Three wise, old statesmen leave Thatcher out in cold
Monday November 02 2009
Three greying men, one in a wheelchair, one leaning on a stick, shuffled on to a theatre stage normally occupied by high-kicking chorus girls to discuss old times -- the good old days when the Berlin Wall came down and they were in charge of the world.
The 20 years since have taken their toll on Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush Sr and Helmut Kohl, but this weekend they were determined to celebrate and be celebrated.
Margaret Thatcher, regarded by many as one of the key players in ending the Cold War, was not there. It was not clear whether she had been invited, though she rarely makes public appearances these days. With the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, Lady Thatcher is either being dismissed as marginal and obstructive to Germany's historically inevitable unification, or she is being edited out altogether. As the Grand Old Men chatted about the past in Berlin only Mr Gorbachev, once the leader of the Soviet Union, mentioned her in passing.
At the weekend, France followed the British example and opened up its records on the days when the wall came down, disclosing much about Mrs Thatcher's opposition to German unity. "France and Great Britain should pull together today in the face of the German threat," she told the French Ambassador to London in March 1990, according to a declassified diplomatic report.
"Kohl is capable of anything," she said. "He has become another man. He doesn't know himself any more. He sees himself as the master of events and is starting to act like it."
Transcripts of conversations between Mr Kohl and George Bush Sr, held in Brussels on December 3, 1989, have also been released by the Bush Presidential Library. The president warned the man who was then leader of West Germany that Mr Gorbachev was disturbed by the speed of change in Germany. Mr Kohl replied that Western Europe was behind him -- only Britain is "rather reluctant".
Bush: "That's the understatement of the year."
Kohl: "Thatcher says the European Parliament should have no power because Westminster cannot surrender a single bit of its sovereignty. Her ideas are pre-Churchillian. She thinks the post-war era isn't over yet. She believes that history has been unjust. Germany is so rich and Britain has to fight for its survival. They won a war but lost an empire and their economy . . ."
Proud
On Saturday, speaking with great difficulty and slurring his speech, Mr Kohl said: "We Germans don't have very much to be proud of, but I've got every reason to be proud, above all other things, of German unification." Now 79, he had a serious fall last year.
Mr Gorbachev (78) called on the United States to launch its own Perestroika, the economic and social restructuring which he tried to introduce in the Soviet Union. He stressed that change had come from the people. "It is the people who were the heroes," he said. "The three of us don't want to take credit for the accomplishments of previous generations."
Although he leant heavily on his cane and is, at 85, the oldest of the three statesmen, George Bush made the clearest speech. He lavished praise on Mr Kohl and particularly on Mr Gorbachev. "Through it all he stood firm, which is why he'll also stand tall when the history of our time is finally written."
The unspoken consensus among the three was that Mrs Thatcher was on the wrong side of history. According to French diplomatic files she was worried that a sudden change to post-war borders would destabilise the continent, undermine institutions such as Nato and reduce Mr Gorbachev's chances of survival in the Kremlin. (© The Times, London)
- Roger Boyes in Berlin
Irish Independent
