Baker Visits E. Germany, Gives Support

Secretary of State James A. Baker III met today with East Germany’s reformist premier, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Communist nation in nearly two decades.

Earlier, Baker celebrated the opening of the Berlin Wall and outlined “a new architecture” for a changing Europe, with a larger role for NATO and closer U.S. ties to the Western military alliance.

Baker and East German Premier Hans Modrow met for an hour in the Sans Souci room of the Potsdam Hotel.

“I felt that it was important that we have an opportunity to let the premier and the people of East Germany know of our support for the reforms which are taking place in this country,” Baker said later.

“We also wanted to make it very clear that we support the process of reform in a peaceful manner and that we are very anxious to see this process move forward in a stable way,” he said.

Modrow, 61, said East Germany saw Baker’s visit “without a doubt” as support for reform.

“This visit is a political sign that the U.S. follows the developments in (East Germany) with attention,” Modrow said. “We started a dialogue with each other today.”

Modrow was named premier Nov. 13 of an East Germany in the midst of a stunning upheaval that is sweeping aside orthodox communism.

It was in Potsdam, southwest of the divided city of Berlin, that the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain met in 1945 for a conference to determine Germany’s future after the Nazi defeat.