At the very end, the two leaders spoke about the Baltics. Gorbachev explained that he could not just let the Balts go unilaterally: the constitution required an equal treatment of all republics. If he just let Lithuania go, this “would bring out all sorts of terrible fires” in other parts of the Soviet Union. Bush replied: “But if you use force—you don’t want to—that would create a firestorm.” Gorbachev bristled at what he saw as a double standard: the US troops were in the process of intervening in Panama, where
