Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

by Margaret Thatcher

  The main results of this approach as far as I was concerned were to put the relationship with Germany – rather than the ‘special relationship’ with Britain – at the centre.

  At the end of 1988 I could foresee neither the way in which Anglo-American relations would develop nor the scale of the difficulties with the Germans over SNF. My basic position on short-range nuclear weapons was that they were essential to NATO’s strategy of flexible response. Any potential aggressor must know that if he were to cross the NATO line he might be met with a nuclear response. If that fear was removed he might calculate that he could mount a conventional attack that would reach the Atlantic seaboard within a few days. And this, of course, was the existing position. But once land-based intermediate-range nuclear weapons were removed, as the INF Treaty signed in Washington in December 1987 took effect, the land-based short-range missiles became all the more vital. So, of course, did the sea-based intermediate missiles.

  At the Rhodes European Council in early December 1988 I discussed arms control with Chancellor Kohl. He was keen for an early NATO summit which would help him push through agreement within his Government on the ‘comprehensive concept’ for arms control. I agreed that the sooner the better. We must take decisions on the modernization of NATO’s nuclear weapons by the middle of the year, in particular on the replacement of LANCE. Chancellor Kohl said that he wanted both of these questions out of the way before the June 1989 European elections.

  By the time of the next Anglo-German summit in Frankfurt the political pressure on the German Chancellor had increased further and he had begun to argue that a decision on SNF was not really necessary until 1991–92.

  Certainly, the Soviets were in no doubt about the strategic importance of the decisions which would have to be made about SNF. Mr and Mrs Gorbachev arrived at 11 o’clock at night on Wednesday 5 April in London for the visit which had had to be postponed the previous December as a result of an earthquake in Armenia. I met them at the airport and returned to the Soviet Embassy where the number of toasts drunk suggested that the Soviet leader’s early crackdown on vodka was not universally applicable. In my talks with Mr Gorbachev I found him frustrated by – and surprisingly suspicious of – the Bush Administration. I defended the new President’s performance and stressed the continuity with the Reagan Administration. But the real substance of our discussions related to arms control. I raised directly with Mr Gorbachev the evidence which we had that the Soviets had not been telling us the truth about the quantity and types of chemical weapons which they held. He stoutly maintained that they had. He then brought up the issue of SNF modernization. I said that obsolete weapons did not deter and that NATO’s SNF would certainly have to be modernized. The forthcoming NATO summit would confirm this intention. Mr Gorbachev returned to the subject in his speech at Guildhall which contained a somewhat menacing section about the effect on East-West relations and arms control talks more generally if NATO went ahead with SNF modernization.

  All this pressure was by now having an effect. In particular, Chancellor Kohl was retreating. In April a new German position on SNF modernization and negotiation was extensively leaked before any of the allies – other than the Americans – were informed. The German position paper did not rule out a ‘third zero’, did not call on the Soviet Union unilaterally to reduce its SNF levels to those of NATO, and cast doubt on SNF modernization.

  I had acrimonious discussions with Chancellor Kohl behind the stage-managed friendliness of our meeting at Deidesheim at the end of April. Chancellor Kohl said that it was simply not sustainable politically in Germany to argue that those nuclear weapons which most directly affected Germany should be the only category not subject to negotiation. I repeated that Britain and the United States were absolutely opposed to negotiations on SNF and would remain so. Even if a decision to deploy the Follow-On to LANCE were postponed, there must be clear evidence at the forthcoming summit of NATO support for the US development programme. In fact, the German Government’s actions had put NATO under severe strain. Chancellor Kohl said he did not need any lectures about NATO, that he believed in flexible response and repeated his opposition to a ‘third zero’.

  In the run-up to the NATO summit the newspapers continued to focus on splits in the alliance. This was particularly galling because we should have been celebrating NATO’s fortieth anniversary and highlighting the success of our strategy of securing peace through strength. Apart from the Americans only the French fully agreed with my line on SNF and in any case, not being part of the NATO integrated command structure, they would not be of great importance in the final decision. I minuted on Tuesday 16 May: ‘If we get a “no negotiations” SNF section this will be reasonable, combined with a supportive piece on SNF research.’ I was still quite optimistic.

  Then on Friday 19 May I suddenly learned that the American line had shifted. They were now prepared to concede the principle of negotiations on SNF. Jim Baker claimed in public that we had been consulted about this US change of tack, but in fact we had not. Without in any way endorsing the American text, which I considered wrong-headed, I sent two main comments to the Americans. It should be amended to make the opening of SNF negotiations dependent upon a decision to deploy a successor to LANCE. It should include a requirement of substantial reductions in Soviet SNF towards NATO levels. Jim Baker replied that he doubted whether the Germans would accept this. The attitude of Brent Scowcroft – the President’s National Security Adviser – was sounder. But I could not tell what the President’s own view would be. In any case, I now found myself going to Brussels as the odd man out.

  In fact, at the last minute the Americans brought forward proposals calling for conventional forces reductions and for not just further deep cuts but accelerated progress in the CFE talks in Vienna, so that those reductions could be accomplished by 1992 or 1993. This sleight of hand permitted a compromise on SNF by enabling the Germans to argue that the prospect of ‘early’ SNF negotiations was preserved. However, I emphasized in my subsequent statement to the House of Commons the fact that only after agreement had been reached on conventional force reductions, and implementation of that agreement was under way, would the United States be authorized to enter into negotiations to achieve partial reductions in short-range missiles. No reductions would be made in NATO’s SNF until after the agreement on conventional force reductions had been fully implemented.

  I felt that I had done as much as was humanly possible to stop our sliding into another ‘zero’. I could live with the text which resulted from the tough negotiations which took place in Brussels. But I had seen for myself that the new American approach was to subordinate clear statements of intention about the alliance’s defence to the political sensibilities of the Germans. I did not think that this boded well.

  In the late summer of 1989 the first signs appeared of the imminent collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Solidarity won the elections in early June in Poland and General Jaruzelski accepted the result. Liberalization proceeded in Hungary, which opened its borders to Austria in September across which flooded East German refugees. The haemorrhage of population from East Germany and demonstrations at the beginning of October in Leipzig led to the fall of Erich Honecker. The demolition of the Berlin Wall began on 10 November. The following month it was the turn of Czechoslovakia. By the end of the year Václav Havel, the dissident playwright who had been jailed in February, had been elected President of Czechoslovakia and the evil Ceausescus had been overthrown in Romania.

  These events marked the most welcome political change of my lifetime. But I was not going to allow euphoria to extinguish either reason or prudence. I did not believe that it would be easy or painless to entrench democracy and free enterprise. It was too soon to be sure precisely what sort of regimes would emerge. Moreover, central and eastern Europe – still more the Soviet Union – was a complicated patchwork of nations. Political freedom would also bring ethnic disputes and challenges to frontiers, which might have moved several time
s in living memory. War could not be ruled out.

  The welcome changes had come about because the West had remained strong and resolute – but also because Mr Gorbachev and the Soviet Union had renounced the Brezhnev doctrine. On the continued survival of a moderate, reforming government in the USSR would depend the future of the new democracies. It was too early to assume that the captive nations were permanently free from captivity: their Soviet captors could still turn ugly. It was therefore essential to go carefully and avoid actions which would be deemed provocative by either the Soviet political leadership or the military.

  And nothing was more likely to stir up old fears in the Soviet Union – fears which the hardliners would be anxious to exploit – than the prospect of a reunited, powerful Germany.

  There was – and still is – a tendency to regard the ‘German problem’ as something too delicate for well-brought-up politicians to discuss. This always seemed to me a mistake. The problem had several elements which could only be addressed if non-Germans considered them openly and constructively. I do not believe in collective guilt: it is individuals who are morally accountable for their actions. But I do believe in national character, which is moulded by a range of complex factors: the fact that national caricatures are often absurd and inaccurate does not detract from that. Since the unification of Germany under Bismarck Germany has veered unpredictably between aggression and self-doubt. Germany’s immediate neighbours, such as the French and the Poles, are more deeply aware of this than the British, let alone the Americans; though the same concern often leads Germany’s immediate neighbours to refrain from comments which might appear insensitive. The Russians are acutely conscious of all this too, though in their case the need for German credit and investment has so far had a quiescent effect. But perhaps the first people to recognize the ‘German problem’ are the modern Germans, the vast majority of whom are determined that Germany should not be a great power able to exert itself at others’ expense. The true origin of German angst is the agony of self-knowledge.

  As I have already argued, that is one reason why so many Germans genuinely – I believe wrongly – want to see Germany locked in to a federal Europe. In fact, Germany is more rather than less likely to dominate within that framework; for a reunited Germany is simply too big and powerful to be just another player. Moreover, Germany has always looked east as well as west, though it is economic expansion rather than territorial aggression which is the modern manifestation of this tendency. Germany is thus by its very nature a destabilizing force in Europe. Only the military and political engagement of the United States in Europe and close relations between the other two strongest sovereign states in Europe – Britain and France – are sufficient to balance German power: and nothing of the sort would be possible within a European super-state.

  One obstacle to achieving such a balance of power when I was in office was the refusal of France under President Mitterrand to follow his and French instincts and challenge German interests. This would have required abandoning the Franco-German axis on which he had been relying and, as I shall describe, the wrench proved just too difficult for him.

  Initially, it also seemed likely that the Soviets would be strongly opposed to the re-emergence of a powerful Germany. Of course, the Soviets might have calculated that a reunited Germany would return a left-of-centre government which would achieve their long-term objective of neutralizing and denuclearizing West Germany. (As it turned out – and perhaps with a clearer idea than we had of the true feelings of the East German people – the Soviets were prepared to sell reunification for a modest financial boost from Germany to their crumbling economy.)

  These matters were at the forefront of my mind when I decided to arrange a stopover visit in Moscow for talks with Mr Gorbachev on my way back from the IDU Conference in Tokyo in September 1989.

  In Moscow Mr Gorbachev and I talked frankly about Germany. I explained to him that although NATO had traditionally made statements supporting Germany’s aspiration to be reunited, in practice we were rather apprehensive. Nor was I speaking for myself alone – I had discussed it with at least one other western leader, meaning but not mentioning President Mitterrand. Mr Gorbachev confirmed that the Soviet Union did not want German reunification either. This reinforced me in my resolve to slow up the already heady pace of developments. Of course, I did not want East Germans to have to live under communism. But it seemed to me that a truly democratic East Germany would soon emerge and that the question of reunification was a separate one on which the wishes and interests of Germany’s neighbours and other powers must be fully taken into account.

  To begin with the West Germans seemed to be willing to do this. Chancellor Kohl telephoned me on the evening of Friday 10 November after his visit to Berlin and as demolition of the Berlin Wall began. He was clearly buoyed up by the scenes he had witnessed: what German would not have been? I advised him to keep in touch with Mr Gorbachev who would obviously be very concerned with what was happening. He promised to do so. Later that night the Soviet Ambassador came to see me with a message from Mr Gorbachev who was worried that there might occur some incident – perhaps an attack on Soviet soldiers in East Germany or Berlin – which could have momentous consequences.

  However, instead of seeking to rein back expectations, Chancellor Kohl was soon busily raising them. In a statement to the Bundestag he said that the core of the German question was freedom and that the people of East Germany must be given the chance to decide their own future and needed no advice from others. That went for the ‘question of reunification and for German unity too’. The tone had already begun to change and it would change further.

  This was the background to President Mitterrand’s calling a special meeting of Community heads of government in Paris to consider what was happening in Germany – where Egon Krenz, the new East German leader who was, the Soviets had told me, a protégé of Mr Gorbachev, was looking precarious. Before I went I sent a message to President Bush reiterating my view that the priority should be to see genuine democracy established in East Germany and that German reunification was not something to be addressed at present. The President later telephoned me to thank me for my message with which he agreed and to say how much he was looking forward to the two of us ‘putting our feet up at Camp David for a really good talk’.

  Almost equally amiable was the Paris meeting on the evening of Saturday 18 November. President Mitterrand opened by posing a number of questions, including whether the issue of borders in Europe should be open for discussion. Then Chancellor Kohl began. He said that people wanted ‘to hear Europe’s voice’. He then obliged by speaking for forty minutes. He concluded by saying that there should be no discussion of borders but that the people of Germany must be allowed to decide their future for themselves. After Sr González had intervened to no great effect, I spoke.

  I said that though the changes taking place were historic we must not succumb to euphoria. It would take several years to get genuine democracy and economic reform in eastern Europe. There must be no question of changing borders. The Helsinki Final Act must apply.* Any attempt to talk about either border changes or German reunification would undermine Mr Gorbachev and open up a Pandora’s box of border claims right through central Europe. I said that we must keep both NATO and the Warsaw Pact intact to create a background of stability.

  The following Friday – 24 November – I was discussing the same issues at Camp David with President Bush – though not exactly ‘with my feet up’. Although friendly enough, the President seemed uneasy. I reiterated much of what I had said in Paris about borders and reunification and of the need to support the Soviet leader on whose continuance in power so much depended. The President asked me pointedly whether my line had given rise to difficulties with Chancellor Kohl and about my attitude to the European Community. It was also clear that we differed on the priority which still needed to be given to defence spending. The President told me about the budgetary difficulties he faced and argued that
if conditions in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union had really changed, there must surely be scope for the West to cut its defence spending. I said that there would always remain the unknown threat which must be guarded against. Defence spending was like home insurance in this respect. You did not stop paying the premiums because your street was free from burglaries for a time. I thought that the US defence budget should be driven not by Mr Gorbachev and his initiatives but by the United States’ defence interests. The atmosphere did not improve as a result of our discussions.

  Shortly after my return to Britain I learned that, in clear breach of at least the spirit of the Paris summit, Chancellor Kohl had set out in a speech to the Bundestag a ‘ten-point’ plan about Germany’s future. The fifth point was the proposal of the development of ‘confederative structures between the two states in Germany with the goal of creating a federation’. The tenth point was that his Government was working towards ‘unity, reunification, the reattainment of German state unity’.

  The real question now was how the Americans would react. I did not have to wait long to find out. In a press conference briefing Jim Baker spelt out the American approach to German reunification which, he said, would be based on four principles. Self-determination would be pursued ‘without prejudice to its outcome’. Another element was that Germany should not only remain in NATO – with which I heartily agreed – but that it should be part of ‘an increasingly integrated European Community’ – with which I did not. The third point was that moves to unification should be peaceful, gradual and part of a step-by-step process. I entirely agreed with the final point – that the principles of the Helsinki Final Act, particularly as they related to borders, must be supported. What remained to be seen, however, was whether the Americans were going to give most weight to the notion of Germany’s future in an ‘integrated’ Europe or to the thought that reunification must only come about slowly and gradually.