Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Introduction: Reagan's Role in Ending the Cold War

More than any other single person, President Ronald Reagan was responsible for the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of communism. It was his policies as President of the United States that led to the instability in the regimes of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its puppet governments in Eastern Europe. He took the bold step of breaking with previous U.S. foreign policy to advocate the defeat of communism instead of coexistence. "Reagan's experience in winning the Cold War provides a model of strength and offers hope. In 1980, no one expected to see the Berlin Wall come down that decade."^[1] It was this forcefulness that was the proximate cause for the opening of the wall on November 9, 1989.

In an interview on November 27, 1995, Jerry Falwell said, "Many thought he was a hawk, but I never saw him that way at all. I think his 'peace through strength' initiative was just the opposite. And it turned out to be correct: it brought the Berlin Wall down; it brought Soviet communism to an end. He knew that they could not match us. He broke their back militarily and economically. I believe that this was his goal upon taking office."^[2]

Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, the second of two sons to John "Jack" Reagan and Nelle Wilson. One of his four great-grandfathers had immigrated to the United States from Ballyporeen, Ireland in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's emigration, the family name had been spelled Regan. In 1920, after years of moving from town to town, the family settled in Dixon, Illinois. In 1921, at the age of 10, Reagan was baptized in his mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, and in 1924 he began attending Dixon's Northside High School. Reagan always considered Dixon to be his hometown.

Early Life, Career, and Political Evolution

In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, majoring in economics and sociology, and graduated in 1932. In 1929, Ronald Reagan joined Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, which he recalled during numerous interviews and conversations later in life as one of the greatest experiences he had during his college years. Though earning mediocre grades, he made many lasting friendships. Reagan developed an early gift for storytelling and acting. He worked as a radio announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games, receiving only the bare outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on his imagination and storytelling gifts to flesh out the action. Once in 1934, during the ninth inning of a Cubs–St. Louis Cardinals game, the wire went dead. Reagan smoothly improvised a fictional play-by-play — in which hitters on both teams fouled off pitches — until the wire was restored.

Reagan was popular with audiences, and aided by his clear voice and athletic physique, he primarily starred in Hollywood in leading-man roles in B movies. His first screen credit was the starring role in the 1937 film Love Is on the Air. By the end of 1939, he had appeared in 19 films. In 1940, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American, from which he acquired the nickname "the Gipper," which he retained for the rest of his life.

Reagan was commissioned as a reserve cavalry officer in the U.S. Army in 1935. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he was activated and assigned, partially due to his poor eyesight, to the First Motion Picture Unit in the United States Army Air Force, which produced training and education films. He remained in Hollywood for the duration of the war and attained the rank of captain. In 1952, Ronald Reagan married Nancy Davis, who became a powerful background figure in his rise and roles as governor and president.

Ronald Reagan began his political life as a Democrat, supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. He gradually became a staunch social and fiscal conservative. He embarked upon the path that led him to a career in politics during his tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952, and again from 1959 to 1960. In this position, he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on Communist influence in Hollywood.

Concluding that the Republican Party was better able to combat communism, Reagan gradually abandoned his left-of-center political views, supporting the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960 — all while he was still registered as a Democrat.

His employment by the General Electric Company from 1954 to 1962 further enhanced his political image. It was during his travels for the company that his conservative beliefs coalesced. He gave speeches at GE facilities focusing on the value of a free-market economy and the benefits of GE's products, and during the course of these talks he would exchange ideas with the workers. "It was not what he said to them but what they said to him that was important. They were the kind of people with whom he grew up, and he saw them as hard-working, decent Americans for whom life had not been easy. He became a convert to their way of thinking and, in time, a champion for their interests."^[3]

By the 1964 presidential election, Reagan was an outspoken supporter of conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. His nationally televised speech, "A Time for Choosing," electrified conservatives and led to his being asked to run for Governor of California. To this day, that speech is considered one of the most stirring ever made on behalf of a candidate. Soon after, several top Republican contributors visited Reagan at his home in Pacific Palisades, California, urging him to seek the governorship in 1966. Though these requests were initially "laughed off" by Reagan, as he recounts in his autobiography, he eventually gave in.

In 1966, Reagan was elected the 33rd Governor of California, defeating two-term incumbent Pat Brown. He was re-elected in 1970, defeating Jesse Unruh, but chose not to seek a third term. During his first term he froze government hiring but also approved tax hikes to balance the budget. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office concerned the death penalty. He had gone on record as a strong supporter; however, his efforts to enforce the state's death penalty law were thwarted when the Supreme Court of California issued its People v. Anderson decision, which invalidated all death sentences passed in California prior to 1972. Although the decision was quickly overturned by a constitutional amendment, there would not be another execution in California until 1992.

Reagan's first attempt to gain the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 was unsuccessful. He tried again in 1976 against incumbent Gerald Ford but was narrowly defeated at the Republican Convention. In 1978, Reagan visited the Berlin Wall — an event that gained greater importance in retrospect. He was accompanied by an aide, Peter Hannsford, who told Dinesh D'Souza that he remembered Reagan's "cold fury" as he gazed at the symbol of the divide between freedom and totalitarianism. Reagan's reaction was brief and to the point: "This wall has got to come down."^[4]

He finally succeeded in gaining the Republican nomination in 1980. The campaign, led by William J. Casey, was conducted in the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis, and some analysts believe President Jimmy Carter's inability to resolve the hostage crisis played a large role in Reagan's victory. Other issues in the campaign included inflation, lackluster economic growth, instability in the petroleum market leading to a return of gas lines, and the perceived weakness of U.S. national defense.

Path to the Presidency

Reagan's performance in the televised debates boosted his campaign. He seemed more at ease, poking fun at President Carter with remarks like "There you go again." Perhaps his most influential remark was a closing question to the audience, delivered during a time of skyrocketing global oil prices and highly unpopular Federal Reserve interest rate hikes: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

While leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, Reagan, his Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty were shot by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan turned what could have been a low point in his first 100 days into another high point by remarking "I hope you're all Republicans" to his surgeons, and "Honey, I forgot to duck" to his wife.

In order to achieve increases in military spending to fight the Cold War, the administration had to allow increases in spending on social programs, resulting in record deficit spending and a tripling of the national debt by the end of his second term. At the same time, inflation — which had been 13 percent in 1979 — came down to under 4 percent in 1982. Unemployment also dropped from 7.5 percent in the year Reagan took office to 5.2 percent in the year he left. Proponents often note that Reagan used his veto on public spending projects 78 times in all.

In the 1984 presidential election, he was re-elected in a landslide over Carter's Vice President, Walter Mondale, winning 49 of 50 states and receiving nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. Reagan had accepted the Republican nomination in Dallas, Texas, on a wave of good feeling bolstered by the recovering economy and the dominating performance of U.S. athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics that summer. Despite a weak performance in the first debate, Reagan recovered in the second and was considerably ahead of Mondale in polls taken throughout much of the race. Reagan's landslide victory is often attributed by political commentators to his conversion of the so-called "Reagan Democrats" — traditionally Democratic voters who crossed over to support him.

The international scene in the 1980s presented an opportunity for Reagan. Change was in the air. People were seeking freedom, and Reagan was able to take advantage of this with tougher anti-communist policies. The prestige of the Soviet empire was diminishing, and the country was in an economic crisis. "The early 1980s found an aging and unimaginative Soviet leadership facing intractable domestic problems and an increasingly difficult international environment. As the old guard died off or retired, a new generation of leaders, influenced more by Khrushchev's thaw than by Stalin's terror, moved into the highest echelons of power."^[5]

Reagan made the abolition of communism and the implementation of supply-side economics the primary focuses of his presidency. "In 1983, Reagan shocked many Americans by delivering a speech that strongly condemned the Soviets. 'Let us be aware,' he said, 'that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.'"^[6] Soviet power and influence had to be combated not only because it represented a threat to the United States, but also because it was inherently immoral. "The relentless growth of Soviet military power is aimed at dominating the world," Caspar Weinberger declared on March 9. If the American arms buildup were allowed to stagnate, he was reported as saying, "the United States will have to settle for permanent nuclear inferiority and thus be subject to nuclear blackmail by the Soviet Union."^[7] The lines had been drawn clearly, and the administration was focused squarely on the worldwide communist threat.

Ronald Reagan portrayed himself as conservative, anti-communist, and in favor of tax cuts and smaller government. He also liked to think of himself — and was regarded by many others — as being supportive of business interests and tough on crime. Although Reagan's second term was mostly noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs, his administration supported significant pieces of domestic legislation, including an overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code in 1986 and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which compensated victims of the Japanese American internment during World War II. Reagan also signed legislation authorizing the death penalty for offenses involving murder in the context of large-scale drug trafficking.

Conclusion: Reagan's Legacy and the Defeat of Communism

Historians will debate the role Ronald Reagan and others played in the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of communism. Certainly there were several other world leaders who contributed to the end of the "evil empire." What Reagan did was to provide an environment in which this change could take place. His support of worldwide anti-communist movements and his willingness to upgrade U.S. defenses set the stage for others to have a voice. Had he not been willing to break with his predecessors and challenge the Soviet Union, it is unlikely that change would have occurred as quickly and as peacefully as it did.