Sir Julian Lewis writes that a multilateral disarmament deal is the only answer ...

Guardian Online – 22 January 2024  [Print edition – 23 January]

Reviewing Jane Corbin’s BBC2 documentary (Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? review – TV that leaves you asking ‘Is that it?’, 18 January), Lucy Mangan praises its historical sweep, but detects insufficient rigour in some of its analysis. She is right: while certainly highlighting the role of Russia, in particular, in stoking nuclear confrontation, the programme closes with the bizarre claim that

“after a long battle [the Greenham women] succeeded”

in forcing the government to rescind the decision to station Nato intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) here. This is at least the second time that the BBC has promoted such disinformation.

On the 25th anniversary of the initial encampment at Greenham Common, the Guardian invited me to comment on this claim. The resultant article (from 2006) is still on your website; it sets out the timeline in detail, showing how – at the end of 1987 –

“the moderate leadership of the Soviet Union concludes an INF Treaty with Nato, based explicitly on [President Reagan’s 1981] ‘zero option’ offer. The 572 Nato warheads and nearly 2,000 Soviet warheads are subsequently scrapped”.

This multilateral deal, which eliminated hundreds of missiles on both sides, could never have happened if the one-sided disarmers had had their way.

Sir JULIAN LEWIS MP
Chairman, Defence Committee, 2015-19
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

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'ON NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, TOUGHNESS AND REALISM PREVAIL'

Julian Lewis MP recalls a multilateral deal that eliminated both cruise and Soviet SS-20 missiles

Guardian Online – 11 February 2024

In his memoirs published in 1996, Mikhail Gorbachev denounced the deployment of Soviet SS-20 missiles in the late 1970s as 

“an unforgivable adventure, embarked on by the previous Soviet leadership”,

adding that they

“might have assumed that, while we deployed our missiles, western countermeasures would be impeded by the peace movement. If so, such a calculation was more than naive”.

Despite the best efforts of the Greenham women to prevent it, deployment of cruise missiles went ahead as planned, paving the way for the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated both cruise and the SS-20s. This multilateral deal could never have happened if their campaign for unilateral UK nuclear disarmament had succeeded.

Rebecca Johnson (Letters, 30 January) appears to have forgotten that this conclusion was shared across the political spectrum. As the Observer stated in an editorial on 20 September 1987:

“Think back to 1979, when Nato settled on its ‘twin-track’ decision to deploy cruise and Pershing-2 missiles in Europe while continuing to negotiate with the Russians about the elimination of such systems. If the Soviet Union had then offered, inconceivably, to eliminate all its intermediate and short-range missiles aimed at western Europe in return for the non-deployment of cruise and Pershing-2, the offer would have been greeted with disbelief – and joy. Yet that is the very outcome that has now been achieved by deployment and negotiation: the twin-track decision has achieved its objective.

“Now is the moment for those who stood firm in 1983 – the year of deployment – to enjoy the results of their resolution. Despite public agitation and the parading of conscience through the streets, Nato was not deterred. Who would now have the nerve to claim that if the prescription of the peace groups had been followed the outcome would have been as good? The deal is a triumph for toughness and realism in international relations”.

Sir JULIAN LEWIS MP
Chairman, Defence Committee, 2015-19
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA