THE STALLED INTERACTION 187West; we cannot convert them to our faith.’ He was somewhat more
optimistic about China – and he announced the aim of making an
overture to the Chinese leadership despite its long-standing objections
to Soviet foreign policy.^45 Altogether it was a speech of importance. He
was changing the line of the January declaration. He was admitting
that Reagan was not going to budge and NATO’s unity had proved
unexpectedly solid. He had tried out Akhromeev’s scheme and it had
got him nowhere. Now he was adjusting the proposals on nuclear
armaments and introducing new ones on conventional forces.
The trickier task for Gorbachëv came with the subject of Cher-
nobyl. He revealed official data about radiation levels in concentric
rings stretching out to Poland’s eastern wetlands. He detailed the
budget to deal with the emergency. His speech was sombre, factual
and regretful. No Soviet General Secretary had addressed the Political
Consultative Committee with words of such humility.^46
Ceauşescu provided his own data on the radiation in Romanian
territory; he called for cooperation among the Warsaw Pact countries
to deal with the disaster.^47 Turning to Gorbachëv’s ideas about talks
with America, he said that USSR’s foreign policy was its own business
(which was his way of warning others to leave Romania alone).^48
Honecker praised Gorbachëv’s peace initiative and suggested that both
the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic could make
progress by working with West Germany (which was his way of saying
that Moscow should trust him in his dealings with Bonn).^49 Unease
emerged when the meeting touched on trade among communist states.
Gorbachëv groused about the Hungarians signing deals with foreign
capitalist firms but not with the USSR.^50 Husák lamented the paltry
results of Comecon’s Complex Programme of Scientific-Technical
Progress.^51 Zhivkov pulled the debate back to Chernobyl and asked
whether it might be necessary to change the designs of the region’s
nuclear reactors. Gorbachëv replied that the Americans had not
changed their technology after the accident at Three Mile Island in
1979.^52 The East European leaders were convinced by his willingness to
engage in open debate; they also supported his renovated planning for
the pursuit of an arms reduction agreement with the US.^53
Five days later, back in Moscow, Gorbachëv boasted to the Party
Central Committee about the support he had received. He stayed silent
about his own change of approach to the US; he simply castigated ‘the
Star Wars programme’ and vaunted his January declaration as a ‘force-
field’ for good around the world.^54 As an afterthought, he made the