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Lecture Johan van Merriënboer: ‘Chancellor Kohl cannot be allowed to drive NATO.’
The Dutch Centre for Parliamentary History (CPG), in collaboration with the Cold War Research Network, warmly invites you to a lecture by dr. Johan van Merriënboer on Wednesday 3 December 2025 at Radboud University Nijmegen. (R)MA-students, PhD-students and early career scholars are particularly welcome to attend. Please send an e-mail to Laurien Crump (Laurien.Crump@ru.nl) if you also wish to join the Cold War Research Network (Cold War Research Network | Universiteit Utrecht).
This lecture takes its title from a striking remark by U.S. President George H.W. Bush to Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers in the Oval Office on 9 May 1989:
‘Chancellor Kohl cannot be allowed to drive NATO.’
At that moment, NATO was deeply divided over the modernization of short-range nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Western leaders were reconsidering their stance toward Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform agenda and his growing popularity in West Germany under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Bush’s words reflect the tensions within the alliance that framed the high-stakes diplomacy of the period.
In this lecture, dr. Van Merriënboer will show how Lubbers positioned the Netherlands as a mediator between the United States and West Germany. Drawing on archival research and Lubbers’s memoirs, he will explore how Dutch diplomacy helped shape a new American strategy toward Europe and the Soviet Union. In doing so, the Netherlands contributed to the favourable political climate, the so-called ‘Wind of Change’ that paved the way for the peaceful end of the Cold War.
The lecture will address questions such as:
- How did Lubbers balance relations between Washington and BonnI
- In what ways did Dutch diplomacy influence U.S. strategy?
- How did these dynamics contribute to Europe’s path toward peaceful change?
Practical details:
🗓 Date: Wednesday, 3 December 2025
🕓 Time: 16:00-17:30
📍 Location: Erasmus building, room E9.14 (9th floor), Erasmusplein 1, 6525 HT Nijmegen
Don’t miss this chance to revisit a dramatic turning point in world history, and to reflect on the Netherlands’ often-overlooked role in Cold War diplomacy!