Interviewer
Prime Minister, can I ask you first of all what has this visit achieved?
Prime Minister
Well, it has become part of a regular pattern of visits and that is very important. It means that we can talk very freely and easily together even though we have different views on some things.
But the really interesting thing is that the Soviet Union is coming a very long way towards accepting freedom of choice and towards accepting certain fundamental human rights and indeed, is going to incorporate those into the kind of law which we hope that every nation would have.
So much has changed in the last four years. As well as arms control agreements, it is a much wider relationship and this visit has been an example of that relationship.
Interviewer
Do you feel the Cold War is now well and truly over? [end p1]
Prime Minister
The Cold War is thoroughly thawed. We will always have to keep up a strong and sure defence and I have always done business—a famous phrase—with the Soviet Union on the basis that they are entitled to defend their way of life just as much as we are entitled to defend ours. But, you know, the world is unpredictable, very unpredictable, and you do not know what will happen in the future and the only way to keep your own country and its liberty sure is to have a strong defence.
Interviewer
At the end of the visit, there were two invitations extended—one to yourself and one to the Queen—to visit Moscow. What was your reaction to those?
Prime Minister
I was very pleased indeed. It takes a time, as you know, for invitations to be translated into an actual visit with Her Majesty because so many people want her to visit and the programme is usually already fixed quite a time in advance. But she has accepted and the relevant authorities will sort out the right time.
Interviewer
Of course, you had a very successful trip to the Soviet Union just before the last election. Do you hope to do the same before the next one? [end p2]
Prime Minister
Before the next one? I do not know. Mr. Gorbachev has invited me again. I would like to go again, but mine is just a political visit at Government level—Her Majesty's is a state visit and that is of a totally different quality and importance, altogether much more important.
Interviewer
President Gorbachev has continually spoken of clearing the world of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. Do you think that is at all possible?
Prime Minister
I do not think it is possible. I do not think it is desirable. The world was, of course, free of nuclear weapons on 3 September 1939. There were not any. There were a lot of conventional weapons. Those did not deter a Second World War but a few years after the end of the first one. At the end of that war, two nuclear bombs were dropped. Since then, together with NATO, we have had world peace for forty years.
The nuclear weapon is the greatest deterrent ever known. You cannot dis-invent the knowledge of how to make it and if we only relied on conventional weapons, first it would mean that stronger countries had an enormous predominance of conventional weapons over ours. I remember years ago, Winston ChurchillWinston saying the thing that equalises the smaller nations and the larger ones is the nuclear weapon. So I think that has been the greatest deterrent to war and therefore the greatest guarantee of peace. [end p3]
Interviewer
But what about the question of updating nuclear weapons? The Soviet leader was fairly strong on that issue—he is totally opposed to the idea.
You have not given in at all on that?
Prime Minister
He has just completed the updating of his short-range nuclear weapons. He has up-to-date long-range nuclear weapons, so he is already speaking from an armoury which is updated.
We have not started to update our short-range nuclear weapons. Obsolete weapons do not deter. You naturally update your tanks, your anti-tank weapons, your planes, your anti-aircraft weapons. You naturally, therefore, also update your nuclear weapons, otherwise they do not deter.
Interviewer
You are still convinced that you are going to go ahead with that despite even opposition within NATO?
Prime Minister
I believe so much in freedom and justice that I think we must have a sure defence strong enough to deter anyone who tried to attack it, as they have twice this century. [end p4]
Interviewer
Are you at all impressed by the various cuts in armaments and troops and indeed in the production of weapon-grade plutonium that have been announced by the President?
Prime Minister
I was very pleased that Mr. Gorbachev is starting to reduce conventional forces, very pleased indeed. They have an enormous preponderance of those weapons over us. Even after his unilateral reductions, they already had two-to-one compared with us of men and tanks and that is a pretty devastating superiority.
But we are negotiating on conventional weapons in Vienna. They will have to come down a lot more to get down onto a basis of parity with us.
The weapons-grade uranium and plutonium: I expect that they will already have quite a considerable amount in store. The weapons-grade uranium is being ceased from two plants and diminished as far as the plutonium is concerned.
If they reach agreement on the 50 percent reduction on the large weapons, they dismantle them, as you know, and take out the nuclear material and that, presumably, will be stockpiled. So I do not think it will make a great deal of difference because I think there is probably already enough of that grade for quite a time to come. [end p5]
Interviewer
Finally, Prime Minister, you repeated once again that Mikhail Gorbachev was a man you could do business with. You clearly trust him, but do you trust the rest of the Soviet Union to keep Mikhail Gorbachev in charge?
Prime Minister
I think Mikhail Gorbachevhe will succeed. I think he has that kind of boldness and personality and sense of vision that will carry him through and I think that has communicated itself to other people.
I think the way in which the Soviet Union has had elections—90 percent of people turned out and voted; they voted very firmly against some of the previous people who had been in power and clearly they enjoyed that new freedom—is a very positive step forward and they are enjoying freedom of speech and freedom of movement and more and more people are being able to come out of the Soviet Union and there is a good family reunification programme.
Already, quite a bit has been achieved—enough to make certain things irreversible, enough to give them the spur and the inspiration to continue.