Good ‘Chemistry’ With Gorbachev : Candid Thatcher Sets New Style for Visits to Kremlin

MOSCOW — At home she’s been called Attila the Hen, the Witch of Westminster and the Iron Lady. Now, in the wake of a five-day trip that smashed the usual protocol for visiting dignitaries, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has some startled Soviet officials ready to agree with those labels.

Even so, her visit set a new standard for Western leaders to follow on future Moscow trips and certainly delighted her host, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

While Thatcher helped her own reelection chances by campaigning from the Kremlin, she also gave a strong blessing to the changes Gorbachev has introduced--in contrast to more guarded appraisals in Washington.

Gorbachev, for his part, extended the concept of glasnost, or openness, by allowing Thatcher to express on Soviet television one of the toughest critiques of Moscow’s nuclear policy ever heard here.

He and Thatcher spent nine hours in conversation during her visit, or as much time as he talked with President Reagan at the summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, last October.

Both British and Soviet aides said the 56-year-old Communist and the 61-year-old shopkeeper’s daughter have a special “chemistry” that keeps their strong opinions from turning into rancor.

Ironically, the concrete results of her trip were minimal. A London-Moscow hot line was upgraded, bilateral cultural agreements were signed and it was noted that Anglo-Soviet trade may expand somewhat.

But the style and content of her talks with Gorbachev and the itinerary she fashioned may make Thatcher’s approach a model for any Western leader’s future dealings with Moscow.

These were notable elements of her trip:

--Instead of smoothing over differences in classic diplomatic style, Thatcher made it plain in a banquet speech, a news conference and an extraordinary appearance on Soviet television that she, and other Western leaders, have basic differences with Soviet policy and then explained why.

--Lunching with Andrei D. Sakharov, a human rights champion, and Josef Begun, a leading Jewish dissident, she dramatized Western concern for those who have been jailed or exiled for their beliefs. Sakharov recently was released from seven years in internal exile, and Begun was let out of prison in late February.

--While visiting the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church at nearby Zagorsk, another site chosen for its symbolic importance, Thatcher lit a candle for “peace, with justice and freedom.” It was a theme she sounded often during her trip.

--Finally, she attempted without complete success to break through the protective shell that Soviet officials try to provide for visiting leaders. She waded into crowds, visited a grocery store and paid a call on a Soviet household, although the store and the family were carefully chosen in advance.

Willing to Listen

For his part, Gorbachev demonstrated that he is willing to listen--and allow the Soviet people to listen--to differing views on such vital topics as nuclear deterrence, space-based defense systems and medium-range missiles in Europe.

Georgy A. Arbatov, director of the Soviets’ U.S.A. and Canada Institute, appeared almost stunned as he described to a British television station his impressions of Thatcher’s performance.

“She was welcomed, generally, and she’s bright and clever, but I have heard from simple people that they were appalled by her nuclear (deterrence) policies,” Arbatov said. “She believes in them fanatically, like a religious person. If we were to think in the same way, it would open up the way to a holocaust.”

Arbatov, known for his drumfire of denunciations of President Reagan, contended that Thatcher is even more hawkish than the American leader.

“I thought I would never have to say it, but I think Reagan is more forward-looking and more realistic than Mrs. Thatcher,” Arbatov added. “He has an understanding that humanity and America can’t live forever under nuclear weapons.” The senior Kremlin adviser said, however, that Thatcher’s long talks with Gorbachev might prove helpful, asserting, “Maybe what she has heard here will change her mind.”

Others Not So Harsh

There were other signs, however, that unofficial Soviet reaction was not quite so harsh. A large, friendly crowd turned out to see Thatcher in Tbilisi, in the Georgian Republic, on the final day of her trip. Her appearance on Soviet television was widely discussed, and ordinary citizens seemed to respect her forceful, even blunt, way of speaking.

“I do not think there has ever been such a thorough discussion between two leaders,” Thatcher said after her seven hours of formal talks and two hours of dinner conversation with Gorbachev.

“Sometimes when you are talking to leaders, you get rather stilted or formal discussions--we did not.” But it was Thatcher’s remarks on Soviet military power--usually a taboo subject in the controlled media here--that must have startled regular TV viewers.

“There are more nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union than in any other country in the world,” she said. “You have more intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads than the West. You started intermediate (range) nuclear weapons--we did not have any. You have more short-range (weapons) than we have. You have more than anyone else, and you say there is a risk of a nuclear accident.”

Thatcher, who still retains the mannerisms of a schoolmarm, hushed her Soviet interrogators as they tried to object to her statements. She was providing Soviet citizens with the kind of information that Moscow usually jams if it is broadcast by Western radio stations, such as Voice of America.

Chemical Weapons Stand

On the subject of chemical weapons, which the Soviet Union has said it is trying to eliminate, she also spoke bluntly:

“We in Great Britain abolished our chemical weapons--we destroyed them towards the end of the 1950s--so we have not got any.

“The United States did not modernize hers, but the Soviet Union not only has them but has modernized them and has a large stockpile,” she said. “You can imagine this gives us cause for great concern.”

As for Gorbachev’s drive to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2000, Thatcher said she sympathized with the idea but found it impractical.

“Since we have had the nuclear weapon, it is so horrific that no one dare risk going to war,” she said. “I value peace, with freedom and justice, above everything else, and because at the moment I believe that the nuclear deterrent stops anyone from starting a major war, I believe in keeping it.”

Thatcher delivered the same straight talk on medium-range missiles in Europe, perhaps much to the surprise of most Soviet listeners, who rarely are told how the dispute began over their removal.

“Intermediate (missiles), which you stationed first, and we had to respond--you put the SS-20s up first--we begged you to take them out, and you did not, so we stationed ours, and now we agreed that they both should go,” she said.

Finally, she delivered another jab at her befuddled Soviet interrogators.

“You have far more conventional weapons than we have, far more tanks, far more aircraft. . . . Get those down to balance, and then we will be making really practical progress, people will be immensely pleased; and in the meantime, let us do everything we can to have a more open society,” she continued. “You see, all of our defense (budget) estimates are published every year. Everyone knows what we have got.”

Thatcher also rebutted Soviet arguments that Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative is a threat to world peace.

“Now, that is only in the research stage,” she said. “The Soviet Union has a very good anti-ballistic missile defense system around Moscow. It has recently updated it; it has had 20 years’ experience of tackling incoming (missiles) . . . more experience than anyone else.

“In 1977, a number of us started to be very concerned by the extent to which the Soviet Union was going ahead on laser development and electronic pulse beams. You were way ahead of us, and you may still be as far as I know,” she said.

Thatcher’s words, translated into Russian, were beamed by Soviet television to scores of millions of viewers who may have heard this argument for the first time.

No other Western visitor in recent years has had that kind of impact.