Professor Archie Brown comments on 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union

Archie Brown was quoted in an article for Voice of America (20 December) entitled Gorbachevs Foreign Policy Changed Map of Europe, marking the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR.

Archie was quoted as saying that Gorbechev's non-interventiost policies were a crucial cause of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989:

"Because of the time difference, it happened while Gorbachev and other members of the Politburo were asleep in their beds in Moscow," he explained. "By the next day, Gorbachev told the East German ambassador they had done the right thing in not trying to stop them and not using force - and he accepted remarkably readily, the fall of the wall and subsequent unification of Germany."

The full article can be read here.