Statecraft. Margaret Thatcher

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СКАЧАТЬ knowing how to work. So, for all these reasons, when I was invited to Prague with George Bush Sr, Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Kohl, Lech Walesa and (representing her late husband) Mme Danielle Mitterrand, I eagerly accepted.

      Our host was President Vaclav Havel. Czechoslovakia had been immensely fortunate in 1989 to have Mr Havel – someone of total integrity and enjoying near-universal respect – to symbolise popular resistance and eventually become its leader and the nation’s president. President Havel is the sort of leader you could not imagine coming to power in ordinary circumstances – which some people may consider quite a recommendation. He is a considerable playwright, an intellectual, a combination of gentleness and courage – he spent over five years in jail for his views. He speaks quietly but forcefully, no orator in the ordinary sense but with something of the preacher’s ability to convey moral certainty and to communicate inspiration.

      Mr Havel’s office in the presidential wing of Prague Castle, where we met that afternoon, looks out onto the river and the old city beyond. The furnishing has doubtless changed since Beneš’s time. A large Egyptianesque nude female statue stands by his desk: for the President’s tastes in art, like his politics, are not altogether mine.

      President Havel’s anti-communism is not in doubt. But he is a man of the left and his view of the world reflects this. As he would put it in a speech the following day: ‘The present calls for a new perception of the contemporary world as a multi-polar, multicultural and globally interconnected entity, and for a consistent reform of all international organisations and institutions in order that they might reflect this new understanding.’ This kind of utopian language, even from one so eloquent, worries me.

      Mr Havel and I, though, agree entirely, I think, about what was wrong with communism – a system which (to quote him again) was ‘based on lies, hatred and coercion’. My first engagement on Wednesday morning allowed me to gauge how the President’s fellow countrymen thought. I was to unveil a new statue of Sir Winston Churchill – a life-size copy of that which stands in front of the Palace of Westminster in London. Also due to speak were Vaclav Klaus and Sir Winston’s nephew, Rupert Soames.

      It was very cold indeed; a bitter wind cut through me to the quick. I had decided on a black wool suit with fur trim and black hat, but had rejected advice to wear a thick coat and quickly regretted it. Prague’s Churchill Square is quite large, but it was packed. Some seven thousand people stood there and more were hanging out of overlooking windows to get a better view. I made my speech:

      Each time I come [to Prague] I seem to enter a world of majestic churches, mighty palaces and evocative sculpture. But I confess that I am very glad that you have found a place for this new statue. It will remind you here, as every generation has to be reminded – and amid all this beauty – that the price of freedom can be high, and that it may indeed require the sacrifice of ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’. This statue of Sir Winston Churchill will also remind you, as it reminds me, of something else – that liberty must never be allowed to perish from the earth, it must endure for ever.

      The reception was tremendous. Some applause has a special quality that you remember for a lifetime. This had it. Finally, the Czech national anthem was played by the band and sung with passion by the crowd. I could only imagine what it meant – for the old people who recalled the Nazi invader, for the younger ones who had suffered under communism, for the very young who knew, without having experienced either of these totalitarianisms, what freedom truly was.

      By now I had been standing completely still for almost an hour, and I was frozen. As we left the platform a Czech veteran who had served with the British in the last war stood forward to request an autograph. My hands were shaking so much that I could barely write. The almost illegible signature he has is certainly unique and will in future years probably be denounced by the experts as a fake.

      It was apparent from the panel discussion that afternoon in Prague Castle’s huge, gilded baroque ball room, that whatever chord I struck with the Czech people evoked less harmony from some of my fellow guests, above all from Mikhail Gorbachev. The discussion was tactfully chaired by the historian Timothy Garton Ash, who had himself played a distinguished role in the events of ten years earlier. To his left sat Mme Mitterrand, George Bush, myself and Helmut Kohl. To his right were Vaclav Havel, Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Walesa. The theme of the discussion was ‘Ten Years After’.

      Interestingly, written down like that, the title looks strangely unfinished. Ten years after … what? The obvious reply, of course, is ‘Prague’s Velvet Revolution’. But it is not the only reply. One might say instead ‘the collapse of communism’, or ‘the triumph of freedom’, or – even more controversial for some – ‘the West’s victory in the Cold War’. It was a fundamental difference about these other possibilities that underlay the disagreement that followed.

      All those present (with the exception of Danielle Mitterrand) had played a considerable part in securing the outcome ten years earlier. Lech Walesa’s leadership of the Polish Solidarity trade union was crucial in the fight for Polish freedom (I well remembered my visit to the Gdansk shipyard in November 1988 and my – as it turns out – successful attempts to persuade General Jaruzelski to negotiate with Solidarity*).

      Mikhail Gorbachev began the reforms in the Soviet Union that opened the way – albeit unintentionally on his part – for the fall of communism. But perhaps the decision for which he should be given most credit is a decision not to do anything at all – when he allowed the Eastern Bloc countries to break free of Soviet control without sending in the tanks.

      Helmut Kohl, for all the criticism that has since been made of him, must be ranked with Bismarck and Adenauer as one of Germany’s most successful statesmen. He showed great political courage in resisting the threats and blandishments of a Moscow that was desperate in the 1980s to drive a wedge between Europe and America. And, though I did not appreciate his tactics at the time, he also showed cunning and bravura in securing his country’s unity and freedom in 1989–90.

      George Bush – looking drained from an overlong tour of European cities, but as always supported by Barbara – was also present. We are very different people, from different backgrounds and with different instincts. But I have always warmed to his decency and patriotism. He took over where Ronald Reagan left off, and then finished the job – combining sticks and carrots to induce the Soviets along the path of reform and then negotiating the reunification of Germany within NATO.

      I have written elsewhere of my own part in the affairs of that time: without Britain’s wholehearted support for the Reagan administration I am not sure that it would have been able to carry its allies along the right path. I also think that the fact that Ronald Reagan and I spoke the same language (in every sense) helped convince friend and foe alike that we were serious.

      All of our contributions were quite sufficiently substantial without needing exaggeration or distortion. But human nature being what it is – and academics, like politicians, being on this score quite especially human – a certain amount of revisionism had set in. In particular, the role of Ronald Reagan had been deliberately diminished; the role of the Europeans, who, with the exception of Helmut Kohl, were often all too keen to undermine America when it mattered, had been sanitised; and the role of Mr Gorbachev, who failed spectacularly in his declared objective of saving communism and the Soviet Union, had been absurdly misunderstood.

      I was conscious of all this as I prepared my thoughts for the panel. But I tried to be diplomatic. I declared that ‘everyone on this platform was marvellous’. But I also said that it was America and Britain with their deep, historic commitment to the values of liberty which had been crucial in bringing about freedom. I added that what interested me now was to extend the rule of liberty everywhere:

      We’ve got the greatest opportunity we’ve СКАЧАТЬ