250 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
Reagan baffled people in his own administration, not to mention
the Soviet leadership. Gorbachëv and Shevardnadze felt in the best
position to take on the task of resolving the enigma since they were
the ones who met him face to face.^4 The General Secretary was among
the first to understand that Reagan’s treatment in the Soviet media was
a caricature.^5 The President’s charisma was undeniable. Reagan had
even won applause from Third World politicians at the United Nations
General Assembly.^6 There was something special about him, and Gor-
bachëv had to get on with him. This was never going to be a smooth
process. Gorbachëv said that the President sometimes behaved more
like a film actor than a statesman.^7 He assured Warsaw Pact leaders
that Reagan did not hold genuine power in the US. According to
Gorbachëv, a handful of politicians – indeed principally Shultz – were
in charge.^8 Shultz would have briskly disabused him of such an idea;
but perhaps Gorbachëv was anyway just sounding off to an audience
that wanted to hear him loosing off shots at the President.
Gorbachëv held his tongue when mentioning Reagan to the
world’s media. Whereas the President continued to make strident
anti-Soviet speeches, the General Secretary found comfort in his
observation that American officials declined to defend their President
whenever Gorbachëv discussed Reagan’s utterances.^9 Both Gorbachëv
and Shevardnadze were alert to the Washington struggle over policy
towards the USSR. The battling between Weinberger and Shultz was
well understood, as Shevardnadze indicated: ‘It’s not just us who have
departmental problems.’^10
Reagan seldom put aside his polemical repertoire. At a meeting
with Shevardnadze on 19 September 1986, he fulminated against
Marx, the ‘Empire of Evil’ and the KGB.^11 A year later he provoked
Gorbachëv into exclaiming: ‘You’re not the prosecutor and I’m not the
accused. You’re not the teacher, I’m not the pupil. And it’s the same the
other way round too. Otherwise we’ll get nowhere.’^12 Reagan’s criticism
of the USSR’s record on human rights grated on Shevardnadze, who
expressed his annoyance.^13 He felt that the American attitude resulted
in ‘the impossibility of conducting a discussion’. He told his aides that
the President was trying to spread the Gospel according to Reagan.^14
The Americans continued to raise objections about regional conflicts,
human rights abuses and arms control – Reagan arrived at meetings
with prepared statements that were akin to charge-sheets against the
USSR.^15 Shultz was equally assertive; he refused to let Gorbachëv
browbeat him as he had at their first encounter in November 1985. On