"The Beginning of the End of the Cold War"
Arriving in Berlin on June 12, 1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, where they viewed the wall from a balcony. President Reagan then made his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2:00 p.m., in front of two panes of bulletproof glass protecting him from potential snipers in East Berlin. About 45,000 people were in attendance; among the spectators were West German president Richard von Weizsäcker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and West Berlin mayor Eberhard Diepgen. That afternoon, Reagan said,
Due to the amplification system being used, the President's words could also be heard on the Eastern (Communist-controlled) side of the wall. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism. On November 9-11, 1989, the people of a free Berlin tore down that wall.
Of all his speeches, Ronald Reagan's "tear down that wall," address may well become the "Great Communicator's" best remembered.
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Not as many people might be aware of this :
The following press conference is the first public mention of AIDS in the Reagan White House. At that time 200 Americans had died of a new infectious disease. Reagan himself did not mention AIDS for three more years.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
PRESS BRIEFING BY LARRY SPEAKES
October 15, 1982
The Briefing Room
12:45pm EDT
Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don't.
MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President
MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any
Q: Nobody knows?
(There's more if you're interested . . . )
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February 6 would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday !
Febraury 7 would have been my Grandmama Wheeler's 100th birthday !
I have more memories of her than him.
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With all that being said, here are some photos from our trip to Berlin last year. They were taken from a moving vehicle, through a not-so-clean-bus-window, so some aren't in focus.
Vehicles and pedestrians could travel freely through the Brandenburg Gate, located in East Berlin, until the Berlin Wall was built, August 13, 1961. Then one, of altogether eight Berlin Wall crossings was opened on the eastern side of the gate, usually not open for East Berliners and East Germans, who from then on needed a hard-to-obtain exit visa. On August 14, West Berliners gathered on the western side of the gate to demonstrate against the Berlin Wall, among them West Berlin's Governing Mayor Willy Brandt, who had spontaneously returned from a West German federal election campaigning tour in West Germany early the same day.
Under the pretext that Western demonstrations required it, the East closed the checkpoint at the Brandenburg Gate the same day, 'until further notice', a situation that was to last until December 22, 1989. The Wall was erected as an arc just west of the gate, cutting off access from West Berlin. On the eastern side, the "baby Wall", drawn across the eastern end of Pariser Plataz rendered it off limits to East Berliners as well.
When the Revolutions of 1989 occurred and the Wall fell, the gate symbolized freedom and the desire to unify the city of Berlin. Thousands of people gathered at the Wall to celebrate its fall on November 9, 1989. On December 22, 1989, the Brandenburg Gate crossing was reopened when Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor, walked through to be greeted by Hans Modrow, the East German prime minister. Demolition of the rest of the Wall around the area took place the following year.
Checkpoint Charlie !
Flowers. Flowers. Flowers were everywhere !
There are about 649 more photos that I wanted to post.
Time was a factor.
