Date | June 12, 1987 |
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Venue | Near the Brandenburg Gate at the presently named Platz des 18. März |
Location | West Berlin |
Participants | Ronald Reagan |
The full text of the speech at Wikisource |
On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, United States president Ronald Reagan delivered a speech commonly known by a key line from the middle part: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan called for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961.[1][2][3]
The following day, The New York Times carried Reagan’s picture on the front page, below the title "Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall". Its impact on the Kremlin became widely known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.[4] In the post-Cold War era, it was often seen as one of the most memorable performances of an American president in Berlin after John F. Kennedy's 1963 speech "Ich bin ein Berliner".[5] Reagan's speech was written by Peter Robinson.