294 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
would have no interest in enabling this unless the USSR also removed
the tanks. Gorbachëv switched direction. Calling for compliance with
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, he implausibly tried to deny that his
scientists were working on a response to America’s Strategic Defense
Initiative.^53 It was not the quietest meeting. But it did at least enmesh
the two political systems more deeply into mutual contact and under-
standing.
Shevardnadze arrived in Washington nine days later. The two dele-
gations met in the State Department and split up into small groups
for talks on human rights, regional disputes, disarmament and US–
USSR bilateral relations.^54 Shevardnadze asked Shultz to recognize the
progress being made in the USSR: ‘Everywhere smells of newly
ploughed earth.’ He took pride in the reforms of Soviet psychiatric
hospitals while castigating American record on racism. He criticized
American attempts to widen the interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty. Shultz refused to give ground.^55 But a worrying uncer-
tainty remained about strategic nuclear weapons, and Shultz decided
to go to Moscow for talks in late April. He took Powell and a large
team with him and came upon a Soviet leadership that resisted com-
promise on contentious matters. Shultz observed: ‘People have gone
slack on their oars.’ He and his team speculated that the Kremlin was
distracted by internal political tensions. Shevardnadze reasoned that
the USSR could not afford to help America to bring an end to the
Iran–Iraq war for fear of inducing the Iranians to make mischief as
the Soviet Army withdrew from Afghanistan. But as Nitze noted, this
did not account for the halt to progress in the nuclear arms talks.
Shultz concluded that it was unfeasible to draft a strategic weapons
treaty before the Moscow summit. He and Shevardnadze agreed to
continue to work on it through the summer and beyond.^56
Their collaboration was about to undergo a further complication.
On the day of Shultz’s arrival in Moscow, Reagan spoke to the World
Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts in Springfield and delivered
some blunt thoughts on the USSR: ‘We said freedom was better than
totalitarianism. We said communism was bad.’^57 This had always been
his opinion, and his words reassured his conservative political base.
They hardly made things easier for Gorbachëv in the USSR.
Unfortunately the White House had omitted to liaise with Shultz
about the Springfield speech. On 23 April he found Gorbachëv in an
angry frame of mind. Gorbachëv demanded to know whether Reagan
had changed his Soviet policy. Shultz was in the embarrassing situa-