THE LOST SUMMER 201late July 1986 they formed a working group from the main interested
agencies – its members were Shevardnadze, Chebrikov, Sokolov,
Dobrynin, Medvedev and Yakovlev. They produced a scathing analy-
sis. Reagan was trying to ‘exhaust’ the USSR by both drawing it into
regional conflicts and intensifying the arms race; his obvious aim
was to disrupt the Politburo’s course toward social and economic
improvement.^23 He treated every non-socialist country and region as
belonging to the sphere of America’s ‘vital interests’. He used a variety
of methods. He was assisting counter-revolutionary insurgencies in
Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola and Cambodia. He had deployed
American forces against Grenada, Lebanon and Libya. He used eco-
nomic levers to keep the rest of NATO and other allies in line. He
was flexible in reaction to the changing situations around the world.
When popular discontent grew in Salvador, Haiti and the Philippines,
America gave its blessing for the removal of dictatorial right-wing
gov ern ments. This combination of methods, according to the working
party, proved that the Reagan administration was a practitioner of
‘neo globalism’.^24
The group’s advice was for the USSR and other socialist countries
to continue their efforts in social and economic development while
keeping their military power at ‘the necessary level’. This was hardly
controversial. The odd thing about the draft lay chiefly in its failure to
mention any of the ‘hotspots’ around the world where Soviet forces
or finances were involved. There was a reason for the omission. The
group wished to emphasize the need to take proper account of
‘our resources and possibilities’ and to cut down aid to ‘developing
countries’.^25 Since China shared the anxiety about American neoglo-
balism, it recommended that Moscow should seek reconciliation with
Beijing. Academic contacts might be a sensible first step. The Polit-
buro, the memo continued, should ‘use our work with the political
circles in the West – including the United States itself – that are wor-
ried about the danger of a sharp deterioration of the international
situation as the result of the adventurist actions of the Reagan admin-
istration’. Cooperation should be sought with all parties of the political
left. The media should be used systematically to put a properly argued
case.^26
The Politburo endorsed the review.^27 This was a success for radical-
ism as Shevardnadze gained sanction for an attempt to halt both
American and Soviet intervention in the wars in sub-Saharan Africa.
He was already pressing the African National Congress to abandon the