126 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
conversations. The painter Ivan Glazunov, a Russian nationalist, sug-
gested that Gorbachëv would have been arrested if the KGB had
bugged their conversations.^52
Foreign and security policy was firmly on his agenda sheet for
action. On 22 March 1985 he called for a halt to growth of the strategic
nuclear arsenals of America and the USSR; he also called for the
deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe to be suspended.
On 25 March 1985 a letter arrived for Reagan from Gorbachëv via
the chargé d’affaires at the Soviet embassy. The General Secretary
expressed his hope that he and the President could interact in a con-
structive fashion. He asked for an end to the practice of saying one
thing to each other in confidence and something different in public.
Trust had to be cultivated between Moscow and Washington. Gor-
bachëv wrote of the urgent need for rapid progress. He welcomed
Reagan’s desire for a meeting face to face.^53 Shultz felt encouraged by
the preview he received from Ambassador Dobrynin; he told the Presi-
dent how he liked the ‘non-polemical tone’.^54 Gorbachëv was moving
with impressive determination. On 7 April 1985 he announced that
the USSR was dropping its scheme to deploy more SS-20 missiles in
Europe. The relentless increase in Soviet offensive weaponry was to
come to an end. Ten days later the Moscow media announced the pro-
posal to introduce a global ban on nuclear explosion tests – the idea
was for the ban to come into force on 6 August, which would be the
fortieth anniversary of the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima
at the end of the Second World War.^55
On 10 April Gorbachëv received a US Congress delegation headed
by Speaker Tip O’Neill, who handed over a letter from Reagan. He
and O’Neill spoke for almost four hours. He expressed annoyance at
the American administration’s scepticism about his wish for peace;
he described the Strategic Defense Initiative as essentially an offensive
programme. O’Neill gave this report on him: ‘He appeared to be the
type of man who would be an excellent trial lawyer, an outstanding
attorney in New York had he lived there. There is no question that he
is a master of words and a master in the art of politics and diplomacy.
Was he hard? Was he tough? Yes, he is hard, he is tough.’^56
On 23 April 1985, at the next Central Committee plenum, Gor-
bachëv mixed Marxist-Leninist jargon and populist appeal: ‘No people
exists that would want a war . . . We are convinced that world war can
be avoided. But as experience shows, the struggle for the preserva -
tion of peace and the attainment of general security is no easy matter,