Ronald Reagan startled Margaret Thatcher by suggesting she should read thriller writer Tom Clancy to understand Russia’s Cold War thinking, according to newly released official files.
Papers released by the National Archives in Kew show the US president was “much impressed” with Clancy’s Red Storm Rising – in which an Islamist terror attack triggers a third world war – saying it provided an “excellent picture” of Soviet intentions.
Thatcher appears to have been less impressed as his comments were omitted from the official record of their conversation and reported only in a separate note circulated to a handful of the most senior ministers and officials.
Reagan’s remarks followed his momentous meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in theIcelandic capital Reykjavik in October 1986.
Although the two leaders failed to reach an agreement in their talks on arms reduction, the meeting was widely seen as a breakthrough moment in East-West relations, paving the way for a treaty the following year banning short and medium-range nuclear missiles.
Reagan, nonetheless, appears to have emerged from the summit in a downbeat mood, still unsure whether to trust his Soviet counterpart.
Briefing Thatcher afterwards, he complained Gorbachev had only demanded a freeze on America’s planned Star Wars missile defence shield as a cover so the Russians could “go ahead like crazy with their own missile defence plans”.
“The President strongly commended to the Prime Minister a new book by the author of Red October called [I think] Red Storm Rising,” Thatcher’s foreign affairs adviser Charles Powell noted in his record of their telephone call.
Thatcher was more concerned about Reagan’s own proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons within 10 years
“It gave an excellent picture of the Soviet Union’s intentions and strategy. He had clearly been much impressed by the book.”
Thatcher was more concerned about Reagan’s own proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons within 10 years, pointing out that it would leave the Russians with an overwhelming superiority in conventional forces.
She was not reassured by the president’s “vague” reply, as he told her: “The Russians don’t want war; they want victory by using the threat of nuclear war... I think we could have a strategy to meet that.”
Reagan’s commitment to achieving a nuclear-free world within a decade was underlined by US secretary of state George Shultz, who told British ambassador Antony Acland the president had an “instinctive vision” of the future.
“He might or might not be right about SDI [missile defence],” Shultz said.
“More importantly, however, he was probably right about the mood of younger people, who would be increasingly unwilling to tolerate nuclear weapons.
“A real effort therefore had to be made to get rid of them if political pressures on Western leaders were not to become extremely hard to handle.”