00:00:06
Today it is easy to say that
or that should have been done
differently. I've said it many times,
00:00:13
I will say it again.
Well, the Soviet army did
not leave until June 1991.
00:00:23
They also said that they wouldn’t,
even in the spring of 1991,
00:00:30
clearly emphasised,
and even threatened us,
that they would not leave.
00:00:40
Foreign Minister Kvicinsky
said that harshly. Jazov and Besmercny,
sitting in my room,
00:00:48
were more delicately articulated.
It was going been on continuously.
00:00:54
So it wasn't that simple.
The same is true for the dissolution of Comecon.
00:01:01
We were alone in this, and we
were the only ones who wanted it.
00:01:08
And when the Visegrád
meeting was here, even then,
Havel and the Czechoslovak delegation
00:01:14
didn't want the dissolution of
Comecon without a successor organization.
00:01:20
I went up before the
Visegrád Treaty was signed,
and I convinced Valentina separately
00:01:26
and the Czechs the next morning with
her. I can also say that when
00:01:33
we were in Moscow in June '90,
at breakfast we tried to convince
00:01:40
the Poles that they should leave
the Warsaw Treaty with us. Havel
00:01:48
said he'd support us for a while,
but the Secretary of State then came up
to us to say it is no longer true.
00:01:58
But Maiziere said there's
no way they're risking the
00:02:04
German unity by saying it.
And indeed, no matter how incredible this sounds
00:02:11
- when the Foreign Ministers
met at nine o'clock,
00:02:16
they met after breakfast, our
Secretary of State came back
(it was not the minister who was in Paris representing us)
00:02:22
from the Foreign Minister's meeting
00:02:29
and he said that neither Shevardnadze
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nor the others had contributed
to the presentation of a draft
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for the revision and dissolution
of the Warsaw Pact.
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We Hungarians had a draft
but the Soviet draft was approved by the good
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foreign ministers, and the Hungarian draft wasn’t
– it was there in front of me.
00:02:56
And it was indeed so that this
particular meeting was intended to
00:03:02
be formal, and it was exceptional
a special sign of historical
00:03:08
fate that I presided over the last political
meeting of the Warsaw Treaty
00:03:15
and as President I began to
read the unaccepted Hungarian text.
00:03:22
And that's when everyone got stiff.
00:03:28
I thought I'd admit I
was wrong at the worst
00:03:33
but I'm going to put this forward,
the atmosphere got pretty stiff
00:03:39
and then Gorbachev said
’Haraso’, I don't know whether
00:03:46
they understood or misunderstood
what was going on or didn't
risk it to be a scandal
00:03:54
anyway Gorbachev said yes,
and from then on
00:04:00
everyone was enthusiastic,
including the Poles and Havel.
00:04:07
That day we were still
negotiating with the Russians,
the next day we went with Lajos Für
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only for military negotiations
in the Kremlin - probably several
centuries’ tested techique
00:04:21
that we were taken down in a narrow
corridor - and our own security
00:04:26
people were already separated.
We went down a long, narrow corridor,
we said to each other,
00:04:32
"Do you think we are going to end up
in Siberia?" I'm only telling
you this because of the atmosphere.
00:04:41
’We cannot change our fate now’ we agreed
on the way we were strolling and then they
00:04:46
took us to a whole little door.
There must have been a lot
00:04:52
of Tartar Khans and such others going
through that Kremlin back door.
00:04:56
We thought it was some small room,
- I'm telling you because maybe
00:05:02
we will still need these
experiences - a small door,
a small door like this,
00:05:08
they'd take us, they'd open the door,
we wouldn't know where we were
00:05:13
going to step through the small door,
and then we'd go to a big room
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full of giant chandeliers. It was
part of the psychological operation
00:05:22
and that's when we had a deal.
The soldiers weren't too keen on us.
