88 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
claimed the right to compel compliance from foreign companies as
well as American ones. This was bound to disrupt the deal recently
signed between Schmidt and Brezhnev for a pipeline that would
deliver gas to West Germany. Even Thatcher was annoyed with the
American move. A Scottish firm was complaining that the White
House was interfering with its contractual freedom, and the Prime
Minister exclaimed in public: ‘I feel I have been particularly wounded
by a friend.’^9
West Germany’s natural gas came though increasingly from the
USSR, and the Americans and other NATO governments trembled at
the thought that this might weaken its resolve to stand by its treaty
obligations. Bonn’s reluctance to jettison the chance to help with the
modernization of Soviet petrochemical facilities added to Washing-
ton’s concerns. Both Schmidt and his successor Kohl, moreover, were
known to be facilitating the provision of financial assistance to
Honecker in return for concessions on exit visas from East Germany.
Kohl at the same time paid the Romanian authorities for citizens of
German ethnicity to gain permission to emigrate. The entanglement
with Eastern Europe intensified. The worry for other NATO countries
was that West Germany might fail to support American policy in
moments of political emergency in Eastern Europe. Kohl understood
this and showed a greater eagerness for the installation of Pershing-2s
and cruise missiles than Schmidt had done. He evidently had no
intention of becoming a pawn in the USSR’s game if he could help it.
But he was no puppet of the Americans either, and his known scepti-
cism about the Strategic Defense Initiative added to the American
administration’s caution in the way it handled him.
Italy was another ally that gave some concern to the Americans. Its
communist party was constantly a serious competitor at national
elections and held power in several big northern cities. Its succes-
sive cabinets, usually headed by Christian Democrats, wavered about
strategy. One of the Christian Democratic factions was led by Aldo
Moro, who favoured some kind of political understanding with the
communists. Moro was kidnapped and murdered in 1978 by the Red
Brigades, the far-left terrorist group which accused the Italian Com-
munist Party of betraying fundamental principles of Marxism. The
death of Moro had the effect of weakening the trend among Christian
Democrats to do any kind of electoral deal with communists, but
the American administration continued to worry about the reliability
of Italy as an ally. The automotive company Fiat had built a big car