It's been twenty years since Ronald Reagan stood by the Brandenburg Gate and demanded the beginning of the liberation of eastern Europe. Only two and a half years later, the wall came down. I remember listening to radio reports about it, and for one of the few times in my life, I had a very real sense of history being made.

[Update in the afternoon]

Apparently, it was neither the first, or the last time that Reagan called for the wall to come down. It was almost a lifetime habit, right up until it actually fell.

It will be one of the great moments in history. I'm glad to know that when my children read about it in History class, I'll remember again those momentous days.

I'm not a big fan of rock concerts, but watching Pink Floyd play "The Wall" at the Berlin Wall was beyond description.

My favorite Reagan line was caught "by accident".

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

I still think this little faux pas was planned out.

Rand: It's been twenty years since Ronald Reagan stood by the Brandenburg Gate and demanded the beginning of the liberation of eastern Europe. Only two and a half years later, the wall came down.

Ipso facto, the Divine Gipper single-handedly dismantled the Berlin Wall with a speech. Sometimes I think Republican iconography would be better expressed in pharaonic hieroglyphs--show Reagan ten times larger than everyone else, smashing his mighty scepter on the wall, and the tiny shadows of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy cowering behind him. Reality truly does have a rather egregious liberal bias, doesn't it?

BS: "Ipso facto, the Divine Gipper single-handedly dismantled the Berlin Wall with a speech."

No he would be a liberal if he believed that a speech would make a difference. Unlike a liberal he backed up his words with actions and thereby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union.

Liberal history revisionists like BS have to sooth their conscience with the idea that it was just coincidence that the USSR fell apart at the same time Reagan was working to make it do so.

>>Ipso facto, the Divine Gipper single-handedly dismantled the Berlin Wall with a speech.

Brian,
Nobody said that, nobody meant that. Why would you take Rand's post and utterly misrepresent its meaning that way? For decades now people have routinely memorialized president Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, which could just as readily be twisted in the same fashion, but nobody does so. Similarly nobody twists Roosevelt's first inaugural "nothing to fear" comment or Lincoln's "house divided" speech. In each case these were leaders expressing the important sentiments necessary to steel people for the hard work that lay ahead to accomplish the fulfillment of the ideas that lay behind those sentiments. Reagan, at that time, was leading a deliberate campaign to stress the communist system to its breaking point. With that speech he didn't say anything new. He just repeated a simple truth that needed to be repeated again and again. He put it in the simplest terms possible, that the wall was not a construct of the free West but a work of Communist tyranny and that the onus was on the tyrant to bring it down along all the other ugly works of oppression of which it was only the most visible. And he was putting the tyrant on notice that (which most people at the time firmly denied) his days were numbered and he could either grant freedom to the enslaved or they would soon rise up and take it for themselves. Speaking that truth, at that time, was not a sine qua non of the larger battle being waged by so many at that time but it was an important thing to do, just as the other speeches I mentioned were important to their times.
Michael

Come on Brian, even you should recognize this one. Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman did play a big part too, but the wall fell on Reagan's watch, so he gets the lion's share of the credit. His dedication to causing the Communist leaders to see their true situation was astounding in its simplicity. The groundwork was laid by others, but Reagan got it done. He deserves credit for it.

I was in Germany when the wall came down. I'll forget the first 'East' German car I saw on the Autobahn...looked like a shed that had been hammered into the shape of a car. The 2-banger vehicle was barely in the right hand lane as the driver struggled to keep it on the shoulder. Hands so tight on the wheel, his knuckles were glowing white beacons. BMWs, Audis, Mercedes', Passats, and (my fav) the Ford Scorpio were whooshing past at warp speed.

Ahhhhhh, freedom! ;-)

Ha! Should be that I'll NEVER forget. ;-)

Maybe you forgot it because you passed it going so fast?

Cecil: No he would be a liberal if he believed that a speech would make a difference.

Reagan did little more than give speeches, so evidently you think the pompous fool was a liberal.

Unlike a liberal he backed up his words with actions and thereby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bullshit. He sat atop decades of yeoman's heavy lifting from American presidents great and mediocre, exaggerated the Soviet threat beyond all evidence to justify gorging his party's loyal contractors, and then tried to claim credit when his portrayals were exposed as pure fantasy. Remember the movie "Red Dawn"? That was basically the picture those idiots painted for the American people--a vast, terrifyingly advanced army poised to sweep away NATO unless we engaged in a massive buildup. Then, of course, when people found out about the food lines and Soviet tanks with no gas, somehow it was Reagan who spontaneously created that by funding a bunch of pork projects that never went anywhere. The fact is, the real fall didn't begin until he stopped acting like a belligerent idiot and started engaging with Gorbachev, and any liberal would have been doing that from the beginning.

Liberal history revisionists like BS have to sooth their conscience with the idea that it was just coincidence that the USSR fell apart at the same time Reagan was working to make it do so.

It didn't fall apart under Reagan, it fell apart under Bush Sr. You lot simply picked Reagan to be your holy icon because he was more popular than the latter, and was a two-term president.

Michael: For decades now people have routinely memorialized president Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, which could just as readily be twisted in the same fashion, but nobody does so.

There's no comparison. Kennedy stood firm and assertive, both in Berlin and with respect to Cuban missiles, and did so with the military and conservative leaders hounding him to launch preemptive attacks. He saved the world, whereas the most that can be said for Reagan is that he managed to avoid blowing it up while going about his party's normal corrupt agenda.

Reagan, at that time, was leading a deliberate campaign to stress the communist system to its breaking point.

He was leading a deliberate campaign to increase the public cash flow to a Republican-affiliated industry, like every Republican president does, and he never cared that the weapons being built didn't work. The Soviets knew the buildup was a joke through the high-profile spies they had in CIA and the Pentagon at the time.

And he was putting the tyrant on notice that (which most people at the time firmly denied) his days were numbered and he could either grant freedom to the enslaved or they would soon rise up and take it for themselves.

I agree with the speech, just not with people who want to attribute the Fall to it.

Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman did play a big part too

They architected virtually the entire Cold War, and guaranteed America's eventual victory.

but the wall fell on Reagan's watch, so he gets the lion's share of the credit.

The wall fell on HW Bush's watch.

His dedication to causing the Communist leaders to see their true situation was astounding in its simplicity.

He didn't know their true situation. For most of his time in office, he believed it was still 1960 and the Soviets were planning to invade NATO. It wasn't until that delusion started to fray around the edges and he bothered to really talk to the Soviets that changes started happening.

The groundwork was laid by others, but Reagan got it done. He deserves credit for it.

He got jack shit done. If anything, he postponed the fall.

What malarky!

Granted...Kennedy may have been steadfast but then he was dead and Johnson suddenly had other things to worry about. As for his saving the world...what is your basis for that? Everybody after Kennedy preferred status quo during the Cold War rather than rile the Ruskies. Reagan wouldn't accept that and got both sides talking. To even imply that he 'postponed' the fall is asinine.

"He didn't know their true situation. For most of his time in office, he believed it was still 1960 and the Soviets were planning to invade NATO. It wasn't until that delusion started to fray around the edges and he bothered to really talk to the Soviets that changes started happening. He got jack shit done. If anything, he postponed the fall."

You have no idea what you're even talking about. Evidently you are not old enough to remember Reagan in office, in any case you've gotten your historical "facts" from some other liberal idiot who knows nothing about the truth.

CJ: "Granted...Kennedy may have been steadfast but then he was dead and Johnson suddenly had other things to worry about."

Johnson, while an evil bastard, can at least be credited with restraining the maniacs who wanted Vietnam to become a general Asian (i.e., nuclear) conflict.

As for his saving the world...what is your basis for that?

The Cuban Missile Crisis. If he had backed down, there would have been missiles in Cuba, the Soviets would have been emboldened, and the US may afterwards have disastrously overcompensated. But had he listened to the Joint Chiefs and ordered a preemptive attack, it very likely could have escalated into the end of civilization. Somehow, defying all idiotic right-wing stereotypes about the meaning of strength, President Kennedy brought us through alive and proud in the eyes of the world without firing a single shot.

Everybody after Kennedy preferred status quo during the Cold War rather than rile the Ruskies.

Yes, and that was a good idea at the time. The Soviet Union still had significant internal strength during most of the Brezhnev era, before it began to deteriorate in the late '70s, and Reagan's antics wouldn't have been tolerated before then. There would have been real confrontation with potentially disastrous consequences, and Reagan's people were such idiots that it's hard to imagine them emulating Kennedy's restraint.

I give most of the credit for progress during the Reagan era to Gorbachev: Other Soviet leaders would have simply deployed the Red Army to reestablish control in Poland and East Germany when developments appeared to threaten it, but he chose not to act, and the Soviet Union was disbanded largely as a result of witnessing that. The member states wouldn't otherwise have dared.

Reagan wouldn't accept that and got both sides talking.

That's just not true. When Reagan came to office, virtually all previous diplomatic initiatives ceased, Soviet enquiries were ignored, and offers of new talks were brushed off. He thought it would make more sense to "express" his position through a hyped military buildup and support for third world fascism than to discuss things. Unfortunately, it had no effect whatsoever other than postponing progress, which only began to occur later in the second term when Reagan finally decided to engage with the Soviets.

To even imply that he 'postponed' the fall is asinine.

The Soviet Union was already falling apart in the later Brezhnev years, and its willingness to negotiate was already high when Reagan came to office. But he wasn't interested, so he spent most of his presidency shadow-boxing with a fantasy while Soviet diplomatic initiatives were rebuffed. Freedom might have come years earlier, and without the chaos that followed in Russia and the Stans.

Cecil: You have no idea what you're even talking about.

Then why are you responding with empty trash-talk instead of refuting what I say? My facts are impeccable, yours nonexistent--you're taking umbrage out of ideological devotion to Ronald Reagan, nothing more.

Evidently you are not old enough to remember Reagan in office, in any case you've gotten your historical "facts" from some other liberal idiot who knows nothing about the truth.

Cecil, we're both old enough to remember Reagan. The problem is that you don't.