ANOTHER VOICE
Some useful tips for those intending to visit Moscow
AUBERON WAUGH
hat exactly does Mrs Thatcher hope to gain by her trip to Moscow later this week? The least cynical answer would appear to be that she hopes to make the world a safer place to live in: to defuse whatever tensions may exist between the Soviet Union and Britain, to probe Soviet intentions, to act as an honest broker between Gorbachev and Reagan, to reas- sert belief in peaceful solutions, to reopen a meaningful dialogue, to demonstrate the wisdom of Churchill's immortal aphorism that law-jaw is better than war-war.'
It has become a commonplace to express anxiety about the prospect of a war with the Soviet Union, but I am convinced that only neurotics really suffer, while neurotics who are also fools are the only people who expect anything to be done about it. I do not believe that Mrs Thatcher belongs to either group. Like the rest of us, she appreciates that we have lived at peace with the Soviet Union for 42 years by the simple process of terrifying the Russians into inactivity. On that basis, the world is now a safer place to live in than it has ever been before. As the prospect of war becomes ever more frightful, so it recedes, unless one chooses to indulge one's terrors by brooding on the possibility of an accidental war.
In my own observation, people who worry about a nuclear holocaust would worry about something else if that particu- lar worry was removed — acid rain, quite possibly, or breaches in the ozone layer caused by aerosol under-arm deodorant canisters. Rather to my surprise, I found myself involved in a shouting match last week with a member of the younger generation on the subject of acid rain. She said it was spoiling her jeans, and blamed me for being insufficiently concerned ab- out it. After about 20 minutes of shouting it emerged that she was worried about her genes, whatever they may be. How can she - possibly know that her genes are en- dangered? I read most newspapers every day, and have never read anything which made me suppose that my genes were at risk. Having worked in newspapers all my adult life I simply refuse to believe that there is a conspiracy to suppress the news. There can be no doubt that Adrian Berry would have alerted us to the peril in the Daily Telegraph.
As for the revived scare about under- arm deodorants causing holes in the ozone layer at the South Pole, through which plagues and pestilence are now pouring, I am convinced that this is being promoted by the same sexual puritans who have been pushing the Aids scare as a threat to active heterosexuals. They want us to smell horri- ble. Then somebody else will tell us that the smell comes from our mortifying genes.
Perhaps I am being too facetious, but it seems to me that if Mrs Thatcher is chasing either the young or the anti-nuclear vote by her trip to Moscow, she is wasting her time. They will all vote Ecology or, failing that, Liberal. Perhaps she is merely con- cerned to persuade the rest of us that she cares about nuclear holocausts, ozone layers, acid rain, rotting genes, etc. Again, she is wasting her time. We would sooner not be reminded of these things.
No, I am frightened that she has some more sinister intention. When she first met Mr Gorbachev, she announced that he was a person with whom she could do business. Now she proposes to do exactly that. But what, exactly, is she going to offer Mr Gorbachev in exchange for his support of the Conservative cause in the next election?
Gorbachev, as I never tire of pointing out, is terrified out of his mind by the prospect of having to match American expenditure on the Star Wars programme. Since Star Wars cannot possibly work, there is no real reason why he should bother to try, but I suppose the military insist he should. One must remember that the military, along with the Communist Party and the secret police, is one of the three great columns which support the Soviet state. Sir Geoffrey Howe has already announced that British foreign policy is opposed to the development of President Reagan's Strategic Defence In- itiative. A major speech against it by Mrs Thatcher in the present weakened state of the American presidency would be popular in Britain, extremely popular in the Soviet Union and might — just might — affect American attitudes too.
It seems to me that Mrs Thatcher may be planning to play silly buggers, as Denis Healey would say. Of course I may be wrong. During the Carter presidency, when that disastrous simpleton announced to the world that the number one objective of all American foreign policy was to secure the release of his ridiculous Amer- ican hostages in Iran, I began to under- stand Enoch Powell's prophecy that the future of Western Europe lay in making its own accommodation with the Soviet Un- ion. Who follows Reagan? Dear old Hopa- long cannot last for ever; the United States, after Vietnam, seems possessed by a frenzy of cowardice, as reactions to the Libyan adventure and to Chernobyl testify. There may well be more Carters waiting in the wings. Perhaps there is something to be said for embarking on a more cordial relationship with the Soviet Union, espe- cially if it helps win the election.
But I rather fear there is nothing whatev- er to be said for such a policy. If Mrs Thatcher and the Conservative Party swal- low a quarter of the bait put out, we may be absolutely sure that the rest of the country will swallow the whole lot. Even Christopher Booker, after a few days' visit to the Moscow Olympics — the most obvious of all Potemkin villages in that wretched country's long history — came home with glasnost shining out of his eyes and misting up his spectacles. The whole country is dying to be told that Russia is not so bad as has been made out, that Russians have human qualities after all.
Interviewed on television after the Budget, Nigel Lawson was asked whether, if he had once achieved his declared aim in bringing down the standard rate of income tax to 25 per cent, he would then attempt to achieve the American rate of 15 per cent. His answer was effectively `no' — public spending in Britain takes up a much higher proportion of the national income than it does in the United States. He is more concerned to help the poor than those suffering under a 60 per cent margin- al tax rate. Quietly, almost imperceptibly, he has slipped into the national mood. Faced with the choice of taking the Soviet Union or the United States as our model, the country has halfway decided it prefers the Soviet Union. I just hope that Mrs Thatcher remembers the fate of another Prime Minister who made the same jour- ney. When Mr Alexander Dubcek flew to Moscow in August 1968 for high-level discussions with the Soviet leadership, they took him off the plane and shut him in a small room without a bed. Then they held him there without access to washing facili- ties or lavatories for a week, until he signed an Agreement legalising the presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. Just so long as she remembers to take some lavatory paper in her handbag.
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