Being beastly to Germany.

GIANNI de Michelis, Italy's Socialist foreign minister, is an unusual diplomat. Unlike most well-dressed members of the breed who say nothing very well, he dresses badly, has hair down to his shoulders, is the author of one book on disco dancing (Where Shall We Dance Tonight?) and another on the year 2000, and throws out original and lively ideas on practically everything-in particular on German unification. Indeed, even more than Margaret Thatcher, he has come to symbolize European apprehension about growing German power.

De Michelis became the representative of this increasing European concern at the recent unprecedented summit among the 16 NATO countries and the seven Warsaw Pact countries at Ottawa. He stood up and demanded that Italy be included in the so-called "two-plus-four talks" (the four wartime allies plus the two Germanies) put together by the U.S., the USSR, and West Germany to discuss German reunification. West Germany's Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher sent a chill around the room-some felt a flavor of things to come-when he turned to de Michelis, and said, "You're not a player in this game." That night de Michelis told friends that Genscher's brusque comment marked the end of NATO.

De Michelis visited the U.S. in March with Italian Prime, Minister Giulio Andreotti. He vigorously opposed using the two-plus-four talks as the mechanism through which to arrive at German unification, since they leave out Poland and other European countries and enable Germany to rush to unity without first resolving issues of critical importance to most Europeans. (Poland has since procured admission to the talks when its interests are being discussed.)

For example, says de Michelis, the Germans didn't want to solve the Polish border issue because, though an "external issue," it had internal ramifications in West German politics. They were eventually forced to do so significantly, outside the mechanism of the two-plus-four talks. But almost every "external issue" has internal ramifications in West German polities. In particular, the future of a united Germany in NATO is hotly controversial inside the Federal Republic.

"The only way to have [a unified] Germany inside NATO," de Michelis argues, "is to accept a very atypical and asymmetrical position of Germany with respect to NATO." His fear is that such a unified Germany would be harder for NATO to swallow than was France following de Gaulle's withdrawal from NATO'S integrated military command. Why? Because the U.S. and West Germany have agreed to station NATO troops only in what is now West Germany. The present GDR would thus become a neutral zone or even have Soviet troops based in it for an indefinite period.

While influential U.S. and West German officials worry about the danger of a neutral Germany, de Michelis poses an interesting question: "Is there any real difference between being neutral or being in NATO with Soviet troops in your territory?" It is a good question. What, indeed, should be of greater concern to the West: a neutral Germany or a supposedly united Germany in NATO in which, however, NATO troops would be forbidden to enter what is now the GDR? How long would NATO retain real cohesion and credibility in these circumstances? Would it not quickly follow the Warsaw Pact along the path of strategic irrelevance?

It is not surprising therefore that, as a supporter of a traditional view of NATO, de Michelis distrusts the efforts of some members of the West German Social Democratic Party, and of its leader, Oskar Lafontaine, to find a future strategic framework for Europe outside of NATO-IN a common European security system which would exclude the United States. In particular de Michelis dislikes Lafontaine's attempt to revive the European Defense Community, an old idea from the early Fifties, vetoed at that time by the French, who didn't want to integrate with the West Germans. But he warns, "Lafontaine's idea will prevail in the next few months if we are not able to rethink NATO. And if we do not rethink NATO, it will fall apart."

The problem is that the Germans don't want to think about the future of NATO until they are unified. But with the Warsaw Pact collapsing, says de Michelis, we have really got to start talks at once about how NATO will respond.

Turning to the Soviets, de Michelis doesn't agree with the popular wisdom that they want a neutral Germany. In spite of the recent pro-neutrality speech by the chief of the International Department, Valentin Fahn, and some hard-line remarks by Gorbachev, "their position was only for negotiations." Like other observers he believes that the Soviets agreed to unification when Gorbachev met with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the beginning of February.

Did a promise of West German financial aid and credits play a role in changing Moscow's position? De Michelis agrees with those who have alleged such a linkage: "I am sure that one implicit part of the deal was big economic and financial aid from West Germany to the Soviet Union." One thing led to another. There was first a Bonn-moscow deal, then came Ottawa and the agreement between Bonn, Moscow, and the U.S. on the two-plus-four talks: "Everything was clearly connected."

But there is an additional reason why the Soviets should welcome the present East-west arrangement to deal with German unification. It increases Soviet influence. Although the Soviets lost the cold war, the two-plus-four forum gives them great influence, even a veto, over unification as one of the four victorious allies in the Second World War that enjoy residual rights over Germany. De Michelis views this as an outdated arrangement: "Nineteen-hundred eighty-nine was the end of another war, and in that war the Soviet Union was the loser. To utilize the two-plus-four agreement would make them again the winner."

There are other, better forums to turn to: NATO, the European Community, CSCE. "There are also the rights of the 16 powers, the 12 powers, the 35 powers, and so on."

In Washington, de Michelis and Prime Minister Andreotti asked that a a ministerial meeting of NATO be held before the two-plus-four talks begin. De Michelis wants to discuss the question: "Will NATO work or will it collapse like the Warsaw Pact?" Before he rushed off to his plane, he warned, "There may be a lower level of military commitment to NATO, but only as a consequence of our incapacity to foresee the future . . ." And this warning came, remember, not from some hawkish member of the Committee on the Present Danger, but from an iconoclastic Italian Socialist politician. German unification, it seems, will mark less the end of the cold war than the beginning of a new unstable world of shifting alliances and multi-polar uncertainties. Consummate realists, the Italians recognize this; inveterate idealists, Americans see only the silver lining of a "peace dividend."