Speech · 1987

Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate

Speaking in West Berlin before the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall during the city’s 750th anniversary year, Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to prove his commitment to reform by opening the gate and tearing down the wall. He contrasted the freedom and prosperity of the West with the stagnation of the communist East and proposed steps toward cooperation, including arms reductions and closer ties between the two halves of Berlin.

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987

Why it matters

Some of Reagan’s advisers had urged him to drop the challenge to Gorbachev; the line became emblematic of the end of the Cold War after the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989.

Read the full text at reaganlibrary.gov

Primary Source

The original record, reproduced or linked from the institution that holds it. Primary sources show what people said and did in their own words.

Subjects

cold war foreign policy freedom anti-communism

From the library

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