Waving expansively at the snow-topped Caucasus Mountains, Mikhail Gorbachev observed with a grin that he and Chancellor Helmut Kohl were already in the foothills and wanted "to develop our relations further upward." After two days of talks, their cordiality escalated to outright chumminess. They emerged from a resort lodge in sweaters and open-necked shirts to stroll bantering through the fields and flowers of the Russian countryside. At the resort spa of Zheleznovodsk, they jubilantly announced that they had swept aside the last significant obstacles to uniting Germany by the end of the year. Yes, Gorbachev said, a unified Germany could join NATO if it liked. And yes, said Kohl, Germany would agree to ways to allay Moscow's fears about the future.
Though the four World War II victors -- the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain and France -- must still formally sign off on unification this fall, the Zheleznovodsk agreement caps nine months of dizzying change in Europe and signals the beginning of a fresh era. As Gorbachev put it, "We are leaving one epoch in international relations and entering another." Added Kohl: "The future has begun."
German unification had been discussed at a string of minor and major summits over the past few months, including the NATO meeting in London three weeks ago that declared the Soviet Union was no longer an adversary, thus paving the way for Gorbachev to drop his reluctance to let a united Germany join the alliance. Nonetheless, the swiftness and scope of last week's pact stunned and slightly discomfited the Western allies. George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, strong supporters of Kohl and his unity efforts, were embarrassed at being taken unawares. Baker's flustered response: "This is a delightful surprise to the extent that it's a surprise, and it's only a surprise to the extent that we anticipated." Bush pointed out that he had long advocated a unified Germany in NATO, "the sooner the better," but his response bore the air of a man slightly defensive about being left out of such a historic photo op.
It is a measure of the skillful diplomat Kohl, 60, has become that he quickly praised Bush for all his efforts, saying, "Our American friends can rely on it that we are going this way in close cooperation and partnership with them." The German leader has always been the consummate local pol, more at ease hoisting a glass in the local wine cellar than sitting in chandeliered rooms stiffly exchanging diplomatic niceties with foreign leaders. But over the past year, as Kohl realized that he had the historic opportunity to bring his country together again, he rose to the challenge better than many people -- Germans and non-Germans alike -- expected.
Kohl accomplished his diplomatic feats by relying on the same skills that have put him on warm terms with a number of world leaders. He started out badly with Gorbachev in 1986, comparing the Soviet leader's public relations talents with those of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. When Kohl met with Gorbachev in Moscow last February, the two were civil to each other, nothing more. This time Kohl asked if part of his trip could be spent in Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol and the nearby spas, where the two leaders might relax and get to know each other.