Word: westing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Moisi countered by arguing that for the West, a measure of democracy in the Soviet Union was "a guarantee against the return of Soviet imperialism." He told Migranyan, "You are calling on the West to help you, but there will be linkage between the amount of help you will receive and the image you transmit of yourselves." Moisi's message: Democracy pays, even if it poses problems for Eastern Europe's reformers. Conceded Migranyan: "This is the key problem for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union...
...volatile issue of German reunification, West Germany's Heinrich Vogel, director of the Cologne-based Federal Institute for East European and International Studies, suggested that West German politicians and the press were exploiting the subject partly because it was bound to be a major issue in West Germany's parliamentary elections next year. Who knew what East Germans really thought about reunification, Vogel asked. "There has been no vote. There are no reliable polls. Let us try to be less hysterical about this subject, less dramatic." Vogel complained of an atmosphere of "suspicion, growing, creeping, seeping in and destroying...
Vogel was skeptical that a majority of East and West Germans would insist on reunification when the realities sank in: East Germans might reject the bitter side of capitalism, competition and unemployment. West Germans, already fearful of an immigrant invasion from the East, might well shrink from the cost and inconvenience of accommodating their poorer brethren...
Migranyan noted Moscow's persistent rejection of reunification. "The Soviet Union is not yet ready to accept any form of reunification," he declared. "It would have a major destabilizing effect." Even a loose East-West German confederation, he said, would create internal problems for Gorbachev and tensions with the West. Migranyan suggested that the Soviet Union, the U.S., France and Britain formally agree to prevent any joining of the Germanys in the near future. Grunwald demurred, pointing out that the U.S. could never accept such a formal accord because of Washington's official commitment to the goal of reunification. Moreover...
...ashes of NATO." One solution, he suggested, was to make the transformation of the East bloc a "European task. If there is concern about the re-emergence of a German superpower, the best of all ways to get a lever on it would be to invest in a West European relief and aid operation in East Germany and create a European orientation to that process...