Sarah Paine

Nevertheless, the unrest just keeps on going.

The Berlin Wall, as I've told you, is breached.

And then you wind up with a West German caretaker government.

And the financial situation in Russia itself is unraveling.

And by the time you get to January 1990, Bush and Kohl get together, and they've decided they want to really fast-track German reunification.

Why?

Because they've got to get it done before this unraveling crisis occurs.

that Gorbachev falls from power as a result of it.

So they have got a game going, the two of them.

And it's complicated.

And here's why.

Gorbachev was dead against Germany, a united Germany in NATO.

He's not keen about really a united Germany, let alone one in NATO.

The U.S.

State Department experts, the guys who know everything, are saying, no, no, no, you want to go slow on this unification business.

And then...

Kohl is running a coalition government.

There are people in that government he cannot fire because they're from different political parties.

One of them is his foreign minister, this guy Genscher, who is very skeptical about Germany being part of NATO.

And then it turns out, although Britain had talked a good piece during the Cold War, it didn't actually want a unified Germany, nor did France.