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Photograph of Gorbachev-Bush summit at Malta, 1989

End of the Cold War

Soviet soldier taking a photograph of another soldier in Red Square, Moscow, 1959

Eastern Europe

Soviet Union

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1986

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich

1931- 2022

The Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik) in Berlin

Eastern Europe

East Germany

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Eastern Europe

Poland

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Eastern Europe

Czechoslovakia

Aerial view of National Mall

North America

United States

"The Bundeshaus (Federal Building) in Bonn, West Germany, May 1961. "

Western Europe

West Germany

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Chernyaev, A. S.

-

Official portrait for President George H.W. Bush, 1989.

Bush, George H.W.

1924- 2018

German Reunification

Photograph of Helmut Kohl, 1982.

Kohl, Helmut

1930- 2017

Berlin Wall between Mitte and Kreuzberg

Berlin Wall

Nicolae Ceausescu, 1974

Ceaușescu, Nicolae

1918- 1989

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Walesa, Lech

1943-

China, 1989

North Atlantic Council Meeting, Lisbon, June 1985

Archivio Andreotti's NATO Series

President Ronald Reagan, Vice-President Bush, and oviet General Secretary Gorbachev

United States-Soviet Relations

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November 20, 1989	Cable from US Embassy in Prague on Czech Demonstrations Cable from the US embassy in Prague reports on an American woman's account of the November 17 demonstrations and the death of a Czech student.
November 9, 1989	Conversation between Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa In this extraordinary conversation, Solidarity’s leader fears the collapse of the Wall would distract West Germany’s attention - and money - to the GDR, at the time when Poland, the trail-blazer to the post-communist era in Eastern Europe, desperately needed both. "Events are moving too fast," Walesa said, and only hours later, the Wall fell, and Kohl had to cut his Poland visit short to scramble back to Berlin, thus proving Walesa’s fear correct.
September 22, 1989	Presidential National Security Directive 23, "Untied States Relations with the Soviet Union" Presidential directive from George Bush regarding the changing nature of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States and the end of US containment policy.
July 25, 1989	Report of the President of Hungary Rezso Nyers and General Secretary Karoly Grosz on Talks with Gorbachev in Moscow (excerpts) President of People’s Republic of Hungary, Rezso Nyers, and General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, Karoly Grosz, report on their talks with Gorbachev in Moscow, 24-25 July, 1989. The excerpts contains economic reformer Nyers’ assessment of the political situation in Hungary, and first among the factors that "can defeat the party," he lists "the past, if we let ourselves [be] smeared with it." The memory of the revolution of 1956 and its bloody repression by the Soviets was Banquo’s ghost, destroying the legitimacy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, just as 1968 in Prague and 1981’s martial law in Poland and all the other Communist "blank spots" of history came back in 1989 to crumble Communist ideology. For their part, the Communist reformers (including Gorbachev) did not quite know how to respond as events accelerated in 1989, except not to repeat 1956.
October 3, 1990	Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Telephone Call to Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany, October 3, 1990, 9:56-9:59 a.m. Telephone conversation between President George H. W. Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the situation in Germany.
February 13, 1990	Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Federal Republic of Germany, February 13, 1990, 1:49-2:00 p.m. EST Telephone conversation between President George H. W. Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the situation in Germany.
November 10, 1989	Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Conversation with Helmut Kohl, Chancellor – Federal Republic of Germany, November 10, 1989, 3:29-3:47PM Telephone conversation between President George H. W. Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the situation in Germany.
October 23, 1989	Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Federal Republic of Germany, October 23, 1989, 9:02-9:26 a.m. EDT Telephone conversation between President George H. W. Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the situation in Eastern Europe.
June 13, 1989	Excerpts from the Opening Full Session of the Hungarian National Roundtable Negotiations Transcribed from previously unpublished video recordings, these discussions point to the unwritten "rules" of mutual civility that arose in the nonviolent dissident movements and found an echo among the Communist reformers during the negotiated revolutions of 1989. For example, Dr. Istvan Kukorelli from the Patriotic People’s Front proposes to "refrain from questioning the legitimacy of each other, since the legitimacy of all of us is debatable. It is a question which belongs to the future - who will be given credit by history and who will be forgotten."
June 5, 1989	Transcript of the Central Committee Secretariat Meeting of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) On the day after Solidarity had swept Poland’s first open elections, ultimately winning 99 of 100 Senate seats, the Polish Communists vent their shock and dismay ("a bitter lesson," "the party are not connected with the masses," "We trusted the Church and they turned out to be Jesuits" were typical comments). Comrade Kwasniewski (who was later elected President of Poland) remarks that "It’s well known that also party members were crossing out our candidates" (only two out of 35 Party candidates survived the epidemic of X’s). But they see no choice but to negotiate a coalition government, and specifically "[w]arn against attempts at destabilization, pointing at the situation in China" -- since the Tiananmen massacre occurred the same day as the Polish elections, the road not taken.