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itself could be provocative, by suggesting to the Russians that they could permanently keep Georgia and Ukraine out of NATO. And that was not a prescription for stability in Europe, that was a prescription for continued tension.’ 5
    The Bucharest summit, held on 2–4 April in the bombastic palace built by the former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, turned out to be as dramatic as any in the alliance’s history, with a good deal of undiplomatic mud-slinging passing between the Americans and East Europeans who broadly supported Ukraine and Georgia, and the French and Germans who found themselves cast as ‘appeasers’ of the Russians. On the first evening, foreign ministers had discussions over dinner and failed even to come close to a wording that the summit would be able to approve. The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said he had the impression that ‘some allies’ (meaning the Germans) had made commitments to the Russians that MAP would not be granted to Georgia and Ukraine. 6
    Condoleezza Rice says she had the feeling that some of the East Europeans were coming rather close to saying to the Germans that ‘you of all people should not be standing in the way of countries that suffered under tyranny thanks to what the Germans did in the 1930s and 1940s’. 7
    The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was simply insulted. He had tried to argue that there was a conflict situation in the Caucasus region and NATO risked getting drawn into it. But, he says, ‘things were said that I never want to hear again, where people who were against NATO enlargement were compared to [the appeasers of] Munich in 1938. Absolutely inappropriate.’ 8
    The plenary session of NATO leaders was due at nine the following morning, but the Americans decided to try to sort it out over an early breakfast beforehand – with officials from the US, the UK, Germany and France, plus Poland and Romania. Damon Wilson admits it was a case of gathering reinforcements: ‘We decided we needed to invite the Romanians as host of the summit and the Poles as big players within the alliance. Obviously, these are two countries that were quite supportive of our position.’
    Jean-David Levitte, the French national security adviser, recalls: ‘At one o’clock in the morning and again at three o’clock I was telephoned to make sure I fully understood at what time and where the breakfast meeting was being held.’ But it turned out not to be an intimate, friendly breakfast, says Levitte, ‘but more like a tribunal’. A text was cobbled together which foresaw a period of ‘intensive engagement’ by NATO towards Georgia and Ukraine, with another assessment of progress in December.
    When the text was distributed just before the full session at nine o’clock, some East European leaders were furious. The presidents of Lithuania, Poland and Romania all made it clear they found the wording ‘not even close to what we expected’. ‘They went ballistic,’ says Stephen Hadley. ‘They thought the document was a capitulation to Russian pressure and Russian veto, and they wanted changes made.’ NATO adopts its decisions by consensus, but as the leaders settled around the huge round conference table, there was no sign of one. Frantic efforts continued to broker a compromise, but not at the main table. Behind the heavy curtains draped around the hall, small constellations of advisers and foreign ministers gathered for ad hoc negotiations.
    In an interview, Stephen Hadley recalled the remarkable scene that followed. ‘All the foreign ministers get up and go to the back of the room, all men in grey hair and suits. And then Angela Merkel gets up, in a nice lime-green jacket, and goes back and sits down with these grey-haired men from Central and Eastern Europe. And soon Condi goes back too, dressed to the nines, and joins them too. And what language are they using? Of course it’s Russian! The language Angela learned in her youth in East Germany and Condi knows from her time as a Russian scholar.’
    It was Merkel who then grabbed the pen and wrote the deal-breaker sentence on a piece of paper: ‘We agree today that Georgia and Ukraine shall one day become members of NATO.’ No mention of MAP – just affirmation that the two countries will join NATO. The East Europeans then protested that the words ‘one day’ were as good as saying ‘never’, so the phrase was deleted. Condoleezza Rice, who had stepped away for a few