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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 5, 1982
PAGE 9
momentum of its own. No one knows where it would have stopped.
Quite possibly with the destruction of the [Polish] Communist
Party's monopoly of power and even the withdrawal of Poland from
the Warsaw Pact•.••
Freedom, after all, is contagious.
The Russians could lose
control even of East Germany. The Iron Curtain could collapse.
In one sense that would be a wonderful day. The partition of
Europe cannot and must not last forever.
But with the Iron
Curtain would also collapse virtually every innovative institu
tion in the western alliance:
NATO the common Market, the
Organizatfon of Economic Cooperat�ancr-hevelopment, even the
Federal Republic of Germany. All are based on the cold war divi
sion of Europe.
That division was not caused by choice, but by necessity: ini
tially by Hitler's aggression and then by the fact that the
Soviet Union carried the brunt of the land war against Nazi
Germany....
Moscow was determined to contain the power of
Germany and never again to allow Eastern Europe to fall into hos
tile hands.
To alter this status quo is to reopen "the German question"--to the dismay
of both the U.S. and the u.s.s.R. Author Steel continues:
Like it or not, the division of Europe is, for the foreseeable
future, a fact of life, one that reflects the interests of both
superpowers.
It cannot be resolved by force.
An � dramatic
change could wreck both alliance systems.
If Polan suddenly
pulled itself free from Russian control, the regime in East
Germany would be isolated. Bonn, which has ignored the dream of
reunification because it seemed so unattainable, might then be
tempted to look East. What German political leader could afford
to turn his back on the "lost territories" if there seemed a
hypothetical chance of regaining them?
Bonn's hard-forged links to NATO and the Common Market would be
called into question.
The ominous specter of a unified Reich
would suddenly take form, bringing unknown dangers into European
politics. With the German question reopened, all the institu
tions we have taken for granted would be called into question.
� would in all likelihood collapse, and with it the major
instrument for American control� Western Europe••••
If we are to encourage the demise of the Warsaw Pact, we had
better be prepared for profound shocks to our own alliance as
well••••
In pushing for Poland's freedom, and threatening to pull troops out of the
Continent, is America creating its own "Frankenstein monster" in the heart
of Europe?
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau