1989- The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe Read online

  ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR 1989

  “Professor Sarotte’s vivid account of the events in 1989–90 that brought about the unification of the two erstwhile German states is the most balanced, thoroughly researched, and gracefully written account of those events that I have encountered. It sets standards for accuracy and style of presentation that will be difficult for other scholars to meet, much less surpass.” —Jack F. Matlock, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Cold War History

  “The tragic hero of 1989, for Sarotte, is Gorbachev. He was, and is still seen by many Russians as a King Lear figure: a man prepared to give away what he should have retained to a west bent on extracting as much as possible from the Soviet collapse—under the cover of honeyed words and rhetoric of a new age.” —John Lloyd, Financial Times

  “[A] truly great book.…[A] whodunit of world politics that uses sources from Germany, the U.S.A., Russia and other countries to reveal both the details and the drama of the year of German unification in an unprecedented fashion.” —Stefan Kornelius, Süddeutsche Zeitung

  “This is a cracker of a read, a fast-paced policy study of a year that transformed Europe and the world.” —Australian

  “Sarotte’s book is compact and highly interpretive. Yet Sarotte has thoroughly mastered the original source material in all the key countries. She distills it with great skill, constantly enlivening her account with a sensibility for what these changes meant in life and culture. Hers is now the best one-volume work on Germany’s unification available. It contains the clearest understanding to date of the extraordinary juggling performance of Kohl.” —Philip D. Zelikow, Foreign Affairs

  “Much the most exciting of these books [on the end of the Cold War] is Mary Elise Sarotte’s 1989. In contrast to the other authors, Sarotte treats the uprisings and collapses of that year as a prelude to the biggest change of all: ‘the struggle to create post-Cold War Europe,’ as her subtitle puts it.…Sarotte [is] a lucid and compelling writer.” —Neal Ascherson, review of a group of books on 1989, London Review of Books

  “Her analysis reminds readers once again that history does not just unfold and outcomes are not preordained… Stimulating reading for a general audience, students, and faculty/researchers.” —H.A. Welsh, Choice

  “What if someone wrote a history that told the story from all sides, one that drew not only on memoirs and press accounts and the earlier work of scholars but also on the archives of nearly all the principal parties to the conflict, a history that included interviews with the diplomats, politicians, and activists who took part in events? And what if someone wrote this history analytically, parsing out the major decisions and events, remaining sensitive to the grays that shade human behavior, and avoiding definitive, black-and-white judgments designed to score political points? Mary Elise Sarotte…has written such a history.” —William W. Finan, Jr., Current History

  “One of her many interesting themes is the question of how, in February 1990, the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker informally offered Gorbachev an undertaking that even though the unified Germany was to belong to NATO, the alliance’s jurisdiction ‘would not shift one inch eastward.’ However, the haste with which Poland and other ex-Warsaw Pact states were drawn into NATO… did much to compromise the chances of incorporating a chastened and susceptible Russia into a genuinely harmonious new world order—one of many telling arguments in Sarotte’s lucid and thoughtful book.” —Roger Morgan, International Affairs

  “The prose and style are lucid.…[1989] is valuable to students, academics and general readers alike in learning more about these epochal happenings.…[T]his is an excellent work which is likely to become a key text for this period.” —Alex Spelling, Diplomacy and Statecraft

  “Sarotte’s thoughtful conclusions are supported by prodigious scholarship… [she] is an excellent writer and never allows the narrative to flag.” —Tom Buchanan, English Historical Review

  “Using multiple data from interviews with historical figures involved, biographies and extensive archival sources, she recounts the conversations, communiqués and personalities central to the events. This is a major contribution to scholarship in this field.” —Larry Ray, European History Quarterly

  “Sarotte’s outstanding book shows that Europe’s prefab post-1989 order was a messy improvisation, but at no point during the collapse of communism did conditions favorable to the alternatives cohere.” —Richard Gowan, International Journal

  “[Sarotte’s] highly engaging, well-paced account heightens the reader’s attention by making the high stakes of the negotiations clear, humanizing her principal actors, and capturing the mood and intrigue of the diplomacy.” —Sarah Snyder, Journal of Cold War Studies

  “The author embeds her interpretation in a sharp-eyed, fluent narrative of 1989–1990 that sees the realpolitik behind the stirring upheavals.…[S]he offers a smart and canny analysis of the birth of our not-so-new world order.” —Publishers Weekly

  1989

  PRINCETON STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY AND POLITICS

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  Copyright 2009 © by Mary Elise Sarotte

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  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  FOR MJS

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  ix

  Preface: A Brief Note on Scholarship and Sources

  xi

  Abbreviations

  xvi

  INTRODUCTION

  Creating Post–Cold War Europe: 1989 and the Architecture of Order

  1

  CHAPTER 1

  What Changes in Summer and Autumn 1989?

  11

  Tiananmen Fails to Transfer

  16

  The Americans Step Back

  22

  The Status Quo Ceases to Convince

  25

  East German Self-Confidence Rises

  28

  Television Transforms Reality

  38

  CHAPTER 2

  Restoring Four-Power Rights, Reviving a Confederation in 1989

  48

  On the Night of November 9

  50

  What Next?

  62

  The Four (Occupying?) Powers

  65

  Candy, Fruit, and Sex

  68

  The Portugalov Push

  70

  Specters Revive

  75

  The Restoration and Revival Models Fall Apart

  81

  CHAPTER 3

  Heroic Aspirations in 1990

  88

  The Round Table

  92

  Counterrevolution?

  95

  The Consequences of the Brush with a Stage of Terror

  99

  Emerging Controversy over Reparations and NATO

  103

  “NATO’s Jurisdiction Would Not Shift One Inch Eastward”

  107

  Property Pluralism

  115

  CHAPTER 4

  Prefab Prevails

  119

  The Security Solution: Two plus Four Equals NATO

  120

  The Political Solution: Article 23

  129

  The Economic Solution: Monetary Union

  132

  The Election Campaign and the Ways of the Ward Heeler

  135

  The Results of March 18

  142

  Reassuring European Neighbors

  145

  CHAPTER 5

  Securing Building Permits

  150

  The First Carrot: Money

  152

  The Washington Summit

  160

  The Second Carrot: NATO Reform

  169

  Breakthrough in Russia

  177

  Pay Any Price

  186

  CONCLUSION

  The Legacy of 1989 and 1990

  195

  Counterfactuals

  196

  Consequences

  201

  AFTERWORD TO THE NEW EDITION

  Revisiting 1989–1990 and the Origins of NATO Expansion

  215

  Introduction: Fading Memories

  215

  Bearing Unwelcome Tidings

  216

  Genscher’s Thinking on NATO Expansion to Eastern Europe in 1990

  219

  The Split Between Bush and Baker

  221

  Kohl and Gorbachev

  223

  The Consequences of Camp David

  226

  Conclusion: The Persistence of Preferred Memories

  228

  Acknowledgments

  230

  Notes

  234

  Bibliography

  306

  Index

  336

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  MAPS

  1.1. Selected Major Cold War Borders and Cities

  17

  1.2. Cold War Europe

  30

  1.3. Divided Germany

  38

  1.4. West Berlin (American, British, and French Sectors) and East Berlin (Soviet Sector)

  41

  FIGURES

  I.1. Barack Obama in Berlin, July 24, 2008. Courtesy of Getty Images.

  2

  I.2. Vladimir Putin, future leader of Russia, poses with his parents in 1985 just before departing for his KGB posting to Dresden, East Germany. Courtesy of Getty Images.

  4

  I.3. The Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate, November 1989. Courtesy of Gerard Marlie/AFP/Getty Images.

  10

  1.1. A lone demonstrator blocks a column of tanks at the entrance to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 5, 1989. Photo by CNN via Getty Images.

  19

  1.2. Protest in Leipzig, East Germany, October 1989. Photo by Chris Niedenthal/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

  21

  1.3. Bärbel Bohley, former East German dissident leader, in 2004. Courtesy of Michael Urban/AFP/Getty Images.

  34

  1.4. The Bornholmer Street border crossing from East to West Berlin, in the early hours of November 10, 1989. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-1110-016. Photo by Jan Bauer.

  44

  2.1. President George Herbert Walker Bush, third from left, with his main advisers; from left to right, Chief of Staff John Sununu, Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Vice President Dan Quayle, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, Deputy NSC Adviser Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, and Office of Management and Budget Director Richard Darman. Courtesy of Time and Life Pictures/Getty Images.

  55

  2.2. President François Mitterrand of France and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, circa 1986. Courtesy of Getty Images.

  58

  2.3. Former West German security adviser Horst Teltschik in 2006. Courtesy of Joerg Koch.

  74

  2.4. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Dresden, with East German Minister President Hans Modrow (foreground), December 19, 1989. Courtesy of Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images.

  84

  3.1. Robert Havemann, East German dissident, in 1979. © dpa/Corbis.

  90

  3.2. Ulrike Poppe, East German dissident, in October 1989. © Alain Nogues/Corbis Sygma.

  93

  4.1. Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt at a campaign rally in East Germany, March 11, 1990. Courtesy of Getty Images.

  141

  5.1. President Bush with his wife, Barbara, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, at the Washington Summit State Dinner. Courtesy of Time and Life Pictures/Getty Images.

  166

  5.2. Kohl and Gorbachev in the Caucasus. © Régis Bossu/Sygma/Corbis.

  183

  5.3. Gorbachev (center right) presides over the final signing of the 2 + 4 accord in Moscow by the six representatives of the countries involved (from left to right, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, the GDR, and the FRG) on September 12, 1990. Courtesy of Vitaly Armand/AFP/Getty Images.

  194

  C.1. Gorbachev receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Courtesy of Getty Images.

  199

  C.2. Ceremonial signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act in Paris, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin (left) and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, May 1997. © Pascal Le Segretain/Corbis Sygma.

  207

  C.3. The concert hall on Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, decorated to celebrate the extension of the EU to Eastern Europe in May 2004. © Langevin Jacques/Corbis Sygma.

  213

  PREFACE

  A BRIEF NOTE ON SCHOLARSHIP AND SOURCES

  Before beginning,
I must acknowledge my scholarly debts to a number of previous authors and the places that provided the sources used in writing this book.

  I am fortunate in that I have a rich body of literature to draw on, because many analysts have already devoted considerable time to 1989. A majority of them have seen that year as a moment of closure, most famously Francis Fukuyama, who called it the end of history even while it was unfolding. He and others have produced impressive studies tracing the Cold War’s trajectory toward its ultimate collapse and dissolution. Particularly worthwhile examples have come from the writers Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, James Mann, and Don Oberdorfer, and the scholars Frédéric Bozo, Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, Archie Brown, Robert English, John Lewis Gaddis, Timothy Garton Ash, Richard Herrmann and Richard Ned Lebow, Hans-Hermann Hertle, Robert Hutchings, Konrad Jarausch, Mark Kramer, Melvyn Leffler, Charles Maier, Gerhard Ritter, Andreas Rödder, Angela Stent, Bernd Stöver, and Stephen Szabo.1

  As will become clear in the pages to follow, I see 1989 not as an end, but as a beginning. It created the international order that persists until today. The need to understand this nonviolent transition from the Cold War to the present is enormous, because we greatly prefer nonviolence to the alternative. As Gaddis has observed, the goal of historical scholarship “is not so much to predict the future as to prepare for it.” The process of studying history expands our range “of experience, both directly and vicariously, so that we can increase our skills, our stamina—and if all goes well, our wisdom. The principle is much the same whether one is working out in a gym, flying a 747 simulator,” or reading a historical study.2 Trying to understand the transition of 1989–90 is a singularly useful exercise, since it established durable new democracies. We therefore need to look closely at this transition as it represents a quintessential example of what political scientist G. John Ikenberry has rightly called a reordering moment.3