War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with James Callaghan, 1987

You know I mean I think you know what's good see ten forty four interview with all kinds. And I'd like to start if I may look out by asking you about the London summit in May 1977 that in a sense was the first time that President Carter took his place as it was the leader of the alliance. From your observation how did transfer smitten smitten President Carter get on at that meeting. Quite well after all the Chancellor Schmidt has an admiration for the United States. He began by having an admiration for Britain and I think he became disillusioned with us and he had he was in the middle of his period of admiration for the United States and then of course he became disillusioned with them and turned his illusions elsewhere. So he welcomed like the rest of us did.

The advent of President Carter although we got on well with President Ford as you know. And there was no there was no feeling at all and the hostile feeling between them. Although I think President Carter rather was getting a little disillusioned about American economic policy at that time. Now this was a time when discussions were fought on to which as it turned out was quite long in the brewing. It was against this background that how much meant in 1977 in October 1977 made a speech which subsequently which subsequently a great deal of importance has been attached. Do you recall of the time you were in Riyadh. Yes I remember the speech and I remember that hardly anyone took very much notice of it except the defense because it certainly didn't become a cause. But he did raise this question as a former minister of defense in Germany. That would be a rung missing in the nuclear ladder of ascent.

And I don't think anybody really understood very much what it was except the great defense experts who constantly examine these things and so it didn't catch on. But it was always very conscious of the fact. I'm becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that as talk in America grew about possible with us and now there was there was a possibility of our of the Librium in the nuclear field whether America would risk her cities India then to an attack on Europe or would we be separated. Schmidt also saw this all very clearly from the beginning and he followed through with typical German logic. I'd like to move on now if I may to the summit in Guadalupe in 1979. When as you said and as you described your memoirs you discussed the. Attempts made by the Carter administration to address this question. Can you briefly

describe for us the exchanges which took place when President Carter attempted to deal with this what President Carter was hoping for from Europe was a combined approach in his forthcoming discussions with the general secretary. He was due to sign the salt to mint and he wanted to be certain that we pins would back the salt mines which if you remember put a ceiling was about to put a ceiling on new weapons. And in addition he was wanted when he met not only to sign so to with him. He wanted to raise the question of salt where there shouldn't be a next round of Strategic Arms Limitation talks. Now I think we Europeans if I may put Helmut Smith she scar myself in that category. We are quite happy for Cossar and Brezhnev to discuss. A reduction in the seating if that was what it came to in nuclear

Western nuclear weapons but of course if they were going to embark on a discussion on intermediate range nuclear weapons they became to be called what we call gray areas which included American bases in this country from which quaff were flying and all these other weapons then obviously Britain and France and Germany all had a much greater interest in that a more direct interest. And I think what Kasich hoped rather vain and it was never an expectation he should have entertained if indeed he did was that we would all three go that was a combined point of view. Well you did of course the French Always Stand Out of such discussions anyway they wouldn't take part in these discussions. Helmut Schmidt was very worried about the removal of the latter of the rung in the ladder of escalation. And so the discussion was rather fruitless one and the exchanges grew rather sharpened. I make clear to President Carter that if there was any discussion about

weapons that concerned Europe such as for example the British nuclear deterrent and I would certainly want to be involved in such talks use God to precisely the opposite view. He said to Carter you have no right to talk about French nuclear weapons and we certainly shouldn't take part in any of the tolls. Oh it was rather between between the two I think and he laid himself open to charges that he was prepared to grumble about this and do nothing about it. That was pretty unfair. You see I think Carter had in mind the fact that the modernization of the weapons systems had got out of phase because of the introduction of the SS 20 modernization program of the old SS force and SS FAEs was ahead of us. We were now beginning to think about modernizing ours and introducing cruise and Pershing. And it looked possible as if the decisions about this might come up at about the same time the discussions on Sol 3 would commence that would obviously be a very

bad back one for discussions of that sort. And. As Carter was saying to us Look I'm ready to build these weapons but I'm not ready to build them and waste of taxpayers money on them and some of you are willing to deploy them. This is well not got a little uptight and he said well I don't think I want him on German soil. Unless I last checked. I pointed out that look we've already got American bases we have the strategic bases and we have the F-111 in our country. So really you're not taking on any greater risk. Schmidt acknowledged that this was but the end of a rather ill natured discussion on balance. He did agree that Germany in the end would have to take them provided other states and I said that in those circumstances of course we would play the fool part in the alliance that Britain had always played but we then went on to say that if it were possible to get the Soviet Union to

see sense and to withdraw we didn't at those moments a destroyer to withdraw early SS 20s well behind the lines in Europe perhaps even behind the Urals that we in those circumstances would not deploy even though we would have the crews in the Pershing and that was the point to which we got a look at this with the dual track that we would pursue. We would be willing to deploy it if we couldn't get agreement but we would prefer. That we should have agreement on the withdrawal of the SS 20. Did you think it's likely that there might be an agreement. Some Americans that I spoke to for example Leslie go feel that nobody really expected that given all sorts of things I'm sick of the Soviets position that there would be an agreement. I didn't rule it out or I wouldn't have suggested it as a possible way forward. I thought the odds were probably against and it seemed likely to me that we would have to deploy before we could get agreement on what happens. It was

interesting that the change after our deployment. Yes and the other thing which happened there was that you sounded President Carter about purchasing Trident. What were you worried that there might be a danger of not being able to replace Polaris. No I don't think I've worried about that I was British and indeed President Carter confirmed it. The private talk that they would be willing to assist us to replace us if we could afford it. Was this the first time this question has been raised to have there been explorations of this official level before. Well I'm pretty sure not although you're asking me about events of several years ago I don't think I think I had. I had said that this was a politically sensitive matter and no one should raise this with the Americans until I had to eat and what I had done was to set in train an expert discussion on

our side of the Atlantic as to what would be involved either in purchasing Trident or indeed in not purchasing it what would be the economic to finance from the strategic consequences. That was for the use of our own cabinet. But when I after I'd seen Carter then I decided that I would send two of our great experts one of great scientists and the other who knew the political world of civil servants to see corresponding officials in the United States in order to carry the technical discussions further so that our cabinet when it came to consider it which would have been sometime after the election perhaps in 1980 that sort of thing that they would have had the full information in front of them what would be involved. Right Ken I know a lot. Just ask you a general question about these matters. In your. Memoir you describe flexible responses and not wholly credible Sonora. Could I ask you to expand

on that slightly. Did major statement NATO such as yourself take nuclear doctrine seriously. I think we took it seriously because there was nothing better but it was a photo. And I was never convinced that we would follow through this this particular doctrine. But on the other hand you have to have some kind of military doctrine. And that was the one which held the fuel at that time. I think it has become less credible since and this is one reason why I support the IMF agreement. I think it has removed or run and it was never very strong most you could put much weight on in any case. Can I just go back to something we dealt with right at the start which is the relationship between the transmitter and President Carter. This is the general agreement among people we've spoken to that they didn't always get on tremendously well on the how much. As you've intimated

I came to lose his respect for Carter perhaps because of the neutron episode do you think this is an instance where personalities were important in history and where this particular relationship was significant for the what happened in the personalities are important in history. They may not alter the general thrust of the tide but they can certainly do that. They can carry it around a few sandbanks on the way to the sea. And I've no doubt that personalities can either improve or worse. Relationships between countries even though the national interest remains predominant. President Carter became very distribution with American policy. It was more than a personality clash and he really felt the Americans were following an economic and financial policy that was very bad for the world in the long run. There's also difference in temperament between the two. President Carter had a precise engineers mind he was an engineer. He likes

clearly set of propositions. He wanted them followed through logically and he wanted to arrive at a conclusion. Having arrived at the conclusion it should be implemented on the whole our discussions didn't normally take that view. It was more an exchange of ideas as I was which would eventually crystallize some common approach and that I think was one of the causes of the difficulties between the two and the personalities then began to obtrude rather. I don't think it's right to say that the answer Schmidt ever lost his respect as a usual word of yours lost his respect for President Carter as a man that I think President Carter emerges as a man of considerable dignity generosity and of. They fixed principles and principles and convictions that I admired. I also I may say that I think Schmidt in his own way had his own he was a very considerable statesman and sinker

and part of my role was a pretty simple individual was to try to get each of them to understand the other and separate each of them. And I very happily assumed that role without trying to be a broker of any sort. But I could see all Carter's qualities in what he could put into the scene I could see Schmidt's great qualities and hang it all don't all of us did none of us has the whole pack of cards do it. So you've got to combine the best of both. Thank you. We thought they were just dance your class Q Quick question right here and right if you'd like to address the question which was your feelings that the answer to your regrets of the last control agreement. Yes I think what happened after I left office and after and after President Carter left office President Reagan took Illustrated

constants of foreign policy. We seem to move in various moves from being willing to work for the Soviet Union and not being willing to work immediately after the return of President Reagan who remember we had a lot of speeches which portrayed the Soviet Union as the empire of evil. And there was no real attempt to come to an agreement on something that has now been shown in 1987 to be of value to both sides. Now I think the lesson to be drawn from that is this that it is a very tricky business. To try to manage the relationships between two systems which have a different philosophy a different ideology a different set of relationships between the state and its citizens and we can swing violently from one extreme to the other. A different attitude to human rights. But our national interests remain the same and we should have more

constancy and there should be more consistency in the approach that we take to the Soviet Union on matters like arms control and disarmament which are to some extent separate from these issues there are technical questions they are in the interest of both sides and we should not allow. As far as we can avoid it we should not allow our immediate prejudices to interfere with the constant run of policy. Now clearly if you have an event like Afghanistan you cannot pretend to carry on as you were. But that isn't the whole of the story. And I feel myself that we should adopt a slogan that I invented I believe many years ago and I constantly and I will continue to say it that our relationship with the Soviet Union should be to cooperate where we can and compete where we must. Recognizing the systems are different but despite the difference in the systems we have common interests and those common interests are now growing. The environment is such an interest

that the whole question of education and other fields are common interests that we will try to work out collectively. May I finish with one final question. You mentioned the relationship between the state and individuals. Which raises the question of public opinion. Did you foresee yourself in 1979 when you set in train help set in train the move towards deploying cruise and Pershing to do you foresee that this would turn out to be politically quite difficult for center left administrations in Europe. I don't think I foresaw that it would be so difficult and I don't think it needed been so difficult frankly it was a bargaining approach in which we were trying to set off one thing against another and I think it was rather artificially and there was of course it was accentuated by the short sightedness of those who were whipping up the atmosphere in relations of Soviet Union and we got to a stage where people fear

the nuclear weapon much more than they feared the Soviet Union. And so I think that these are the events of politics that you can never really foresee and they happen and look what's happening. What has happened over the conclusion of the IMF and people's fears are much much lower level than they were before that this is the thing I complain of we've got to try to get a steady course if we get them. Thank you.