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An ‘Arm Around the Shoulder’: The United States, NATO and German Reunification, 1989—90

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Frank Costigliola
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Extract

United Germany ‘will stand with us as an ally’, confidently predicted Robert B. Zoellick, who served as Secretary of State James A. Baker 3rd's chief of staff and as the overseer of US negotiations on reunification. Testifying before the Senate in September 1990 on the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Zoellick asserted that the unification process proved that ‘the United States can lead and persevere…in the post-cold war world‘. Despite such optimism, however, the ambivalance in past US–German relations, the erosion of American leverage during the unification process and the narrowness of Washington's conception of ‘leadership’ in Europe all suggested a future more problematic than the happy scenario Zoellick sketched for the senators.

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Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 87 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (thereafter FRC), Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (thereafter Treaty), 101st Congress, 2nd sess., 28 Sept. 1990, 2–3.

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3 New York Times, 7 Dec. 1989.

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6 New York Times, 9 June 1991. For an argument on the futility of Washington's trying to wield such leverage through NATO in the future, see De Santis, Hugh, ‘The Graying of NATO’, Washington Quarterly, Vol. 14 (1991), 51–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the case for NATO's continued importance in the 1990s, see Glaser, Charles L., ‘Why NATO Is Still best’, International Security, Vol. 18, no. 1 (1993), 5–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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21 Memorandum by David Bruce, 9 Feb. 1963, Box 49–56, Theodore Sorensen Papers, Kennedy Library.

22 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jnr, Note on Conversation with Richard E. Neustadt, 10 July 1964, Box W-12, Arthur M. Schlesinger Papers, Kennedy Library.

23 McGeorge Bundy, Memorandum for the Record, 7 Dec. 1964, Box 18–19, Files of McGeorge Bundy, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

24 Arthur Krock, ‘Memorandum of Conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson, 15 December 1964’, Box 1, Arthur Krock Papers, Mudd Library.

25 New York Times, 21 Jan. 1988.

26 FRC, The INF Treaty, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., Part 2, 1–5 Feb. 1988, 186.

27 Quoted in Szabo, German Unification, 11.

28 For further discussion of the bureaucratic and personal differences, see Pond, Beyond, 162–7.

29 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East (thereafter CFA, Europe), Developments in Europe, October 1989, 101st Cong., 1st sess., 3 Oct. 1989, 14.

30 US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The Future of Europe, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 17 Jan. 1990 (thereafter US Senate, Future), 79.

31 US Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Threat Assessment; Military Strategy; and Operational Requirements, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 25 Jan. 1990, 229.

32 US Senate, Future, 80.

33 Drew, , ‘Letter’, Vol. 65 (27 Nov. 1989), 130–1.Google Scholar

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35 Ibid., 131. See also Washington Post, 10, 12 Nov. 1989.

36 Quoted in Beschloss, Michael R. and Talbot, Strobe, At The Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993Google Scholar (thereafter Beschloss, Talbott, Highest Levels), 138.

37 Quoted in ibid., 169.

38 Quoted inibid., 169.

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45 Kaiser, Deutschlands Vereinigung, 158–68.

46 See Kaiser, ‘Unification’, 184; Pond, Beyond, 22–3. In Pond's more detailed analysis, ‘World’, 56–7, she accepts the Kohl Government's explanation that it wanted to slow down events while acknowledging that perhaps Bonn officials promulgated this interpretation knowing that it was what other nations wanted to hear. Szabo, German Unification, 38–40, delineates the details of Kohl's decisive action, but underestimates its significance.

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50 Weilemann, Peter R., ‘The German Contribution Toward Overcoming the Division of Europe–Chancellor Helmut Kohl's 10 Points’, Aussenpolitik, Vol. 41, no. 1 (1990), 18.Google Scholar

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52 Teltschik, 329 Tage, 62. See also Teltschik, 329 Tage, 65.

53 US Department of State, ‘A New Europe, a New Atlanticism: Architecture for a New Era’ (thereafter State Dept. ‘New Atlanticism’), 12 Dec. 1989, Current Policy no. 1233.

54 Economist, 7 July 1990, 6.

55 The Republican right had long suspected the CSCE because of its origins in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and the détente policies of the 1970s, against which Ronald Reagan had railed and campaigned. The case for a stronger CSCE is found in Goodby, James E., ‘A New European Concert: Settling Disputes in CSCE’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 21 (1991), 3–6Google Scholar; Harald Mueller, ‘A United Nations of Europe and North America’, Ibid., 3, 6–8. For Genscher's lobbying in Washington on behalf of the CSCE, see The German Tribune, 15 Apr. 1990, 1–2. The relationship among NATO, the EC and CSCE is discussed in Langguth, Gerd, ‘Germany, the EC and the Architecture of Europe. The German Question in the Context of the EC’, Aussenpolitik, Vol. 42, no. 2 (1991), 137–45Google Scholar; Binnendijk, Hans, ‘The Emerging European Security Order’, Washington Quarterly, Vol. 14 (1991), 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Baker's opposition to making the Western European Union more independent of NATO, see Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 Apr. 1991.

56 New York Times, 5 Dec. 1989.

57 US Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Implementation of the Helsinki Accords (thereafter US Congress, Implementation) 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 3 Apr. 1990, 8.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., 8, 18.

59 Ibid., 18; FRC, The Future of NATO, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 9 Feb. 1990, 19.

60 US House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Building a Defense that Works for the Post-Cold War World, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 22, 28 Feb., 14, 21, 22, 27 March, 25 Apr. 1990, 115.

61 FRC, The Future of Europe, 606.Google Scholar

62 Ibid., 148.

63 Ibid., 598.

64 US Congress, Implementation, 8.

65 Drew, , ‘Letter’, Vol. 66 (19 Mar. 1990), 104.Google Scholar

66 CFA, Europe, Developments in Europe, March 1990, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 22 Mar. 1990, 17.

67 Quoted in Pond, Beyond, 161.

68 Teltschik, 329 Tage, 300.

69 State Dept. ‘New Atlanticism’.

70 New York Times, 11 Dec. 1989.

71 Gornig, Gilbert, ‘Die vertragliche Regelung der mit der deutschen Vereinigung auswärtigen Probleme’, Aussenpolitik, Vol. 42, no. 1 (1991), 3–12Google Scholar; New York Times, 16 Feb. 1990; Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 Feb. 1990.

72 Quoted in Szabo, , German Unification, 18.Google Scholar

73 Quoted in ibid., 55.

74 Quoted in Beschloss, , Talbott, , Highest Levels, 188.Google Scholar

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76 More dubious about the prospect of influencing Soviet behaviour in the two negotiations, the National Security Council at first opposed allowing Moscow to participate in two plus four. See Pond, Beyond 180–1.

77 Teltschik, 329 Tage, 160.Google Scholar

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79 Ibid., 236–9. Similarly, Kohl, on 6 Sept. urged Bush to ‘do everything he could to make sure that the upcoming Helsinki summit would be a success for Gorbachev too’. Ibid., 358.

80 Ibid., 249.

81 Ibid., 262, 305, 336–7.

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85 Teltschik, 329 Tage, 307.

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96 FRC, Treaty, 14. See article 5, part 3.

97 Gorbachev, many Eastern and central Europeans, and some Westerners, notably Genscher and Mitterrand, had all looked forward to building up the CSCE as an innovative alternative to the Cold War system. But the CSCE emerged from the summit an unimpressive edifice, with only a small secretariat in Prague, a conflict prevention centre in Vienna, a free elections commission in Warsaw, and a pledge by member foreign ministers to meet once a year with summits every two years. Despite Gorbachev's enormous concessions in the former Soviet empire and his obvious troubles at home, his plea to be included in a common house of Europe went mostly unheeded. In large part, the unbuilding of the CSCE marked a victory for American and British policies, which had steadfastly opposed the construction of an institution that might compete with NATO.

98 Hamilton, , Clad, , ‘Germany’, 39–49.Google Scholar

99 See n. 2.

100 Pond, Beyond, 185.