Posted on 11/09/2014 2:27:03 PM PST by Hojczyk
Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall! It was the challenge delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall.
Contributor Andrea Ryan added: A special credit should be given to Peter Robinson, President Reagans speechwriter who wrote this speech. He is currently Editor-In-Chief for Ricochet. You can read his three short posts here describing the courage and conviction Reagan had to keep these words under strong objection by the National Security Council and the State Department wanting those words removed.
Two years later the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989.
Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed the fall as a dream come true. The BBC reported:
The fall of the Berlin Wall has shown the world that dreams can come true and nothing has to stay as it is, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
Speaking 25 years after the event, Mrs Merkel said the message for those in countries where rights were threatened was that things could get better.
Earlier she attended a service for the former East German regimes victims.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from communist East Germany to the West.
Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War.
Later in the day, some 7,000 white balloons perched on 3.6-metre poles to match the height of the wall and stretching for 15km (nine miles) will be released to symbolise its disappearance.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
What great days those were.
One of my favorite movies of all time, about those days, Goodbye, Lenin!
How fortunate we were to have all at the same time..
Reagan
Thatcher
Pope Paul II
Helmut Kohl
Oops, Pope John Paul II.
http://cdn.ricochet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/A-mediocre-speech2-928x640.jpg
In delivering his Berlin Wall address, President Reagan overruled the objections of the National Security Council and the State Department. Here, a couple of documents from the Reagan library. One, an NSC memorandum to Colin Powell, then Deputy National Security Advisor, calls the address a mediocre speech and a missed opportunity. The other shows the NSC edits. Note what the NSC deleted.
http://ricochet.com/archives/tear-down-this-wall-a-mediocre-speech-and-a-missed-opportunity/
Full article
“Two years later the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989.”
The end of an era.
September 11th 2001 was the beginning of another era.
What an absolutely brilliant artistic expression.
I was in the Air National Guard at the time and a DSG (drill status guardsmen). In October of '89 we were called to our HQ at Ft Sam Houston to work an exercise (Gallant Eagle) and the scenario was the Berlin Wall had fell...and we were exercising the Soviet response. Being the weather guy...it was a challenge as we were forecasting for forces in Europe and Alaska...a big variety.
I remember thinking the whole time: What a stupid scenario....like the Berlin Wall is ever gonna fall.
Well...I'm sitting in my apartment at Texas A&M....on this day 25 years ago...and they break into a Night Court re-run to inform me that the Berlin Wall had fallen.
Twenty-five years ago today Liberals cried as they realized their dream of global workers’ paradise was not going to happen. Since then they have been doing their best to resurrect their dream.
The Wall was felled.
Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!
I was stationed in West Germany when the Wall fell.
BINGO!
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