Charlatans

For a change my political ire isn't directed at Bush, well at least not Dubya Bush. It's his Daddy that's in my sights right now.

Last week, it was reported that in '89 Maggie Thatcher secretly told Gorbachev that she and other leaders in the West (including George HW Bush who was about 9 months into his term) were all a bunch of two-faced liars.

From the Times (UK)...

The reunification of Germany is not in the interests of Britain and Western Europe. It might look different from public pronouncements, in official communiqué at Nato meetings, but it is not worth paying ones attention to it. We do not want a united Germany. This would have led to a change to post-war borders and we can not allow that because such development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.

In the same way, a destabilisation of Eastern Europe and breakdown of the Warsaw Pact are also not in our interests. Of course, internal changes are happening in all Eastern European countries, somewhere they are deeper than in others. However, we would prefer if those processes were entirely internal, we would not interfere in them or push the de-communisation of Eastern Europe. I can say that the President of the United States is of the same position. He sent me a telegram to Tokyo in which he asked me directly to tell you that the United States would not do anything that might put at risk the security of the Soviet Union or perceived by the Soviet society as danger. I am fulfilling his request.

It's staggering to think that two pillars of U.S. foreign policy for over four decades, the reunification of Germany and political freedom within Eastern Europe, were being secretely undermined by Bush Sr. and others just at the point in time when history demanded their staunch support.