422 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
slowness in undertaking price reform. Why wasn’t Gorbachëv using
Soviet gold reserves? This touched a raw nerve. To Gorbachëv and his
team it seemed that the Americans wanted to be their teachers. Gor-
bachëv confined himself to saying that the priority was to reduce the
budgetary deficit by half. He boasted that the government intended to
rent out small and middle-sized enterprises in the near future.^22
The next day’s session, on 3 December, was meant to take place on
the USS Belknap but was moved to the Maxim Gorki liner because
Gorbachëv felt nervous about the stormy weather. Gorbachëv joked
that nevertheless he was now Bush’s guest; Bush said he liked his new
ship.^23 The pleasantries over, Gorbachëv said: ‘Above all, the new US
President has to know that the Soviet Union won’t start a war in any
circumstances. This is so important that I wanted personally to repeat
this announcement to you. Moreover, the USSR is ready to stop regard-
ing the USA any longer as its adversary and to announce this openly.’^24
He repeated that the Americans for trying to impose ‘Western values’
on Eastern Europe at just the time when the Soviet leadership had
abandoned the idea of exporting revolution.^25 His own behaviour over
Poland and East Germany, he implied, demonstrated his trustworthi-
ness. He said that he stood for ‘freedom of choice’, and he and Yakovlev
insisted that there was nothing specifically ‘Western’ about their think-
ing. Shevardnadze rejected the idea that perestroika in the USSR was
the product of Western policies applied from a position of strength.^26
Gorbachëv received Bush’s assurance that America was no longer
giving Israel its unconditional support in the Middle East – he wanted
Baker and Shevardnadze to confer about how to achieve peace with
the Arabs. Shevardnadze faulted the Americans and Pakistanis for
supplying the Afghan mujahidin.^27
Bush havered before making a defence of what he said were the
principles of ‘glasnost’. He advocated pluralism, openness and fiery
debates. He spoke up for the free market.^28 He denied that he presented
them as specifically Western values. Gorbachëv’s rejoinder was that
every country ought to have the right to choose its own way of life.
Here Bush could conclude: ‘I don’t think that we disagree here.’
Gorbachëv added: ‘I’m in favour on constructive cooperation.’ He
claimed that ‘world civilization’ depended on this. Bush expressed
pleasure at the content and outcome of their conversation.^29 At their
closing one-on-one session on 3 December Bush intimated some con-
cern about the possibility of a tightening of the screws in the Baltic
region.^30 But he and Gorbachëv wanted their summit to be recognized