The Man Who Ended the Cold War

By all accounts, Benito Mussolini was an awful human being. He ruled Italy for over 20 years from his march on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943. Within five years of being appointed Prime Minister he and his followers had systematically removed all political opposition, outlawed labor strikes, and consolidated power into a one party dictatorship based on extreme nationalism. His grand vision was to restore the grandeur of the ancient Roman Empire by expanding Italian colonial possessions.

In that goal, he failed miserably. When deposed in 1943, Italy was in ruin. Failed military campaigns had weakened the country to the point where their longtime ally, Germany, no longer recognized them as a country of importance, and had moved to occupy the country. The only significant remain of Mussolini’s time in power, is the tiny country created when he signed the Lateran Treaty in 1929 granting independence to Vatican City to operate as their own sovereign nation. During the German occupation, Hitler honored the neutrality of the Vatican, and his forces left the tiny nation alone. An island surrounded by hostile occupiers.

At the end of the war, Vatican City would no longer be an isolated, surrounded nation. Germanys Surrender ended that precarious agreement. The Vatican would no longer be surrounded by occupiers. Berlin would be a different story.

Berlin was the pressure cooker of the Cold War. If at any time you wanted to know how close the world was to annihilation, you looked to the divided city. West Berliners found themselves surrounded by a communist regime running the show in the East. As the decades wore on, things began looking worse and worse for the communists. West Berlin became a beacon of hope for those in the eastern half of the city, and more and more citizens desperately tried to defect using tunnels, jumping from roofs, and making charges through barriers at checkpoints.

By 1989 the Iron Curtain was crumbling. Due to a legal loophole, defecting in secret was no longer necessary, and hordes of East Germans began pouring through Hungary, and into West Germany from there. In response, the East German Government began issuing temporary permits through the anti-fascist (that’s really what they called the Berlin Wall) wall.

These were intended to be temporary permits set to expire at an unspecified date, meant to placate the masses. Officials however, forgot to relay that part to the man upon whom the duty fell to deliver the news on live TV.

Gunter Schabowski was a nobody. A low level politburo figure with a drinking problem. That is precisely why he was chosen. As an unknown figure, he carried no baggage. He delivered a speech about the temporary permits. The speech was a snoozer. Tom Brokaw even described it as boring. Then an Italian Journalist asked a question.

“When will the new visas go into effect?”

Gunter was clearly not prepared to answer questions. He paused and stammered out the word “immediately”. He dug his grave even further by adding that anyone who already had a passport automatically qualified for one of the new visas without needed to apply for a new one. The room quickly descended into chaos.

Outside in Berlin, masses of people began assembling at checkpoints in the wall. Unsure of how the process would work, citizens of East Berlin began moving toward the guards in the gatehouses. Equally confused guards, simply lifted the gates, raised the barriers, and allowed East Berliners to flow uncontested into the west.

Families who had been split apart for decades were suddenly reunited. The world watched as photos and video feeds of Berliners rejoicing graced every newsreel in the world. The Cold War was effectively over. All because soviet officials forgot to fully brief a low level nobody.

In this case, a simple miscommunication turned out to be a great thing. Most of the time however, that won’t be the case.

Achieving financial success, is no easy task. It requires constant planning, monitoring, and adjusting. Most importantly, it requires clear communication between all involved. Spouses, financial planners, tax preparers, attorneys. All play a role in the planning process, and in the process of achieving those goals. One of the quickest ways to derail a plan, is to leave those people out of the loop. Constant, clear communication will allow all those individuals to do their best work.

Between spouses, that communication is even more important. It is almost unheard of for two spouses to have the exact same priorities when it comes to money. One may be a spender while the other is a saver. One may value experiences, the other may value things. In these or any cases like them, nobody is right, and nobody is wrong. More importantly, all these people can very happily coexist. But to do that it will require, you guessed it, communication.