106 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
He recruited talented people to work for him. He knew that several of
them disagreed with the official line of policy.^21 Ustinov was equally
dominant in the military-industrial sector; but although he was no
friend of agricultural subsidies, he stayed on amicable terms with Gor-
bachëv. Unlike Gromyko, Ustinov defended him when others in the
Politburo sought to trim his authority.^22 Gorbachëv was no mean
political force in his own right. Yet he could never afford to forget that
Ustinov and Gromyko were likely to have a decisive impact on his
chances of succeeding Chernenko.
Ustinov never liked Ogarkov as Chief of the General Staff. Ogar-
kov was his own man and raised awkward questions about the USSR’s
military stance. He challenged the official Soviet doctrine that it was
feasible to avoid total war after the first use of nuclear missiles by one
side or another. He publicized his opinion in the Soviet military news-
paper Krasnaya Zvezda:
The calculation of strategists across the [Atlantic] ocean, based on
the possibility of waging a so-called ‘limited’ nuclear war, now has
no foundation. It is utopian. Any so-called limited use of nuclear
forces will inevitably lead to the immediate use of the whole
nuclear arsenals of both sides. This is the terrible logic of war.^23Ogarkov also wanted a complete reorganization of conventional
forces. By halving the number of officers and troops, he hoped to
make savings that would provide the resources to train the Soviet
Army to a higher level of professional competence.^24 Ustinov was
furious with him. As Politburo member and Defence Minister, he
was determined to have a compliant General Staff. He got rid of
Ogarkov in September 1984. Ogarkov was on vacation in Crimea, and
Ustinov brusquely phoned him with the news.^25
His deputy Akhromeev gained promotion as chief. Akhromeev
had served on the Leningrad front in the Second World War. Such was
his longevity of service that he liked to call himself ‘the last of the
Mohicans’. The UK’s Ambassador Braithwaite was later to find him
‘rather impressive – intelligent, with a twinkle in his eye, a long face,
square skull, and not much hair’.^26 Ustinov hoped that with such a
man, he could end the tensions with the high command and assert the
supremacy of the political leadership.
This in itself was no solution to bigger problems. The entire
Politburo knew that the USSR was in a mess. By controlling public
discussion in its own country, it restricted the world’s awareness of its