142 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
was talk of treason and a ‘fifth column’. Yet Kataev could not help
noticing that Varennikov, unlike his fellow commanders, refrained
from personal abuse. The KGB officers also held back. Kataev waited
until the meeting finished before saying to Varennikov that emotional
outbursts were unhelpful in settling matters of vital importance. The
two men went on talking until after midnight. Theirs was a construc-
tive conversation.^27 Varennikov seemed to recognize that the USSR
could enhance its security by cooperating with the Americans in elim-
inating medium-range missiles from Europe. Chief of the General
Staff Akhromeev and Defence Minister Sokolov were nowhere near as
accommodating. They felt complete disgust with the proposals from
Zaikov’s group. Akhromeev had a short temper – on one occasion he
pushed Kataev against a wall as he remonstrated with him. He shouted
out that he would hand in his party card if Zaikov were ever to get his
way.^28
The Belgian government tried to ease international tensions by
offering to stop the Americans installing Pershing-2 missiles on
its territory if the USSR would withdraw the same number of
intermediate-range missiles from Eastern Europe. Foreign Minister
Leo Tindemans had repeated the idea to Gromyko when in Moscow
for Chernenko’s funeral. Gromyko gave him no encouragement.^29
There the matter rested throughout the spring and into the early weeks
of Shevardnadze’s tenure of the ministry.
The Americans took an initiative of their own when Shultz
arranged to meet the new Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister at the
Ameri can Ambassador’s Residence in Helsinki on 31 July 1985. He
arranged for his wife O’Bie to make the acquaintance of Shevard-
nadze’s wife Nanuli. He also introduced his own personal security
chief to Shevardnadze. The officer in question turned out to be a slim,
young woman. Shevardnadze said: ‘Now I can see that the fate of the
USA is in safe hands.’^30 When they discussed politics, he remarked that
if the Americans seriously desired a treaty on intermediate-range
nuclear weapons, Britain and France had to be included in the deal –
and America would need to abandon its space-based weapons
programme. Shultz countered that the construction of a new early-
warning station at Krasnoyarsk in mid-Siberia breached the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty; he called for a peace settlement in Afghani-
stan. He insisted that he hoped for agreements at the talks in Geneva
and elsewhere in Europe. He said that both of them should set about
‘kicking ass’ whenever their delegations held up progress. Shevard-