[Source: Notes of Anatoly Chernyaev, Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation, f. 2, op. 2. Translated by Vladislav Zubok. (National Security Archive).]

***

DOCUMENT No. 6

Soviet Record9% of Conversation between M. S. Gorbachev and the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), Egon Krenz, 1 November 1989

Gorbachev: The Soviet people are very interested in everything that is going on now in the GDR. We hope to get the most recent information from you, although, of course, we know a lot. The situation in the GDR, judging by everything we see, is moving at an increasing speed. Is there a danger of getting left behind the reforms? Remember, we said in Berlin" that to be behind is always to lose. We know that from our own experience.

[...] I cannot tell you that we have already "broken in the horse of perestroika," which turned out to be quite restless. In any case, we have not completely tamed it yet. Sometimes it even tries to throw the rider off. But we have gained very valuable experience.

Krenz: [...] At the Politburo we came to the conclusion that the crisis has not emerged [just] in the last several months. Many problems have accumulated over the years.

But the main mistake was probably that we did not make serious conclusions based on the new processes of social development, which began in the Soviet Union, other socialist countries, and which were ripe in the GDR itself. Because if you have the most important ally, you have to understand and share its problems and hardships. One cannot declare friendship in words, and at the same time stay on the sidelines when your ally is trying to deal with its difficult problems. People who are used to thinking of us as close allies felt that suddenly we have lost our unity with the Soviet Union, and that we ourselves erected this barrier.

Gorbachev: From the political point of view, the situation is clear, but from a simply human standpoint-[it is] dramatic. I was also concerned about this. In general, I had good relations with Honecker, but it seemed recently as if he lost his vision. If he had been willing to make the necessary changes in policy on his own initiative 2 or 3 years ago, everything would have been different now. But apparently, he had undergone some kind of a shift, he ceased to see real processes in the world and in his own country. It was a personal drama, but because Honecker occupied a very high position, it grew into a political drama.

Krenz: Yes, you are right, it is a drama, and for me too, because Honecker brought me up, he was my political

mentor.

Gorbachev: Some people now speculate about that, but I think you should not react to that.

Krenz: For Honecker the turn probably occurred exactly in 1985, when you were elected General Secretary of the CC CPSU. In you he saw a threat to his authority, because he considered himself the most dynamic political leader. He lost all touch with reality, and did not rely on the politburo collective. [SED CC Secretary for Economics Günter] Mittag and [SED CC Secretary for Ideology and Propaganda Joachim] Hermann did him a very bad service in this respect. The first as a strategist, and the second as an executive.

[...] Gorbachev: This is a familiar picture. Some time ago, when I already was a Politburo member, I practically did not know our budget. Once we were working with [Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and Politburo member] Nikolai Ryzhkov on some request of [former KGB chief and General Secretary Yuri V.] Andropov's having to do with budgetary issues, and we, naturally, decided that we should learn about them. But Andropov said: Do not get in there, it is not your business. Now we know why he said so. It was not a budget, but hell knows what.

[...] Gorbachev: We knew about your situation, about your economic and financial ties with the FRG, and we understood how it all could turn out. For our part, we were carrying out our obligations to the GDR, including those on oil deliveries, even though some of it had to be reduced at a certain time. Erich Honecker was not very honest with us about those things. We knew about that, but we exercised reserve and patience, led by the highest political considerations.

Krenz: It is very important to define the division of labor between the GDR and the Soviet Union better. It is one of our main reserves. The situation here is far from ideal. We need to remove the existing barriers. There should be only one criterion-efficiency and mutual benefit.

Gorbachev: The issue of the division of labor stands as a major problem in our country as well. The republics that produce raw materials demand a redistribution of money, because they think that those that produce finished products get too much. They present very harsh conditions, up to the limiting and stopping of deliveries.

By the way, yesterday in the Supreme Soviet one of the deputies [reform economist] Nikolai Shmelev-raised the question about getting the real information about all our foreign economic relations, including the relations with the socialist countries, to the Supreme Soviet.

Krenz: We are prepared to discuss seriously those issues once again with our Soviet comrades.

Gorbachev: I suggested the topic of cooperation to Honecker many times. He was in favor of direct connections, but spoke about cooperation and especially about joint ventures without any enthusiasm. But it is precisely cooperation that had the greatest potential for mutual benefit. You cannot ride on the deliveries of our raw

materials all the time. There are some strict limits here. [...] Gorbachev: Yesterday Alexander N. Yakovlev received [former US National Security Adviser] Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, as you know, has a head with "global brains." And he said: If today the events turned out in such a way that unification of Germany became a reality, it would mean a collapse of many things. I think so far we have held the correct line: stood firmly in favor of the coexistence of two German states, and as a result, came to a wide international recognition of the GDR, achieved the Moscow Treaty, gave a boost to the Helsinki Process. Therefore we should confidently follow this same course. You must know: all serious political figures-[British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher, [French President François] Mitterand, [Italian Prime Minister Giulio] Andreotti, [Polish President Wojciech] Jaruzelski, and even the Americans though their position has recently exhibited some nuances are not looking forward to German unification. Moreover, in today's situation it would probably have an explosive character. The majority of Western leaders do not want to see the dissolution of NATO and of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Serious politicians understand that they are factors of a necessary equilibrium. However, Mitterand feels like he has to mention his sympathy for the idea of the German unification. The Americans are also speaking about such sympathies for the Germans' pull toward the unification. But I think that they do it as a favor to Bonn, and also because to some extent, they are anxious about too much rapprochement between the FRG and the USSR. Therefore, I repeat, the best course of action now is to continue the same line in the German affairs which we have successfully developed so far. By the way, [former FRG Chancellor and SPD leader] Willy Brandt shares this opinion as well. He believes that the GDR is a great victory of socialism, even though he has his own understanding of socialism. A liquidation of the republic, in his opinion, would have been a bust for the Social Democrats. Therefore, I think, we all should start from the following formula: history itself decided that there should be two German states. But of course, you cannot get away from the FRG. The need for human contacts presumes normal relations with the FRG. You should not disrupt your ties with the FRG, although, certainly, they should be kept under control.

I am convinced that we should coordinate our relations with the FRG better, although Honecker tried to evade this necessity. We know about your relations with the FRG, and you know about our relations with it. Why should we try to hide anything from each other! It would make sense to talk about the possibilities of trilateral cooperation between the USSR, the GDR, and the FRG, especially in the economic sphere. [...]

The situation in Hungary and Poland today is such that they have nowhere else to go, as they say, because they have drowned in financial dependence on the West. Today some people criticize us: they say, what is the Soviet Union doing allowing Poland and Hungary to "sail" to

the West[?] But we cannot take Poland on our balance. [Former Polish leader Edward] Gierek accumulated $48 billion dollars of debt. Poland has already paid off $49 billion, and it still owes almost $49 billion. As far as Hungary is concerned, the International Monetary Fund has dictated its harsh ultimatum already under the late Hungarian leader Janós Kádár.

Krenz: This is not our way.

Gorbachev: You need to take this into account in your relationship with the FRG.

[...] Gorbachev: We need to think through all of this, and to find formulas that would allow people to realize their human needs. Otherwise we will be forced to accept all kinds of ultimatums. Maybe we can direct our International Departments and Foreign Ministries to think about possible initiatives together. Clearly, your constructive steps should be accompanied with demands for certain obligations from the other side. Chancellor Helmut Kohl keeps in touch with me and with you. We need to influence him. Once under the pressure of the opposition, he found himself on the horse of nationalism. The right wing starts to present their demands for the unification of Germany to the Soviet Union, and appeals to the US. The logic is simple-all the peoples are united, why do we Germans not have this right?

Krenz: We have already taken a number of steps. First of all, we gave orders to the border troops not to use weapons at the border, except in the cases of direct attacks on the soldiers. Secondly, we adopted a draft of Law on Foreign Travel at the Politburo.98 We will present it for a public discussion, and we plan to pass it in the Volkskammer even before Christmas. [...]

Gorbachev: Kohl was visibly worried when I mentioned the perverse interpretation of some of our agreements with the FRG in my 8 October speech in Berlin. He immediately gave me a telephone call regarding that. Krenz: Yes, he is worried; I noticed it in my conversation with him. He was even forgetting to finish phrases.

Gorbachev: Kohl, it seems, is not a big intellectual, but he enjoys certain popularity in his country, especially among the petit-bourgeois public.

[...] Gorbachev: I was told that he [Honecker] did not adequately understand even our discussions in the Politburo. But we do not have any ill feelings towards him. Had he made the right conclusions two or three years ago, it would have been of major significance for the GDR, and for him personally. In any case, one cannot deny the things your Party and people have achieved in the past. We have a complete mutual understanding about that.

Krenz cordially thanks Gorbachev for the support, openness, and good advice.

[Source: Notes of A.S. Chernyaev, Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation, f. 2, op. 2. Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya (National Security Archive).]

DOCUMENT No. 7

Excerpt from Anatoly Chernyaev's Diary, 10 November 1989

The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the Socialist system is over. Following the [Polish United Socialist Party] PUWP and the [Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party] HSWP Honecker has left. Today we received messages about the "retirement" of [Chinese Communist Party leader] Deng Xiaopeng and [Bulgarian leader Todor] Zhivkov. Only our "best friends" [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro, [Romanian leader Nicolae] Ceausescu, [and North Korean leader] Kim Il Sung are still around— people who hate our guts.

But the main thing is the GDR, the Berlin Wall. For it has to do not only with "socialism" but with the shift in the

world balance of forces. This is the end of Yalta...of the Stalinist legacy and the "defeat of Hitlerite Germany."

That is what Gorbachev has done. And he has indeed turned out to be a great leader. He has sensed the pace of history and helped history to find a natural channel.

[Source: Notes of Anatoly Chernyaev, the Gorbachev Foundation Archive, f. 2, op. 2. Translated by Vladislav Zubok (National Security Archive).]

Vladislav Zubok is a senior fellow at the National Security Archive.

'The author's observation at the conference on the 10th Anniversary of the Polish Roundtable, 7-10 April 1999, organized by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

2 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 575. 3 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998); Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Robert L. Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider's Account of U.S. Policy in Europe, 19891992 (Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

4 See Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994). For useful historiographic data also see Robert V. Daniels, "Was Communism Reformable?" The Nation, Book Review, 3 January 2000.

'Anatoly Chernaev, Shest let s Gorbachevim [Six Years with Gorbachev] (Moskva, Progress-Kultura, 1993);

see also the English edition (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000); Georgy Shakhnazarov, Tsena svobody: Reformatsiya Gorbacheva glazami ego pomoshchnika [The Price of Freedom: Gorbachev's Reformation through the eyes of his assistant] (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994]; Vadim Medvedev, Raspad: Kak on nazreval v ‘mirovoi sisteme sotsializma' [The Breakup: How it brewed in the "world socialist system"] (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994); Alexandr Yakovlev, Muki prochteniya bytiya: perestoika b nadezhdy i real'nosti [The Pains of Coming to Grips with Reality: Perestroika, its expectations and realities] (Moskva: Novvostki, 1991); Eduard Shevardnadze, Moi vybor v zashchitu demokratii i svobody [My choice to defend democracy and freedom] (Moskva: Novosti, 1991).

"See Valery Boldin, Collapse of the Pedestal: Details for M.S. Gorbachev's Portrait (Moscow: Republic, 1995) and its English-language version Ten Years that Shook the World. The Gorbachev Era as Witnessed by His Chief of Staff (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Vladimir Kryuchkov, A Personal File (Moscow: Olympus, 1997); Leonid V. Shebarshin, Zapiski nachalnika razvedki (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994); Nikolai S. Leonov, Likholetie (Moscow: Terra, 1997); Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen (München: Droemer-Knaur, 1993) and his Die Perestroika und der Zerfall der Sowjetunion, Hamburger Beiträge zur Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik, Heft 77 (Hamburg, April 1993); Juli Kwitzinskij, Vor dem Sturm: Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten [On the eve of the storm: memoirs of a diplomat] (Berlin: Siedler, 1993); Vitalii Vorotnikov, A bylo eto tak: iz dnevnika chlena Politbiuro TsK KPSS [As it happened: From the diary of a member of the CC CPSU Politburo] (Moskva: Soviet veteranov knigoizdaniya SI-MAR, 1995)

'Gleb Pavlovsky, "How They Destroyed the USSR," Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 14 November 1996, p. 5; for a critique of this thesis of "primitivism" see Georgi Mirsky, Ibid, 22 November 1996.

8S.F. Akhromeev, G.M. Kornienko, Through the Eyes of a Marshal and a Diplomat: A Critical View of Foreign Policy of the USSR before and after 1985 (Moskva: Mezhdnarodniie otnosheniia, 1992), pp. 314-315; see also the criticism of Gorbachev and Shevardnadze's foreign policy in the last chapter of Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986) (New York: Time Books, 1995) and Anatoly Gromyko, Andrei Gromyko v Labirintakh Kremlia: Vospominania i razmishlenia yina [Andrey Gromyko in the labyrinth of the Kremlin: His Son's Recollections and Reflections] (Moskva: IPO "Avtor," 1997); Letter from Oleg Baklanov, Valentin Varennikov, Vladimir Kryuchkov and Nikolai Lenov to Director of Watson Institute of Brown University, Thomas Bierstecker, April 1998, in which they declined to participate in a conference on the end of the Cold War, claiming that it still "continues."

'Quoted Richard Ned Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism," Symposium. The End of the Cold War and Theories of International Relations, International Organization, 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994); John Lewis Gaddis, "International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War," International Security, vol. 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93); William C. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security, 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 91129; Ted Hopf, "Getting the End of the Cold War Wrong," International Security, 18, no 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 202-208; Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Did "Peace Through Strength' End the Cold War? Lessons from INF," International Security, 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 162-188.

10 Jacques Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989; The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 252.

11 See in particular "The End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989: 'New Thinking' and New Evidence." Transcript of the Proceedings of the Musgrove Conference of the Openness in Russia and Eastern Europe Project, Musgrove, St. Simon's Island, Georgia, 1-3 May 1998, prepared by Svetlana Savranskaya, and a collection of documents from the Gorbachev Foundation and other sources prepared for this conference by Vladislav Zubok and Thomas Blanton. The documents and the transcript are being prepared for publication.

12 "The End of the Cold War in Europe: 1989," Transcript, p. 14.

13 Recollections of Sergei Tarasenko at Musgrove, Transcript, pp. 19-20.

14 Nigel Gould-Davis, “Rethinking the Role of Ideology in International Politics during the Cold War," Journal of Cold War Studies, 1, vol. 1 (Winter 1999), p. 104; Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

15 I rely here on excellent research on the origins of "new thinking" by Robert D. English. See also Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia UP, 2000).

16 Roald Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist: My Adventures in Nuclear Fusion and Space from Stalin to Star Wars (New York: John Wiley, 1994), pp. 268-269. 17 This is based on the analysis of Gorbachev's conversations with foreign leaders. Transcripts of these conversations are available in the Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow. For the impact of Thatcher's visit on Gorbachev, see Chernyaev's Notes from the Politburo Meeting, 2 April 1987, Gorbachev Foundation Archive, f. 2, op. 1 [Editor's Note: see also statement made by David Wolff at the 1993 Musgrove Conference (footnote 11)].

18M.S. Gorbachev, Zhizn i reformi [Life and Reforms] (Moskva: Novosti, 1995), pp. 311-320; Gorbachev emphasized this point to this author at a meeting in Moscow at the Gorbachev Foundation on 20 February

1996.

19 Musgrove meeting, Transcript, p. 39.

20 Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 52-59.

21 Chernyaev made this point at Musgrove, Transcript, p. 105. 22 See a useful treatment of this case by Mark Kramer, "The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and Upheavals in East-Central Europe: Internal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making (Part 1)," The Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999), pp. 3-55.

23 Shakhnazarov at Musgrove, Transcript, p. 42; also Chernayev, My Six Years with Gorbachev, pp. 35-36. 24 Shakhnazarov at Musgrove, Transcript, p. 42. 25 Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 59-65. 26 Ibid., pp. 66-67.

27 Gorbachev on Western Europe at the Politburo, 23 and 26 February 1987, Chernyaev's notes; also Dobrynin on Gorbachev's ideas of trying "to oust the maximum possible number American troops from Western Europe," In Confidence, p. 570 and Sugubo doveritelno, p. 607. 28 Chernyaev's Minutes of the Defense Council meeting, 8 May, 1987, Gorbachev Foundation Archive.

29 See Chernyaev, Shest let s Gorbachevim, pp. 131141; Grinevsky about "naivete" of this policy at the conference "Understanding the End of the Cold War," Brown University, May 1998.

30 Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, p. 66.

31 In early March 1988 the newspaper Soviet Russia published a feature article by "a professor from Leningrad," Nina Andreeva, under the title "I cannot forsake my principles." It quickly became a manifesto of the forces that opposed the reforms. Some Politburo members, including Yegor K. Ligachev, encouraged this process. Gorbachev was then on a trip abroad, but when he returned, he addressed the issue at the Politburo and used the "Andreeva affair" as an occasion to rout ideologically conservative forces.

32 Anatoly Chernyaev's notes from the Politburo Meeting, 24-25 March 1988, Gorbachev Foundation Archive, f. 2, op. 1.

33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Yacheslav Dashichev, "East-West: The Search for New Relationships: On the Priorities of the Foreign Policy of the Soviet State," Literaturnaya gazeta, 18 May 1988; see also Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994), pp. 350-351.

37 For an explanation of the revolutionary paradigm, see Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War. 38 Entry for 28 October 1988 in Anatoly Chernyaev, [1991: The Diary of an Assistant to the President of the USSR] (Moscow: TERRA, 1997), pp. 11-12.

39 Entry for 28 October 1988 in Chernyaev, 1991: The Diary, pp. 11-12.

40 Chernyaev's Notes, 31 October 1988, Gorbachev Foundation Archive; also see Pavel Palazchenko, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 103-104.

41 Chernyaev, Shest let s Gorbachevim, pp. 255-257; William Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Army, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 141-144.

42 Record of the Politburo Meeting, 27-28 December 1988, Istochnik, 5-6, 1993; an even more radical version is in Chernyaev, Shest let s Gorbachevym, pp. 255-256.

43 See Akhromeyev's opinion cited above. Also Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov in an interview with Michael McFaul in the summer of 1992, the Hoover Institution's Oral History Project, cited in Wolforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," p. 113. The figure of 70% was mentioned by Chernyaev and Shakhnazarov without a source reference during the Brown University conference.

44 See Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp 252-55 45 Shakhnazarov at the conference in Musgrove, Musgrove Transcript, p. 64. Unfortunately, no contemporaneous documentation to corroborate his words has so far emerged.

46 Dashichev, "Nekotorye aspekty ‘germanskoi problemy', 17 November 1987." Dashichev presented a copy to Jaques Lévesque; this document is now on file at the National Security Archive; also see Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 69-71.

47 Musgrove, Transcript, p. 64.

48 Anatoly Gromyko, Andrei Gromyko, pp. 182, 184. 49 Memo of the International Department of the Central Committee, "On the Strategy of Relations with European Socialist Countries," February 1989, and Memo from the Institute of World Socialist System (Bogomolov), February 1989. Jacques Lévesque obtained both documents from private possession and donated them to the National Security Archive, Washington, DC. They were translated for the Musgrove conference. For the analysis of the Soviet discussion on about the future of Eastern Europe see Lévesque's, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 68-90.

50 Interview in Die Presse, April 1988; see Charles Gati, The Bloc That Failed: Soviet-East European Relations in Transition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 76-77, and Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 68–74, and his contribution in this CWIHP Bulletin issue.

51 On the Suslov commission and its conclusions in December 1980 see Vojtech Mastny, "The Soviet NonInvasion of Poland in 1980/81 and the End of the Cold War." CWIHP Working Paper No. 23, (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998); see also Mark Kramer, Secret Deliberations During the Polish Crisis, 1980-81, Special Working Paper no. 1 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1999).

52 Musgrove, Transcript, p. 87.

53 Georgi Shakhnazarov, Tsenasvobodi. Reformatsiia Gorbacheva glazami iego pomoshnika [The Price of

Freedom. Gorbachev's reformation through the eyes of his assistant] (Moskva: Rossika-Zeus, 1993), p. 369.

54 Shakhnazarov's explanation at Musgrove, Transcript, p. 87; also see changing ratio of documents on foreign and domestic problems in Shakhnazarov's memoirs, Tsena svobodi, pp. 384 B 407.

55 Musgrove, Transcript, p. 88.

56 Anatoly Chernyaev, 1991: Dnevnik pomoschnika prezidenta, pp. 15-16.

57 Musgrove, Transcript, p. 58.

58 Chernyaev's Notes from the Politburo meeting, 10 March 1989, Gorbachev Foundation Archive, f. 2, op. 1. 59 Musgrove, Transcript, p. 79.

60 Statements by Chernyaev, Shakhnazarov and Tarasenko at the Brown University conference and the conference at Musgrove (the author's notes).

61 Chernyaev's and Medvedev's notes at the Politburo, 11 May 1989. Discussion of the memorandum of six Politburo members on the situation in the Baltic Republics, Gorbachev Foundation Archive, f. 4, op. 1 and f. 2, op. 3; published in The Union Could Have Been Preserved: The White Book: Documents and Facts about Policy of M.S. Gorbachev to Reform and Preserve the Multi-National State (Moscow: April Publishers, 1995), pp. 52, 55.

62 Anatoly Chernyaev, 1991: Dnevnik pomoschnika prezidente, pp. 15-16. 64 On this neglect see also Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, p. 90.

65 Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989, pp. 83, 178-181, 255. I disagree with Lévesque's assertion that Gorbachev was misinformed about the seriousness of the brewing crisis in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, Soviet ambassadors and intelligence chiefs in Eastern European capitals, as well as some "roaming" Soviet ambassadors (e.g., Vadim Zagladin, who traveled to Czechoslovakia in July 1989), warned Moscow repeatedly of the grave situation. At the same time, few could predict what direction and character the revolutions in Eastern Europe would take.

66 Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 383-384; Statements by Chernyaev and Shakhnazarov at the conference "The end of the Cold War in Europe, 1989: New Thinking and New Evidence," Musgrove, St. Simon's Island, Georgia, 1-3 May 1998, author's notes.

67 Interview with Georgi Kornienko, 10 January 1995, Moscow; interviews with Vladimir Kryuchkov, 13 October 1998, Moscow; with Valery Boldin, 24 February 1999, Moscow (courtesy of Oleg Skvortsov, The Oral History Project on the End of the Cold War, The Institute for General History, Russian Academy of Science).

68 Record of conversation between M.S. Gorbachev and the member of the CC of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary, Miklos Nemeth, 23 March 1989, Chernyaev's notes, Gorbachev Foundation Archive. 69 Record of conversation between Gorbachev and