Posted on 09/11/2009 7:10:13 AM PDT by Androcles
Two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev that neither Britain nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany and made clear that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it.
In an extraordinary frank meeting with Mr Gorbachev in Moscow in 1989 — never before fully reported — Mrs Thatcher said the destabilisation of Eastern Europe and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact were also not in the West’s interests. She noted the huge changes happening across Eastern Europe, but she insisted that the West would not push for its decommunisation. Nor would it do anything to risk the security of the Soviet Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
As I understand it, a lot of the West Germans didn’t want reunification either.
Thatcher may have been stroking the Russians, telling them what they wanted to hear to keep them calm. I don’t believe most people in the West considered a reunited Germany a threat any longer.
Of course not -- they viewed East Germans as potential economic parasites that would hang onto the public teat for several generations until they outgrew the socialist mindset.
Chavez and Obama, for example, came to power by the vote as well. Doesn't make them any less communist.
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Dennis Miller said he looked at it like a Jerry Lewis - Dean Martin reunion. He said he didnt really enjoy their earlier work, and wasnt too eager to see the new stuff,,,
I was in Germany the summer after the wall came down ('90), and you're right. I remember one news article simply because of the vivid analogy, wherein a West German telecom official indicated that trying to integrate phone service with the east was going to be like trying to merge an autobahn onto a dirt road.
very, very funny — thats for posting.
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
It’s common knowledge that the British and French didn’t want Germany reunified.
Germany was reunified because George Bush Senior was in favor of it.
*I was in Germany the summer after the wall came down (’90), and you’re right. I remember one news article simply because of the vivid analogy, wherein a West German telecom official indicated that trying to integrate phone service with the east was going to be like trying to merge an autobahn onto a dirt road.*
It had to be easier than invading Russia or mudering 6 million Jews. You’d think the Germans would have some perspective.
Are you kidding??????
Don’t you remember the “Chicken Kiev” speech?
It was often said that Bush I’s major foreign policy defeat was his failure to save communism.
Sorry, I am so tardy on this thread,.
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