Ronald
Reagan "Tear down this 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.