U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in
his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part
of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to
Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German
unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet,
German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security
Archive at George Washington University.
It turns out the Russians have a reason to be upset about the
expansion of NATO. And this isn’t from some libertarian nut-job (like
bionic mosquito) or non-interventionist outfit (like The Ron
Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity).
Before getting to some of the evidence, just what is “the National
Security Archive at George Washington University”?
Founded in 1985 by
journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National
Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism
center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of
declassified U.S. documents ("the world's largest nongovernmental
collection" according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user
of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and
expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open
government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.
The documents provide evidence that assurances were offered by
western leaders at the highest level: Bush, Thatcher, Major, and Mitterand are
but a few examples. In other words, a Mt. Rushmore of liars.
Some excerpts:
·
The
documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing
ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others
were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”
·
President
George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989
that the U.S. would not take advantage…of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to
harm Soviet interests…
·
The first
concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990…
·
The U.S.
Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear
“that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not
lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’
·
…the
crucial February 10, 1990, meeting in Moscow between Kohl and Gorbachev when
the West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German
unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east.
·
The conversations
before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the
Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept
unification.
·
Having met
with Genscher on his way into discussions with the Soviets, Baker repeated
exactly the Genscher formulation in his meeting with Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze on February 9, 1990, (see Document 4); and even more importantly,
face to face with Gorbachev.
·
Not once,
but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with
Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting.
It gets better (or worse, I suppose) as you go through the
article.
The National Security Archive identifies and includes 30
different documents as evidence for this post, for example:
·
Document
05: Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in
Moscow.
·
Document
12-1: Memorandum of conversation between Vaclav Havel and George Bush in
Washington.
·
Document
14: Memorandum of conversation between George Bush and Eduard Shevardnadze in
Washington.
·
Document
18: Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.
·
Document
21: Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush. White
House, Washington D.C.
·
Document
29: Paul Wolfowitz Memoranda of Conversation with Vaclav Havel and Lubos
Dobrovsky in Prague.
This last document is interesting, as it offers a glimpse into
one of the real enemies of peace in this world. From the summary:
Havel informs
[Wolfowitz] that Soviet Ambassador Kvitsinsky was in Prague negotiating a
bilateral agreement, and the Soviets wanted the agreement to include a provision
that Czechoslovakia would not join alliances hostile to the USSR. Wolfowitz
advises both Havel and Dobrovsky not to enter into such agreements…
It’s the Ninth Circle for you.
The National Security Archive promises a second part to their
analysis; it will cover the Yeltsin discussions with Western leaders about
NATO…over vodka, I imagine.
Conclusion
Well, Baker never said anything about two inches
eastward. Anyway, technically these assurances were given to the Soviets,
not the Russians.
The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to
believe.”
I guess too bad for the Russkies…and too bad for world peace.
“Oh, but it wasn’t a treaty.”
As if a treaty would have stopped the empire.