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embittered nationalists furiolls over the loss of the Soviet position
In
Europe. Zelikow and Rice stress that American officials were aware that
they wen: winning a complete political victory. Yet they "wanted the
Soviets to accept the result and believe that they retained an appropriate,
albeit diminished, role in European affairs. They did not want Moscow to
nurture a lasting bitterness that would lead them someday to try to over–
throw the European settlement."
The authors take us through the details of the "two plus four talks ,"
further meetings in Moscow, 130nn and Washington. For Zelikow and
Rice, the devil was in the details, in the tilllely responses to fast moving
events, the ability to see the main chance and above all in the capacity in
Washington and 130nn to understand the depth of changes in foreign pol–
icy thinking that had taken place in Moscow. For years, Western observers
had repeated that the path to German unification passed through Moscow.
This account offers us a chronicle of how Washington's statesmen and
di plomats and 13onn's poli tical Ieader nudged the las t Ieaders of the Soviet
Union to the conclusion that they and Europe could peacefully digest a
unified Germany if, and only if, the United States remained a European
power to help insure that this new 13erlin republic would remain a source
of peace and stability in Europe.
The authors are right that this olltcome was anything but inevitable.
Given the level of anger and disgust with the German Democratic
R.epublic, it is difficult to imagine an outcome with two German states,
though had the United States, the Soviet Union, or a left-leaning West
German government taken different posi tions in 1989 this outcome is
hardly inconceivable. Had a Social Democratic government been in office
in [3onn, a unified but neutral Germany would have been a greater possi–
bili ty though, ironically, Gorbachev might have found that prospect more
alarming than the one oftered by his right-of-center counterparts, 13ush
and Kohl. The authors compellingly delllonstrate how and why political
leaders in Moscow, 130nn and Washington arrived at the above conclu–
sions. In the midst of the tense battles of the Cold War, who would have
imagined that it would end wi th Soviet leaders agreeing to a democratic
and unified Germany while welcoming the Americans-again-to help
insure that nightmares of the German past did not return to Europe's
future?
JEFFREY HERF
