Ronald
Reagan "Tear down that wall" (1987)
Thank you very much.
Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen,
ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four years ago, President
John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people
of this city and the world at the City Hall. Well,
since then two other presidents have come, each in
his turn, to Berlin. And today I, myself, make my
second visit to your city.
We come to Berlin, we American presidents,
because it's our duty to speak, in this place, of
freedom. But I must confess, we're drawn here by other
things as well: by the feeling of history in this
city, more than 500 years older than our own nation;
by the beauty of the Grunewald and the Tiergarten;
most of all, by your courage and determination. Perhaps
the composer Paul Lincke understood something about
American presidents. You see, like so many presidents
before me, I come here today because wherever I go,
whatever I do: Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin.
[I still have a suitcase in Berlin.]
Our gathering today is being broadcast
throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand
that it is being seen and heard as well in the East.
To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special
word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my
remarks to you just as surely as to those standing
here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow
countrymen in the West, in this firm, this unalterable
belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. [There is only one
Berlin.]
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 may be no visible,
no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and
checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the
right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon
ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian
Issues. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges
most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where
the news photo and the television screen have imprinted
this brutal division of a continent upon the mind
of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate,
every man is a German, separated from his fellow men.
Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.
President von Weizsacker has said, "The
German question is open as long as the Brandenburg
Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the
gate is closed, 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. Yet I do not come here to lament.
For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in the
shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.
In this season of spring in 1945, the
people of Berlin emerged from their air-raid shelters
to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the
people of the United States reached out to help. And
in 1947 Secretary of Issues--as you've been told--George
Marshall announced the creation of what would become
known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40
years ago this month, he said: "Our policy is
directed not against any country or doctrine, but
against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."
In the Reichstag a few moments ago,
I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary
of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on
a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt.
I understand that Berliners of my own generation can
remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the
western sectors of the city. The sign read simply:
"The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen
the free world." A strong, free world in the
West, that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin
to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium--virtually
every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic
rebirth; the European Community was founded.
In West Germany and here in Berlin,
there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder.
Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood
the practical importance of liberty--that just as
truth can flourish only when the journalist is given
freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only
when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom.
The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free
trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the
standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.
Where four decades ago there was rubble,
today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial
output of any city in Germany--busy office blocks,
fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the
spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city's culture
seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two
great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless
theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today
there's abundance--food, clothing, automobiles--the
wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. From devastation,
from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt
a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest
on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But
my friends, there were a few things the Soviets didn't
count on--Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner
Schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes, and
a Berliner Schnauze.]
In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted:
"We will bury you." But in the West today,
we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity
and well-being unprecedented in all human history.
In the Communist world, we see failure, technological
backwardness, declining standards of health, even
want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even
today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself.
After these four decades, then, there stands before
the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion:
Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the
ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and
peace. Freedom is the victor.
And now the Soviets themselves may,
in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance
of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy
of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have
been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are
no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises
have been permitted to operate with greater freedom
from Issues control.
Are these the beginnings of profound
changes in the Soviet Issues? Or are they token gestures,
intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen
the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome
change and openness; for 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!
I understand the fear of war and the
pain of division that afflict this continent-- and
I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome
these burdens. To be sure, we in the West must resist
Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses of
unassailable strength. Yet we seek peace; so we must
strive to reduce arms on both sides.
Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets
challenged the Western alliance with a grave new threat,
hundreds of new and more deadly SS-20 nuclear missiles,
capable of striking every capital in Europe. The Western
alliance responded by committing itself to a counter-deployment
unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution;
namely, the elimination of such weapons on both sides.
For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in
earnestness. As the alliance, in turn, prepared to
go forward with its counter-deployment, there were
difficult days--days of protests like those during
my 1982 visit to this city--and the Soviets later
walked away from the table.
But through it all, the alliance held
firm. And I invite those who protested then-- I invite
those who protest today--to mark this fact: Because
we remained strong, the Soviets came back to the table.
And because we remained strong, today we have within
reach the possibility, not merely of limiting the
growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first
time, an entire class of nuclear weapons from the
face of the earth.
As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting
in Iceland to review the progress of our proposals
for eliminating these weapons. At the talks in Geneva,
we have also proposed deep cuts in strategic offensive
weapons. And the Western allies have likewise made
far-reaching proposals to reduce the danger of conventional
war and to place a total ban on chemical weapons.
While we pursue these arms reductions,
I pledge to you that we will maintain the capacity
to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it
might occur. And in cooperation with many of our allies,
the United States is pursuing the Strategic Defense
Initiative--research to base deterrence not on the
threat of offensive retaliation, but on defenses that
truly defend; on systems, in short, that will not
target populations, but shield them. By these means
we seek to increase the safety of Europe and all the
world. But we must remember a crucial fact: East and
West do not mistrust each other because we are armed;
we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our
differences are not about weapons but about liberty.
When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those
24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under
siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this
city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom
itself is transforming the globe.
In the Philippines, in South and Central
America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout
the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after
miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized
nations, a technological revolution is taking place--a
revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers
and telecommunications.
In Europe, only one nation and those
it controls refuse to join the community of freedom.
Yet in this age of redoubled economic growth, of information
and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It
must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.
Today thus represents a moment of hope.
We in the West stand ready to cooperate with the East
to promote true openness, to break down barriers that
separate people, to create a safe, freer world. And
surely there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting
place of East and West, to make a start. Free people
of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the United States
stands for the strict observance and full implementation
of all parts of the Four Power Agreement of 1971.
Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of
this city, to usher in a new era, to seek a still
fuller, richer life for the Berlin of the future.
Together, let us maintain and develop the ties between
the Federal Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin,
which is permitted by the 1971 agreement.
And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work
to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the city
closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all
Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with life
in one of the great cities of the world.
To open Berlin still further to all
Europe, East and West, let us expand the vital air
access to this city, finding ways of making commercial
air service to Berlin more convenient, more comfortable,
and more economical. We look to the day when West
Berlin can become one of the chief aviation hubs in
all central Europe.
With our French and British partners,
the United States is prepared to help bring international
meetings to Berlin. It would be only fitting for Berlin
to serve as the site of United Nations meetings, or
world conferences on human rights and arms control
or other issues that call for international cooperation.
There is no better way to establish
hope for the future than to enlighten young minds,
and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth exchanges,
cultural events, and other programs for young Berliners
from the East. Our French and British friends, I'm
certain, will do the same. And it's my hope that an
authority can be found in East Berlin to sponsor visits
from young people of the Western sectors.
One final proposal, one close to my
heart: Sport represents a source of enjoyment and
ennoblement, and you may have noted that the Republic
of Korea--South Korea--has offered to permit certain
events of the 1988 Olympics to take place in the North.
International sports competitions of all kinds could
take place in both parts of this city. And what better
way to demonstrate to the world the openness of this
city than to offer in some future year to hold the
Olympic games here in Berlin, East and West? In these
four decades, as I have said, you Berliners have built
a great city. You've done so in spite of threats--the
Soviet attempts to impose the East-mark, the blockade.
Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges
implicit in the very presence of this wall. What keeps
you here? Certainly there's a great deal to be said
for your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But
I believe there's something deeper, something that
involves Berlin's whole look and feel and way of life--not
mere sentiment. No one could live long in Berlin without
being completely disabused of illusions. Something
instead, that has seen the difficulties of life in
Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to
build this good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding
totalitarian presence that refuses to release human
energies or aspirations. Something that speaks with
a powerful voice of affirmation, that says yes to
this city, yes to the future, yes to freedom. In a
word, I would submit that what keeps you in Berlin
is love--love both profound and abiding.
Perhaps this gets to the root of the
matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all
between East and West. The totalitarian world produces
backwardness because it does such violence to the
spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to
enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even
symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago,
before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches,
they erected a secular structure: the television tower
at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities
have been working to correct what they view as the
tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere
at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind.
Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere--that
sphere that towers over all Berlin--the light makes
the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city
itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot
be suppressed.
As I looked out a moment ago from the
Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed
words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps
by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs
become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall
will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot
withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
And I would like, before I close, to
say one word. I have read, and I have been questioned
since I've been here about certain demonstrations
against my coming. And I would like to say just one
thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if
they have ever asked themselves that if they should
have the kind of government they apparently seek,
no one would ever be able to do what they're doing
again.
Thank you and God bless you all.
