268 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
behind – even Finland had retooled its industry with advanced tech-
nology: ‘Our own laboratories are filthier than their factories for
livestock feed.’^65 He and Thatcher had talked about how the average
personal income in the USSR was half of the level in the United King-
dom: ‘Where’s it all going? The answer is in quality and wastage. The
planning order isn’t reinforced by people’s interests. It’s a paper-based
bureaucratic methodology.’^66 He was soon to admit that the true figure
was not a half but a third. The Soviet Union seemed to do worse each
time he spoke at the Politburo.^67 Whereas the USSR claimed to have an
advanced economy with six million ‘scientific workers’, Gorbachëv
doubted that there were anything like as many in productive employ-
ment.^68 Japan had entered the first rank of the world’s economic
powers and the Federal Republic of Germany had joined it there. Gor-
bachëv hoped to cement a partnership with Western Europe, which
had pulled far ahead in technology. Mitterrand had assured him that
the West Europeans intended to reduce their reliance on America.^69
He and Shevardnadze still saw weaknesses in the American admin-
istration’s posture. The White House could never take Congress for
granted, especially on the subject of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Soviet leaders also doubted that America’s economy was as buoyant as
Reagan assumed. Shevardnadze claimed that ‘the Americans cannot
conduct the arms race on a permanent footing’.^70 The problem was that
the administration sailed intact through all its political storms; and
although the economic situation had its troubles, America undeniably
had new sectors of industry and technology which were restoring it to
the forefront of global competitiveness. Reagan, moreover, was doing
well in surveys of American public opinion. He was harder to knock
back than the Soviet leadership had hoped.
The President was heard to comment that if only Gorbachëv could
gain acquaintance with American everyday realities, the Cold War
would quickly be over. He once said this to Frank Carlucci while trav-
elling by helicopter and looking down on a vista of shopping malls.^71
He was not the only leader to think along these lines. American poli-
ticians, Democrats as well as Republicans, believed passionately in the
superiority of American values and the American style of life. They
nagged away about the abuses of power in Moscow. After they discov-
ered much that was new to them about Soviet people, they continued
to reject the USSR’s claim to legitimacy. But most of them did come to
drop the assumption that it was unsafe to trust any Kremlin ruler.
They started to like and admire the reformers. Some even loved