Margaret Thatcher, the posturing far-right ideologue provocateur who was Prime Minister of the UK at the same time Ronald Reagan, posturing far-right ideologue dumbass was President of the United States, conducted a life-long political love affair with Reagan and shared his delight in empty rhetorical blustering, coddling of fascists, and aimless anti-communism. For the rest of her life she basked in the same mindless right-wing praise that Reagan lapped up for “winning the cold war” after delivering his trademark slogan at the Berlin Wall: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Turns out, now, that, two years after that event, during East German unrest just before the Wall actually did come down,
Thatcher met with Gorbachev and personally begged him to do whatever he could to
prevent East Germany from merging with West Germany, guaranteed
protection for Communist rule in Soviet-bloc nations, and offered a
unilateral non-aggression pledge to the Soviet Union itself. George Bush and Francois Mitterand, right-wingers who also presided over noisy anti-communist parties in their countries, backed her assurances to the Communist leader and pledged themselves to prevent German re-unification in any way they could, including with
military alliances with the USSR against their official ally West Germany.
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.
Even 20 years later, her remarks are likely to cause uproar. They are all the more explosive as she admitted that what she said was quite different from the West’s public pronouncements and official Nato communiqués. She told Mr Gorbachev that he should pay no attention to these.
“We do not want a united Germany,” she said. “This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.” . . .
She spoke of her deep “concern” at what was going on in East Germany. She said “big changes” could be afoot.And this led to her fear that it would all eventually lead to German reunification — an official goal of Western policy for more than a generation.
She assured Mr Gorbachev that President Bush also wanted to do nothing that would be seen by the Russians as a threat to their security. The same assurance was later spelt out in person to Mr Gorbachev at the Soviet- American summit off Malta. . . .
Mrs Thatcher was not the only one worried by events in Germany. A month after the Berlin Wall came down, Jacques Attali, the personal adviser to President Mitterrand, met Vadim Zagladin, a senior Gorbachev aide, in Kiev.
Mr Attali said that Moscow’s refusal to intervene in East Germany had “puzzled the French leadership” and questioned whether “the USSR has made peace with the prospect of a united Germany and will not take any steps to prevent it. This has caused a fear approaching panic.”
He then stated bluntly, echoing Mrs Thatcher: “France by no means wants German reunification, although it realises that in the end it is inevitable.” . . .
Astonishingly,
noted, in France Mr Mitterrand was even thinking of a military alliance with Russia to stop it, “camouflaged as a joint use of armies to fight natural disasters”. . . .
Even in 1990 Mrs Thatcher was still trying to slow things down. “I am convinced that reunification needs a long transition period,” she told Mr Gorbachev. “All Europe is watching this not without a degree of fear, remembering very well who started the two world wars.”
<snip>
http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2009/09/11/8555/:wow:
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