The end of the Cold War first came into sight on the day in December 1984 when Mikhail Gorbachev strode purposefully into the Great Hall of Chequers as Margaret Thatcher’s guest.
Thatcher had determined that we should identify future possible leaders in the Soviet system. She issued speculative invitations to them to visit the UK. Gorbachev took up his. He was pretty much an unknown quantity at the time: the newest and most junior member of the Soviet Communist Party Politburo, with responsibility for agriculture — which was hardly a priority for us — whose only known journey abroad had been to Canada.
But any misgivings about his profile were cancelled as he exuded self-confidence and bonhomie. And the impression of dramatic change from the
