238 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
December 1986, he asked how to kick-start the arms talks again with
Reagan. Ambassador Dubinin repeated the enquiry after New Year.
Nixon havered, advising that Gorbachëv should communicate directly
with the President.^14
Gorbachëv needed to sort out problems nearer to home as he pre-
pared for the next Central Committee plenum. He had begun the
work of forcing change on the General Staff and the Defence Ministry.
Now he needed to impose himself on the military sector of Soviet
industry. With this in mind he summoned leaders of big enterprises
and their ministries to a meeting on 19 January 1987. He spoke bluntly
about their failure to meet the country’s needs in civilian goods. A
drastic shift in priorities was going to be undertaken.^15 The plenum
confirmed the need for reforms. Gorbachëv successfully recom-
mended a range of drastic measures. Party posts were to become
genuinely elective. Multi-candidate contests were to occur for seats in
local soviets. A new law was to be passed on state enterprises which
would enable workforces to choose their own managers and influence
the organization of production. The party leadership would establish
freedom to fill in the ‘blank spots’ in Soviet history, and Gorbachëv
denounced the abuses of the Stalin period and the ‘stagnation’ that had
happened under Brezhnev.^16 The focus was on internal change in the
USSR and Gorbachëv said little new about foreign policy and nothing
about the conversion of factories to non-military purposes. Neverthe-
less no plenum for decades had marked out such a prospect of
transformation. Many details had yet to be agreed, but there was no
doubt about the direction of movement.
The trouble was that Reagan was still no nearer to choosing
between Shultz and Weinberger in their chronic dispute about foreign
policy. Weinberger set out to rile the Kremlin. In mid-January he let
the press know how he was coaxing Reagan to announce his choice of
one of the competing options for the Strategic Defense Initiative.^17
When he championed a project to develop a new kinetic energy
system to enhance America’s military capacity, he knew that this
would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.^18 He privately sought
out the President and exploited his unease about anyone who was not
fully behind the Initiative. This was a tactic that had served Wein-
berger in the past and drove Shultz and Nitze to distraction. As Nitze
pointed out, Weinberger’s strident advocacy of the Initiative could
have the unintended consequence of turning the American Congress
against it. Without adequate funding, it would wither away – and