THE BIG FOUR 253mentalities more than with organized opposition; he ruefully added:
‘It’s more difficult to operate in conditions of democracy.’ Shevard-
nadze came back to the agricultural question and asserted that nearly
half of Georgia’s farm output came from individual production.^33
This was not something that he would have boasted about in
Moscow. But the atmosphere eased, and Shevardnadze jovially
requested Reagan to transfer Weinberger to the Ministry of Health.
The fact that Reagan took no offence signalled the progress that was
being made.^34
Gromyko and his dourness was a butt of ribaldry for both Soviet
and American leaders. Thatcher was another common target. Reagan
told a gag about how when she paid a visit to Heaven, God asked her:
‘How are things going, My daughter?’ Thatcher answered: ‘In the first
place, I’m not Your daughter; in the second place, You’re sitting in my
place!’^35 (Shevardnadze claimed to have told the same gag at his first
meeting with Reagan in September 1985.)^36 At the Moscow summit in
summer 1988 Gorbachëv recounted the tale about an old man and
woman who found a little basket with an egg inside. Their pleasure
faded when suddenly a three-headed dragon emerged from the shell.
Reagan responded with a story about how a man worked in a factory
making carriages but found that the final products were machine
guns.^37 The joshing between Reagan and Gorbachëv kept them both
amused. Even so, Gorbachëv held back from using familiar forms of
address; his instinct was still to keep some distance between them.^38
The initiative had to come from the older man, and it was not until
this summit that Reagan at last asked Gorbachëv whether he could
now regard him as a friend.^39
Their spouses achieved at best only a stiff cordiality with each
other. Nancy was not alone in finding Raisa difficult. UK Ambassador
Rodric Braithwaite described her as ‘teetering on amazingly high
heels’ and seeming ‘artificial and doll-like, with a bird-like voice’.
Her hauteur became notorious. When meeting her at a reception,
Braithwaite tried to help start their conversation by reminding her
who he was. This for some reason annoyed her, and she snapped at
him: ‘I’m not suffering from sclerosis.’^40 She seldom passed up a chance
to compare America unfavourably with the Soviet Union. She exhib-
ited total boredom when Shultz’s wife O’Bie escorted her on a tour
of Washington – she refused to get out of the limo and look at the
Lincoln Memorial. Her edginess was notorious. When she had to
shake hands with a line of people at a reception, she would reach for