How Edinburgh helped save the world from nuclear Armageddon

Back in the early 1980s, the Cold War was at its height. As we learned in the recent BBC series, Secrets and Spies: A Nuclear Game, the world came perilously close to nuclear war in 1983, with the shooting down by the Russians of a Korean airliner, President Reagan’s denunciation of the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, his “Star Wars” initiative and deployment by both sides of new missiles in Europe.

Yet, by the end of the decade, things had changed: Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev had met in Iceland in 1986 to discuss nuclear arms control and Gorbachev had delivered an historic address to the United Nations which seemed to mark a new era in East-West relations. There were many reasons for this shift.

Edinburgh played a not-insignificant role. Between 1981 and 1989, a series of meetings were held, alternating between Edinburgh and Moscow, and hosted here by the University of Edinburgh. These were The Edinburgh Conversations, whose theme was “Survival in the Nuclear Age”.

A small number of carefully selected participants from the university, UK military and diplomatic worlds met with their Soviet counterparts, joined in due course by senior American officials. The Conversations were informal, with no set agenda, completely confidential (apart from a carefully drafted joint communique after each meeting) and facilitated with extraordinary care. 

First meetings tense

The key figure was John Erickson, professor of defence studies at the University of Edinburgh, a world expert and author of several books on the Soviet military, and someone who was respected and trusted in both the Kremlin and Pentagon. His role in the achievements of the Conversations cannot be overstated.

He was supported by the university’s then principal, Sir John Burnett, and the secretary to the Conversations, university administrator Michael Westcott, whose untiring efforts behind the scenes were an important factor in their success. 

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan were all smiles at this meeting in San Francisco in 1990 but relations had been extremely tense just a few years before (Picture: Laski Diffusion) | Getty Images

Early meetings were understandably tense as those involved wrestled with the enormity of the issues and the uncertainty of the process, together with mutual suspicion about motive and trustworthiness. That many of these reservations were overcome, and strong friendships developed over the years, speaks volumes about the value of the exchanges and the efforts which went into creating a convivial environment in both Moscow and Edinburgh. 

Auld Lang Syne in Russian

Just days after the Korean airliner was shot down in 1983, one of the Soviet participants in the Conversations sat down at a piano in St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh’s Cowgate and brought the evening to a close with a rousing rendition in Russian of Auld Lang Syne, with the Russian, American and British guests joining hands and signing along. This simple and spontaneous gesture apparently transformed the atmosphere and, as that Conversation’s communique narrated, it underscored the importance of dialogue, continuity of contact, reciprocity of visits, and free and frank exchange of ideas. 

The Scotsman newspaper regularly reported on the Conversations. In September 1983, it emphasised the anonymity of the “increasingly important” meetings as an “undercurrent, a form of Morse Code through which politicians can transmit and receive, however obliquely, views on world affairs which political and diplomatic niceties prevent them from discussing on a more open stage”.

The chilling map that shows the devastation of a nuclear attack on Scotland

On 15 April 1986, the US carried out an air strike on Libya, at a time when the latest round of Conversations had just commenced in Edinburgh. Nevertheless, they continued and The Scotsman reported: “One of the few places in the world where Russians and Americans were talking civilly to each other yesterday was the third-floor room in an Edinburgh Georgian terrace… Jaw-jaw has survived war-war.” 

Environmental concerns

What is striking during these years of the Conversations is the repeated acknowledgment that any form of nuclear exchange, be it all-out, protracted or limited, whether in Europe or elsewhere, would be catastrophic and “mean the end of civilisation as we know it”. One communique described the notion of waging nuclear was as “sheer madness”, for which there was “no rational justification”. It was recognised that “no one nation can consider its security in isolation from general security”.

In 1987, towards the end of the series, there was the first mere hint of concern about the environment, with the view expressed that, from an ecological perspective, “the military and political confrontation between East and West appears as a dangerous distraction from the fundamental long-term issues of the environment and economic development of mankind as a whole on a small and vulnerable planet”. What would those present in 1987 think now as these words resonate down the years and yet appear to be disregarded as the world experiences multiple dangerous distractions on our even more vulnerable planet?

In 1989, the Conversations came to an end quite suddenly, but amicably. Professor Erickson felt that the meetings had served their purpose in bringing East and West together to talk about their differences. The whole situation had changed and the Edinburgh Conversations had played their part, perhaps more significantly than any official record will ever show.

Lessons for all

Indeed, Professor Erickson’s role was recognised by one of the UK’s outstanding soldiers and scholars, Professor Sir Michael Howard, who said: “Nobody deserves more credit for the ultimate dissolution of the misunderstandings that brought the Cold War to an end and enabled the peoples of Russia and their Western neighbours to live in peace.”

Their success, as recorded by Michael Westcott, was down to many factors. Participants were chosen for their personal qualities and expertise and not because they represented a particular body. The talks were academic in nature and presented options and not solutions. They were mostly conducted in private.

There are lessons there for us all. More than that, given how fractured East-West relations have once again become, there is surely a pressing need now to rediscover the essence of the Edinburgh Conversations.

On Wednesday, September 18, at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, John Sturrock KC will be in conversation with Dr Fred Boli, retired Colonel in the US Air Force and one of the US participants in the Edinburgh Conversations