THE BIG FOUR 257In April 1988 Shultz tried again by telling Gorbachëv that the Ameri-
cans had forty-eight times as many computers per head of the
population than the USSR. Shultz – in one of his least diplomatic com-
ments – said that only Moscow’s nuclear weapons stopped America
from handling the USSR like it did Panama.^68 Usually he was more
tactful. He valued the environment of political and intellectual trust he
shared with Gorbachëv and Shevardnadze.
The American and Soviet leaderships warmed to each other
despite recurrent moments of irritation. Big interests of politics, eco-
nomics and ideology were being contested, and each side felt that the
other had much to learn about its counterpart. But it was surely of
some significance that neither Gorbachëv nor Shevardnadze tried to
give a sermon on the virtues of communism. They tended to focus on
practical bargaining. The truth was that they were the ones who were
yielding ground in the talks. The American administration laid down
demands on a range of topics – not just about nuclear weaponry but
also about human rights and regional conflicts. Reagan signalled that
he and his officials felt no domestic pressure to sign agreements with
Moscow. Gorbachëv persuaded the Politburo that he himself was not
compromising the USSR’s vital interests; and he and Shevardnadze
made it their job to get on friendly terms with the Americans. Reagan
and Shultz, appreciating that they had the Soviet leaders on the run,
sensibly avoided humbling them in public. It was better to prevent
the flow of concessions by the Soviet side from stagnating. And in
any case they were beginning to find that they got on rather well with
Gorbachëv and Shevardnadze. Together they formed the Big Four that
was bringing the Cold War towards its close.