306 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
going home talking well of the Soviet leadership and perestroika. The
word was that this had annoyed the Americans. There was in fact no
evidence for this; but he was justified in saying that her visit had
turned into a success for the Soviet cause in international relations.^25
Next day at the Politburo, on 2 April, Gorbachëv offered a brisk
assessment of Western leaders. He claimed that Thatcher’s epiphany
had proved the validity of a new formula: ‘He who doesn’t have rela-
tions with us loses authority at home. Look at Kohl for an example.’ He
noted that the West German Chancellor had been compelled to admit
his mistake in comparing him to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goeb-
bels. Gorbachëv was proud of his own diplomatic record.^26
He told the Politburo that Thatcher at one stage had seemed on the
point of walking out of their talks. He was scathing about her tirades
and said he had conceded nothing to a ‘feisty old woman’ who
‘behaved like she does in her own parliament’. Having shown off his
communist – and somewhat male-chauvinist – credentials, he asked
the Politburo to recognize her good side: ‘Unlike Mitterrand, she
doesn’t know how to disguise her real thoughts and plans.’ Gorbachëv
believed that she was impressed by what she saw in the USSR and
genuinely desired to foster mutual trust. When she raised the question
of the 1944 military occupation of the Baltic states, he had responded
that they had belonged ‘to us’ since Peter the Great. He had discon-
certed her by telling Pravda to publish her speeches in full. He thought
that her rating in the United Kingdom was of some concern to her
party: she could not afford to appear to obstruct a deal with the USSR
if she wished to win the electoral struggle with the Labour Party – and,
according to Gorbachëv, she recognized that ‘Reagan was becoming
decrepit’. Gorbachëv concluded that her bargaining position was
weaker than it once had seemed.^27
Her aide Charles Powell saw things differently: he reckoned that
her performance had assured her of victory in the next general elec-
tion.^28 Less parochially, her British critics wanted to see signs of her
ceasing to obstruct America’s rapprochement with the USSR. At the
House of Commons on 26 June the Labour Party Shadow Foreign
Secretary Denis Healey called on the government to appreciate ‘the
biggest change in Russia’s approach to the world since 1917’. If Presi-
dent Reagan was working for a global reduction in nuclear weaponry,
why were British ministers not cooperating? Foreign Secretary Sir
Geoffrey Howe’s inertia appeared paradoxical in the light of his past
criticism of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Healey received no enlight-