25 JULY 1987, Page 5

THE SPECTATOR

DISARMING MR REAGAN

othing is easier than to find grounds of disagreement with the Presi- dent and few things would be more unhelp- ful.' Thus wrote Winston Churchill to one of his colleagues in 1943. It represented the essence of his approach to President Roosevelt throughout his premiership. Recognising the limits of British power, he behaved with uncharacteristic restraint on those occasions, which were numerous, when the President's approach seemed to him to be fundamentally flawed. Chur- chill's method was invariably to avoid public polemics; to apply gentle and persis- tent private pressure on the President and his entourage; and, in the last resort, to acquiesce in the unwelcome American policies he could not alter.

Mrs Margaret Thatcher's approach to today's White House seems to be uncanni- ly similar. In Washington last week, for example, she went far beyond the apparent call of duty in lauding the wounded Presi- dent Reagan to a nation which, if opinion polls are to be believed, now sees him not only as a lame duck but also as a discre- dited liar.

Even making every allowance for the endearing personal qualities of the Presi- dent, it is difficult to believe that the Prime Minister can actually feel such unreserved admiration for him as she makes out. Has she really forgotten, for example, that he ordered the invasion of Grenada, a mem- ber of the British Commonwealth, without any prior discussion with her? And can she really feel no lingering resentment about the President's peremptory demand that Britain have nothing to do with supplying Components for the Soviet-West European gas pipeline at a time when (under pressure from Mid-Western states) he had just seen fit to lift President Carter's Soviet grain embargo?

Above all, however, the Reagan- Thatcher era has seen a deep though largely unproclaimed fissure between Washington and London on nuclear arma- ments. And for this President Reagan Personally must be held entirely responsi- ble. First, in March 1983 came his speech on Star Wars. Without any prior consulta- tion with Mrs Thatcher, let alone other Nato leaders, he set American scientists the goal of rendering nuclear weapons `impotent and obsolete'. To make matters Worse, he even capriciously offered to share the results of American research with the Soviets. He was thus in effect envisag- ing a future in which the two super-powers would be protected by leak-proof shields against nuclear weapons. At a stroke, then, the President revealed his total lack of concern for 'extended deterrence', that is, the long-standing American threat to meet a Soviet conventional attack on West- ern Europe with a possible escalation to the tactical and eventually strategic nuclear levels. As it happens, the President's Star Wars vision has come to be widely seen as a physically unattainable fantasy. But his fundamental unreliability so far as Western Europe was concerned as well as his naïve Utopianism in respect to nuclear weapons was clearly signalled. Mrs Thatcher, however, saw fit to grin and bear it, refusing to express in public the dismay widely felt in Whitehall and within other Nato governments.

It has been much the same story with President Reagan's attempt to strike a bargain with the Soviets on Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) in Europe. Through- out the post-war years the superpowers have traded declaratory demands for ex- tensive or even total nuclear disarmament. But until the advent of President Reagan all Western statesmen, appreciating the `This is a takeover.' need for extended deterrent, have seen these statements as designed for public consumption only. Hence in 1979 when the Americans decided to respond to Euro- pean requests for reassurance that de- coupling was not taking place by installing cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, Nato governments cheerfully announced that they would be withdrawn if the Soviets for their part would consent to eliminate their SS20s. But no such Soviet consent was expected or desired by the Nato 'establishment'. In any case it was assumed that any such Soviet consent could be countered by 'linkage', that is by requiring impossible Soviet concessions on other parts of the arms control chessboard. Hence the consternation caused last Octo- ber by President Reagan at Reykjavik. Acting on his own initiative, he simply offered an uncomplicated mutual INF eli- mination deal to Mr Gorbachev. Four months later, when they recovered from their surprise, the Soviets naturally accepted the offer. Talks at Geneva to finalise the details are now in progress.

Hardly anyone in the Nato Establish- ment, whether American or European, genuinely welcomed this capricious pres- idential intervention. And General Ber- nard Rogers, on the occasion of his retire- ment as Saceur (Supreme Allied Comman- der Europe), went so far as openly to rebuke his Commander-in-Chief. Yet such is the supposed public enthusiasm for disarmament that no political leader, not even Mrs Thatcher, can publicly echo General Rogers. Like Churchill before her, then, the Prime Minister seems to have no alternative but to praise the President in public, to appear to endorse his policies, and to strive assiduously in private to minimise the damage. She has our sympathy and support.