Germany Reunified?

Congress has adjourned, the President is on vacation, the bureaucracy snoozes, Washington cave dwellers are at the Vineyard, the city is a steam bath, and the diplomats stay inside, out of the heat, keeping their minds air-conditioned by a fresh issue. What holds the interest of the diplomats, and the few stray academics hereabouts, is Helmut Kohl’s reckless eyeball-to-eyeball face-off with Yuri Andropov, inside the Kremlin, on the occasion of Herr Kohl’s early July summit there. What the newly elected chancellor did was to call for the reunification of Germany, thereby rushing in where angels Brandt and Schmidt for years had feared to tread.

The scene was the more audacious when one recalls that the Soviet Union, of all nations, is the most terrified by the prospect of a single Germany. Kohl uttered the unspeakable, moreover, at a time when the Soviets are fearful that Poland may be wrested from the Warsaw Pact orbit and from the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), General Jaruzelski having gotten on well with the Pope, and the Poles having been reinspirited by him. If Poland becomes a quasi-buffer, the Soviets would be without untrammeled access to East Germany. So, it is not only that the chancellor says it right to Mr. Andropov’s face, but also that he says it at a time when the Soviets are already worried about the potential loss of Poland.

JM

About the Author

John McLaughlin

Featured Tags

Congress has adjourned, the President is on vacation, the bureaucracy snoozes, Washington cave dwellers are at the Vineyard, the city is a steam bath, and the diplomats stay inside, out of the heat, keeping their minds air-conditioned by a fresh issue. What holds the interest of the diplomats, and the few stray academics hereabouts, is Helmut Kohl’s reckless eyeball-to-eyeball face-off with Yuri Andropov, inside the Kremlin, on the occasion of Herr Kohl’s early July summit there. What the newly elected chancellor did was to call for the reunification of Germany, thereby rushing in where angels Brandt and Schmidt for years had feared to tread.

The scene was the more audacious when one recalls that the Soviet Union, of all nations, is the most terrified by the prospect of a single Germany. Kohl uttered the unspeakable, moreover, at a time when the Soviets are fearful that Poland may be wrested from the Warsaw Pact orbit and from the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), General Jaruzelski having gotten on well with the Pope, and the Poles having been reinspirited by him. If Poland becomes a quasi-buffer, the Soviets would be without untrammeled access to East Germany. So, it is not only that the chancellor says it right to Mr. Andropov’s face, but also that he says it at a time when the Soviets are already worried about the potential loss of Poland.