Word: gorbachev
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...General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate...
...drama, the speech received relatively little media coverage. Compared to the younger, more vigorous Gorbachev, Reagan seemed to be a diminished figure on the world stage, a lame-duck President hobbled by the Iran-Contra scandal at home. But in hindsight, the "Tear Down this Wall" speech helps explain how the Cold War ended. Unlike many conservatives, Reagan believed that the U.S.-Soviet arms race was not immutable, and that the rivalry between East and West that had defined the Cold War could be defused through diplomacy and persuasion. In Gorbachev, he found a partner with whom he could...
...Reagan arrived in Berlin, on the occasion of the city's 750th birthday. He was scheduled to speak on the Western side of the Brandenburg Gate, for years the city's symbolic dividing line. His speechwriters had drafted an address intended as much for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom Reagan was forging a close relationship, as for the 20,000 people who gathered to hear him speak. In the speech, Reagan would call on Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, but that language was opposed strongly by Reagan's National Security Council and the State Department, who feared...
...long-serving Secretary of State, told me over lunch in Berlin last week. "But it turns out he was right." We were sitting in an elegant dining room overlooking the city, in a building that sits on the former border between east and west Berlin. "Saying something like, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall' - that could be perceived as provocative. Things were breaking and were in a lot of flux. At the time some people argued, why stick your finger in [Gorbachev's] nose? But knowing Ronald Reagan as I did, I would have said don't bother...
...speech sounds as much like an invitation as it does a challenge. "There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace," Reagan says. As he goes on, you hear scattered claps and hollers. "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate!" Reagan says. The crowd starts to erupt. "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!" At this point, 20,000 Berliners are cheering Reagan on. In his diary, published last...