THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2025 77 When I returned to a unified Germany 25 years after that working tour to East Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie had become a magnet for tourists, including a museum, and the surrounding parts of the city had been gentrified. e Just prior to my departure from Madrid in the spring of 1982, the Spanish Parliament approved membership in NATO. I like to think those “tours” played some role in the decision. Indeed, that NATO tours are still going on today suggests their effectiveness at giving journalists from across Europe an insider’s look at Alliance operations— despite the monumental changes of recent decades. n Checkpoint Charlie in 1979. COURTESY OF VINCENT CHIARELLO
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