GEORGIAN FRONT

Simon Sebag Montefiore admires the wily tricks

of Edvard Shevardnadze, who has survived the ravages of war, intrigue and time

Tbilisi ON 7 October 1993, an exhausted Edvard Shevardnadze, the Soviet statesman who helped Gorbachev end the Cold War and then became President of the war-torn ex- Soviet republic of Georgia, invited me to take a desperate flight with him to Moscow, where he was to be forced to sue for peace as his enemies advanced on his capital, Tbilisi.

The flight was unforgettable for its weird, febrile abandon: he sat alone at a desk in the front, staring out of a window, while his bodyguards, a crew of Rambo-esque gun- slingers, refused to sit down for take-off, drank wild toasts (hiding their drinks from the ascetic President, whom they variously called Tabu' — Grandad — or the White or Grey Fox), practised drawing their Makerov pistols, sang Beatles songs, played Pink Floyd on ghettoblasters, and showed off to me their strange briefcases which contained only folded Kalashnikovs and vodka. Down the plane from this Dantean discotheque sat the President, handsome with his blue eyes, white plumage and resemblance to Inspec- tor Morse. 'I only want my destiny to be the same as Georgia's,' he mumbled. 'If Georgia falls, let me die with it. My dreams are of Georgia. Such is my destiny.'

This week, on Monday, the enigmatic panjandrum invited me to take another flight with him — to London, where he is meeting Tony Blair and the Queen. He is now 73, still a cold loner of Byzantine sub- tlety, but now majestic, confident, even jovial. The bodyguards are disciplined, crew-cut, boxy-suited giants, trained by Bill Clinton's Presidential Protection Service.

`Shevvy', as the CIA calls him, walks down the plane to say hello. How he enjoys international stardom, so different from the grudging respect he gets from his impover- ished but irrepressible Georgians — that turbulent, romantic and ancient nation of knights and poets. He has shrewdly used his fame to put his country on the map: per capita, it is the third biggest recipient of American aid. Nanuli, his wife of 40 years and mother of his two children, comes to sit beside me on the plane, a hearty woman looking forward to London.

So arrives the last great survivor of the end of the Cold War. His friends — Rea- gan, Bush, Thatcher and Kohl — are long retired, but Shevvy has survived two Rus- sian-backed assassination attempts with just a burst eardrum. 'I am getting a little bored,' he tells me, 'that no one has tried to kill me for a couple of years.'

`Do you believe in life after death?'

`Now, yes . . . I probably always believed in God, even in the Politburo. It all might have ended quicker if I'd said something,' he laughs. 'But religion is different . . . You cannot become religious in a day.'

`Afraid of death?'

`Fear won't stop it happening . . . but it won't be very pleasant when it does.'

What an adventure his life has been. Communist and democrat, idealist and cynic, passionate Georgian, Arctic appa- ratchik: he is a collection of contradictions. Born of poor stock, Edvard was a commu- nist — 'I believed,' he admits, 'it was a just cause' — who became a cunning bureau- cratic player. Appointed Georgian interior minister in 1965, he has hardly left power since. In 1972, he flew to Moscow with a suitcase of evidence against the corrupt Georgian leadership, showed it to Brezhnev and flew back as leader himself. He was ruthless with dissidents, notoriously order- ing the brutal storming of a plane hijacked by students and having several survivors executed. He was assiduous in praising Brezhnev, while encouraging liberalism. 'I walked a tightrope between Moscow and Tbilisi,' he says, 'a high art.' He quite liked Brezhnev: 'He was enormous fun to socialise with . . . but it was then that I saw how rotten everything was. . . . '

Then came the glory days, when Gor- bachev called him to Moscow as Soviet for- eign minister and he helped liberate the Soviet empire and reunite Germany. He was awed by Thatcher's personality and amazed at Reagan's easy-going nature yet vast achievements. Shevardnadze, as a Geor- gian, understood that perestroika was the end of communism, while Gorby thought he was just reforming it. One senses a froideur between them now. Do they ever chat? `Sometimes . . . I wish him a long life.'

In 1991-2, Shevvy was out of power for just a few months before civil war broke out in Georgia. Backed by a dubious coali- tion of nationalist gunmen and, probably, Russian spooks, he was recalled to take power in an impossible situation: 'Like jumping into a cauldron,' he said at the time. He turned against Russia towards the West, and Russia punished Georgia for its defiance. By 1993, Abkhazia, a province on the Black Sea, was lost to a Russian-backed secession, Shevardnadze had flown there to die in the ruins, and rebel tanks were rum- bling towards Tbilisi.

Russia probably still wants the return of its Caucasian empire and will do anything to get it. It is equally vital for the West, given the Caspian oil, that Georgia remains a Western bulwark. 'You're our traditional ally,' says Shevvy, referring to Britain's (fair- ly half-hearted) support during Georgia's first independence in 1918-21 before being swallowed up again by Lenin.

Shevardnadze has managed to foster democracy, a vibrant parliament, free press and some stability: Georgia is the only democracy between the Black Sea and Japan. His aspirations are noble, achieve- ments monumental. The ex-communist remains the West's indispensable ally; yet his dominance is dangerous. 'In ten years' time,' he told me in 1992, 'Georgia will be prosper- ous, Westernised.' This has not yet hap- pened. There is stagnation. Georgians and Western donors are angered by corruption in Shevardnadze's circle (though he has never been accused of it); by his keeping power by balancing interests instead of tak- ing risks, and by his reluctance to create institutions to rule afterwards. He has just announced an anti-corruption commission, but there are rumours of unrest. Everything depends on Vladimir Putin's Russia: Shevvy thinks Putin a 'sensible politician . . . a cold analytical mind'.

In Tbilisi this week, there is a revealing glimpse into Shevardnadze's position: he pre- sides over the military cadets' coming-out, a magnificent ceremony with gold braid and military brass bands that could be on Horse Guards Parade. But when the class of 2000 pose with their President the loudspeakers suddenly reverberate with the muzak version of 'Any Dream Will Do' from Lloyd Web- ber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Already feted as Gorbachev's perestroika partner, Shevardnadze can be heralded either by trumpets as the father of democratic Georgia, or by the ludicrous strains of 'Any Dream Will Do', as a Machi- avellian who promised much but somehow could not deliver.

`But I am a chessplayer,' says the foxy one. 'Wait for my next move.'