Russian lawmakers mull statement condemning East Germany's annexation by West Germany in 1989

[DFW]

27. Putin's KGB slip is showing

Putting out propaganda that is convenient but believed by nobody is going back to Soviet tactics. Someone as smart and well-traveled as Putin has to know that no one will swallow his yarn except those few who want to believe it plus those who are paid to "believe" it. But if that's his goal, its effectiveness stops at the Russian border.

All Germans, including the ones who miss the old DDR, know full well that there was no turning back the wishes of the East Germans after the border was open. The West had two choices: absorb about 10 million new residents or accept the East's application to join the Federal Republic, and pay through the nose to bring them up to West German living standards so that they'd stay where they were.

There was an old joke about what would happen to East Germany if it remained a separate country once the borders were open. The answer was that it would be the friendliest country on earth because there would be so few people left that they'd all know each other.

I don't know about TACC in its present day form, but back in the Soviet days, Igor Ignatieff, who ran their DC bureau, used to hang with my dad in the National Press Building. He tried to recruit my dad (!!!!) to spy for the Soviet Union. After my dad gave him a polite,"Igor, please fuck off," he shrugged his shoulders and said, "well, I was instructed to ask."