What is the famous four-letter phrase uttered by Ronald Reagan in his speech in June, 1987 at Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin?
"When the sun shines on the Fernsehturm's tiled stainless steel dome, the reflection usually appears in the form of a cross. Berliners nicknamed the luminous cross ""Rache des Papstes"", or the ""Pope's Revenge"". For the same reasons, the structure was also called ""St. Walter"" (from Walter Ulbricht). U.S. President Ronald Reagan mentioned this in his ""Tear down this wall"" speech on 12 June 1987. It is also affectionately known as the ""Toothpick"" and ""Telespargel"" (TV-asparagus) due to its shape. The Berlin TV Tower is not only a broadcasting tower, but also a landmark, tourist attraction and venue. The Berlin TV"
"on Friday, June 12, 1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, where they viewed the wall from a balcony. Reagan then made his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2:00 pm, in front of two panes of bulletproof glass. Among the spectators were West German President Richard von Weizsäcker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and West Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen. That afternoon, Reagan said, Later on in his speech, President Reagan said, ""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"
"the GDR's social programmes and the alleged constant threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity. The Berlin Wall, rapidly built on 13 August 1961 prevented East German citizens from escaping to West Germany, eventually becoming a symbol of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan's ""Mr. Gorbachov, Tear down this wall!"" speech at the Wall on 12 June 1987 influenced public opinion, echoing John F. Kennedy's famous ""Ich bin ein Berliner"" speech of 26 June 1963. The fall of the Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the Fall of Communism,"
"a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc: In June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the"
"land a knockout blow on the Soviet regime, nor was he engaging in mere political theater. He was instead doing something else on that damp day in Berlin 20 years [before Mann's article] – he was helping to set the terms for the end of the cold war."" Tear down this wall! ""Tear down this wall!"" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961."
"existence of two German states and two Berlins, West Berlin mayor Richard von Weizsäcker said: ""The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed."" On 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan spoke to the West Berlin populace at the Brandenburg Gate, demanding the razing of the Berlin Wall. Addressing the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan said, On 25 December 1989, less than two months after the Berlin Wall began to come down, the conductor Leonard Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a version of the Ninth Symphony"
"and West Berlin, aligned with capitalist Europe (which later developed into the European Community). The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic with its capital in East Berlin, part of the communist Soviet Bloc. The FRG was a member of the western military alliance, NATO and the GDR was a member of the Warsaw Pact. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War. Into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at the Brandenburg"
"settlement which was ultimately confirmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2003. The new embassy opened on July 4, 2008. Kornblum's more than forty years of active presence in Europe have made him one of the most experienced and effective American practitioners on Europe and Atlantic relations. Sometimes by chance, often by design, he was often at the center of dramatic events. A highpoint of his efforts was the June 1987 speech by President Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Kornblum conceived and organized the event and worked for more than a year to gain acceptance for"
"addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall: in a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, he'd stated ""I'd like to ask the Soviet leaders one question [...] Why is the wall there?"", and in 1986, 25 years after the construction of the wall, in response to West German newspaper ""Bild-Zeitung"" asking when he thought the wall could be ""torn down"", Reagan said, ""I call upon those responsible to dismantle it [today]"". On the day before Reagan's 1987 visit, 50,000 people had demonstrated against the presence of the American president in Berlin. During the visit itself, wide swaths of Berlin"
"LIVE OAK, working together with NATO, was entrusted with potential military responses to any crisis. On 26 June 1963, President Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech known for its famous phrase ""Ich bin ein Berliner"". The Four Power Agreement on Berlin (September 1971) and the Transit Agreement (May 1972) helped to significantly ease tensions over the status of West Berlin. While many restrictions remained in place, it also made it easier for West Berliners to travel to East Germany and it simplified the regulations for Germans travelling along the autobahn transit routes. At the Brandenburg Gate in"
"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."" Another highlight of the speech was Reagan's call to end the arms race with his reference to the Soviets' SS-20 nuclear weapons, and 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."" The speech received ""relatively little coverage from the media"", ""Time"" magazine claimed 20 years later. John Kornblum, senior US"
"reduced some strategic arms unilaterally. Fundamental to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Gorbachev policy initiatives of Restructuring (""Perestroika"") and Openness (""Glasnost"") had ripple effects throughout the Soviet world, including eventually making it impossible to reassert central control over Warsaw Pact member states without resorting to military force. On June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further with his reforms and democratization by tearing down the Berlin Wall. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate next to the wall, Reagan stated: While the aging communist European leaders kept their states in the grip of ""normalization"", Gorbachev's reformist policies"
"Ich bin ein Berliner """"Ich bin ein Berliner"""" (, ""I am a Berliner"") is a quotation of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in a speech given on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin. It is widely regarded as the best-known speech of the Cold War and the most famous anti-communist speech. Kennedy aimed to underline the support of the United States for West Germany 22 months after Soviet-occupied East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent mass emigration to the West. The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement"
"are below: ""Time"" magazine listed the Brandenburg Gate Address on its list of ""Top 10 Greatest Speeches"". Speeches and debates of Ronald Reagan The speeches and debates of Ronald Reagan comprise the seminal oratory of the 40th President of the United States. Reagan began his career in Iowa as a radio broadcaster. In 1937, he moved to Los Angeles where he started acting, first in films and later television. After delivering a stirring speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. In"
"at the Brandenburg Gate in an article entitled ""Reagan's Brandenburg Concerto"" (an allusion to the complex work of the Brandenburg concertos by Bach), which appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of ""The American Interest"" and was reprinted in the German newspaper ""Die Welt"" on June 12, 2007. Kornblum disclosed that Reagan's delivery of the speech at the most dramatic site along the Berlin Wall was planned for more than a year in advance by U.S. diplomats in Germany and Washington as a counterweight to the growing sentiment within Germany for an arrangement with the new, liberal Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev."
"up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again,"" Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel—who grew up behind the wall in Germany's communist eastern part—also attended the commemoration. German President Christian Wulff added, ""It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom."" On 19 June 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke at the Gate about nuclear arms reduction and the recently revealed U.S. internet surveillance activities. On the night of 5 January 2015, the lights illuminating the gate were completely"
"and Molotov cocktails. The riots at the May Day in Kreuzberg became famous after the police had to completely pull out of the ""SO 36"" neighborhood in Kreuzberg for several hours, and rioters looted shops together with residents. When Ronald Reagan came to Berlin in June 1987, he was met by around 50,000 demonstrators protesting against his Cold War policies. This included a black bloc of 3,000 people. In November 1987, the residents were joined by thousands of other protesters and fortified their squat, built barricades in the streets and defended themselves against the police for nearly 24 hours. After"
"diplomat in Berlin at the time of Reagan's speech, and US Ambassador to Germany from 1997 to 2001, said ""[The speech] wasn't really elevated to its current status until 1989, after the wall came down."" The muted response in the Western media contrasted with the reaction from the East: East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski considered the speech to be ""absurd"", and the Soviet press agency TASS accused Reagan of giving an ""openly provocative, war-mongering speech."" It was Schabowski who two and a half years later, on 9 November 1989, became the person to open the wall by providing a"
"anti-nuclear activists denounced the Zero Option as designed to be rejected so that the U.S. could deploy the new missiles without condemnation by critics there and abroad. Reagan's proposal came to widespread public attention especially in Germany, where the translated term ""Nullösung"" was chosen as Word of the Year 1981 by the ""Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache"". Following the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, however, nuclear arms control negotiations were resumed, and the Zero Option constituted the basis of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, agreed in principle in September 1987 and signed on 8 December that year. Reagan's vision toward"
"the ""United States International Communication Agency"" (USICA) Carter issues second mandate for USIA/USICA: """"to reduce the degree to which misperceptions and misunderstandings complicate relations between the United States and other nations. It is also in our interest—and in the interest of other nations—that Americans have the opportunity to understand the histories, cultures, and problems of others, so that we can come to understand their hopes, perceptions, and aspirations."""" 1978 – VOA folded into USIA/USICA 1982 – Reagan restored the name to USIA 1987 – Reagan's tear down this wall! speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. 1989 – Year"
"role in 2018 European Athletics Championships. It is also the usual finish line of the Berlin Marathon. A Soviet flag flew from a flagpole atop the gate from 1945 until 1957, when it was replaced by an East German flag. Since the reunification of Germany, the flag and the pole have been removed. During the 1953 riots in East Berlin the Soviet flag was torn off by West Germans. In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviets hung large red banners across it to prevent him looking into East Berlin. In the 1980s, decrying the"
"described as a memorable phrase maker"" but was really only ""an actor masquerading as a leader"". Bowing to the critics, he included in the 2002 edition Reagan’s memorable 1987 demand during a speech at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall: “Tear down this wall!” Joe and Anne wrote a double memoir ""The Language of Names"" (1997), and """" (2002), in which they referred to themselves as ""children of privilege"" who went to progressive schools and were ""grounded in a classical approach to education — a lot of memorizing and Shakespeare, an exhaustive approach to history, literature, and the sciences."""
"context it is clear. Ich bin ein Berliner """"Ich bin ein Berliner"""" (, ""I am a Berliner"") is a quotation of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in a speech given on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin. It is widely regarded as the best-known speech of the Cold War and the most famous anti-communist speech. Kennedy aimed to underline the support of the United States for West Germany 22 months after Soviet-occupied East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent mass emigration to the West. The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and"
"was positive, the Soviet authorities were less pleased with the combative ""Lass sie nach Berlin kommen"". Only two weeks before, Kennedy had spoken in a more conciliatory tone, speaking of ""improving relations with the Soviet Union"": in response to Kennedy's Berlin speech, Nikita Khrushchev, days later, remarked that ""one would think that the speeches were made by two different Presidents."" Ronald Reagan would evoke both the sentiment and the legacy of Kennedy's speech 24 years later in his ""Tear down this wall!"" speech. There are commemorative sites to Kennedy in Berlin, such as the German-American John F. Kennedy School and"
"the four allied powers, each with primary responsibility for a certain zone. Kennedy's speech marked the first instance where the U.S. acknowledged that East Berlin was part of the Soviet bloc along with the rest of East Germany. On July 25, 1961, Kennedy insisted in a presidential address that the U.S. would defend West Berlin, asserting its Four-Power rights, while making it clear that challenging the Soviet presence in Germany was not possible. The ""Ich bin ein Berliner"" speech is in part derived from a speech Kennedy gave at a Civic Reception on May 4, 1962, in New Orleans; there"
"Reagan to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, the people of East and West Berlin tore down the wall and East Germany's Communist government was voted out. East and West Germany unified to create the country of Germany, with its capital in the reunified Berlin. The changes in Central and Eastern Europe led to calls for reform in the Soviet Union itself. A failed coup by hard-liners led to greater instability in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet legislature, long subservient to the Communist Party, voted to abolish the Soviet Union in 1991. What had been the Soviet Union"
"22 months after the erection of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg for an audience of 450,000 he declared in his ""Ich bin ein Berliner"" speech the support of the United States for West Germany and the people of West Berlin in particular: The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both"
"border adjacent to Border Field State Park. In one of his speeches he criticized the U.S. government for building the barriers, and asked for them to be removed. Ultimately, he mocked Ronald Reagan's ""Tear down this wall!"" speech from Berlin in 1987. Between 1994 and 2007, there were around 5,000 migrant deaths along the Mexico–United States border, according to a document created by the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico, also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Between 43 and 61 people died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert from October 2003 to May 2004; three times that of"
"West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his """"Ich bin ein Berliner"""" speech in 1963, underlining the US support for the Western part of the city. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners travel to West Berlin or West Germany was prohibited by the government of East Germany. In 1971, a Four-Power agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany. In 1989,"
"were closed off to prevent further anti-Reagan protests. The district of Kreuzberg, in particular, was targeted in this respect, with movement throughout this portion of the city in effect restrained completely (for instance the subway line 1 was shut down). The speech was also a source of considerable controversy within the Reagan administration itself, with several senior staffers and aides advising against the phrase, saying anything that might cause further East-West tensions or potential embarrassment to Gorbachev, with whom President Reagan had built a good relationship, should be omitted. American officials in West Germany and presidential speechwriters, including Peter Robinson,"
"leaving us."" The speech is known for its famous phrase """"Ich bin ein Berliner"""" (""I am a citizen of Berlin""). A million people were on the street for the speech. Kennedy remarked to Ted Sorensen afterwards: ""We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live."" In 1960, Kennedy stated, ""Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom."" Subsequently, as president, Kennedy initiated the"
"Returning to Washington D.C., Robinson's phrase became controversial with the State Department and other staff members, including Chief of Staff Howard Baker and National Security Advisor Colin Powell. Repeated attempts were made to remove it from the speech, but Reagan overruled them, wishing to communicate not only with West Berliners but with East Germans on the other side of the wall. Reagan went so far as to say ""yes, this wall will fall"", and that ""As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question"
"but Reagan recognized the real change in the direction of the Soviet leadership, and shifted to skillful diplomacy to personally push Gorbachev further with his reforms. Reagan sincerely believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to simply look at the prosperous American economy, they too would embrace free markets and a free society. At a speech given at the Berlin Wall on the city's 750th birthday, Reagan pushed Gorbachev further in front of 20,000 onlookers: ""General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here"