U.S., Canada played roles as wall fell

As Germany and the world celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Canadians and Americans can themselves be proud of the role their own nations jointly played in the historic events that are being marked across the Atlantic.

Through a unique and trusting partnership between a Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, and an American president, George H.W. Bush, our nations had a quiet role in this crucial chapter in the Cold War's end. With skill and sensitivity these two men navigated through a maze of tensions and passions that could have plunged the world into crisis at any minute as the crumbling USSR looked on in fear of a Germany reunited.

Some at the time even wondered why these two North Americans wanted any role at all as the new Europe came into being. Mulroney, for example, would have none of that kind of talk.

"We are not renting our seat in Europe," Mulroney told Bush in one telephone conversation at the time. "If people want to know how Canada paid for its seat in Europe (along with the U.S.) they should check out the graves in Belgium and France."

As for Bush, his leadership talents were best displayed 20 years ago this past week as he personally watched the Wall fall from the White House. Rather than strut and pour verbal salt into wounded Soviet pride as the world celebrated, he did something rare for a politician: He kept his rhetorical powder dry. In that most political of nations, the United States, Bush came under harsh criticism for not proclaiming a triumphant American and Western victory.

Hardliners in his own party fumed. Today Bush is honored before history for his actions in November of 1989.

"While his (Bush's) choice to speak only ceremonially on the German question raised objections from some," Professor William Harrow of Texas Tech University wrote in "The Rhetorical Presidency of George H.W. Bush," a book that is often critical of the former president, "Bush's lack of a policy-making speech ultimately helped to make sure that Germany was not pulled from the path of democracy. This deliberate silence helped coordinate the efforts of U.S. allies and foes alike, and ultimately proved the correct choice in Bush's rhetorical management of the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventual German reunification. The Cold War ended without its final battle having to be fought."

Instead of working to please those on his right flank, Bush got on the telephone to Mulroney. On Nov. 9, 1989, Canada's prime minister was in the midst of final preparations for a lengthy trip to Mikhail Gorbachev's Moscow and the wider USSR. It would turn out that he would be the first Western leader to visit Gorbachev in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Not a man to mince words, Bush asked Mulroney to pass on a short and simple message to Gorbachev. "Tell him, Brian, I will not posture on the Wall," he said.

As the world was to find out less than two years later when Gorbachev faced a coup attempt, Moscow had hardliners to manage as well. They too had to be considered by the West and Gorbachev himself as the world changed that fall.

At Bush's request, Mulroney traveled to Washington after his return from talks with Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders to brief the president and the U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser. Bush and his team were themselves only days away from their first summit meeting, off Malta, with the Soviet president.

"I am under no illusion, but Gorbachev would have to be one hell of an actor if he was taking me in," Mulroney told Bush. "He is for real, is there for the long haul, and thinks you are too. He is not looking for a handout but he is looking for a hand up."

Mulroney later wrote that he told Bush and his team that he had detected "an overwhelming hatred among the Soviets for the thought of German reunification, and how Gorbachev had likened it to eating 'unripened fruit.'"

In Ottawa in early 1990, with the able assistance of Canadian Foreign Minister Joe Clark, U.S. Secretary of State Jim Baker along with his German and Soviet counterparts devised the "Two-plus-Four" formula for talks surrounding German reunification with these sensitivities in mind. This meant the two Germanys would discuss their own internal issues over uniting while the four powers from the Second World War — which of course included the USSR — could in turn negotiate the external issues with the Germanys at the same time.

Late in 1993, after both Bush and Mulroney had left office, the man at the center of it all, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany, took time in a speech in Germany to honor three foreign leaders who he said had helped bring the united country he led together.

"There was George Bush, who did not hesitate for one minute when it came to German unity," he said. "There was Brian Mulroney. And there was Mikhail Gorbachev."

This is a legacy of which all Canadians and Americans should be proud.

James McGrath of Houston, Texas, is George H.W. Bush's veteran spokesperson and Arthur Milnes of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, is Brian Mulroney's "Memoirs" research assistant. They are co-editors of "Age of the Offered Hand: The Cross Border Leadership Between President George H.W. Bush and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, A Documentary History," published this year by McGill-Queen's University Press.