CRACKS IN THE ICE: EASTERN EUROPE 71vest more efficiently – it improves their economic conditions.’ Reagan
disliked the idea of damaging the finances of an American company
that had been having its own difficulties; he also worried that other
Western countries would step into any void left by the kind of embargo
that Weinberger wanted. Weinberger also called for a policy to call in
the Polish loans. The communist leaderships in both Moscow and
Warsaw, he declared, should be put under financial strain. Secretary
of State Haig remonstrated: ‘We must be careful. The United States
has no interest in seeing a country like Romania go bust.’ This failed
to convince Weinberger, who contended: ‘The Soviets can’t take over
all the tottering economies of Eastern Europe.’ Reagan refused to take
Weinberger’s side. He continued to wrestle with the dilemmas about
how to constrict the USSR’s freedom of action without endangering
the American economic interest or world peace.^33
When Brezhnev met Jaruzelski in August 1982, he stressed
the need to reinforce measures against ‘antisocialist and counter-
revolutionary elements’ in Poland; at the same time he promised to
send Soviet economic assistance.^34 The Soviet Union was paying dearly
for its continued dominance. According to Gosplan’s accounts in 1982,
Moscow advanced credits to Warsaw to the value of $690 million in
convertible hard currency to ease the burden of repayments to West-
ern banks and to enable the purchase of grain, sugar and other
foodstuffs. The USSR deferred the requirement for the Polish govern-
ment to make the scheduled payment of the $1.8 billion it owed to
Moscow. Soviet leaders got Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany and
Czechoslovakia to agree to a charge-free diversion of $465 million of
Soviet oil supplies to Poland.^35
The situation elsewhere in Eastern Europe was scarcely more
inspiriting for the Kremlin. The point men for the Soviet leadership
were the party general secretaries – according to Lev Shebarshin, the
KGB did not possess an ‘agentura’ in Eastern Europe.^36 The Kremlin
held discussions with them at meetings of the Warsaw Pact’s Political
Consultative Committee. Each member state took it in turns to host
the meetings. The leaders were required to give reports on the situa-
tion in their countries. Open discussion was brief and the reports were
long and tedious – the fact that the Soviet General Staff frequently sup-
plied a speaker did little to enliven the proceedings. Critical comments
by the Romanians could sometimes stir up the debate, but usually the
boredom was intense, being broken on one occasion by the decision to
divide the seating of member countries by the criterion of alcohol