"TEAR DOWN THIS WALL"
It was 23 years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in the divided city of Berlin and urged Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to "tear down this wall!"
At the time, several members of the President's staff opposed the remark. Chief of Staff Howard Baker said it sounded "extreme." National Security Advisor Colin Powell agreed, declaring it was "unpresidential." Reagan ended the debate by saying, "I think we'll leave it in."
About 45,000 people attending the speech heard the American leader declare: "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!"
While many commentators in the East and the West derided our "cowboy" President for his anti-communist rhetoric, just 29 months later the wall began to fall. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Chip Wood
Personal Liberty Digest
4 comments:
Having grown up with the Berlin Wall as one of lifes dangerous certainties it still feels odd some 23 years later that it is no longer there.
Well done Ron.
I remember watching the wall come down on TV. It was an amazing thing. It was Reagan's vindication.
Today we hear the same idiots whining for dialogue and hand-holding, they did the same when Bush went to war, they insulted him too, but in record time he did what not one of these sniveling weasels could do with all their meetings and nuanced bending.
Time is always on the side of truth. Reagan was mocked again and again, but now most Americans remember him for the great President he was. We stood a lot taller with him in the White House.
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