FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EAST-WEST RELATIONS)

§ Mr. Reginald Maudling (Chipping Barnet)

I should like to start by saying how sorry we are to hear that the Foreign Secretary cannot be here today. We wish him a very speedy recovery from his influenza.

The issue we have chosen for today's debate, East-West relations, is a very broad one. People may say that it does not enable us to focus acutely enough on all the particular issues, but we thought it right to make it a broad debate because there is no greater issue before the House of Commons than East-West relations, because recent developments in Central and Southern Africa have made discussion urgent, and because discussion of these events cannot be taken in isolation. It must be considered in the broad context of East-West relations and of developments since the Helsinki Conference.

My first proposition, therefore, is a simple and familiar one, but it is essential to state it again and again. The world is divided between East and West, divided between the NATO Powers and the Warsaw Pact Powers, and no one but a lunatic would seek for anything but coexistence, mutual disarmament and growing co-operation between them, because the only alternative would be co-destruction.

May I recall again the scale of the danger? It is so great that sometimes it bemuses us; it is difficult to understand. It is calculated, I think accurately, that, in a full-scale nuclear war between the two alliances, in a few days casualties would be numbered in hundreds of millions. There would be a return overnight to the Dark Ages. There can be no precedent in history for that situation. It is, however, entirely within the physical and military capacity of either of 202 the super-Powers to do this to mankind within a few hours. That is a totally new and horrific situation, which must be the basis for all that we say and do in foreign policy.

In this new situation we must apply the lessons of the past, and particularly those of the 1930s. That is absolutely right, but they must be adapted to the new circumstances. Subjugation of our island by a Communist dictatorship would be as evil a fate as subjugation by Hitler, but then we knew that we could win a war and survive a war. Now, we could still win a war, I believe, but what would survive of mankind is a little more difficult to foresee.

Therefore, our safety rests upon convincing any possible aggressor that, whatever the course of a battle, the consequence for him would be suicidal. That means demonstrating two things—first, that our own defences in the West will be strong enough to inflict upon the aggressor a mortal wound, whatever he might be able to do to us; second, that we have in the West the united determination to use our joint defences if, tragically, that becomes necessary.

That, to date, NATO has done. That surely has been the foundation of NATO to date. The fact that NATO has succeeded and held together and been strong is the reason why we have had peace between the great Powers and why we have today—hard though it sometimes still is to believe—the prospects of future peace between them.

All this, in my view, shows why detente is necessary and why defence and determination are essential to detente. I could not put the position better than Dr. Kissinger did the other day when he said: …in the nuclear era…the use of force threatens utter catastrophe. It is our responsibility to contain Soviet power without global war, to avoid both abdication as well as unnecessary confrontation…We must strive for an equilibrium of power, but we must move beyond it to promote the habits of mutual restraint, co-existence and ultimately, co-operation. We must stabilise a new international order in a vastly dangerous environment, but our ultimate goal must be to transform ideological conflict into constructive participation in building a better world. This is what is meant by the process called detente'—not the hunger for the relaxation of tension, not the striving for agreements at any price, not the mindless search for friendly 203 atmosphere which some critics use as naive and dangerous caricatures. The policies pursued by this administration have been designed to prevent Soviet expansion, but also to build a pattern of relations in which the Soviet Union will always confront penalties for aggression and also acquire growing incentives for restraint. That seems to me a good statement of what we in the Western world should be aiming at.

It was in that spirit that we on this side welcomed the Helsinki Conference and the Helsinki Agreement. We said two things at the time. First, we said that nothing in any paper agreement should justify the standing down of a single NATO soldier. The Government at the time—the Minister of State himself, I remember—agreed entirely and rightly with that. Secondly, we said that the proof of the pudding was in the eating. We hoped that it would be good, but we could not be sure until we had tasted it. That was our attitude to Helsinki.

What has happened since? Frankly, the performance of the Soviet Union has been disappointing. I want to take four areas in which I believe this to be true—first, what is known as Basket III; second, political co-operation; third, the Soviet naval build-up; fourth, Central and Southern Africa. All those things go together. They are all part of the background against which detente can be expected to succeed or to fail. I cannot avoid the impression that the meeting of statesmen at Helsinki was not accompanied by a similar meeting of minds. There may be valid and genuine reasons for this, which we must examine, but to ignore that fact would be a perilous thing to do.

Basket III comprises questions of human freedoms, free movement of people and ideas, reunification of families and freedom of movement for the Press. The West attaches much importance to these matters. The Russians must know that. It should not have been difficult for them to make a move on this front, but there has been little sign of it to date.

I have some personal experience of these matters. I have written twice to the head of the recent Soviet parliamentary delegation to this country about cases of individual Jews in the Soviet Union, 204 about whom great concern is felt by constituents of many hon. Members. I wrote recently in reply to a letter from the Minister Counsellor of the Soviet Embassy referring also to the concern in this country for human individual freedoms. I have received, I am sorry to say, no reply. It is difficult to conduct a dialogue with those who do not answer.

The second matter is the question of continuing political aggression, of which, I suppose, Portugal has been the outstanding example in recent months, although other possibilities can certainly come to mind. It is, I understand, the view of Mr. Brezhnev that Helsinki did not mean a truce in the war of idea. That is an over-simplification. One cannot say that war with tanks and guns is out but war with ideas is in. Between the two lies a vast spectrum of possibilities. Ideas can be as deadly as bullets, at the Russians know as well as anyone. I remember what Churchill said about the plague bacillus which was exported to Russia. The Soviets themselves take defence against ideas as seriously, we know very well, as they take defence against war.

But if détente is to mean anything, we must have a meeting of minds. Of course the proponents of both philosophies, Communist and free world, must continue freely to propagate their views—as Chairman Mao rather surprisingly said, but did not carry out—to enable men to choose freely between them. But it is quite different to use money, men and propaganda to subvert the constitutions of countries on the other side or to destroy the unity of the other alliance.

§ Mr. Stanley Newens (Harlow)

Like the CIA in Chile.

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)

You are out of your Chinese mind.

§ Mr. Maudling

It may be difficult to do this in terms of law or politics, but it is emphatically not true in terms of detente, if detente is to mean anything at all.

Third, I come to the question of defence, with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour) will deal more fully later.

§ Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

I think that the whole House follows the 205 right hon. Gentleman's argument. It is clear that there should be no subversion on any side. But would the right hon. Gentleman make a distinction between the activities of the Russians and what happened in Chile? Would he not agree that we as democrats should condemn activities of this kind irrespective of whether they come from the Soviet Uuion or from America or anywhere else?

§ Mr. Maudling

I do not want to get involved in Chile for the moment. This is a serious issue which I am trying to take seriously. If we are to have detente between the two great alliances, neither should try to subvert the other; and I do not see much sign of any Western Power having much success in creating subversion inside the Soviet Union's boundaries.

I come to the next point—defence—with which, I hope, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amerstam will deal later if he chatches your eye, Mr. Speaker. We understood that the Helsinki Conference and the Helsinki Agreement would be followed by progress in the SALT and mutual and balanced force reduction talks. We said that the resounding Helsinki declarations would not mean very much unless we were able to get ahead with disarmament, and particularly nuclear disarmament, over the whole range of mutual and balanced force reductions. I am sorry to say that progress in this field since then has been very little and very disappointing. Meanwhile the Soviet arms build-up has continued particularly in the naval sector.

It is only right to explain, so that the Soviet Union should know, why we in particular, with our history and experience, feel concerned about this naval build-up and its importance to Britain. Historically, attacks on this country have been seaborne because we are an island. Attacks on Russia have been over land, and we know that many thousands of Russians died in fighting off German attacks on the ground. It is hard to believe that it is necessary for the Russians to deploy a massive naval apparatus merely to defend themselves against a seaborne invasion over the Polar ice-cap. This is difficult for us to understand.

The Russians may say that the expansion and growth of their fleet and its 206 deployment throughout the warm waters of the world is purely defensive. It is only right to point out that it is very difficult for many in this country to believe this claim.

The fourth point is Africa, which in many ways is the most alarming development. The presence of a vast army, in the Prime Minister's phrase, of paid Cuban soldiers with Russian political and logistic support to impose the will of one faction inside Angola was a wholly new phenomenon, and I do not see how it can possibly be regarded as consistent with the spirit of detente. As we know, a quite grave situation has now arisen.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

Would the right hon. Gentleman take into account the apparent intention of the South African Government to have detente in Southern Africa, and how does that square with their regular troops in Angola?

§ Mr. Maudling

It is less important to look at the past than at the future, but the past has its lessons. There appeared at one time to be a most peculiar alliance supporting the non-Communists in Angola against the Communist factions there, comprising China, the United States, Zaire and South Africa. China withdrew early. The United States was paralysed by the dispute between Congress and the Administration, and the South Africans made a move, which I believe was unwise in that struggle, which had the effect of driving into Communist arms African countries which otherwise would have been more moderate. What matters is what happens now in the situation with which we have to deal. The threat of the Communists and their various supporters to neighbouring territories such as Zaire, Zambia, Rhodesia and South Africa is a very serious one. There has been a really grave setback to the prospect of a settlement in Central Africa between black and white which were coming together, slowly and painfully, before this happened.

The danger above all for this country is that the Communists will portray what for them is really an ideological struggle as a racial struggle in which they are on the side of the majority. This is something of the greatest danger to this country. It is of the highest importance to prevent this happening and to base 207 our words and actions at all times with this danger in view. There is now a need for a maximum of diplomatic activity to try to reach agreements, to try to get foreign troops withdrawn. Certainly, when it comes to the withdrawal of foreign troops I believe that we shall have the support of a great majority of African countries which do not wish to see Communist troops from Cuba or Russia in their country any more than they wish to see the troops of any other country. We must give them the opportunity, so far as we can, to remove this danger from their presence.

It is not true that the Communists always win in this matter. Recently we have seen how they have been excluded from Egypt, and they are experiencing the same thing in Syria and Iraq. That can and must happen in Angola, but it will not happen unless there is a maximum of diplomatic activity from now onwards on the part of the Western Powers. In this context I welcome the unity shown in yesterday's statement by the Ministers of the European Community. It is of great importance that they should have declared together, unitedly, their wish to do all they can to see a withdrawal of foreign troops from Angola. I wish that that had come earlier. We on this side of the House have often pressed that this should be done. It is better late than never, but it is no good unless the declaration is followed by most vigorous action by all members of the Community through all the diplomatic channels available, including, I believe, the Security Council of the United Nations.

We have a special responsibility in Rhodesia, where the danger in some ways is greatest. In dealing with this it is right to choose our words with very great care, because ill-chosen words could damage the fragile but still existing prospect of a settlement there. I believe it was a tragedy that Mr. Smith did not accept the "Tiger" or "Fearless" solution, because had he done so the whole prospect in Central and Southern Africa would be much happier than it is today. But that is in the past, and we must look at the present.

As I understand it, the position of the Government is that they say that we in Britain have a responsibility for the protection of a British colony. But, they say, 208 this does not include a territory whose Government have repudiated colonial status and declared themselves independent. In other words, as I see it, the Government are saying that the Rhodesians cannot have it both ways, to be treated as independent when it suits them but to be treated as a colony when they need help. To this the Rhodesians reply "Neither can the British Government have it both ways. They cannot proclaim that Rhodesia is still a colony when it suits them but not treat it as a colony when danger arises." These are the arguments on both sides. I find them sterile and dangerous arguments. There is logic in the position of the Government, but logic does not always govern human affairs; emotion sometimes takes over.

§ Mr. Maudling

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later.

I can imagine circumstances where emotion could take over, and I must say seriously to Ministers that if guerrilla forces, with or without—possibly with—Cuban regulars, were to invade Rhodesia and there was widespread slaughter of the white people while the British Government remained inactive on the side-lines, there would be an explosion of anger in this country which would by no means be confined solely to those having friends and relations in Rhodesia. This must at all costs be averted. This is the great task in front of us. This is the peril that must be averted.

§ Dr. Miller

Is it not up to Mr. Smith to make the move of saying "This régime gives up. It is no longer an illegal régime and it moves towards legality"? Would that not be the first step which would mean that there could be some British intervention, which there certainly cannot be while Mr. Smith maintains his illegal position?

§ Mr. Maudling

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is very far from me. It is essential to avoid being faced with such a situation, which is why we welcome Lord Greenhill's mission. We believe that it is a profound British interest at this moment to do everything possible to get a solution in Rhodesia that is acceptable as fair and one that will last; because if that does not happen this country will be 209 faced with difficulty, danger and tragedy of very considerable dimensions.

§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

We shall not. He will.

§ Mr. Maudling

I hope that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has a similar concern for this country. I do not think that it will help to enter into an argument about Rhodesia. But it is our profound hope that a settlement can be found swiftly.

I come back to the broad issue of East-West relations, which is the frame to the African picture. Britain and her allies must use every diplomatic means available to deal with the situation. The arrival of the Cuban forces in Angola set on foot a major international phenomenon of such a scale that I cannot understand why it has not been raised in the Security Council. Certainly it should be raised in the Security Council as soon as possible.

It may be said by some people that the situation has changed, because the MPLA has been recognised as the Government. It does not change the case at all. Surely the continued presence of a large Cuban army, now that the MPLA has been recognised and claims to govern its own territory, must be a threat to the peace and security of neighbouring Governments, and it should be raised as soon as possible in the Security Council.

§ Mr. Newens

Is the right hon. Gentleman propounding a theory that we should not have outside Powers with military forces on a Third World country's territory? In those circumstances, is not what he says is good for Angola equally good for Oman, and should he not press strongly for the withdrawal of Iranian and British forces from that country if he is to be consistent?

§ Mr. Maudling

The hon. Gentleman has failed to notice what his Government have noticed, which is that the troops there present are supporting the law and order of the legal régime in Oman, which is a wholly different situation.

This matter should be raised in the Security Council. But the key, as always, is to be found in Moscow, for it is in Moscow where the power resides. The objective of detente as stated by Kissinger 210 remains. But there has been no real meeting of minds, and detente, like peace, in Litvinov's phrase, must be indivisible and must be genuinely desired by both sides.

What do the Russians want, and what levers have we got? This is what we must be considering. What, in Kissinger's words, are the penalties for aggression and the incentives for restraint that we can give them? They have currently a big need for grain and continuously a great need for technology. There may be bargaining factors here. It must be said, however, that the Americans whose grain it is are not over-enthusiastic, and previous experience has not given much confidence in economic pressures. But surely this is a matter to be examined by the whole Western world.

Can the Chinese help? Frankly, I doubt it. I welcome the developments in friendly relations between China and the West, but we must always be a little fearful that they may be playing us off against the Soviet Union. Dictatorships can change their tune overnight. I remember very well the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact which signalled the beginning of the Second World War. We must not forget that, above all, we must rely on the unity of the Western world and the unity of its policy. We must make it clear to the Russians that theirs is now the choice between genuine détente, disarmament and peaceful co-operation with all that these mean to them and to their peoples as well as to us and to our peoples and, if they do not wish that, condemning the world to a return to the cold war. We must make this crystal clear.

The peacemaker treads a stony road, but we must never abandon hope. To adapt the inscription in the old Baltimore churchyard, Neither be cynical about Hope: for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

§ The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Roy Hattersley)

I am in the unattractive position of having to begin my speech with two apologies. The first is on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, who is prevented by influenza from taking part in this important debate and asks me to apologise to the House for his absence. He will 211 be grateful for the good wishes of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling).

The second is an apology from me not only because I am a substitute for my right hon. Friend but because, in view of the extraordinary events of today, I must leave the debate before it ends. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet will be leaving at about the same time, and I promise that I shall forgive him for that if he will forgive me.

§ Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

Although the Patronage Secretary admittedly is a member of the Cabinet, and I see that he has just arrived, would not it have been courteous to the House, in the absence of the Foreign Secretary, for another Cabinet Minister to have been in the House even for a few minutes?

§ Mr. Hattersley

I seem to have heard that sort of point again and again in the 12 years that I have been a Member of the House, depending on which party was in government and which hon. Member wanted to make a point without having a point to make.

Inevitably, throughout today, the dangers and desirability of détente will be judged through this debate against the development of Soviet policy in Africa in general and in Angola in particular. That exact subject occupied the Foreign Ministers of the European Economic Community meeting yesterday in Luxembourg, and I shall turn presently to the clear and unanimous conclusion to which they came about the future of Africa and which they issued yesterday as a statement of corporate EEC policy.

Before doing that, however, I want to set out in broad terms what the Government believe should be the nature of our relationship with the Soviet Union and its allies and what the Government believe our response should be to the challenge—that is the word that I use, and I am sure it is the right word—of détente.

Détente is one of the most fashionable words in the foreign affairs lexicon, but I believe that it is also one of the most misunderstood. Détente is not a process that can result in a world in which all opinions and all interests coincide. Its purpose is not to resolve the fundamental differences between East and West but to 212 reconcile fundamentally different political systems. It is, or it should be, the creation of an international order within which different ideologies and different systems of government can live together. By "live together" I mean live in stabilised peace, and I mean live with increased commercial and cultural relationships.

Détente is not the product of sentimental liberalism or weak-minded pacifism. It is a policy which, if it is pursued with caution, is as much in the interests of the West as it is in the interests of the Soviet Union and its allies. Its purpose is not to pretend that the differences between the West and the Soviet Union can be hidden or forgotten. It is a policy designed and intended to make the world safe, despite those differences of opinion, of philosophy, of ideology and occasionally of interest, from the terrors which the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet described—the sort of appalling destruction which would be the inevitable result of a relationship of confrontation changing into one in which the confrontation was made active and Europe first and the rest of the world after was plunged into war.

As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet reminded us, in the debate on the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in July last year I said—and I repeat today—that the policy of detente has to be pursued with the greatest possible caution. It can proceed only on the secure foundation of a strong and effective Western Alliance. The NATO Ministerial Council made the position clear in its deliberations on 12th December. After that meeting, the statement which the Council issued contained a phrase which summarised what ought to be our attitude to these matters: the solidarity of the Alliance and the security which it provides are an essential condition for the improvement of East-West relations. That is a view wholly endorsed by Her Majesty's Government.

Defence and détente have to go hand in hand, and NATO has to be an instrument of both. Defence, represented by the deterrent, has kept Europe at peace for a quarter of a century. Détente is an attempt to find a better way of protecting peace. But it can come about only if the West negotiates from a position approaching equal military strength. 213 There is no disagreement between the two Front Benches on that issue.

The United Kingdom has played and will continue to play a substantial part in the collective defence of the West If the history is looked at objectively, I think that it will be argued that it has played a bigger part during the lifetime of the present Government. We have continued to pursue the objects of détente as a superior method of preserving peace in the world, if it can be extended according to the right terms and in the right way. We have tried to pursue it by an extension of our bilateral relations with the countries of Eastern Europe and also through what I describe as the institutions of détente—the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and the mutual and balanced force reduction talks.

The CSCE was begun by Conservative Ministers, if their speeches at the time are anything to go by, in a mood of great hope. I believe that they were right to begin the process and to be hopeful about its outcome. I find it difficult to follow the more extreme criticisms of how the conference which Lord Home began three years ago has turned out. I find it particularly difficult to understand the contention that in one particular it has turned out to be a unique triumph for Eastern Europe and an unmitigated tragedy for the West. That particular, advanced by Opposition Members who normally sit below the Gangway, is the argument that as a result of the Final Act of that Conference the boundaries of Eastern Europe, as it is divided from the West and as it is divided between the countries which are members of the Warsaw Pact, have somehow been confirmed and made permanent.

§ Sir Anthony Royle (Richmond, Surrey)

I am interested in what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the first stage of the Conference at Helsinki in 1973, when my noble Friend Lord Home led the British delegation and I was his deputy. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that we entered the negotiations with hope, but we also entered them with realism. That is the point that has been made by some of my right hon. and hon. Friends during the past three months.

§ Mr. Hattersley

I think that that is a fair description of the attitude of the hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend. But I 214 think that the hon. Gentleman does his right hon. and hon. Friends below the Gangway slightly more than justice—I do not begrudge that—when he says that during the past year they adopted the same attitude towards the Final Act as he has adopted. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has made the complaint to which I am referring: that the Final Act has solidified and made permanent the boundaries of Eastern Europe and that it is a major triumph for the Soviet Union and its allies for which nothing else can compenate.

My argument against that is that the boundaries that presently divide East and West and the boundaries within the Warsaw Pact are determined by something much more stern than a piece of paper signed by 36 Heads of Government at Helsinki in the summer. If that is the major achievement of the Eastern European Powers resulting from that agreement, it is more apparent than real. However, I believe that they obtained other advantages, but advantages which they share with the West.

I contend that from Helsinki and the Final Act three areas provide substantial potential benefits. First, the Final Act of the CSCE established a code of conduct which should guide the nations of Europe in their relationships with each other. Secondly, it proposed a number of ways in which military confidence between East and West could be built up, including the knowledge—and ideally the certainty—that neither East nor West was threatening or attempting to coerce its neighbours. The knowledge and certainty provided by the exchange of military information give a feeling of security not only to the Powers of NATO and the Warsaw Pact but to those neutral countries which exist, sometimes uneasily, between them, briefly conscious of military movements the other side of their borders but never sure of the intentions of the major Powers.

Thirdly, the CSCE stipulated a number of ways in which the rights of individuals—the right to free movement, the right to be reunited with their families and the right freely to receive information—should be safeguarded.

I shall deal extensively with the establishment of a code of conduct in a moment. T think that we can regard the second matter—confidence-building 215 measures—as an area of success. Since Helsinki, both the Warsaw Pact and NATO have notified each other of their manœuvres, which has helped to build up the confidence of each side by explaining when the movement of men and materials was related to practice rather that warlike intentions. I believe that to be a substantial step in the right direction. Similarly, in what is called Basket III—the humanitarian measures—I believe that there has been a substantial step forward.

§ Mr. Cormack

Is it not a fact that we have had from the Soviets only one notification of troop manoeuvres and that we have given many in return?

§ Mr. Hattersley

Yes, but the Soviet Union has notified all those troop manoeuvres which, as far as we know—and I think that our information is accurate—were within the terms of the Helsinki Agreement. We have chosen, I am sure rightly, to give notification of manoeuvres too small to qualify within the terms of the Final Act, but no doubt the Soviet Union and its allies are applying the Act exactly. That is a cause for congratulation rather than complaint.

§ Mr. James Lamond (Oldham, East)

The Soviet Union has also extended its notification to include an invitation to observers from the countries whose borders are involved, and we have not done that so far. If we are to be fair, we should acknowledge how far the Soviet Union has gone.

§ Mr. Hattersley

In fact, both sides have extended invitations of a sort to observers. I do not argue with the basic point that in this area both sides have cause for some satisfaction and deserve congratulation. In the confidence-building measures, both East and West have made some progress.

There has not been equal progress in those parts of the agreement intended to safeguard the human rights of individuals, but even there some progress has been made. There has been progress in the passing of information from East and West. The organisation of multi-entry and exit visas for the journalists working in the Soviet Union has now been approved. That is a step in the right direction. I am told that as a gesture to the West 216 40 copies of the Financial Times are now on sale in Moscow I am sure that the House will want to express its deep gratitude for that. There have been steps in the right direction, though some are small, in the transfer of information

There are, however, areas in which we have cause for concern. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the main one, the reunification of families divided by the traditional dispute between East and West and by the boundaries separating the Warsaw Pact and NATO. In the Foreign Office we have done our best to draw the attention of the Soviet Union and its allies to their absolute obligation under Basket III to allow those families now separated to be reunited. I repeat the promise I have given before that we shall continue to press that on the Soviet Union.

We shall do it in two ways. First, we shall remind the Soviet Union and its allies of their obligation to promote reunification of such families on simple moral and humanitarian grounds. Secondly, we shall tell them of their obligations to themselves to realise that their willingness to do that is the test both of their good faith and of their confidence in their own system. Unless they are prepared to allow elderly ladies to live with their children in England, or wives to be reunited with their husbands, there will be great scepticism in the United Kingdom not only about their good faith in these matters but about their confidence in their own system and their willingness to allow people who have lived under it to go to the West.

I have said that one of the objects of the CSCE was the creation of the right working atmosphere for civilised relations between the countries of Eastern and Western Europe. I know very well that this debate is bound to be dominated by the question we must all ask—whether the conduct of the Soviet Union in Angola is consistent with the spirit of the Helsinki Declaration. There can be only one answer to this question—it is not consistent with the spirit of the Helsinki Declaration. The Government's view on intervention in Angola is clear. It is shared, and has now been publicly expressed, by the Foreign Ministers of the Nine. The position we took up yesterday denounced and condemned intervention of all sorts from all sources.

217 Today I express the hope that what has happened in Angola will act as a most solemn warning both to Western Europe and to the nations of Africa. First, Africa must learn that within its continent there are independent nations which are now faced with a new sort of imperialism. It may be disguised with slogans about liberation and self-determination, but in fact it stands for something very different.

Secondly, Europe must understand that this new imperialism cannot be fought and beaten by those who would ally themselves with the remnants of the old imperialism. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet was right when he said that time and again the Soviet Union has portrayed itself as being on the side of the black democracies in Africa. That is not only an enormous condemnation of them; it is also an enormous condemnation of us. We should have made our support for these new nations so obvious and apparent that it would have been impossible for the Soviet Union to compete with us for their friendship and affection.

Had Angola not remained for so long the colonial property of an authoritarian European State—without a word of complaint from some people who are now so worried about its freedom and its future—its territory would not have proved such fertile soil for the Cuban intervention. More immediately, if less important, if South Africa had not sent in its so-called volunteers to fight on Angolan soil I have no doubt that opinion in Africa and outside would have been much more easily mobilised to condemn, and perhaps deter, the Cuban intervention. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State with responsibility for African matters in the Foreign Office will try to deal substantially with these matters when he winds up the debate.

§ Mr. Robert Hughes

Having recognised how important it is not to isolate the African nations, can my right hon. Friend say how quickly a British diplomatic mission will be established in Luanda and what discussions there have been on bilateral or multilateral aid to solve Angola's problems?

§ Mr. Hattersley

The EEC Council of Ministers yesterday began to examine what sort of aid might be possible for 218 the resumption of peaceful and civilised life in Angola. In winding up the debate, my right hon. Friend will deal with this point and with the question of a British mission in Angola, which is at present being considered by the Government.

§ Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East)

Are any of these contemplated measures in regard to aid and diplomatic missions contingent upon the withdrawal of the foreign army from Angolan soil?

§ Mr. Hattersley

They are related to but not contingent upon. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will wait with patience for the rather fuller statement which my right hon. Friend hopes to make before the end of the debate.

Implicit in the declaration made by the Foreign Ministers of the Nine yesterday about the political future of Africa was their belief that what the Soviet Union calls the ideological struggle will be waged in Africa for the next 10 years. If we are to win the war of ideas, we must first make plain our unequivocal support for the forces of African nationalism and equally we must make plain that our policy in Africa is not based on our own narrow strategic or commercial interest but that we think it is a policy which is right for the Africans. No other policy will command their support. A policy based on building a world fit for the Tanganyika Concession to live in will win us no friends in Africa. It would deserve to fail.

In these great issues of the future of Africa, morality and British self-interest coincide. That is at least one happy aspect for us in considering the future of Africa.

There are other challenges to the improvement of East-West relations outside Africa. One is the second institution of détente—the mutual and balanced force reduction talks which, as the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet rightly said, have been going on for so long in Vienna. We all hoped for greater speed once the Conference on Security and Co-operation had been completed and the Helsinki Declaration signed. The object of the West in the MBFR talks has been to reach an agreement which radically improves the military relationship in Central Europe.

In that sector, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies have a large 219 numerical superiority of ground forces and main battle tanks. If the talks are to succeed, that imbalance has to be corrected. We therefore proposed to the Warsaw Pact that there should be a reduction in the number of its forces and NATO's forces in that area to a common ceiling. It is now sad history that the Warsaw Pact has proved unresponsive and unsympathetic to that proposal. The Pact countries have been overt in their determination to preserve the present ratio of forces and have regarded the MBFR talks simply as an opportunity to institutionalise the present imbalance and to continue the disparity. This is not only against our interests but is against the interests of stability in Europe.

In an effort to encourage the Warsaw Pact to accept a common ceiling, we and our allies made during December what has been called the Option Three approach. We offered to withdraw a number of United States nuclear weapons from the reduction area if the Warsaw Pact would agree to a reduction of ground forces to a mutually acceptable common ceiling. Once again, that offer did not have any success or meet with the response for which we had hoped. However, we must continue to work for progress in the MBFR talks. A satisfactory result would reduce both tension and defence budgets without lessening our security. Both these matters are essentially in our interest and we must work towards them.

However, I must make one point absolutely clear. This is not an area in which risks can be taken. We cannot proceed in the MBFR talks on the basis of hope or belief in good intentions. Progress depends on the certainty of reciprocal action and on the knowledge that what comes out of any agreement totally preserves our present level of security. Although the Government enter these talks in a hopeful and creative way, we do so in the knowledge that the overriding obligation is not to diminish security in the West. That, above all, must characterise our deliberations.

We live in a time of Soviet initiatives. Only today, Mr. Brezhnev reiterated to his party conference his belief that we are moving into an era in which there has to be a worldwide disarmament con- 220 ference. This is an idea which has been proposed before and to which Mr. Brezhnev added in a speech to the Polish party conference in Warsaw the suggestion that there should be European conferences on energy, environment and transport.

To all these initiatives our attitude is absolutely plain. If they offer positive prospects of material improvements in East-West relations, we welcome them, but if they are intended not to make progress but simply to score propaganda points we do not endorse them.

There are a number of ways in which the intentions of such initiatives can be judged. For instance, the forum in which it is agreed that the European conference on energy, environment and transport might be held would be an indication of what the participants wanted from such a meeting. The obvious place for such a conference to be held is in the Economic Commission for Europe. If within that forum there is a move from the countries of Eastern Europe to discuss these crucial matters, we are prepared to consider playing our part in such a conference. But if it seems that such a conference is organised only with the idea of demonstrating what is not true—namely, that the Soviet Union is more interested in peaceful relations than the West—we have no part to play in such organisations.

We have an absolute duty to Western Europe and to our own democratic philosophy not to avoid or run away from the war of ideas but to play an increasingly positive part in what the Soviet Union chooses to call the ideological struggle. I understand that today Mr. Brezhnev renewed his insistence that the ideological struggle must go on. Unlike the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, I say "So be it", because while the Soviet Union may be superior to the West in terms of men and tanks, I believe it to be utterly inferior to the West in terms of ideas about the organisation of politics and political democracy. That is an area in which we can compete on more than equal terms in Europe, Africa and Asia. I understand that today Mr. Brezhnev, having talked for some time about détente, said: Of course, there can be no question of an ideological rapprochement between scientific 221 Communism and the reformist social democrats ". Amen to that.

My duty as a Minister in a Government wholly committed to improved relations between East and West obliges me to play a small part in the promotion of détente, and I accept that obligation more than willingly. But, as a democrat—and as a social democrat and a free man in a free society—I believe that I am also obliged to advocate the boons and benefits of a political system different from that which now operates within the Warsaw Pact countries. I find no conflict in those two obligations.

The Soviet Union's attitude to this matter is one which we would all do well to emulate. First, the Soviet Union is determined to prepare its defences against possible as well as probable threats. Secondly, it is prepared to take part in the processes of détente only when it can participate without remotely risking its only security. Thirdly, whilst détente goes on, the Soviet Union makes it plain that it will continue to advocate and work for the extension of the sort of society in which it believes.

I believe that we should follow the Soviet Union in all three particulars. Of course, we should be constantly on the defensive, we should constantly struggle for improved and extended détente, but equally we much continue in Africa and elsewhere to advocate the boons and benefits of the sort of society we represent. As I believe that our claims on behalf of pluralistic democracy are so strong, I am optimistic enough to believe that eventually we shall win.

§ Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton Pavilion)

In his closing sentences the Minister of State set a balance between what he regarded as the objectives of Soviet policy and what he regarded as the proper line we should take. I recall to him an argument I ventured to make in the debate which was initiated by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) about the nature of the Soviet Government and the motivation that lies behind it. The problem we face is not ideological; it is not Communism; it is Soviet imperialism.

Over more than 50 years there has grown up in the Soviet Union a Communist Party organisation, an army and 222 a KGB which cannot justify me crimes by which they have climbed to power or the privileges which they enjoy except by maintaining a state of tension and, where possible, exploiting mat state of tension to expand the influence of Soviet imperialism wherever opportunity occurs.

In the Conservative Administration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) I was charged by Sir Alec Douglas-Home—rather as the Minister of State is charged today—to concentrate particularly on relations between the United States and the Socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, I thus had an unexampled opportunity to study détente. In the course of those studies I had a conversation with an elder statesman of one of the Communist countries. He has now passed what Marshall Stalin called "the physiological barrier", so I can reveal the conversation without detriment. I asked him, "Is détente possible?" He said, "On condition that you contain Soviet imperialism".

He said that in the last decade—he was talking about the 1960s—President Kennedy had stopped the Soviets in Cuba over the missiles, President Johnson had stopped them in Vietnam, and Israel, with American support, had stopped them in the 1967 war. Because the Soviets could not expand, they were compelled to relax their relations both with their allies and, to a limited extent, inside their own country. Regrettably, today, those restraints have been largely removed. The American withdrawal from Vietnam has opened the door to Soviet imperialism in South-East Asia. The recession which followed the increase in oil prices has created a crisis of capitalism which is more or less seriously assessed in Moscow.

Having exploited détente for economic co-operation, the Soviets have run into debt to the Western world to the tune of $13½ billion and, from information we are getting, they are finding it more and more difficult to extract raw materials economically. In addition has come the remarkable opportunity presented of expansion in the Cape Verde Islands, in Guinea-Bissau, in Mozambique and, more recently, in Angola by the Portuguese revolution.

The proposition I put to the House is that there can be no détente without effect- 223 tive containment of Soviet imperialism. What has gone wrong in the last year or two is the breakdown in effective containment of that imperialism.

Here I should perhaps declare an interest. I am a director of one or two companies in South Africa. They do not influence me, except in the sense that they give me information about the country, but according to the traditions of the House I make that declaration.

The defeat in Angola which we have suffered is a total defeat for the West. Let us make no bones about it. The first question I should like to put to the Government concerns intelligence. There seems to have been very little advance knowledge of the remarkable movement of heavy equipment and Cuban forces into Angola or, if there was intelligence, little was done about it in the European Community, in NATO or by our American allies. Perhaps we could have some comment on whether we knew and, if we knew, why we did not act sooner.

I think that the Government were wrong to recognise the MPLA when they did. The war in Angola is still going on. There are still, according to the best advice that one can get, several thousand—perhaps 20,000—guerrillas of the UNITA faction operating in Eastern and Southern Angola. There is no certainty of permanence for the present regime. The criterion which, as the right hon. Gentleman will know better than anyone, the Foreign Office has always adopted is whether the Government is in effective control of the country and whether it has a reasonable prospect of remaining permanent.

There is a curious parallel between what the present Government have done about Angola and what successive Conservative and Labour Governments did about the Yemen. When Colonel Sallal and his republican junta overthrew in, I think, 1962 the monarchy in the Yemen we declined, in spite of American pressure, to recognise the republican regime precisely because a large part of the country, although not the towns, was in the hands of the King of the Yemen and the republican regime was sustained by only Egyptian forces. It was not until after the Egyptian forces had been with- 224 drawn—some time after—that the Labour Government, let alone the Conservative Party, recognised the republican regime as the legitimate Government of the Yemen.

By doing what we have done in Angola we seem to have thrown away a rather valuable card. I must admit that I do not any longer attach much importance to United Nations resolutons. Nevertheless, it is now much more difficult for the right hon. Gentleman or one of his right hon. Friend's to go to the Security Council and to call for the withdrawal of Cuban and Soviet advisers from Angola, because by recognising the MPLA he has given it the opportunity to say that it invited its Soviet allies to go in. If that is the case, the position is akin to that of Czechoslovakia or Hungary, and the right hon. Gentleman has thrown away a good card.

It is has been argued that in time to come the Angolans will get tired of their Soviet allies in the way in which the Egyptians became tired of their Russian allies. However, we must not forget that it took the Egyptians the best part of 20 years before they threw the Russians out, and 20 years is a long time. In the process of recognising the MPLA the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have let down Zambia, Zaire and South Africa—two black Governments and one white Government—all of whom, I imagine, would have preferred us not to do so.

§ Mr. Hattersley

I am anxious that the right hon. Gentleman should not encourage the House to pursue a false point for the rest of the debate. I hope he will accept my absolute assurance that we recognise the present Government in Angola according exactly to the traditional criteria of recognition. Indeed, in anticipation of the meeting I was to have with my EEC colleagues yesterday afternoon, I had the most rigorous examination made of the precedents on this matter. There is no doubt that were we to adopt the policy which the right hon. Gentleman is now advocating it would constitute the abandonment of our traditional criteria.

§ Mr. Amery

I cannot accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said, because of the parallel of the Yemen. I went to the Yemen as a guest of the guerrillas. I saw what they controlled. They did not 225 control the towns. The Republican Government depended on the Egyptian Army. For those two reasons the Conservative Government at that time—and, indeed, the Labour Party until it had been in office for some four years—did not recognise the new Government there and then not until the Egyptian troops had been withdrawn. I do not see the difference here.

The right hon. Gentleman said that if we backed the wrong side we would make fertile soil for the Cubans. The soil is there—that is right enough. However, running after a Government for which we have shown precious little sympathy in the past will not pay us many dividends today. We must face up to it that the defeat we have suffered is most serious. A territory the size of the Western European Community has now passed under Soviet-Cuban control. The territory seems to be of great importance because of the raw materials it contains—for example, uranium and gold.

In his speech Mr. Brezhnev said that he was not interested in questions of resources. However, the fact remains that the Soviets are in some difficulty. They have been spending rather more gold than they are producing annually and the extraction of important raw materials is becoming difficult for them. The House must consider whether classical imperialism is not developing in the Soviet Union just as it has in other countries.

The presence of the Soviet-Cuban force in Angola—if it is not removed—is a vital threat to British, European and indeed American interests in connection with the copper that we draw from Zaire and Zambia and the tremendous mineral wealth of South Africa, let alone the trade that we have with it.

Everyone in Africa is saying, "Who is to be the next victim?" We do not know. But it was interesting to note that in Havana yesterday Cuban officials were saying that the Cubans were pledging their support to the SWAPO movement in Namibia, or South-West Africa. We are clearly not at the end of the road. We do not know where the next blow will fall.

Perhaps worse still, the credibility of the West has now been put in question. I noted that our ambassador to NATO, Sir John Killick, made an impressive 226 speech in Germany the other day when he said that it would not be surprising if some of the African countries changed sides in their relationship to the West because of the supine way in which we have allowed Angola to be Sovietised. I fear that the disease may go further afield than Africa. The whole Monroe doctrine has been blown up by the idea that forces from Cuba in the West Atlantic can come to Angola in the East Atlantic without the Americans or the Europeans raising a finger. The Chinese are certainly aware of this.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will find it in himself to apologise to the Chinese Embassy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer's rather unfortunate remarks about China yesterday. I do not think anyone would have minded if he had described his friends below the Gangway as tinged with Maoism. To have called their minds Chinese might have been regarded as a compliment. However, to describe them as "tiny Chinese minds", was wrong and rather racist. He might get into trouble with the Race Relations Board.

I turn to more serious arguments. The objectives of the West must be to ensure that the Cubans and their Soviet advisers are sent out bag and baggage from Angola. I noticed that in his speech at Cardiff the Foreign Secretary—we regret his absence today—took only the Cubans to task. It is rather his form to go for people smaller than himself, such as Iceland or Chile. However, what is the point of attacking the monkey when it is the organ grinder who calls the tune?

Are we still to invite Mr. Brezhnev to come here after what has happened? Surely the immediate task is to mobilise all the available forces—black and white—in Central and Southern Africa to defend themselves, with our help, against the threat of Soviet imperialism.

Let us see which those forces are. There are Zambia and Zaire, both enormous countries in area and very important to us because of the copper supplies we derive from them. There are also Malawi and Botswana, smaller countries but important none the less, and very friendly to us. All these countries are technically non-aligned. But when President Kaunda speaks about the tiger and its ravening cubs we are left in no doubt on which side of the barrier he 227 stands, and, unlike the Government, he has not recognised the MPLA. Then there are South Africa and Rhodesia. There is a tendency in Government circles to talks about the four black Presidents, but I urge the Government not to put too much weight on Tanzania or Mozambique. I am not sure that they can be counted on in the engagement which we now face.

None of the Governments to which I have referred is admirable by a Westminster standard. The black ones are one-party States and Rhodesia and South Africa are ruled by the minority. They are all, however, reasonably friendly to the West. None of them is a threat to our interests or, to any serious extent, to each other. Soviet imperialism is.

Of course, I do not underestimate, in proposing this grand design of an alliance of moderate African and European-led States, the racial gap which separates them. But I urge the Government not to exaggerate it either. A good deal has already been done to bridge it. Nothing has been more impressive to me than the co-operation and realism which has existed between Mr. Vorster, Dr. Savimbi, Mr. Holder Roberto, President Mobutu and President Kaunda over Angola and, indeed, the question of recruiting white mercenaries. We must not let our attitude to racialism become stronger than the prejudices the Africans and the Europeans in Africa hold. I have seen that happen in a Middle Eastern context where we have tried to simplify matters too much between Israel and the Arabs.

Do not let us simplify too much between black and white. There is already a wider measure of co-operation bridging the racial gap than we sometimes give credit for. Much depends on the support we are able to give in the West if that gap is to be fully bridged. We must keep an eye on the realities. Zaire and Zambia are important countries but their military strength is very small, whereas that of South Africa and even Rhodesia is considerable, and in the last analysis it may be the latter two upon whom we should have to depend.

May I with some hesitation—because there is always a risk when an Opposition Back Bencher puts forward a plan—say what I think should be done? First, we 228 should give maximum support to the black African countries which are, broadly speaking, aligned with us, and I exclude Tanzania and Mozambique. They are Zambia, Zaire, Malawi and Botswana. The first two are desperately short of foreign currency, and I hope that the Government, with European and American support, will make generous aid available to them, secured against the copper stockpile which they have at their pit heads and which they cannot move at present. Let us make armaments available to them if they want them, and advisers and instructors if they want them, too.

Let us lift the arms embargo at once in South Africa and, if the South Africans will agree to it, let us try to renegotiate the Simonstown Agreement, although preferably next time on a European or NATO rather than on only an Anglo-South African basis.

§ Mr. Newens

Does the right hon. Gentleman not seriously consider that the black peoples of Rhodesia and South Africa regard the present white minority Governments and the sort of people who support them as a greater threat to their future and safety than any Soviet threat? Is the right hon. Gentleman not driving these people to rely on the Soviet Union for liberation?

§ Mr. Amery

I understand the hon. Member's line of argument, but he lacks experience both of these countries on the spot and of political power. However those people may regard the situation, the forces available in the present crisis are in the hands of the white South African Government. If we are to resist the immediate offensive of Russian imperialism it is one of the few forces on which we can count—unless, that is, the hon. Member for Harlow proposes to raise large European and American forces with which we could go in and dictate the political terms on which Central and Southern Africa should be governed in the future.

I come now to the extremely difficult question of Rhodesia, and here I urge the Government to try to get their priorities right. Soviet imperialism, not the racial issue, is at the heart of the matter. I very much regret the speech by the Minister of State, the right hon. 229 Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals), on the radio the other day, because he seemed to disregard one of the elementary principles of negotiation. In my experience it has always been a good principle in negotiation to back the weaker side against the stronger. When Mr. Smith was in the ascendancy it was right that we should press him to make concessions. Today, after what has happended in Mozambique and Angola, his position is weaker, but by his speech the Minister of State was making it more difficult for Mr. Nkomo to come to terms with Mr. Smith. The issue is not all that complicated. There is agreement on the principle of majority rule but disagreement about the timing. I do not know how far the United Kingdom, which is not prepared to concede majority rule in Ulster, or the neighbouring States which do not have majority rule, are in a position to speak.

More important is to what extent the issue of majority rule is even relevant to the present crisis. I am not sure that even an agreement between Mr. Smith and Mr. Nkomo would stave off the terrorist offensive. In Angola, we have seen that Africans are capable of fighting Africans as well as Europeans.

Certainly majority rule is an important issue. But the Government should make it clear that if there were a terrorist invasion we would lift sanctions immediately, because the people of this country would not tolerate our being accomplices of the terrorists in an invasion of Rhodesia. If the Rhodesians ask for help we should be prepared to give it, making it clear that our intervention would of course include a liberalising influence in Rhodesia and South Africa.

We may well be called in, because I am not sure that the kind of indirect support I have proposed will be enough, and NATO must now take seriously what it has often discussed—the importance of setting up a force of intervention which could help the Governments concerned, if it were invited to help, and which could control access to the ports of Angola and Mozambique as President Kennedy controlled access to the ports of Cuba a decade or more ago.

Britain could not do this by itself. Therefore, it must be done on a NATO or 230 European basis, but Britain has a duty, to take the lead because of our historical f connection with Central and Southern Africa, because Zambia, Malawi, Botswana and even Rhodesia are still part of the Commonwealth; and because of our enormous economic interests in Southern Africa.

There is another reason. There are nearly 5 million Europeans in Central and Southern Africa, and more than half of them are British. If it comes to a conflagration in Rhodesia and Southern Africa, public opinion will not stand for the Government doing nothing. The public will demand intervention. If we do nothing, they will do it themselves. No Diplock Committee and no new legislation that the Government may introduce will stop them doing it. They will go out to fight for—to use that much despised phrase—"their kith and kin", and they will be right to do so.

§ Mr. Alan Lee Williams (Hornchurch)

The right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) was right in his historical judgment about Russian behaviour. He had history on his side when he indicated that the Russians will always take advantage of a situation where they think they can gain. Rather like Oscar Wilde, they cannot resist temptation. However, the right hon. Gentleman goes wrong in his analysis by implying in contexts outside Europe that it is possible to line up with powers that have racialist undertones in order to offset the Russians. If we pursue that line, we cannot win. Therefore, we have to take action which offsets the Russians without committing that fundamental error. With foresight that can be done.

The Russians know that the policy of détente, into which they have put so much energy, rests on an understanding in Europe. I do not believe that the central power balance has been disturbed in a fundamental way by what is happening at present in Southern Africa. I am not saying that that will not have consequences or that something should not be done, but I do not believe that fundamentally it alters the central power balance. The Russians fully understand that. That is why we have to apply greater pressure on them. I agree with my right hon. Friend 231 the Minister of State that what the Russians were doing in Angola was against the spirit of detente. We should make it clear this afternoon that it is not only against the spirit of détente but that if it continues we do not intend to tolerate it.

§ Mr. Anthony Kershaw (Stroud)

Could the hon. Gentleman expand on his flat statement that what has happened in Angola has not widened the Russians' power base? In what way has it not done that?

§ Mr. Williams

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument I shall deal with that matter.

We must make it clear to the Russians that we are not giving them a free hand to do as they please outside Europe simply because we have reached arrangement with them through the West Germans' Eastern policies and the policies of detente. We must make that unmistakably clear because the Russians have not received that message clearly. That is why they exploit situations, why they will never hesitate to do so and why they will back any movement elsewhere which works fundamentally against Western interests. We cannot allow them to continue unchallenged.

What happens in Southern Africa has serious repercussions for our supplies and trade routes. We understand that the Russians want to protect their interests, but they must understand that we shall also look after our interests. That is the message that we must spell out most clearly to them. We have interests outside Europe but they cannot be safeguarded by the actions suggested by the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. However, they can be safeguarded if we share that responsibility with our European friends.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State referred to the joint statement on Rhodesia. We should congratulate the Foreign Secretaries of Europe on reaching that common position. That is an extremely good start. It is pity that the French got out of line in respect of recognition of the MPLA, but nevertheless we are in line now and we should try to encourage that policy because at some stage, if present trends continue, we shall have to find an effective way of offsetting Russian influence.

232 I come to that conclusion because I believe in the balance of power, which is where I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) who does not believe in the balance of power. I also believe that the Russians are expansionary in their tactics and actions. I must be logical and recommend that the Government together with our European partners must try to work out an arrangement to offset a Russian influence outside Europe. We shall reach no agreement within NATO. To try to extend the area of responsibility beyond the Tropic of Cancer, in the way suggested by a number of people, would not get very far within the NATO councils. An alternative arrangement must be found. Gradually and painstakingly that can be found within the Europe of the Nine. That is not to say that all Members of the Nine will agree with this, but a sufficient number of countries within the Nine might agree to do so. It can be done in a politically sensitive way which does not allow us to be allied with essential racialist and reactionary régimes. That is the central difference.

The Russians at present have unleashed on the world a diplomatic blitz. At the same time they are taking advantage of geographically weak spots—where they can find them—and at the same time reassuring us of their peaceful intentions. I hope that in the long term the Russians will recognise the reality of the balance of power in Europe because at present they give the impression of not being as aware of that reality and that balance as they should be. At the moment they are conducting a diplomatic campaign in Europe. Only two or three weeks ago I received a letter from the United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland asking me and a number of my hon. Friends to sponsor a world disarmament conference at York. I have been a member of that Association for 15 years and, therefore, without hesitation I allowed my name to be put down as a sponsor. However, I have now discovered, after some research, that this conference is not interested in world-wide disarmament. It is a conference which is geared to serve Russian diplomacy. That is not compatible with Basket III or any other provisions of the Helsinki Conference.

233 Therefore, I wish to give due notice to the United Nations Association that I wish to withdraw as a sponsor from that conference because I will not be used in that way. If the joint organisers of the World Peace Council want to pursue the policy, as I hope they will, of world-wide disarmament they must give us concrete tangible evidence that they are pursuing a policy of peace and are not trying to heighten tension and thus endanger detente.

§ Mr. Dennis Walters (Westbury)

I have undertaken to speak briefly. Therefore, I hope that the hon. Member for Horn-church (Mr. Williams) will forgive me if I do not follow his interesting argument in detail.

Those hon. Members who have heard me speak in foreign affairs debates over the years will know that I have never adopted a cold war posture and that I have frequently been highly critical of aspects of American policy in different parts of the world, especially in the Middle East. On the Middle East I am certain that the main Western interest is to show positive sympathy with and to initiate policies which assist the legitimate aspirations of Arab countries.

However, it should be unequivocally stated that the participation of 12,000 Cuban troops in a civil war in Central Africa is one of the most astonishing demonstrations of formal external intervention in recent history. Yet such a massive and provocative operation was able to take place with scarcely a voice being raised in anger or in protest, and certainly no effective voice. This extraordinary silence was inexplicable and makes patently absurd all the noise and controversy over the pathetic recruitment of 100 or so English mercenaries attracted either by money or by a sense of adventure. But there was nothing pathetic, amateurish or haphazard about the Cuban intervention. This was an act of policy of the Soviet Union—a provocative, carefully planned and deliberate act of power politics.

I should like to know—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) referred to this—why the matter was not immediately raised by Her Majesty's Government, in concert with our European partners, as a matter 234 of the utmost urgency at the Security Council. I am glad to see that the Community, in the important declaration that was made yesterday, has attacked external military intervention in Angola. However, will this be followed up? Will this be followed by pressing for a debate in the Security Council, requesting the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from the area? I am certain that this is the only way of reassuring moderate African opinion and moderate African countries which are now threatened by the presence of this large Cuban army.

I should like to know what has happened to Western intelligence. Have reports which must have come in been properly monitored? It would not appear that they have been, as no effective action was taken in good time. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the real danger lay in the possibility of direct Communist military intervention and that this is what should have been prevented. That is what we should have been trying to do. It is the failure of preventing such an intervention which has created the extremely serious situation that now threatens the whole of Central Africa. By comparison with this, the victory or defeat of one or other of the independent guerrilla movements was relatively unimportant.

However, now that the situation is as it is, it seems to me that two things are of absolute paramount importance. The first is to take every possible effective action to ensure the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The United States, as my right hon. Friend said, has considerable bargaining weapons, and certainly this is an occasion when they should be used. Europe should marshal opinion at the United Nations, ensuring the fullest public debate and making certain that the uncommitted countries participate in it, sharing, as many of them do, the anxieties that all reasonable people feel at this particular act of policy of the Soviet Union.

The second is the absolute necessity to avoid a polarisation in Africa, with the West on the side of the whites and the Communists on the side of the black Africans. That is precisely what the Soviet Union would like to see happen. It is precisely what must not be allowed to happen. It would be disastrous for the West and disastrous for Africa.

235 We must support and encourage the moderate African régimes which are at present in a state of acute anxiety, because if we cannot restore their confidence and cannot restore the situation, the outlook for the West in Africa will be very bleak indeed.

§ Mr. Speaker

I am very much obliged to the last two speakers for their brevity, because there is an exceptionally long list of Members who wish to speak in the debate.

§ Mrs. Renée Short (Wolverhampton, North-East)

Whenever we have debates on foreign affairs it always seems that from the Conservative Party we have Members, such as the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) and the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters), who bring out their outdated, outmoded attitudes, dust them down and put forward what, in the case of the right hon. Gentleman, is a quite terrifying recipe for ultimate disaster in Africa, and a recipe which no one in Britain, except a few people of his mind, would wish to follow and which would certainly undermine whatever influence we have in the African continent.

The hon. Member for Westbury says that we should support moderate African States. I wonder whether he means that we should support them by cash, by equipment or by armies. What sort of support should it be? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would care to tell us.

§ Mr. Walters

In a brief speech, I tried to make the point that I felt that it was essential that we should raise the matter at the United Nations in the Security Council, that we should dramatise the gravity of the situation and that, as a result of our doing so, world opinion should concentrate on the outrageous military intervention operated by the Cubans and engineered by the Soviet Union, and that hopefully this would bring about the withdrawal of Cuban and all foreign troops from Central Africa.

§ Mrs. Short

I do not think that the United Nations has worked with that sort of determination and rapidity in the past. The whole world is well aware of the situation in Africa today. We have to hope that our allies will support a reasonable point of view, but we have 236 to bear in mind that we have recognised the new régime in Angola—and we were not the first to do it. We merely followed on after about 30 other countries had already done so. Clearly, therefore, world opinion had made up its mind about the situation there.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on the part that he played in signing the Helsinki Agreement and bringing that to a successful conclusion. He did extremely well. What he did, together with the Prime Minister when they visited Moscow to sign the Final Agreement, was to increase Britain's standing in the Soviet Union to a very considerable degree.

§ Mr. Cormack

If the hon. Lady believes that, she will believe anything.

§ Mrs. Short

The backwoodsmen of the Conservative Party may not think that that is important. I should like to suggest that there are many things on which Britain and the Soviet Union have a great deal to offer each other. I have always been very interested in the development of East-West trade, as the House knows. Would any Opposition Member deny that East-West trade has improved since there has been a change of Government here, or deny that the increase in trade with the Soviet Union or the GDR or any of the other East European countries in COMECON has been of great value to us? We are not in a position to spurn trade with any country. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) may not agree with what I am saying, but these are the hard facts of life that I am putting before him.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

We are subsidising the Soviet Union.

§ Mrs. Short

The increase in trade is of particular value to areas of Britain which are now experiencing high levels of unemployment and others where unemployment is growing. That is a fact of life that we cannot deny. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has carried out a great service. There is no doubt that our relations with the Soviet Union are now very much better. They descended to the depths when the Conservatives were in office. We suffered as a result of that.

237 The Final Act of the Helsinki document is very long but it has produced certain hard commitments which are of great importance to both sides. They are important to us and the Soviet Union as well as to other countries in Eastern Europe. Co-operation in economic, scientific and environmental matters is of profound importance.

§ Mr. Cormack

What about the armed forces?