Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Reagan at the Berlin Wall
In Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall, two years before the Wall fell, Reagan made a direct challenge to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall!” It was a stunning challenge before the whole world at one of the most iconic places in the world—the Berlin Wall which for more than two decades had stood as a monument to the Cold War, to the tensions between the Communist capital in Moscow and the Capitalist U.S. Two-and-a-half decades prior, another U.S. President had come to the same wall to lament the callousness of Communism: John F. Kennedy. In many ways, Reagan’s speech was inspired by Kennedy’s speech at the Berlin Wall in 1961. This paper will show how.
Kennedy used the Berlin Wall as a political tool to show that he was both united with the common men and women of the world and hard on Communism. He identified as a Berliner in his speech, saying in German, “Ich eine Berliner!” (Kennedy, 1961). Reagan used this same term, “Berliner,” and the same idea in his speech when he stated, “Every man is a Berliner” (Reagan, 1987). Reagan...
Reagan was channeling Kennedy in his remarks, leading up to his firm stance against Communism when he challenged Gorbachev to tear down the wall.
Reagan’s speech was powerful in that it baited Gorbachev to do as he said he wanted to do in the crumbling Soviet Union—open up Russia to more liberalizing attitudes and ways. Reagan and the West viewed Gorbachev as a man who knew that the Soviet Union’s days were numbered, that its ideology had ultimately failed it; that its command and control economy had not worked. Reagan and the West seized on the opportunity to push Gorbachev in front of the whole world to take the next step and declare Communism dead. Reagan and the West did this by going to the Berlin Wall and making another tough political speech in front of the very symbol of Communism itself. Reagan used that symbol to essentially say that the Soviet Union was old and worn out and useless just like this wall and that it was high time for it…
References
Kennedy, J. F. (1961). Berlin Wall speech. Retrieved from http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/john-fitzgerald-kennedy/ich-bin-ein-berliner-speech-1963.php
Reagan, R. (1987). Speech at Berlin Wall. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2007/summer/berlin.html
Ronald Reagan: "Tear Down This Wall" For many months, East Germany's beleaguered rulership tried desperately to quiet an increasingly oppositional movement and stem the tide of the people that were leaving the country (Ratnesar web). There were, by 1989, literal and metaphorical cracks in the communist bloc and the Berlin Wall; however, many thought that the wall would still remain. However, then president Ronald Reagan is quoted as saying, "I didn't
In such situations, no rescue could be attempted without costing more lives, but the incident captured by the Western media increased international resolve against the Soviets (Buckley, 2004). Resolution of Issues: Throughout the nearly half-century-long Cold War between East and West, the military expenditures dominated the respective fiscal budgets of the U.S. And Soviet Union. As military technology evolved, military tactics demanded continual development of more and more sophisticated weapons and
Many young people voted for Reagan as he represented rebellion against the authority figures in society but was a rebellion characterized by valiance and effectuated through skillful communication. The approval rating of Reagan was approximately 42% when 1982 began but dropped to the record low 35% later that same year. The U.S. entered a recession. If one is to set their focus upon obtaining a chance at being the
PRESIDENT REAGAN'S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD Was Ronald Reagan a Good President? President Reagan's International Human Rights Record President Reagan's International Human Rights Record The Cold War and Apartheid On September 26, 1986, President Ronald Reagan (1986) sent a message to the House of Representatives that he would not sign into law H.R. 4868 because it imposed punitive economic sanctions against South Africa as a whole. His stated rationale was that the people most affected by
Tear down that wall," has been the one sentence legacy of Ronald Reagan's presidential administration (Boyd). Ask any conservative political pundit and you are likely to hear that Reagan's defense strategy and, in particular, his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), was the direct cause of the Berlin Wall coming down, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the eventual end of the Cold War. Yet, in reality, how instrumental was
NATO and Russia: Selected EssaysEssay #1\\\"NATO should not be considered the most successful military alliance in the history because it \\\"won\\\" the Cold War by default. Taking into consideration that Europe failed to field sufficient conventional military forces, the Cold War ended not because of effective Atlantic containment, but because of the internal demise of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR.\\\" Discuss and opinionate. In your essay, explain, exemplify, and