Of walls and will: Ronald Reagan's greatest moment

This Saturday is the anniversary of two important events. June 12th is the birthday of my first daughter, born in 1989. Coming after three brothers, her arrival was a pivot-point in our family history. June 12th is also when Ronald Reagan delivered his famous “tear down this wall” speech in Berlin in 1987, which I maintain was his single greatest moment and a pivot-point in world history.

Reagan dared confront the Soviets and the communist system across the board, rather than quietly accommodate them. He confronted them in both a physical sense--with increased military spending, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), support to anti-communist movements--and an ideological sense. And despite the success of physical/military/economic competition with the USSR, it was in the ideological realm that Reagan’s unabashed challenge to totalitarian communism had the greatest impact.

Yes, massive military programs like SDI (maligned as “Star Wars”), cruise missiles and stealth aircraft forced the Soviets to see that ultimately they could not compete. But it was the clear clarion call of freedom by President Ronald Reagan that really sounded the death knell of Soviet/Stalinist communism.

That call came early in his presidency as he defied his foreign-policy advisors to openly describe the Soviet Union as “running against the tide of history”, as the “focus of evil in the modern world” and as an “evil empire”. He contrasted the gray, stifling, confined, closed world of the Soviet system, against the vibrant, progressive, free and open world of the United States and the west. He made the stakes clear, and people on both sides of the divide responded.

Reagan’s rhetorical allure was on full display on June 12, 1987 in Berlin. His two-term presidency was drawing to a close, and a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was trying to institute policies of economic reform and “Glasnost” (openness). In the speech, Reagan essentially dared Gorbachev to follow through on his talk of Glasnost, and in the process, fired the imaginations of millions. Here, with edits for brevity, is the core of that speech (to see it all, visit www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches):

“Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south [there] remain armed guards and checkpoints. . . to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. . . Here every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.”

“Today I say: as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. . . Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor. . . We believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.”

“There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. . . 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! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

When Reagan made this demand, it was portrayed as a frivolous, even foolish PR stunt. But history shows otherwise. On Nov. 9, 1989, East Germany opened the Berlin wall under pressure from peaceful pro-democracy protests. Immediately, Germans from east and west began to tear it down. On Oct. 3, 1990, Germany-- and Berlin--were reunited. In December, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved. On June 12, 1992, I celebrated my daughter’s 3rd birthday in a world without the USSR, without Soviet ICBMs pointed at her, without “mutual assured destruction”, and without a wall of iron, steel and stone dividing her world.

T.T.

©2004, WestRim Digital Arts