76 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
had done the same. The USSR’s policy supposedly was defensive and
re active.^54
The Hungarians hardly bothered to disguise their desire to move
the pivot of their foreign trade away from the Comecon countries.
They contacted Bryan Cartledge, UK Ambassador in Budapest, for
advice about how to approach the European Community. They delib-
erately kept the USSR out of the picture. Hungary’s independent
interests, in the opinion of János Kádár and fellow leaders, were its
own business.^55
On 9 September 1982 Reagan signed a National Security Decision
Directive about Eastern Europe. The idea was to supply systematic
guidelines for the encouragement of more liberal and pro-Western
tendencies across the region. The American administration hoped to
loosen the ties between the USSR and the rest of the Warsaw Pact.
American official measures would show economic and diplomatic
favour to those countries that moved towards reform in internal and
external policy. Applications for entry to the International Monetary
Fund would be judged on this basis. Credit facilities would be with-
drawn for failures to slacken repression.^56 There was an awareness in
Washington that the peoples of Eastern Europe were discontented
with their governments and resentful of Soviet domination. It was also
known that the USSR lacked the economic capacity to increase its
subsidies to the region. The President and his entire administration
did not overlook the possibility that Moscow might decide to impose
its will by military force just as Stalin, Khrushchëv and indeed Brezh-
nev had done – and nobody was willing to go to war over any such
action. But Reagan was determined to increase the strain on Moscow.
He knew that the Soviet Union faced difficulties, and he intended to
aggravate them.