THE MONTH OF MUFFLED DRUMS 223to Iceland completely ill-prepared. She feared that Gorbachëv might
succeed in decoupling America from NATO. Would America risk the
destruction of Chicago just to save Paris? Mitterrand shared her think-
ing. He scoffed at opinion poll findings that people thought that
Reagan had stood firm in Iceland. He said that the truth was the exact
opposite. He indicated that if ever the Reykjavik understandings came
to fulfilment, he would sanction the production of chemical weapons
- he would take every measure to keep France secure. All this pleased
Thatcher. (It was an unusual episode of collaboration with the French.)
Mitterrand tried to calm her down by affirming that the summit
would have no practical results: ‘Don’t worry about it. The Russians
can’t walk past the SDI problem. There isn’t going to be an agreement.’
She spoke quite equably but then erupted again: ‘Everything that took
place in Reykjavik is a disaster!’^9
An invitation arrived for her to visit Camp David for talks with
Reagan. She had hoped to make the trip before any summit occurred,
but the Reykjavik encounter forestalled her.^10 He was eager to welcome
her despite what she had said to him by phone. He never objected to
her fieriness. Indeed, he liked it, and he made arrangement to have a
one-on-one session before their entourages joined them.^11 She and her
advisers hoped to capitalize on the warmth of feelings that existed
between President and Prime Minister. They set out to make him
recognize the dangers in his negotiating standpoint in Iceland. Thatcher
intended to be blunt. If his ideas for a drastic reduction in nuclear
weapons came to fulfilment, there would be instability in Europe as the
result of Moscow’s numerical predominance in conventional and
chemical weaponry. The NATO countries, as everyone knew, were
unlikely to agree to finance the kind of reform of their armed forces
that could countervail against Soviet superiority.^12 She and Reagan
issued a joint statement reaffirming the principle of nuclear deterrence
in defence policy and even pointing to the imbalance in conventional
and chemical weaponry; and Reagan confidentially guaranteed that
America would continue to supply Britain with Trident nuclear mis-
siles.^13
She returned to Europe somewhat calmer than when she left. She
reported back to Mitterrand at the Élysée Palace. She now accepted
that nothing catastrophic had occurred in Iceland. What had saved the
day was the intransigence of ‘the Russians’ about the Strategic Defense
Initiative. She thought this stupid of them because, in her view,
Reagan’s pet project would never achieve more than twenty per cent