In 1987, President Reagan went to Berlin and addressed the leader of the Soviet Union: “Mr. Gorbachev,” he said, “Tear down this
wall.” Two years later, after Gorbachev had withdrawn Soviet troops from East Germany, Berliners tore down the wall themselves.814 Chapter 30 Running on Empty, 1975–1991
European satellites for similar liberalization. Gorbachev
responded by announcing that the Soviet Union would
not use force to keep communist governments in
power in these nations. Swiftly the people of Poland,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, East
Germany, and the Baltics did away with the repressive
regimes that had ruled them throughout the postwar
era. Except in Romania, where the dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu was executed, all these fundamental changes
were carried out peacefully.
Almost overnight the international political cli-
mate changed. Soviet-style communism had been dis-
credited. The Soviet bloc was no longer a force. A
Soviet attack anywhere was almost unthinkable. The
Cold War was over.
President Bush profited from these developments
immensely. He expressed moral support for the new
governments (and in some cases provided modest
financial assistance) but he refrained from embarrass-
ing the Soviets. At a summit meeting in Washington
in June 1990 Bush and Gorbachev signed agreements
reducing American and Russian stockpiles of long-
range nuclear missiles by 30 percent and eliminating
chemical weapons.
In 1989 President Bush sent troops to Panama to
overthrow General Manuel Noriega, who had refused
to yield power when his figurehead presidential candi-
date lost a national election. Noriega was under
indictment in the United States for drug trafficking.
After temporarily seeking refuge in the Vatican
embassy in Panama, he surrendered to the American
forces and was taken to the United States, where he
was tried, convicted, and imprisoned.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, nationalist and
anticommunist groups demanded more local con-
trol of their affairs. President Gorbachev, who
opposed this breakup, sought compromise, backing
a draft treaty that would increase local autonomy
and further privatize the Soviet economy. In
August, however, before this treaty could be rati-
fied, hard-line communists attempted a coup. They
arrested Gorbachev, who was vacationing in the
Crimea, and ordered tanks into Moscow. But Boris
Yeltsin, the anticommunist president of the Russian
Republic, defied the rebels and roused the people of
Moscow. The coup swiftly collapsed. Its leaders
were arrested, the communist party was officially
disbanded, and the Soviet Union itself was replaced
by a federation of states, of which Russia, led by
Yeltsin, was the most important. Gorbachev, who
had begun the process of liberation, found himself
without a job.