What Gorbachev and Thatcher Thought
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History looks far less heroic when you find out how it happens. The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of those monumental events that heralded the collapse of communism, the end of the Cold War and the reunification not only of Germany but of a Europe split for 40 years by Soviet tanks.
As we look back 20 years, we think of it as an event planned, plotted and controlled by statesmen, generals and diplomats. In fact, it was a spontaneous and chaotic reaction to events that no one — in the Stasi headquarters, in Western governments or in the Kremlin — foresaw or knew how to handle.
