British prime ministers typically spend their Christmases at the Chequers Estate, which has served as the official country residence of the UK premier since 1921. During Margaret Thatcher’s 11-year term [1979-1990] as prime minister of the United Kingdom, she described the Chequers Estate as one of “the twin centres” of her “personal and professional life”, alongside 10 Downing Street.
During advent of December 1984, the Iron Lady welcomed several senior Soviet figures to the Chequers Estate, including reformist Mikhail Gorbachev, an up-and-coming politician at the time who would go on to become the Soviet Union’s last president in 1990 before its dissolution. Gorbachev’s visit to Chequers would also preclude the end of the Cold War era.
Back in December 1984, Thatcher was closely aligned with the Cold War policies of then US president Ronald Reagan. At the time, she weighed up her strategy to develop what she described in her memoirs, Margaret Thatcher The Downing Street Years [1993], as “close relations on the right terms with the Soviets.”
Extending an invitation to visit the UK to several senior Soviet officials including Gorbachev, it was decided that the contingent travelling from Moscow would be hosted at Chequers, for Thatcher felt the estate would provide “the right country house atmosphere conducive to good conversation.”
The Gorbachevs, Mikhail and his wife Raisa, travelled to the Buckinghamshire estate on the morning of Saturday December 16 and arrived in time for lunch.
Thatcher recalled that over drinks she and Gorbachev compared notes over UK and Soviet agricultural policies, while lunchtime conversation included Soviet economic programmes, irrigation schemes, and how industrial planners in the Soviet Union were able to stave off unemployment.
Thatcher and Gorbachev debated the pros and cons of the Western free enterprise system and the Soviet system of redistribution of wealth. In Britain at the time, taxes were being reduced in order to generate wealth and create incentives, yet Gorbachev was insistent on the Soviet system’s “superiority”, according to Thatcher.
In her memoirs of the encounter, she credited his sharp debating, his self-confidence, and his no-hesitation approach to discussing controversial topics of high politics.
His style, as Thatcher described, was "beyond Marxist rhetoric, showing a substance to his personality”.
The leaders would discuss other issues during the meeting such as arms control, with Thatcher offering her reassurances that the Reagan Administration in the US did not wish to pursue war despite mistrusting the Soviets.
The talks apparently ran over schedule by one hour and twenty minutes, which Thatcher blamed squarely on Gorbachev’s insistence on staying, despite his plans to be back in London earlier for a reception at the Soviet embassy.
Gorbachev left Thatcher with a “Soviet pearl of wisdom” in the form of a proverb: “Mountain folk cannot live without guests any more than they can live without air. But if the guests stay longer than necessary, they choke.”
As he took his leave, Thatcher recalled that she had “hoped” to have been “talking to the next Soviet leader”, for in Gorbachev she had discovered a man with whom she “could do business”. She would go on to say the very same to the British press shortly thereafter.
Gorbachev took office as president of the Soviet Union in March 1990, while Thatcher tendered her resignation as prime minister and leader of the Conservative party in November of the same year.
Photo by Ria Novosti archive, image #778094 / Yuryi Abramochkin / on Wikimedia Commons
