George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Helmut Kohl in Mainz in late May. "Let Berlin be next," Bush had said then. The wall
"must come down." But in the midst of Bush's throw away lines like "Let Europe be
whole and free," there was no mention whatsoever of German reunification, which was
nevertheless in the air.
Thus, when the wall came down, Bush could not avoid a group of reporters in the Oval
Office, where he sat in a swivel chair in the company of James Baker. Bush told the
reporters that he was "elated" by the news, but his mood was at once funereal and testy. If
he was so elated, why was he so unhappy? Why the long face? "I'm just not an emotional
kind of guy." The main chord was one of caution. "It's way too early" to speculate about
German reunification, although Bush was forced to concede, throuigh clenched teeth, that
the Berlin Wall "will have very little relevance" from now on. Everything Bush said
tended to mute the drama of what had happened: "I don't think any single event is the end
of what you might call the Iron Curtain. But clearly, this is a long way from the harsh
days of the --the harshest Iron Curtain days-- a long way from that." "We are not trying to
give anybody a hard time," Bush went on. "We're saluting those who can move forward
to democracy. We are encouraging the concept of a Europe whole and free. And so we
just welcome it." The East German "aspirations for freedom seem to be a little further
down the road now." But Bush was not going to "dance on the wall," that much was
clear. [fn 8]
After this enraged and tongue-tied monologue with the reporters, Bush privately asked
his staff: "How about if I give them one of these?" Then he jumped in the air, waved his
hands, and yelled "Whoooopppeee!" at the top of his lungs. [fn 9] Bush's spin doctors
went into action, explaining that the president had been "restrained" because of his desire
to avoid gloating or otherwise offending Gorbachov and the Kremlin.
Bush's gagged emotional clutch attracted a great deal of attention in the press and media.
"Why did the leader of the western world look as though he had lost his last friend the
day they brought him the news of the fall of the Berlin Wall?", asked Mary McGrory.
"George Bush's stricken expression and lame words about an event that had the rest of
mankind quickly singing hosannas were an awful letdown at a high moment in history."
[fn 10]
In reality, Bush's suppressed rage was another real epiphany of his character, the sort of
footage which a serious rival presidential campaign would put on television over and
over to show voters that George has no use for human freedom. Bush's family tradition
was to support totalitarian rule in Germany, starting with daddy Prescott's role in the
Hitler project, and continuing with Averell Harriman's machinations of 1945, which
helped to solidify a communist dictatorship for forty years in the eastern zone after the
Nazis had fallen. But Bush's reaction was also illustrative of the Anglo-American
perception that the resurgence of German industrialism in central Europe was a deadly
threat.
Over in London, Thatcher's brain truster Nicholas Ridley was forced to quit the cabinet
after he foamed at the mouth in observations about German unity, which he equated with