SPOKES IN THE WHEEL 349Central Committee building. The KGB was working with the Ministry
of Internal Affairs to suppress trouble.^63
There was nothing unusual in the KGB sounding an alarm in its
annual reports, and Gorbachëv reacted with equanimity. He was
equally calm about the armed forces. Shevardnadze felt less comfort-
able in the light of continual criticisms by the military lobby. On
9 November 1988 he told Gorbachëv that the high command was
playing fast and loose with the Politburo and its policies. Shevard-
nadze said that the armed forces were trying to provoke NATO by
intelligence operations and new weapons locations.^64
Heart problems pushed Akhromeev into retiring as Chief of the
General Staff in November 1988. Gorbachëv invited him to stay on as
his military adviser.^65 He had always made a point of taking him along
to talks with the Americans;^66 and he noticeably ignored Defence Min-
ister Yazov whenever Akhromeev was present.^67 It is true that he was
never a pushover. Indeed Shevardnadze regarded him as a terrible
reactionary whose memoranda could have ‘brought the entire negoti-
ating system to collapse’.^68 Akhromeev held to his earlier opinion that
a ‘limited’ nuclear war was feasible without the consequence of global
destruction. Through to 1987 he was still exploring the possibilities for
the SS-20s.^69 He did accept the new concept of strategic ‘sufficiency’.
Or at least he did not find it politic to object. He admitted that pere-
stroika was personally difficult for him. He disliked how he was having
to rethink the answers to so many questions.^70 Nina Andreev’s letter
delighted him. He rang up the Sovetskaya Rossiya editor Chikin to
offer congratulations and support. The Main Political Administration
of the Soviet Army received the order from him to publicize the article
among all military units: ‘Well, at long last a true word has appeared!’^71
Gorbachëv saw advantage in holding on to Akhromeev if he
wanted to dispel fears in the Soviet Army that he was selling out the
state’s vital interests. Akhromeev had his own reasons for accepting
the invitation. By working with the General Secretary, he aimed to
extract compromises from him and obtain a degree of autonomous
influence on decisions.^72 Many of his fellow commanders saw him as
a traitor who had ceased to expose the dangers in current proposals
for disarmament; they thought his behaviour wholly inappropriate for
someone whom they expected to represent the armed forces.^73 Gor-
bachëv seemed to be getting too much his own way. When he
substituted Yazov for Sokolov in the Defence Ministry, there was
less of the customary obstructiveness. Yazov displayed a gratifying