Tear down this wall!

"Tear down this wall"

Complete speech. The line "tear down this wall" begins at 11:10 into this video.
Date	June 12, 1987 (1987-06-12)
Venue	Near the Brandenburg Gate
Location	West Berlin
Participants	Ronald Reagan
The full text of the speech at Wikisource

On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, United States president Ronald Reagan gave a speech that is now known by a key line from the middle part: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan wanted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had blocked West Berlin since 1961.^[1][2][3]

Not many people in the Reagan administration liked the idea of Reagan saying the famous line.^[4] Some thought it would make the relationship between the United States and Soviet Union worse.^[4] However, Reagan liked the line and kept it in his final speech.^[5][6] Over 50,000 people had protested against Reagan before he arrived in Berlin. During the visit, many parts of Berlin were closed off to stop anti-Reagan protests.

The next day, The New York Times had Reagan’s picture on the front page with the title "Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall". Its impact on the Kremlin became known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.^[7] In the years after the Cold War, it was seen as one of the most well known speeches of an American president in Berlin after John F. Kennedy's 1963 speech "Ich bin ein Berliner".^[8] Reagan's speech was written by Peter Robinson.

1. ↑ "Ronald Reagan speech, Tear Down This Wall". USAF Air University. Archived from the original on July 17, 2019. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
2. ↑ "Reagan challenges Gorbachev to 'tear down' Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987". Politico. June 11, 2017.
3. ↑ Osborn, John (June 13, 1987). "Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall". New York Times. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Cite error: The named reference con was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
5. ↑ Cite error: The named reference draft was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
6. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Seizing the Moment was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
7. ↑ Osborn, John (June 13, 1987). "Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall". New York Times. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
8. ↑ Daum, Andreas (2008). Kennedy in Berlin. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 8, 200, 209‒11.