"NO EXTENSION OF NATO'S JURISDICTION FOR FORCES OF NATO ONE INCH TO THE EAST of a unified Germany" - US Secretary of State Baker to Gorbachev, 1990

Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.

Date Feb 9, 1990

"The most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev:

“The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say,

“We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”

Later in the conversation, Baker poses the same position as a question, “would you prefer a united Germany outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?”

The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote."

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16116-document-05-memorandum-conversation-between

📱 ROBINMG