The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

exodus of East Germans through Hungary and Czechoslovakia over the proceeding months had been stanched only by draconian new travel restrictions; now East Germans were not only prevented from traveling to the West, they were barred from much of Eastern Europe as well. Anger welled up as a result. Between October 30 and November 4, an estimated 1.4 million people marched in 210 separate demonstrations around the country, according to the cold calculations of the ever watchful MfS.

And as the ranks of the protesters swelled, so did their demands. In addition to freedom to travel, they now wanted freedom at home. They wanted free elections and official recognition of the growing opposition groups.

Krenz had promised to ease the travel restrictions, but Party and government bureaucrats feared that a mass exodus would result, one that would threaten East Germany’s continued existence. Krenz talked with Gorbachev about the situation on November 1. Like Honecker before him, he was told that Moscow wasn’t going to provide economic or military support to keep the regime afloat.

Krenz’s halfway measures for limited changes in travel rules served only to further incite the demonstrators. He was running out of maneuvering room. Under intense political and time constraints, the East German Politburo once again tried to hammer out new travel regulations in early November. The new regulations were designed to ease the pressure on the regime, but they were definitely not intended to provide unlimited freedom to travel to the West for East German citizens.

It was at this point that confusion stepped in to play a critical role. Krenz asked Politburo member Gunter Schabowski, then serving as Party spokesman, to announce the new rules. Schabowski was an unfortunate choice. He hadn’t been adequately briefed on the details of the new regulations and hadn’t even carefully read the text of the government’s proposals before he spoke to the press at about 7:00 P.M. on November 9.

Speaking almost off the cuff, he vastly oversimplified the new rules. He made it sound as if the East German government were now going to allow East Germans to travel directly to West Germany—rather than going to a third country first—for both permanent exit and private travel, with virtually no restrictions. East German officials would approve the travel on short notice.

Schabowski was asked by surprised reporters when the new rules would go into effect. A flustered Schabowski said: Immediately.

The press conference was carried live on radio and television, and even though Schabowski badly misstated the regime’s intentions, his words had the effect of changing policy on the spur of the moment. To everyone who had listened to Schabowski, it sounded as if East Germany had decided to open the Berlin Wall and let its citizens out, ending forty years of national isolation.

The televised press conference dumbfounded the border guards listening in as they manned the checkpoints on the Berlin Wall. Some East Germans who were near the checkpoints when they heard Schabowski’s broadcast decided to test the new policy right away. The border guards, who had heard Schabowski and had no other instructions, decided to let them through to West Berlin. West German television—which could be seen in East Germany—reported the fact that people were being allowed through the Wall, and soon thousands of East Berliners were flooding through the newly opened checkpoints and into West Berlin.

Rolph was as surprised as anyone and, after listening to the press conference, went out into the night with his family, acting as tourists and eyewitnesses to history. That night, he sent a cable back to headquarters, just to confirm the news reports that the Wall had been opened and that East Berliners really were being allowed to cross into the West. But there was nothing poetic about the cable, despite its historic significance as the first CIA cable to report the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There was certainly nothing in the cable that was based on secret intelligence, either. Since the CIA did not have any high-level agents in the East German government, there was no one Rolph could turn to in order to gain special insights into the overnight collapse of East German discipline. East Germany’s counterintelligence had done its job well; it had deprived the CIA of access to the political hierarchy of the government.

So it would be CNN rather than the CIA that would keep Washington informed of the fast-moving events in Berlin. In fact, the fall of the Berlin Wall was the first shot in an unspoken competition between CNN and the CIA that would continue throughout the closing years of the Cold War. With historic events occuring daily between 1989 and 1991, David Rolph and other CIA officers in the field, first in Eastern Europe and later in the Soviet Union, would begin to feel a subtle pressure to remain relevant by staying on top of events. Headquarters repeatedly told case officers not to try to match everything on the news and instead to focus on stealing secrets that the President couldn’t find out about anywhere else. But it was hard for case officers to ignore the daily sweep of history taking place all around them.

At the same time, stealing secrets that could help the President better understand that daily history was also easier said than done. It’s very difficult to get secret insights on rapidly moving events, even if you have well-placed spies. But in truth, the CIA didn’t have spies with high-level political access who could provide important political insights. How then should CIA officers try to satisfy policy makers hungry for a continuous flow of information? Tell them to turn on CNN and hope for the best? That was the awkward situation facing the CIA in East Berlin in November 1989.

Warsaw, 2230 Hours, November 9, 1989

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was on the first day of a five-day visit to Warsaw and, like everyone else, was caught off guard by Schabowski’s astonishing statement and the news that the new East German travel regulations would take effect immediately. During a