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Following World War II, Germany was divided into two countries, with West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) becoming integrated into Western Europe and East Germany (German Democratic Republic) falling behind the Iron Curtain, with the Soviet Union in control. After the historic and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of….

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After the historic and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of reuniting. Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor and later chancellor of the reunited Germany, and George H. W. Bush, president of the United States, engaged in ongoing conversations in the months leading up to reunification, which eventually took place on October 3,….

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On November 21, Civic Forum representatives addressed the throngs of demonstrators on Wenceslas Square for the first time; this public "meeting" would soon became a daily ritual. Afterwards, Forum members wrote this letter to the U.S. and Soviet leaders, speaking as the legitimate representatives of those "hundreds of thousands" on the Square. The letter concerns one of the touchiest subjects….

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The transition to a Solidarity-led government in Poland was closely associated with the introduction of market-oriented economic reforms. Many Poles hoped that this might lead to a dramatic improvement in the country’s economy, not only through the stimulation of domestic growth but also through the attraction of investment and outright financial aid from the West. In this brief exchange with….

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In this telephone conversation between West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and U.S. President George H. W. Bush on October 23, 1989, the two leaders discuss the revolutionary events in Hungary, Poland, and East Germany. It is clear from Kohl's summary of West Germany's approach toward Eastern Europe that he preferred a slow course of reform, based primarily on economic reforms supported by new….

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In the mid- to late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a new path for the Soviet Union by introducing significant changes to his country’s domestic and foreign policies, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev’s glasnost resulted in a crucial shift toward more open dialogue not only within the Soviet Union but also with….

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President George H. W. Bush visited Poland and Hungary in July 1989, following a series of speeches he had made that defined the direction his administration would take in its relations with the Soviet Union. On April 17, at Hamtramck, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit heavily populated by Polish-Americans, Bush had devoted a speech—referred to in the excerpt below—to the future of Eastern….

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This report analyzes the peculiar dilemma that Solidarity leaders faced in the aftermath of their landslide election victory in June. Their success had been based on opposition to the communist regime, but the framework that had allowed that success was based on a compromise with that regime. The practical issue that best highlighted the apparent incompatibility of those two commitments was the….

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On June 12, 1989, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began a four-day visit to West Germany, just two weeks after a similar visit to West Germany by United States President George H. W. Bush. Gorbachev had by the summer of 1989 become a popular figure and expectations were running high in West German society over the summit. From the Soviet Union's perspective, West Germany represented….

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On June 12, 1989, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began a four-day visit to West Germany, just two weeks after a similar visit to West Germany by United States President George H. W. Bush. Gorbachev had by the summer of 1989 become a popular figure and expectations were running high in West German society over the summit. From the Soviet Union's perspective, West Germany represented….

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Officials in the United States watched closely the historic roundtable talks that took place between Communist Party leaders and the opposition in Poland from February to April 1989. During these sessions, participants agreed to numerous changes, including the initiation of economic reform measures. In response to the roundtable agreements that focused on Poland's economy specifically, U.S.….

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As President George H. W. Bush took office in January 1989, factions within his administration disagreed concerning the approach to take with regard to US-Soviet relations. In December 1988, Gorbachev had delivered what he called a “watershed” address at the United Nations, announcing that he planned unilaterally to reduce Soviet military forces by 500,000, cut conventional armaments….

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President George H. W. Bush held his first summit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev early in December 1989 onboard a Soviet cruise ship docked off the coast of Malta. Although US-Soviet relations had thawed during the second term of President Ronald Reagan as he and Gorbachev developed a personal rapport, signed the first treaty between the superpowers to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals,….

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Following World War II, State Department officials, skeptical of the diplomatic value of programs they considered “propaganda,” persuaded Congress to cut allocations severely for Voice of America (VOA) radio programs that had been established during World War II to communicate US war aims to populations abroad. In late 1947, however, a committee of senators traveling in Europe reported….

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Soviet-American relations thawed during the second term of President Ronald Reagan as he and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev developed a personal rapport, signed the first treaty between the superpowers to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and moved forward on further arms negotiations. In December 1988, Gorbachev delivered what he called a….

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Months after Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush signed the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, it seemed that extensive nuclear disarmament between the United States and soon-to-be former Soviet Union was becoming a reality. in this internal document, the Central Intelligence Agency examined the feasibility Gorbachev's proposals, their potential consequences, and….

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In the final months of his presidency, shortly before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union, George H. W. Bush instructed the leaders of the US intelligence community to completely reevaluate their raison d'être. Most American intelligence agencies, he pointed out, were conceived in the attitudes and priorities of the Cold War. Therefore, at Cold War's end, he argued, they were….

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In the spring and summer of 1989, Chinese protestors occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing in order to achieve some political concessions from the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev continued to follow along their path of political reforms with glasnost' (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). In September 1989, Prime….

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Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a founder of Solidarity, who became Poland’s first noncommunist prime minister in forty years, visited Washington for three days of meetings in March 1990 as European and American diplomats were engrossed in negotiations to devise a plan for German reunification that would be acceptable to all nations involved. The Polish government feared that a powerful reunited Germany….

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In May 1989, Hungary began to dismember the barbed wire fences and mines surrounding its border with Austria, prompting the largest exodus of East Germans since August 1961 when East Germany constructed the Berlin Wall to stop the flow of emigrants to the West. Tensions during the summer of 1989 between East and West Germany were at their highest level since 1961, as fleeing East Germans sought….

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