On the evening on the 9th of November 1989 East Germans were able to freely move into West Berlin and it was all over but the shouting.♠ But, like many things in life, it was largely by happenstance. That is the theory in Mary Elise Sarotte's article in The Washington Post.
The good news is that the Cold War came in for a soft landing.
It did, however, catch most people by surprise. Something about a lot of intelligence work, in many nations, being done by a people with a straight edge and two dots. Doing intelligence and reporting what is happening today can be hard. Doing intelligence and peering around the corner, and getting it right, is a very hard business indeed.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Being partially of Welsh extraction, I was pleased to see this expression attributed to a Welsh sportswriter from back in 1842.
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Please be forthright, but please consider that this is not a barracks.