CALLS TO WESTERN EUROPE 309Kohl, and had rarely bothered herself with Andreotti. Rodric
Braithwaite talked to her before taking up his appointment as UK
Ambassador to Moscow: ‘She sees a parallel between herself and Gor-
bachëv. The relationship, she thinks, is close. “If Dukakis wins the
election, Gorbachëv will be my only friend left.”’^42
Gorbachëv’s diplomatic moves hardly lifted her gloom. The pivot
of international relations in Western Europe was moving from London
to Bonn. Shevardnadze undertook an exploratory visit in January
- He and the West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Gen-
scher quickly agreed that Moscow and Bonn should increase their
cooperation. Shevardnadze stressed that he was not seeking to prise
the West Germans away from America; he claimed that Soviet foreign
policy was now founded on ‘general human interests’. He was frank in
acknowledging that the USSR was facing economic difficulties. Bold-
ness, he said, was required in international relations. While hoping for
an improvement in diplomacy and trade with West Germany, he
lamented the continuation of the CoCom embargo system on techno-
logical transfer – he commented even shoemaking machinery came
under a ban. He called on the West Germans to recognize the benefits
that would accrue from increased commerce with Moscow. Genscher
countered that the USSR itself should show greater flexibility. He had
said the same to Gorbachëv without getting a reply after lamenting
about how the Kremlin operated its own version of CoCom through
Comecon and restricted the transfer of its own technology. He urged
Shevardnadze to consider collaboration between the European Eco-
nomic Community and Comecon over space exploration.^43
Whereas Genscher was fairly open-minded about Gorbachëv,
Kohl still regarded him with what he called sceptical sympathy. He
wanted more action and less blether – he saw Gorbachëv as simply
aiming at a more efficient form of communism.^44
But he began to see the sense in cutting Gorbachëv some slack.
When telling Shevardnadze that the USSR was ‘our most important
neighbour to the east’, he offered the opinion: ‘The experience of his-
tory teaches that when Russia and Germany collaborate, peace reigns
in Europe.’ This irked Shevardnadze, who reminded him of the conse-
quences of collaboration between Stalin and Hitler. But Shevardnadze
did not want to spoil the occasion and added: ‘Hitlers come and go but
the German people remains.’ Kohl explained a little about himself: ‘We
Germans can’t talk about disarmament theoretically. Do you know
that I’m a refugee? My brother and I are refugees. He was seventeen