AMERICAN REJECTION 175Mitterrand warned Gorbachëv by letter that he would get nowhere
if he stuck to the idea of confining the talks to nuclear arms. He wrote
in the same vein to Reagan while adding that the West ought to take
account of the ‘interesting elements’ in the USSR’s latest package.^37
Thatcher was even less positive. In her letter to Reagan she contended
that Gorbachëv was still ‘the same brand of Soviet Communist that we
have known in the past’. His January declaration, she said, was nothing
but propaganda that offered ‘a spurious timetable of simple steps’. The
problem was that he was encouraging ‘unrealistic public expectations’.
She advised the President to abide by his Strategic Defense Initiative
and to make his willingness to decrease nuclear weapon stockpiles
dependent on the achievement of progress in the development of a
new defensive system.^38 Nitze found Foreign Secretary Howe and her
other ministers to be, if anything, even more sceptical than she was
about the January declaration. The British Conservatives continued to
regard Gorbachëv as a traditional apparatchik.^39
Although CIA officials preferred Thatcher to Mitterrand, they
knew that Reagan wanted a disarmament agreement with the USSR;
they also saw that it was no longer plausible to claim that Gorbachëv
was offering nothing remarkable in the arms talks. If sceptics wanted
to have influence, they needed to shift their ground of argument.
Casey understood this clearly. In March 1986 he highlighted how the
Kremlin was continuing to support programmes to modernize its
weapon systems. The Soviet military threat would exist for the fore-
seeable future. According to Casey, Gorbachëv was able and devious.
By fostering the image of a peacemaker, he was trying to encourage
America to reduce its defence expenditure; his other objective was to
bring an end to the Western curbs on the transfer of technology.^40
Casey called for the administration to stay vigilant. He claimed that
the Kremlin was regularly infringing its obligations under the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – he pointed to the continuing work on
the Krasnoyarsk radar station. In his opinion this absolved Washing-
ton of any concern about breaking the same treaty: Moscow should be
taught that violations would be met with violations.^41
Shultz disliked this way of thinking. He could see no gain for
America if it was seen to rip up treaties. There had to be trust on both
sides for Reagan to stand a chance of achieving a deal with Gorbachëv.
Casey responded by bringing the CIA’s economic intelligence into
play and stressed that the USSR retained the capacity for a long-term
military challenge to American power. A contest of analysis ensued.