Tear Down This Wall (Ronald Reagan) -- Wikipedia
"Tear down this wall!" was the challenge from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall.
In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin,[1][2] by the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear it down as a symbol of Reagan's desire for increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc.
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My Comment: When I heard this speech 23 years ago .... I had goose bumps all over. The walls were already crumbling in Eastern Europe .... so when President Reagan made his speech it became widely disseminated in Eastern Europe .... the Soviet Union included.
My father's reaction was typical of what the older Russian generation felt .... they were uncomfortable with change, especially if it concerned Germany. The horrors of World War Two were still fresh in their minds, and national security (including keeping Germany in check) trumpeted all other concerns. For the younger generation (myself included) .... this was not the case. Communism and government intervention in our lives was something that was no longer tolerable .... that a new direction was not only needed .... but we were hungry for it.
Hope for change became change .... and very quickly.
President Reagan's speech was perfect for its timing .... at that moment in time he was able to tap into what many Eastern Europeans were feeling .... change had to happen and the Berlin Wall was the symbol that we all had to overcome. It is therefore no surprise that when the Berlin Wall did fall down .... so did everything else .... and for that reason alone President Reagan's Berlin Wall speech will be remembered for the ages.
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