At a time when the United States is convulsed by anti-Russian
hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin, a trove of recently declassified
Cold War documents reveals the astounding extent of the lies, duplicity and
double-dealing engaged in by the western powers with the collapsing Soviet
Union in 1990.
I was covering Moscow in
those days and met some of the key players in this sordid drama. Ever
since, I’ve been writing that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Foreign
Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, were shamelessly lied to and deceived by the
United States, Britain, and their appendage, NATO.
All the western powers
promised Gorbachev and Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand eastward by ‘one
inch’ if Moscow would pull the Red Army out of East Germany and allow it to
peacefully reunify with West Germany. This was a titanic concession by
Gorbachev: it led to a failed coup against him in 1991 by Communist
hardliners.
The documents released by
George Washington University in Washington DC, which I attended for a semester,
make sickening reading (see them online). All western powers and
statesmen assured the Russians that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet
retreat and that a new era of amity and cooperation would dawn in post-Cold War
Europe. US Secretary of State Jim Baker offered ‘ironclad guarantees’
there would be no NATO expansion. Lies, all lies.
Gorbachev was a
humanist, a very decent, intelligent man who believed he could end the Cold War
and nuclear arms race. He ordered the Red Army back from Eastern
Europe. I was in Wunsdorf, East Germany, HQ of the Group of Soviet
Forces, Germany, and at Stasi secret police HQ in East Berlin right after the
pullout order was given. The Soviets withdrew their 338,000 troops and
4,200 tanks and sent them home at lightening speed.
Western promises made to
Soviet leaders by President George W. H. Bush and Jim Baker quickly proved to
be empty. They were honorable men but their successors were not.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush quickly began moving NATO into
Eastern Europe, violating all the pledges made to Moscow.
The Poles, Hungarians and
Czechs were brought into NATO, then Romania and Bulgaria, the Baltic States,
Albania, and Montenegro. Washington tried to get the former Soviet
Republics of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. The Moscow-aligned government
of Ukraine was overthrown in a US-engineered coup. The road to Moscow was
open.
All the bankrupt, confused
Russians could do was denounce these eastward moves by the US and NATO.
The best response NATO and Washington could come up with was, ‘well, there was
no official written promise.’ This is worthy of a street peddler selling
counterfeit watches. The leaders of the US, Britain, France, Belgium and
Italy all lied. Germany was caught between its honor and imminent
reunification. So even its Chancellor Helmut Kohl had to go along with the
West’s prevarications.
At the time, I wrote that the
best solution would be for the demilitarization of formerly Soviet-controlled
Eastern Europe. NATO had no need or business to expand eastward.
Doing so would be a constant provocation to Russia, which regarded Eastern
Europe as an essential defensive glacis against invasions from the West.
Now, with NATO forces on its
western borders, Russia’s deepest fears have been realized.
Today, US military aircraft
based on the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria, former Warsaw Pact members, probe
Russian airspace over the Black Sea and the vital strategic port of
Sevastopol. Washington talks about arming chaotic Ukraine. US
and NATO troops are in the Baltic, on Russia’s northwestern borders.
Polish right-wingers are beating the war drums against Russia.
In
1990, KGB and CIA agreed to the principal of ‘not one inch’ eastward for
NATO. Former US ambassador to Moscow, Jack Matlock, confirms the same
agreement. Gorbachev, who is denounced as a foolish idealist by many Russians,
trusted the Western powers. He should have had a battalion of New York City
garment district shyster lawyers to document his agreements in 1990. He
thought he was dealing with honest, honorable men, like himself.
Is it any wonder after this
bait and switch diplomacy that Russia has no trust in the Western powers?
Moscow watches US-run NATO oozing ever eastwards. Today, Russia’s leaders
firmly believe Washington’s ultimate plan is to tear apart Russia and reduce it
to an impotent, pauper nation. Two former Western leaders, Napoleon and
Hitler, had similar plans.
Instead of carrying on about
Hitler’s duplicity after Munich, we should look at our own shameless behavior
after 1990.
Eric
Margolis [send him
mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new
book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2017 Eric Margolis
