This is CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor. Here's John Batchelor.

It is July 6, 1989, the last meeting of the Warsaw Pact. In the room are significant figures of the Soviet domination of

Central Europe, the Soviet ambition to take over Europe in the room. One man more important

than any other is Gorbachev. Gorbachev is now the head of the Soviet Union,

and he's also a man who's supervising the Warsaw Pact.

Warsaw Pact is made up of countries such as Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,

and most importantly Hungary, because also inakia, and most importantly, Hungary.

Because also in that room is a man named Nemeth, a very young prime minister born 1948,

for what is also in the room the leaders of other countries in the Warsaw Pact.

A man named Tchrescu, the absolute dictator of Romania, is pounding the table

and yelling at Nemeth, yelling at him, accusing him of betraying the socialism of the Warsaw Pact,

accusing him of undermining the power that they possess to protect their people from the

predatory capitalists

across the Iron Curtain.

Telling this story is Matthew Longo, assistant professor of political science at Leiden

University.

The book is The Picnic, a dream of freedom and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. But we begin with the

villains in the room. Matthew, a congratulations. This is a brilliant telling of a story I had

no knowledge of. Who is Nemeth? Who is Chichescu to yell at him? And what does Nemeth make of Gorbachev at that moment?

Good evening to you. Good evening. Thank you. So to further on this stage setting, what Chow Chescu represents in a way as the old guard,

someone for whom the Warsaw Pact and the whole construct of the Soviet Empire was in a way as the old guard. Someone for whom the Warsaw Pact and the whole construct of the Soviet Empire was in a way a boon.

This is a person who had no desire for change, no desire to see anything about either liberalism or democracy creep in across the iron curtain.

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