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

  55. Douglas Hurd, Memoirs (London: Little, Brown, 2003), 384; “Internal Minute,” February 1, 1990, released by the FCO via FOI. The FCO went so far as to suggest to the prime minister that she should make some kind of positive remarks about German unification; see “Note from J.S. Wall, Private Secretary, FCO to Charles Powell,” February 5, 1990, released by CAB via FOI. Pyeongeok An has argued that Hurd and the FCO were trying to undercut Thatcher, but that they did so quietly; see Pyeongeok An, “Obstructive All the Way? British Policy toward German Unification, 1989–90,” German Politics 15, no. 1 (March 2006): 111–21. See also Patrick Salmon, “The United Kingdom and German Unification,” in Europe and the End of the Cold War, ed. Frédéric Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, N. Piers Ludlow, and Leopoldo Nuti (London: Routledge, 2008), 177–90; Küsters, “Entscheidung für die deutsche Einheit,” DESE, 83–84.

  56. Report entitled “Germany” from C.D. Powell to J.S. Wall, February 8, 1990, released by CAB under FOI.

  57. Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage: Innenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Siedler, 1991), 102.

  58. The CIA estimated on January 29, 1990, that Gorbachev would not use force to make Lithuania stay in the Soviet Union; see “Executive Brief,” Director of Central Intelligence (hereafter DCI), National Intelligence Council (hereafter NIC) 00095/90, released by the CIA via the FOIA. See also Robert L. Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account of US Policy in Europe, 1989–1992 (Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 1997), 360.

  59. According to GDE, 4:215, and based on documents not available to the public, the Soviet Union sent a request for another four-power meeting to the three other powers on January 10, 1990.

  60. There is some dispute about the exact date of this meeting. The source of information about it, in all cases, is a set of handwritten notes by Chernyaev. They have “GDR-FRG” written at the top and an unclear handwritten date that looks like 27.1.90 (these notes are reproduced in the handwritten original in CNN’s Cold War briefing book, along with a translation dated January 27, 1990, by Nina Khrushcheva). The notes are also reprinted in Russian, in typed format, as “Обсуждение германского вопроса на узком совещании в кабинете Генерального секретаря ЦК КПСС,” МГ, 307–11, but with the date of January 26, 1990. Finally, in an interview with the German scholar Alexander von Plato, Chernyaev said that the correct date was really January 25, 1990; see Alexander von Plato, Die Vereinigung Deutschlands—ein weltpolitisches Machtspiel: Bush, Kohl, Gorbatschow und die geheimen Moskauer Protokolle (Berlin: Links, 2002), 188. Unfortunately Chernyaev canceled an interview on the day that it was scheduled to occur due to a family illness, so it was not possible to ask him directly. The paragraphs below summarize what seems consistent between these sources. For more on Chernyaev’s thinking, see Anatoly Chernyaev, “Gorbachev and the Reunification of Germany: Personal Recollections,” in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1971–1991, ed. Gabriel Gorodetsky (London: Routledge, 1994), 166. For more on Gorbachev’s personality and thinking, see Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 67, 88; Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 326–27.

  61. DESE, 747n4; see also the day entry for February 9, 1990, on the chronology available at http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de.

  62. For more on this topic, see Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1994), 423; Jack F. Matlock Jr., Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Random House, 1995), 382; Angela Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 104–8. Stent points out that the option of using force to restore order was not seriously considered. For more on Falin in particular, see Hannes Adomeit, Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998), 567–68.

  63. In a summary of West German–Soviet relations written just after the brainstorming session, Teltschik advised Kohl of his sense that Gorbachev appeared to be deciding to work with the chancellor, but it is not clear if this was based on knowledge of the meeting. “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 29. Januar 1990, Betr.: Stand und Perspektiven der deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen,” document 150, DESE, 722–26.

  64. Gorbachev wrote to Kohl on February 2, inviting him to Moscow as early as February 9, in the evening after talks with Baker that day; Kohl would subsequently request that he visit on the weekend of February 10–11 instead, and Gorbachev would agree. See “Schreiben des Generalsekretärs Gorbatschow an Bundeskanzler Kohl, 2. Februar 1990,” document 156, DESE, 748–49; “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Botschafter Kwizinskij, Bonn, 2. Februar 1990,” document 155, DESE, 747–48.

  65. Gorbachev complained to the West German ambassador in Moscow, Klaus Blech, that the speech left open many questions. “В.В. Загладин о беседе с послом ФРГ в СССР К. Блехом,” February 1, 1990, МГ, 327–29.

  66. “Schreiben des Ministerpräsiden Mazowiecki an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Warschau, 30. Januar 1990,” document 154, DESE, 744–47.

  67. For copies of the relevant treaties and accords from 1945 to 1975, see Karl Kaiser, Deutschlands Vereinigung: Die internationalen Aspekte (Bergisch-Gladbach: Lübbe Verlag, 1991).

  68. Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 31; Wolfgang Schäuble, Der Vertrag: Wie ich über die deutsche Einheit verhandelte (Munich: Knaur, 1991), 293.

  69. “Rede des Bundesministers des Auswärtigen, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, zum Thema ‘Zur deutschen Einheit im europäischen Rahmen,’ bei einer Tagung der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing, 31. Jan. 1990,” reprinted in Richard Kiessler and Frank Elbe, Ein runder Tisch mit scharfen Ecken: Der diplomatische Weg zur deutschen Einheit (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1993), 245–46. The translation is my own, but an English version with the same comment appears in Freedman, Documents, 436–45. See also Szabo, Diplomacy, 57–58; GDE, 4:256.

  70. “JAB notes from 2/2/90 press briefing following 2 ½ hr meeting w/FRG FM Genscher, WDC,” folder 14, box 108, 8c monthly files, series 8; Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler, 1995), 716–19; Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 174–77. The press conference quotation appears in Al Kamen, “West German Meets Privately with Baker,” The Washington Post, February 3, 1990, A20.

  71. “Gespräch des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik mit Botschafter Walters, Bonn, 4. Februar 1990,” document 159, DESE, 756–57.

  72. Baker’s scheduling calendars from his time as secretary of state are available in BP. He departed on Monday, February 5, 1990, from Andrews Air Force Base for Czechoslovakia, where he met President Havel. He then went onward to Moscow on Wednesday, February 7.

  73. See his comments at the “Konstituierende Sitzung der Arbeitsgruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik des Kabinettausschusses Deutsche Einheit (hereafter KADE), Bonn, 14. Februar 1990,” document 182, DESE, 830–31. Perhaps because of such comments, the KADE decided at its second meeting that its records would be secret; see “Zweite Sitzung der Arbeitsgruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik des KADE, Bonn, 19. Februar 1990,” document 189, DESE, 854. See also Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn, 117–19; GDE, 4:256–62.

  74. David Childs, “Gerhard Stoltenberg,” Independent, November 27, 2001, online.

  75. Richard A. Falkenrath, Shaping Europe’s Military Order: The Origins and Consequences of the CFE Treaty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). See also Andrei Grachev, “From the Common European Home to European Confederation,” in Europe and the End of the Cold War, ed. Frédéric Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, N
. Piers Ludlow, and Leopoldo Nuti (London: Routledge, 2008), 207–19.

  76. Valentin Falin, Konflikte im Kreml: Zur Vorgeschichte der deutschen Einheit und Auflösung der Sowjetunion (Munich: Blessing Verlag, 1997), 160; Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne, eds., A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact (New York: Central European University Press, 2005), 70–71.

  77. “За Германию, единое отечество (концепция к дискуссии о пути к германскому единству),” МГ, 325–26. Washington did not like the phrase “common European home” because it excluded the United States, but Shevardnadze would nonetheless float this balloon again publicly to the Central Committee on February 6; see “Shevardnadze’s Remarks at Central Committee Plenum February 6,” folder 13, box 176, 12b chapter files, series 12, BP. Report entitled “German Unification: The Wider Consequences,” from Charles Powell to J.S. Wall, February 23, 1990, released by the CAB under FOI.

  78. Falin, Konflikte im Kreml, 187; Vladislav Zubok, “New Evidence on the End of the Cold War: New Evidence on the ‘Soviet Factor’ in the Peaceful Revolutions of 1989,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 12–13 (Fall–Winter 2001): 5–14.

  79. Memorandum from S/P Harvey Sicherman to S/P—Dennis Ross and C—Robert Zoellick, “Subject: Europe: Triumph or Tragedy?” May 1, 1990, from Sicherman’s personal collection.

  80. On its later impact on NATO expansion, see Ronald D. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 4–5.

  81. Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 24–26. Gorbachev is apparently telling this story from memory, and it may therefore be prey to any errors he made, but its broad outlines conform to numerous other stories of the experience of prisoners of Stalin’s purges. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989), 24–26; Robert Conquest, The Great Terror (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968); Stéphane Courtois et al., Le livre noir du Communisme: Crimes, terreur, répression (Paris: Laffont, 1997), published in English as Black Book of Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

  82. James A. Baker, with Thomas A. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 61–62.

  83. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 56–66.

  84. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 29–40; Gorbachev, Memoirs, 59.

  85. Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 18, 37–38, 72–77.

  86. Garthoff, The Great Transition, 420; Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 79. On the impact of nationalism, see Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Garthoff, The Great Transition, 419–20; Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993). Suny insightfully points out (160) that Soviet nationalities did not just awake from slumber after seventy-four years but rather were constantly being nurtured during the Soviet period; “their pasts were constructed and reconstructed; traditions were selected, invented, and enshrined, and even those with the greatest antiquity of pedigree became something quite different from past incarnations.”

  87. Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 456; Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 80, 134.

  88. Mastny and Byrne, A Cardboard Castle? 63. For more information on the Soviet nuclear arsenal, see Pavel Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).

  89. “President George Bush: State of the Union Address, 31 January 1990 (Excerpts),” in Freedman, Documents, 446–47; NBC Today Show, highlights of Thursday morning television newscasts, February 8, 1990, telegram, “Secstate Washdc to USDEL Secretary Immediate,” State Department, released via FOIA. He had informed his leading NATO allies of this ahead of time, by sending the deputy secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, to Europe with Gates. See “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit dem stellvertretenden Außenminister Eagleburger Bonn, 30. Januar 1990,” document 153, DESE, 739–43. On this conversation, see also Falkenrath, Shaping Europe’s Military Order, 62–63; Gates, From the Shadows, 463–64, 485–88.

  90. Garthoff, The Great Transition, 413–14. By the end of their talks, they would also release a statement saying that they had agreed on numerical limits on certain “non-deployed ballistic missiles and the warheads attributable to them”; see “Soviet-American Joint Statement, 10 February 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 469–71.

  91. Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 204; on CFE, see Falkenrath, Shaping Europe’s Military Order.

  92. For an in-depth study of USSR attitudes to unity, see Rafael Biermann, Zwischen Kreml und Kanzleramt: Wie Moskau mit der deutschen Einheit rang (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1997).

  93. “JAB notes from 2/7–9/90 Ministerial Mtgs., w/ USSR FM Shevardnadze, Moscow USSR,” note “GERMANY 2/8/90,” folder 14, box 108, 8c monthly files, series 8; see information about U.S.-USSR bilaterals, folder 13, box 176, 12b chapter files, series 12. Despite the fact that some of these documents are in the files used by the team of people drafting his autobiography, the final version of the book does not mention them. See the discussion of the February 7–9 meetings, Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 202–6.

  94. “Из беседы М.С. Горбачева с Дж. Бейкером,” February 9, 1990, МГ, 333–34, 338. Excerpt published and translated in GC. Original, Gorbachev: Разумеется, ясно, что расширение зоны НАТО является неприемлемым. Baker: Мы согласны с этим. (These documents are also summarized in Gorbachev, Memoirs, 528–29.) They agree with the summary of the conversation that Baker gave Kohl the next day; see “Schreiben des Außenministers Baker an Bundeskanzler Kohl, 10. Februar 1990,” document 173, DESE, 793–94. See also “JAB notes from 2/9/90 mtg. w/USSR Pres. Gorbachev, Moscow, USSR,” folder 12, box 176, 12b chapter files, series 12. Gates, who went to Moscow with Baker, also remembers Gorbachev saying that any “extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable.” Gates, From the Shadows, 490. Similar comments are in von Plato, Die Vereinigung Deutschlands, 244, based on his access to Soviet sources. See also Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, 4–5.

  95. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 529.

  96. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, 4; Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn, 140–41, states that the U.S. position remained constant: “The record shows that no explicit promises on NATO expansion were made, but what was implied during the negotiations ultimately lies in the eyes of the beholder.”

  97. Dennis Ross, interview with author, November 17, 2008, Washington, DC; Baker with De-Frank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 206; Helmut Kohl, Kai Diekmann, and Ralf Georg Reuth, Ich wollte Deutschlands Einheit (Berlin: Ullstein, 1996), 268–69; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 137. The full text of the letter appears in English in DESE, 793–94; citations to particular passages appear in the endnotes to the related text discussions.

  98. “Schreiben des Außenministers Baker an Bundeskanzler Kohl,” 793–94. This private note described in detail what Baker summarized for journalists at a midnight briefing the same day. As reported by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, Baker “suggested for the first time that Washington might be prepared to accept a reunification of East and West Germany in which the unified country would not be a full member of NATO….” Thomas Friedman, “Some Link to NATO,” The New York Times, February 10, 1990, A1.

  99. “Schreiben des Präsidenten Bush an Bundeskanzler Kohl, 9. Februar 1990,” reproduced in English as document 170, DESE, 784–85; “Speech by NATO Secretary General Manfred Worner [sic], Hamburg, 8 February 1990,” in Freedman, Doc
uments, 462–66, especially 466. Zelikow remembers that Baker had not “internalized” the fact that “special military status” was the preferred wording in time for his conversation with Gorbachev, but that he would later. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified, 186–87, especially 423n62.

  100. Philip Zelikow, interview with author, July 27, 2008, and subsequent emails.

  101. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 135; J.D. Bindenagel, interview with author, June 28, 2008, phone conversation.

  102. Both the Russian and West German records from this conversation are available, and they agree on the points cited above. See “Из беседы М.С. Горбачева с Г. Колем один на один,” February 10, 1990, МГ, 339–55; “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Generalsekretär Gorbatschow, Moskau, 10. Februar 1990,” document 174, DESE, 795–807. Kohl’s exact statement was: “Natürlich könne die NATO ihr Gebiet nicht auf das heutige Gebiet der DDR ausdehnen.” He asked Gorbachev if he could describe their talks as follows: “Sie seien sich darüber einig, daß die Entscheidung über die Einigung Deutschlands eine Frage sei, die die Deutschen jetzt selbst entscheiden müßten.” Gorbachev replied only that the chancellor’s summary was “sehr nahe an seinen Ausführungen.” This was not the same as agreeing (see also DESE, 805); so it is not surprising that Kohl wanted to lock in this somewhat uncertain gain via publicizing it. On the subject of Chernobyl as a reference for what could go wrong with a nuclear power program, see Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

  103. Tagesschau and heute journal spezial, February 10, 1990, ZDF, KASPA. See also “Soviet-German Joint Statement, 10 February 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 472–75; “Delegationgespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Generalsekretär Gorbatschow, Moskau, 10. Februar 1990,” document 175, DESE, 808–11.