‘Atlantic Alliance.’ On 30 May 1989, as the process of political and economic transformation is taking shape in the Eastern bloc, French cartoonist Plantu illustrates the dissatisfaction of the Federal Republic of Germany’s Western partners at the attempts by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl to establish closer relations with Mikhail Gorbachev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (on the right). US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand fear that the FRG is turning away from the Atlantic Alliance to focus on its relations with Moscow in anticipation of future negotiations on possible German reunification. The comparison with the image of Mitterrand and Kohl holding hands at the ceremony to commemorate the Battle of Verdun in 1984 illustrates the Chancellor’s desire to extend the Franco-German duo to include the Soviet Union.