THE NEW GERMANY 449emphasized that the two Germanies could decide to come together
regardless of Soviet wishes; short of a war, Moscow would be unable to
do anything to prevent reunification. Kohl could tell them to ‘go to the
Devil’ – and then there would be no chance of financial aid.^47
On 17 July Bush called Kohl to hear about what had happened in
Arkhyz. Kohl was ecstatic about Gorbachëv: ‘He has burnt all his
bridges behind him.’^48 He assured Bush that he had warned Gorbachëv
that there would be no more money unless the USSR deepened its
economic reform; he did not want to appear as having offered a blank
cheque to Moscow.^49 On the same day, Bush called Gorbachëv to say
that the Houston G7 summit was unanimously in favour of assisting
the USSR.^50 Gorbachëv knew this did not amount to a row of beans.
He argued against those Americans who thought that the provision of
aid would have the effect of slowing down the USSR’s advance towards
becoming a market economy. But he kept his dignity and begged for
nothing.^51
Gorbachëv worried how Soviet people might react to the deci-
sions. The changes in Europe were already enormous, but the projected
answer to the German question would dwarf all of them. Generations
of Soviet people had been brought up since 1945 to assume that the
territorial settlement after the Third Reich’s defeat was immutable.
Even reformers were shaken about the prospect; Adamishin in the
Foreign Affairs Ministry recorded that it seemed like ‘the end of the
world’.^52 The same Adamishin later accused Gorbachëv of making
‘a real mess’ and surrendering the German Democratic Republic too
cheaply.^53 The DM5 billion grant was a small price for Kohl to pay.
Yakovlev agreed that greater forethought should have been exercised,
if only to avoid the humiliation of Soviet armed forces.^54 Primakov
added that an elementary mistake had occurred when Gorbachëv
allowed his understanding with Kohl to remain in oral form.^55 If Gor-
bachëv had been more professional about diplomacy, he would have
insisted on getting everything written down in plain language. Nobody
in Moscow thought that the Arkhyz encounter had seen Gorbachëv at
his sharpest.
There was nothing in the Arkhyz understandings about the new
Germany’s eastern neighbours. Earlier in the year, Gorbachëv thought
he had Baker’s word that NATO would not expand eastward. Baker
had indeed talked about America’s ‘considerations’ on the matter. But
nothing had been signed and sealed. Gorbachëv failed to corner
Kohl about this in Arkhyz or later to get the Americans to include a