hungary was from a free economy. There were some small businesses, but they were not allowed to grow beyond a certain size. The main emphasis of Hungary’s economic reforms was not on increasing private ownership of land or investment but rather on private or co-operative use of state-owned facilities.

  In retrospect, my Hungarian visit was the first foray in what became a distinctive British diplomacy towards the captive nations of eastern Europe. The first step was to open greater economic and commercial links with the existing regimes, making them less dependent upon the closed COMECON system. Later we were to put more stress on human rights. And, finally, as the Soviet control of eastern Europe began to decay, we made internal political reforms the condition of western help.

  Just a few days after my return from Hungary Mr Andropov was dead. His funeral would give me the opportunity to meet the man who to our surprise emerged as the new Soviet leader, Mr Konstantin Chernenko. We had thought that Mr Chernenko was too old, too ill and too closely connected with Mr Brezhnev and his era to succeed to the leadership – and, as events turned out, we were more astute than his colleagues in the Politburo.

 
My party landed at Moscow Airport at 9.30 p.m. on Monday 13 February. I spent the night at our embassy – a magnificent house, facing the Kremlin across the Moskva river. (Later, when we would otherwise have had to give it up at the end of the lease, I did a deal with Mr Gorbachev for us to keep our splendid building in exchange for the Soviets keeping their current embassy in Britain when that lease expired. One of the few points on which the Foreign Office and I agreed was the need for British embassies to be architecturally imposing and provided with fine pictures and furniture).

  The day of the funeral was bright, clear and even colder than when I arrived. At these occasions visiting dignitaries do not have seats: we had to stand for several hours in a specially reserved enclosure. Later I met the new Soviet leader for a short private meeting which was a formal affair, covering all the old ground of disarmament issues. I was unimpressed.

  With long hours of standing I was glad that Robin Butler had persuaded me that I should wear fur-lined boots, rather than my usual high heels. They had been expensive. But when I met Mr Chernenko the thought crossed my mind that they would probably come in useful again soon.

  I now had to consider the next step in my strategy of gaining closer relations – on the right terms – with the Soviet Union. Clearly, there must be more personal contact with the Soviet leaders. Geoffrey Howe wanted us to extend an invitation to Mr Chernenko to come to Britain. I said that it was too early to do this. We needed to see more about where the new Soviet leader was heading first. But I was keen to invite others and invitations went to several senior Soviet figures, including Mr Gorbachev. It quickly appeared that Mr Gorbachev was indeed keen to come on what would be his first visit to a European capitalist country and wanted to do so soon. By now we had learned more about his background and that of his wife, Raisa, who, unlike the wives of other leading Soviet politicians, was often seen in public and was an articulate, highly educated and attractive woman. I decided that the Gorbachevs should both come to Chequers, which has just the right country house atmosphere conducive to good conversation. I regarded the meeting as potentially of great significance.