NATO – A Bridge Across Time - Newsdesk Media

INTERVIEW
BRENT
SCOWCROFT
President George H.W. Bush
and Brent Scowcroft
“We focused
on a Europe
‘whole and
free.’”
and together they probably could have
kept German unification from happening.
He didn’t do that.
Why did Gorbachev accept German
unification?
He didn’t have a better alternative. He
didn’t like it, but he didn’t know what
to do. I think he realized the notion of a
divided or neutral Germany between the
East and the West would mean a Europe
that would not be stable.
When was it clear to you that he could
accept German unification?
The issue of unification was all tied up with
the issue of whether a united Germany
would remain in NATO. We had a meeting
in May 1990 in Washington. We were not
able to get him to talk about reunification
and NATO. He just wouldn’t do it. We were
getting nowhere in the meeting, and then
Bush said, “Do you agree that the Helsinki
Accords give the right to all members to
join or not join any alliance, any group?”
And he said “Yes.” Well, his colleagues
just about collapsed. They started
remonstrating with him and they went off
into the corner of the room to sort it out.
He had said too much.
When they came back and sat down,
Gorbachev tried to backtrack. Gorbachev
said, “This is a complicated question; we
need to think about it; we need to plan it;
let’s turn it over to our foreign ministers.”
Shevardnadze said, “Nothing doing, this
is something that has to be done by the
heads of state.” So that was sort of where
we left it, but we had broken the dam and
Gorbachev had admitted that, yes, it was
the right of the Germans to decide whether
or not to stay in NATO.
That was the moment at which you
believe Gorbachev accepted German
unification? He didn’t try to roll it back
after that?
That was more about Germany in NATO.
Unification was more or less settled by the
East German elections in March. We didn’t
press it too hard in the joint communiqué
after the meeting. We put some flowery
language in, but not that. He was going to
meet with Kohl in June. We told Kohl all
this. And, sure enough, when he met with
Kohl, Gorbachev said yes to Germany in
NATO and thus to unification.
You talked about how Bush and Kohl
were the only ones who really wanted
unification. You were skeptical as well?
I was skeptical only because I thought
we had so much on our plate – with what
was going on in Poland, in Hungary and
with the exodus of refugees from East
Germany. I thought we ought to delay the
controversial issue of German unification
as long as we could because we didn’t know
what would happen there and whether the
Kremlin would respond negatively. Even
the Germans were divided about whether
or when it should happen. But in December
1989, Kohl and Bush had dinner together
the day before a NATO meeting. Kohl
outlined his notion for unification. It was a
slower timetable than actually happened,
but Bush just said, “Go for it.” For me, it was
a fait accompli from that time on.
Did you feel pressure from Thatcher
and Mitterrand against it?
Thatcher was quite open. People credit
Mitterrand, but I think it was Thatcher
who said, “I like Germany so much I
think there ought to be two of them.”
They were not sympathetic, they were
reluctant, but they didn’t actually stand
in the way. The momentum within
Germany was so powerful it sort of swept
everybody else along.
President Bush was criticized for
having responded to the Berlin
Wall’s fall in a muted manner when it
occurred. No “Mission Accomplished”
banners.
Yes. It was a tumultuous day in Berlin, but
just an ordinary day in the White House.
The East Germans had announced the wall
between the two Germanys would open,
but it was unclear whether that would
include the Berlin section. Crowds pressed
against the Berlin border crossings and
the guards did not resist. I had gone to the
President to explain this and tell him that
the picture was still very confused. We still
were unclear whether they would crack
down, or whether they wouldn’t crack
down. [White House Spokesman] Marlin
Fitzwater came in and said, “You’ve got
to say something to the press.” Well, the
President said, “I don’t want to give a press
conference; I don’t have anything to say
because we don’t know what’s going on!”
And so we compromised by inviting a
small press contingent to the Oval Office,
and they gathered around the President’s
desk. [Journalist] Lesley Stahl was
standing right next to the desk, and she
said something like, “Mr. President, you
don’t seem very elated; I would think
you’d be dancing.” And he says, “I’m not
an emotional kind of guy” – or something
like that. What we were really afraid of is
that this could be one of those events that
would force the conservatives in Russia to
crack down, like Hungary of 1956.
So playing it down was intentional?
Yes. The worst thing, we thought, would
be for the President to gloat that we’d
won, because what we wanted was for
this momentum to keep going. I think the
President behaved admirably. Many people
advocated that the President ought to be
going to Berlin to dance on the Wall. But I
think the President strategically had exactly
the right approach. What he kept trying to
say was, “Look, nobody won or lost here; we
both won with the end of the Cold War.”
What was the mood in the White
House? How were you trying to
steer things?
It was a very heady mood, but one also of
nervousness and apprehension because
we were trying to keep this thing at a pace
that could continue without a crackdown.
There were internal differences on how
fast we ought to be pushing things, based
on differing assessments of the perils
versus the opportunities.
30 The Atlantic Council