Brokaw: Baker is taking his post at a critical moment in the 40-year history of the Cold War.
But he does have an advantage
that few American Secretaries of State have enjoyed.
President George Bush: The birthday boy.
I'd like to record this,
this is the 59th birthday of our Secretary of State.
How do you describe friendship?
How do you describe trust?
All of these characteristics
really embody our personal relationship.
Rice: A Secretary of State who is close to the President,
and can count on the President's backing,
and really represent the President,
is well ahead of the game.
Bill Clinton: The operation of foreign policy
can become so concentrated in the White House
that people aren't sure when the Secretary of State says,
"Let's have a peace conference in Madrid," for example,
that the President means it.
They didn't have any doubt about that with Baker.
Brokaw: By 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev,
the dynamic General Secretary of the Soviet Union,
is deep into his campaign to reform communism.
He seems eager to reach out to the new U.S. administration.
Baker and Bush are cautious, but open to moving ahead.
Michael Bechloss: When Bush and Baker decided
that they could do business with Gorbachev,
it wasn't entirely without criticism,
which came from Dick Cheney, the Secretary of Defense,
Dan Quayle, the Vice President,
and probably some of the neoconservatives,
who would prove to be a lot more important later on.
Brokaw: The key for Baker is going to be his relationship
ith his Soviet counterpart,
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
In the late summer of 1989,
the two men are scheduled for a formal meeting in Washington.
Baker has a different idea.
Dennis B. Ross: What he had in mind was to get out of Washington
and create an air of informality,
to be able to do business
in a very different kind of setting.
Margaret Tutwiler: At the time, they had a silly rule that Soviet diplomats
could not go 25 miles from the United Nations
or 25 miles from Washington, DC.
So, we put them on our planes and we say,
well, we're going to go a whole lot farther than 25 miles
and we're going to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Thomas Friedman: I was actually the pool reporter on the flight
and got to sit there,
because it was a very small plane, and two seats away,
while Baker and Shevardnadze were deep in conversation.
Ross: Baker was asking Sheverdnanadze about his hopes and his fears.
It wasn't that it was personal in terms of,
you know, I want to know about your background,"
it was personal in terms of,
"What are you hoping to do for your country?
What are the things that worry you?"
Friedman: I knew that I was watching something really historic.
Ross: That plane flight, and that conversation,
[CHEERS]
had a profound effect, I think, on Secretary Baker
in terms of, "This is a guy who we want to help succeed."
Baker at Jackson Hole: As an old song goes,
this is the place where seldom has heard the discouraging word,
and that might account for the positive outcome
of our talks today.
Brokaw: Just two months later,
that relationship is put to the test. 72 00:03:30.00—> 00:03:33.30 East Berlin, the capital of communist East Germany.
cut off for more than 25 years
by the 12-foot high barrier, the Berlin Wall.
Then, on November 9, 1989, a day I'll never forget,
chaos in the East German leadership
and the wall is opened.
What you see behind me
is a celebration of this new policy announced today
by the East German government that now,
for the first time since the wall was erected in 1961,
people will be able to move through freely.
East Germans stream to the crossing points
by the thousands.
Overwhelmed border guards have no orders
and let them through.
And East Germany finally is open to the west.
As the world celebrates,
some of his advisers urge President Bush
to take a victory lap.
Bechloss: Probably eight out of nine Secretaries of State
would have said to their President,
"It's a triumph for foreign policy.
This is a huge achievement for you.
Go to Berlin, give a speech that conveys our excitement
that the wall is coming down."
Jim Baker didn't do that.
James K. Sebenius: Jim Baker understood that Mikhail Gorbachev
was in a very delicate situation.
Baker: I remember being there with him,
sitting at the desk as the press crowded around.
Bush: I welcome the decision by the East German leadership
to open the borders.
Stahl: There's just wild jubilation going on,
and the President's listing in his chair, limp,
and he's almost got a scowl on his face.
He looks almost sad.
And I remember asking, "Well, you don't seem elated."
You don't seem elated, and I'm wondering if you're thinking...
Bush: I'm elated. I'm just not an emotional kind of guy.
I'm very pleased.
And I've been very pleased with a lot of other developments.
Baker: And the President said, "Look we've got a lot of work
still to do with the Soviet leaders
and I don't intend to stick it in their eye,
and I certainly don't intend to dance
on the ruins of the Berlin Wall."
Stahl: I totally understood why they were doing and I applaud it.
I think, though, that Bush could have found a way
to both send a signal to Gorbachev
that we were not going to take advantage of him at that moment
and express the sense of celebration
that was going on around the country.
Sebenius: George Bush took the hit domestically
in order to help Gorbachev,
which made for a much better negotiating partner later.
Mikhail Gorbachev: I believe it is important
that the United States of America,
at that time, pursued this particular course
of understanding and interaction.
President Bush had the kind of prudence,
the kind of caution,
that is so necessary to leaders of countries like ours.