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. And 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 in the East-West dynamic. 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 and the UK military and diplomatic worlds met with their counterparts from the Soviet Union, 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.

The key figure was Professor 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 the Pentagon. His role in the achievements of the Conversations cannot be overstated. He was supported by the then Principal of the University, 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.

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 of the Conversations, speaks volumes about the value of the exchanges and the efforts which went into creating a convivial environment in both Moscow and Edinburgh.

Just days after the Korean airliner had been shot down in September 1983, one of the Soviet participants in the Conversations taking place in Edinburgh at the time sat down at a piano in St Cecilia’s Hall in the 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 singing 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” Conversations, 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.” 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.”

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 is 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 Conversations 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. 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.

A slightly shorter version of this article by John Sturrock was published in The Scotsman on Tuesday 3 September 2024