180 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
plight had suddenly worsened in recent months, and not through his
fault. The problem originated not in Moscow but in Riyadh. The
OPEC organization relied upon Western governments to enforce
prices of oil on global markets. But when Margaret Thatcher dis-
mantled the British National Oil Company in spring 1985, the entire
purchasing system was disrupted. Saudi Arabia dealt with the prospect
of a fall in prices by hugely increasing production. This led to a sudden
collapse in prices from $32 a barrel in November 1985 to a mere $10
in spring 1986.^8 The Soviet Politburo knew full well about the USSR’s
dependence on revenues from petrochemical sales to Western Europe.
Suddenly the global price fell and a hole was blasted in Gorbachëv’s
budgetary planning.
Gorbachëv himself was indignant about Reagan at the Politburo
on 20 March 1986: ‘We have put forth realistic things. We really mean
to disarm. Unfair play in such matters is impossible. No one will be
able to deceive the other.’ The American side, he claimed, had reacted
with evasions and half-measures.^9 He told aides that whereas he had
discharged his responsibility to his people and indeed to the Ameri-
cans, Reagan was ducking his obligations. Mitterrand and Thatcher
in his opinion were no better. The ‘Europeans’ had once pleaded with
the USSR’s leadership to rid the continent of intermediate-range
rockets. But now the same people were requesting the delivery of more
Pershing-2s. The Americans were making a bad situation worse. They
were expelling Soviet UN diplomats and raising a hysterical campaign
of propaganda about Nicaragua. They made threat after threat to
Libya. They continued to subsidize Savimbi in Angola. They forwarded
aid to the new anti-leftist government in South Yemen. US navy
vessels had sailed into the Black Sea. He accused the American admin-
istration of trying to get him to ‘slam the door’ on negotiations. He
vowed that their provocations would be in vain: he was determined to
stick to the route he had mapped out in his January declaration.^10
The US Defense Department and the CIA continued to feel suspi-
cion about the USSR’s real intentions in the light of information about
Soviet nuclear force development and about Moscow’s political and
financial activities around the world.^11 Gorbachëv for the moment
ignored Washington’s concerns. But he was at least starting to under-
stand that Soviet leaders had got themselves into a double bind about
the Strategic Defense Initiative. By continually talking about the
dangers it posed, they would appear weak not only to Reagan but also
in the eyes of their own fellow citizens. If, on the other hand, they