̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Reagan

Opinion: Thirty years on as 'new Cold War' looms, US and Russia should remember the Rekyjavik summit

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 14:09:53 +0000

In what looks very like a tit-for-tat downgrading of bilateral relations, Russia and America have traded diplomatic insults in recent weeks over nuclear weapons, geopolitics and economics, prompting speculation about “a new Cold War”.

Moscow acted first, announcing on October 3 that it had suspended its agreement with Washington on the disposal of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accused the United States of “creating a threat to strategic stability as a result of unfriendly actions towards Russia”. He cited the recent build up of American forces in Eastern Europe, especially the Baltic states.

For its part, the US suspended talks with Russia over the war in Syria, on top of its existing sanctions against Moscow over Russia’s 2014 military actions in Ukraine.

How to escape from this standoff? Are there any lessons to be learned from the era of détente and the end of the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s? In particular, about the role of international statecraft and personal dialogue between leaders?

Icelandic freeze

October 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland which had aimed for an agreement on bilateral nuclear arms reductions. At the time the meeting was depicted in the media as a total failure, particularly over Star Wars, the US plan for a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile defence system. “No Deal. Star Wars Sinks the Summit,” Time magazine trumpeted on its cover with a photo of two drained and dejected men, unable to look each other in the eye.

How Time magazine reported the summit failure. TIME Magazine

̽��ֱ��last session ended in total deadlock between the two leaders – maybe a fateful missed opportunity. “I don’t know when we’ll ever have another chance like this,” Reagan lamented. “I don’t either”, replied Gorbachev. They wondered when – or even if – they would meet again.

This familiar, negative narrative was – and is – shortsighted. In reality, both leaders soon came to a more positive view of the summit. Far from being a “failure”, Gorbachev judged Reykjavik to be “a step in a complicated dialogue, in a search for solutions”. Reagan told the American people: “We are closer than ever before to agreements that could lead to a safer world without nuclear weapons.”

Reagan and Gorbachev had both learned how open discussion between those at the top could cut through much of the red tape and political misunderstanding that ties up international relations. At Reykjavik, even though Stars Wars proved a (temporary) stumbling block, both sides agreed that they could and should radically reduce their nuclear arsenals without detriment to national security. And this actually happened, for the first time ever, just a year later when they signed away all their intermediate-range nuclear forces – Soviet SS-20s and US Cruise and Pershing II missiles – in Washington in December 1987.

̽��ֱ��treaty testifies to the value of summit meetings that can be part of a process of dialogue that deepens trust on both sides and promotes effective cooperation. Reagan and Gorbachev clicked as human beings at Geneva in 1985, they spoke the unspeakable at Reykjavik in 1986 with talk of a nuclear-free world – and they did the unprecedented in Washington in 1987 by eliminating a whole category of nuclear weapons. All this helped to defuse the Cold War.

It’s good to talk

Today, however, the world seems in turmoil and trust is once again in short supply. We seem to be back to political posturing, megaphone diplomacy and military brinkmanship. Is there is any place for summitry in a situation of near-total alienation? This question was, of course, at the heart of the easing of hostilities in the 1970s, when East and West tried to thaw relations and find ways of living together peacefully.

Helmut Schmidt, West Germany’s “global chancellor” of the 1970s, was a great practitioner of what he called “Dialogpolitik”. He argued that leaders must always try to put themselves in the other person’s shoes in order to understand their perspective on the world, especially at times of tension. He favoured informal summit meetings as a way to exchange views privately and candidly, rather than feeding the insatiable media craving to spill secrets and proclaim achievements.

Rapport matters. EPA/Stephane Mahe

In the early 1980s, when superpower relations were stuck in a deep freeze, Schmidt conducted shuttle diplomacy as the self-styled “double-interpreter” between Washington and Moscow. Even when no real deals were in the offing, he believed it particularly vital to keep talking.

̽��ֱ��German chancellor, Angela Merkel, recently revived Schmidt’s approach, emphasising the need to maintain lines of communication with the Kremlin at a time of renewed East-West tension. Equally, however, she has insisted on the importance of a strong defence capability. Merkel is surely right. There is always a delicate balance to be struck between the diplomacy of dialogue and the politics of deterrence – making up your mind when to reach out and when to stand firm. Three decades on from Reykjavik, that remains the perennial challenge for those who have the vision, skill and nerve to venture to the summit.

David Reynolds, Professor of International History, Fellow of Christ's College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Kristina Spohr, Associate Professor of History, London School of Economics and Political Science

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

David Reynolds (Faculty of History) and Kristina Spohr (London School of Economics and Political Science) discuss current relations between the US & Russia, and whether there are any lessons to be learned from the era of détente and the end of the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s.

̽��ֱ��Official CTBTO Photostream

Reagan Bids Gorbachev Farewell

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Thatcher Archive reveals deep divisions on the road to Falklands War

lw355 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:01:01 +0000

Government tensions and widespread reluctance to wage war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, even as the conflict unfolded, are laid bare among the thousands of pages of Thatcher’s papers being opened to the public and made available online by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation at http://www.margaretthatcher.org/

Among the 40,000 pages of documents being released is Thatcher’s own copy of the note confirming the Argentine invasion of the Islands, and an emotionally-charged draft letter to President Reagan, eventually toned down, where she resolutely refuses American overtures to concede ground to Argentina’s military dictatorship.

A previously unseen 12-page record made by Ian Gow, Thatcher’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, following the appearance of Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Defence Secretary John Nott at the backbench 1922 committee, describes how the tenor of that tense exchange informed Carrington’s much-lamented decision to resign.

Thatcher’s attempts to dissuade him came to nought and the archive contains a warm letter of explanation from Carrington to Thatcher, and a touching letter by return from the Prime Minister on May 4, 1982, relating how much she and the Cabinet missed his presence.

But the papers released this year also contain evidence of less cordial relations and weak support at best from large sections of the Conservative Parliamentary Party in the build-up to war.

Critics of Government policy could be found inside Downing Street as well as outside. Some of Thatcher’s closest advisors were sceptical that the islands were worth the fight with John Hoskyns, David Wolfson and Alan Waters, all staunch Thatcherites, persistently lobbying her to strike for a diplomatic deal with Argentina.

Outside Number 10, junior ministers Tim Raison and Ken Clarke as well as Stephen Dorrell and Chris Patten were also expressing alarm; Dorrell for one saying he would only support the Task Force as a negotiating measure - and advocating a withdrawal if the military Junta in Argentina refused to negotiate.

All this only accentuated an important effect of the war, driving the Prime Minister ever deeper into the heart of the government machine where only a handful of her most senior ministers and officials could follow.

On Tuesday, April 6, four days after the Argentine invasion, Thatcher met with former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, seeking his advice on handling the looming conflict. While there was no official minute of the meeting, Thatcher’s own note survives. It references the now famous advice from Macmillan not to have Chancellor Geoffrey Howe in her War Cabinet so that money would not be an issue in making military decisions, and also details his counsel on handling war correspondents – essentially to restrict, if not censor them, as much as possible.

However, as the situation in the South Atlantic worsened in the face of Argentine intransigence and fighting began, wider Conservative and opposition support eventually began to fall in place behind the Prime Minister.

Critics remained, however, and the archive for 1982 contains sharp exchanges with Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Hume, who challenged the morality of the Government’s action, and even Astronomer Royal Martin Ryle, who described the occupation as a ‘relatively minor event’ – a view tersely rebutted by Thatcher.

̽��ֱ��personal sadness she felt at the loss of life during the Falklands War is reflected in the keeping of notes such as the slip of paper handed to her on June 12, relaying that HMS Glamorgan had been hit by an Exocet missile, with casualties at that point unknown. Elsewhere, the archive records instances of the Prime Minister anxiously awaiting news and reading long into the early hours of the morning as losses mounted and the British and Argentine forces traded heavy blows.

News that the Argentinians had surrendered came in a call from Fleet Command at Northwood at 9pm on Monday, June 14. ̽��ֱ��Thatcher Archives has her notes on the call, as well as her annotated copy of John Nott’s celebrated earlier statement announcing the recapture of South Georgia, nearly two months earlier on April 25.

̽��ֱ��‘Falklands Factor’ famously led to a huge post-war boost in the Prime Minister’s own popularity rating, as well as the Government’s. She connected the conflict to domestic issues, asking in a famous speech ‘why does it need a war to bring out our qualities and assert our pride?’.

Despite looming large over much of 1982, the Falklands were not the only overseas challenge to the Prime Minister. Thatcher’s first big visit after the Falklands War was to Japan, China and Hong Kong. ̽��ֱ��Chinese leg of the trop was particularly significant as it kicked off the long negotiation on the return of Hong Kong to China.

̽��ֱ��archives reveal something of the vast preparation she personally undertook for the visit to the Far East, especially China. She felt obliged to examine every detail of the trip, wary of the symbolism of each visit and determined to make a powerful impression at every point.

Among the papers at Churchill are a list of clothes she was planning to wear, meeting by meeting (all the outfits were given names such as Smoky, Fuchsia and Plum Stars), and the archive also contains details of her outright refusal to lay at wreath at the Monument to Revolutionary Martyrs in Tiananmen Square, despite being advised that many Western heads of government had recently done so. She simply scrawls ‘NO’ in capped letters next to the suggestion.

She also spent an astonishing amount of time planning the British return banquet (held in the Great Hall of the People) where she oversaw cutlery arrangements and the silver table settings supplied by the Royal Navy. Ever keen to cut costs, whether in the British economy or domestically, Thatcher also waded in on a ridiculous argument about the cost of the banquet; the PM favouring the cheaper 50 Yuan option but eventually being persuaded to accept the 75 Yuan menu which contained shark’s fin and sea slugs.

She also became embroiled in a heated dispute about the possibility of serving jam sandwiches for dessert (considered a treat for foreign visitors). Meriting official discussion with the Foreign Office, Thatcher opted for a fruit salad dessert instead.

Despite the care and attention put into seemingly every aspect of the Far East trip, the archive confirms her meetings with the Chinese leadership did not run smoothly. Papers released this year relate for the first time that Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiaoping threatened to move into Hong Kong before the expiry of the lease in 1997 if there were ‘very large and serious disturbances in the next fifteen years’, even going so far as to mention HSBC by name as a potential agent of such disturbances.

Away from the seriousness of war and international political wrangling, Thatcher also spent one evening in 1982 in the company of the man behind the world’s most famous drag queen – Dame Edna Everage. While not attending in full and glittering regalia, Barry Humphries did give Mrs Thatcher a Dame Edna cooking apron for ‘informal lunches at Chequers’. ̽��ֱ��archive also contains record of an amazing literary dinner at the home of Hugh Thomas where she sat down with Larkin, Spender, Stoppard, Berlin and the like. However, records note that Iris Murdoch and John Le Carre, a grudging admirer, were unable to attend.

For Christmas 1982, the archive also reveals she was sent tapes of Yes, Minister, by the Director-General of the BBC, Alisdair Milne.

̽��ֱ��Falklands War – the conflict that defined much of Margaret Thatcher’s political career and legacy – dominates the release of her personal papers for 1982 at the Churchill Archives Centre from Monday (March 25).

Among the 40,000 pages of documents being released is Thatcher’s own copy of the note confirming the Argentine invasion of the Islands

British Army official photographer Sgt Ronald Hudson

After landing at San Carlos, a heavily laden paratrooper of 2 Parachute Regiment heads south for Sussex Mountain on 21 May 1982. From there the Battalion attacked Goose Green.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-Noncommerical

Thatcher papers reveal her ‘grimmest year’

sjr81 — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:00:35 +0000

More than 35,000 of Thatcher’s personal papers from 1981, a year of internal Tory splits, two cabinet reshuffles and the meteoric rise of the SDP - as well as spiralling unemployment and rioting across the UK - lay bare the politics and back-office story of Number 10 at a time when senior Conservatives worried about the very future of the party.

In conjunction with the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust, the papers have also been digitised and put online via the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website.

Chris Collins, of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, said: “This was the grimmest year of her tenure as Prime Minister. Politics in 1981 was dominated by the poor state of the economy; unemployment was rising (passing three million in January 1982) and continued rising for the next four years.

“In polling terms, support for the Conservatives dipped as low as a desperately poor 16pc. Thatcher’s net approval rating stood at minus 41 (the Government was minus 47). David Steel, by contrast, was plus 48.”

̽��ֱ��papers also reveal the difficult start to relations with the Reagan administration in America as senior Republicans and White House officials moved to distance themselves from the policies of the UK Government; the White House Press Secretary going as far as to hand the press a two-page document outlining the economic differences between Thatcherism and Reaganism.

However, the President himself made no direct criticism - even if he did not stop his juniors from doing so - and the foundations of that most famous transatlantic relationship can be seen to strengthen with each meeting between the two leaders. Thatcher even kept a page of doodles drawn by Reagan at the Ottowa G7 meeting.

Leading the country at a time of crisis could be a lonely business. Hints of the possible strains on the Prime Minister are revealed in a letter to someone who had sent her a cashmere rug as a gift (Thatcher was unusually engaged in personally replying to as much correspondence as she could).

In her letter of thanks, now kept in the strong rooms at the Archives Centre, she said: “It (the gift) came at a difficult time just when I needed a little thoughtfulness and kindliness. This task, to which I have set my hand is the most absorbing and fascinating in the world. But sometimes it is lonely as one struggles to take the right decision.”

̽��ֱ��archives also reveal a secret meeting between Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch at Chequers on January 4, 1981, where he told her about his bid to buy ̽��ֱ��Times newspaper and outlined his future plans, including his aim to introduce new technologies and reduce staff numbers.

This meeting may come as a surprise to many as the official history of ̽��ֱ��Times specifically denies there was any direct contact between the two during this period, footnoting Rupert Murdoch as the source of the information.

But it is the difficulty of sailing Government through 1981’s rough seas that emerges as the key theme from this year’s papers, released simultaneously at Churchill alongside those of fellow Conservatives Sir Bernard Ingham, Sir Adam Ridley, Sir Alan Walters and Sir John Hoskyns.

̽��ֱ��archives reveal some brutal in-fighting at Number 10 and beyond as party divisions led, unusually, to two reshuffles in a single year. Elsewhere, a key party donor is seen to express his deepest discontent while the chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee told Thatcher to her face of his unease with Government monetary policy.

Plans for a Party Political Broadcast in July, only days after the riots in Toxteth, also saw the head of the Policy Unit, John Hoskyns, scathingly damn the script by John Selwyn Gummer as “the worst example of platitude-laden undeliverable clichés and nonsense I have ever seen…it is terrible.”

That year’s Budget went down badly both in the party and among the public – opinion polls showing it to be the most unpopular for 30 years with only 24pc of the public believing Chancellor Geoffrey Howe to be doing a good job. Some 73pc thought the budget unfair (22pc believing it fair – the previous low being 33pc in 1961). And with strong echoes of today, by far the most unpopular aspect of the Budget was an increase in petrol duty – of which a massive 87 per cent disapproved.

Following a purge of the Cabinet ‘wets’ in the September reshuffle, Thatcher’s 1981 Government was then faced with a possible wets rebellion and the startling rise of the SDP. ̽��ֱ��Crosby by-election of November 13 brought the SDP its first MP, Shirley Williams. Overturning a huge Conservative majority of 19,000, Williams’ victory led Tory Central Office to believe it was staring into the abyss.

̽��ֱ��author of a Research Department document named ‘ ̽��ֱ��Way Ahead’ could see none and declared: “This new phenomenon (the Alliance)…threatens to sweep the Conservative Party into a small minority position, worse than anything we have experienced for over 100 years.”

And the archives also reveal that long before Meryl Streep played ̽��ֱ��Iron Lady, Thatcher agreed to attend a production of the farce Anyone for Denis, although the papers suggest she may have done so through gritted teeth, writing ‘NO’ no less than five times on a memo detailing the arrangements. Thatcher was played on that occasion by Angela Thorne with John Wells at Denis.

Finally, approaching the end of a fraught 1981, Thatcher’s Christmas card list was finalised with recipients including Fidel Castro, Colonel Gaddafi, General Pinochet, Ken Livingstone and Kim Il-Sung.

Thousands of papers relating to perhaps the toughest year of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership are to be opened to the public at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Churchill Archives Centre from Monday.

This task, to which I have set my hand is the most absorbing and fascinating in the world. But sometimes it is lonely as one struggles to take the right decision.

Margaret Thatcher

Churchill Archives Centre

Detail from a page of doodles by President Ronald Reagan, kept by Margaret Thatcher

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes