Who were those two men quaffing a friendly beer together in the Bundestag cafeteria? They were, as it happened, none other than West Germany's two foremost political rivals. Only the week before, Opposition Leader Rainer Barzel had tried and failed by a bare margin of two votes to overthrow Chancellor Willy Brandt. But over beer and in countless hurried conferences, the two men were seeking to find a mutual way out of a severe parliamentary crisis that threatened to have grave repercussions far beyond the borders of the Federal Republic.
The crisis...
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