REDRAWING THE MAP OF EUROPE 431vakia, Poland. What, did the intelligence people really not keep
you informed? And was there no awareness that sooner or later we’d
have to leave? So why didn’t you prepare for departure?’^25 Gorbachëv
sensed danger and took the precaution of involving the rest of the
political leadership in the process of withdrawal. The vote of each
Politburo member was recorded.^26 In February 1990 the Soviet author-
ities agreed to withdraw their forces from Hungary and Czechoslovakia
by July 1991.^27
On 5 February, at the Central Committee plenum, there was a
barrage of criticism. Akhromeev made an angry speech.^28 Other lead-
ing grumblers about official policy – Baklanov, Zaikov and Moiseev
- were denied the floor. Baklanov had intended to deplore the absence
of criticism of US military intervention in Panama. He lamented the
treatment of Honecker, who seemed likely to be summonsed to court
in the new Germany.^29 Zaikov had hoped to tell the Central Commit-
tee: ‘Our sacred duty is to strengthen the Armed Forces, show care for
the Army and Navy and for the people who had dedicated their lives
to the Motherland’s defence.’ He wanted to call it a crime to discredit
the men on active military service.^30 Moiseev had intended to be tren-
chant about the inattentiveness to the armed forces.^31 It was no
accident that people from the military-industrial complex were the
first to make an assault on Gorbachëv’s position. Soviet troops were
scurrying back home under a hail of obloquy in the countries where
they had been garrisoned. A sense of affront was spreading in the
USSR. Many political and military leaders shared these feelings. They
had gone along with Gorbachëv and began to regret the consequences.
As yet, they lacked a leader for their dissent, but there was no surety
that they would always be quiet and inactive.^32
Bush and Gorbachëv had intended to hold another summit in
February 1990, and Baker wrote to Shevardnadze about the need to
give practical shape to the understandings reached at Malta.^33 Arms
control was at the forefront of American concerns. The Americans
soon recognized that the growing uncertainties in Eastern Europe had
to rise to the top of their agenda. The German question towered over
everything. Baker flew to Moscow for preparatory discussions.
On 9 February he told Shevardnadze why America disliked the
Soviet demand for the new Germany to withdraw from both NATO
and the Warsaw Pact and adopt a neutral status. The Germans, he
emphasized, had to be deflected from acquiring their own nuclear
weapons.^34 He pushed for agreements on nuclear and conventional