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So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today...
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big kahuna
Nov 9, 09 9:17
Post #1 of 12 (246 views)
So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today...
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Was it the cumulative weight of nearly 40 years of unending pressure put upon the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact by western governments led by the U.S. (and especially during Reagan's tenure) that finally brought down the wall on November 9, 1989? Anthony Dolan, writing in the WSJ today, has a good article in support of this viewpoint:
"Four Little Words"
Ronald Reagan would embarrass himself and the country by asking Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, which was going to be there for decades. So the National Security Council (NSC) staff and State Department had argued for many weeks to get Reagan's now famous line removed from his June 12, 1987, Berlin speech.
With a fervor and relentlessness I hadn't seen over the prior seven years even during disputes about "the ash-heap of history" or "evil empire," they kept up the pressure until the morning Reagan spoke the line. "Is that what I think it is?" I asked White House communications director Tom Griscom about a cable NSC Adviser Frank Carlucci had been nudging at us across the table during a White House senior staff meeting at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice. (Reagan had been attending a G-8 summit there and would shortly fly to the German capital.) With a shake of his head and a smile, Mr. Griscom confirmed the last-minute plea from State to drop the key sentence.
http://online.wsj.com/...522163362062796.html
James Carroll, writing in the Boston Globe, has a different interpretation of why the Wall, and the Iron Curtain, eventually came down:
"The Rusting and Fall of the Iron Curtain"
... Today is the 20th anniversary of the event that proved the realists wrong. When joyous citizens breached the Berlin Wall with rock music and dancing instead of guns and tanks, the Cold War was over. Against every prediction, the Soviet Union dismantled itself nonviolently. A number of factors made that happen, including the multidecade restraint of military men like my father, the internal collapse of the Soviet economy, and the steadfast arms control regime, which began with Kennedy and Khrushchev, and climaxed with Ronald Reagan’s embrace of Mikhail Gorbachev’s astonishing proposals at Geneva and Reykjavik, Iceland.
But Gorbachev and Reagan were both responding to something else - the pressures from below of grass-roots movements for peace on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Unimagined by realists, unforeseen by the CIA, a nonviolent democracy movement, beginning with Lech Walesa’s Solidarity in Poland, and spreading through the satellite nations into Russia itself, culminated in the refusal of communist soldiers to obey orders to shoot demonstrators. In the West, a mass movement against nuclear weapons, reflected even in Hollywood movies, coalesced around the simple call for a “Freeze!’’ that was initiated by an MIT graduate student named Randy Forsberg.
Personally, I believe the truth is closer to Dolan's view of the historical factors that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall and that, less than two years later, resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The problem, I think, lies in Carroll's belief that soft "people power" has ever persuaded repressive regimes to dismantle themselves of their own accord. Hungary, Prague, Tanenmen Square and the continual violent putdowns of protests in Tehran disprove his theory convincingly, I think.
Here's an excert (with a link) from a piece in Power Line by Peter Robinson, who was the speechwriter responsible for Reagan's remarkable speech at the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall in 1987:
...With three weeks to go before it was delivered, the speech was circulated to the State Department and the National Security Council. Both attempted to suppress it. The draft was naive. It would raise false hopes. It was clumsy. It was needlessly provocative. State and the NSC submitted their own alternate drafts--my journal records that there were no fewer than seven. In each, the call to tear down the wall was missing.
When in early June the President and his party reached Italy (I remained in Washington), Ken Duberstein, the deputy chief of staff, sat the President down in the garden of the palazzo in which he was staying, then briefed him on the objections to my draft. Reagan asked Duberstein's advice. Duberstein replied that he thought the line about tearing down the wall sounded good. "But I told him, 'You're President, so you get to decide.'" And then, Duberstein recalls, "he got that wonderful, knowing smile on his face, and he said, 'Let's leave it in.'"
The day the President arrived in Berlin, State and NSC submitted yet another alternate draft. Yet in the limousine on the way to the Berlin Wall, the President told Duberstein he was determined to deliver the controversial line. Reagan smiled. "The boys at State are going to kill me," he said, "but it's the right thing to do."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/...s/2009/11/024922.php
Reagan demanding that the wall be torn down, and his refusal (contrary to Carroll's view of Reykjavik) to give in to more than several of Mr. Gorbachev's "suggestions" (at one point, Reagan walked out of the discussions) was the final push that led to the events that occurred twenty years ago today. Reagan was able to obtain from Gorbachev more than a few concessions that caused internal dissension and strife within the ruling class in the USSR and split Warsaw Pact country from Warsaw Pact country. After seeing an American president stand so forcefully against the ideology that'd led to the construction of the wall, more people than ever before behind the Iron Country chose to stand up. Additionally, Reagan kept fighting against the Soviets, in the form of proxy wars, set-piece conflicts, the funding (and even arming) of revolutionary elements wherever they stood against the Soviets and their own proxies and also by pushing (and strategically abandoning, after they'd served their purpose in causing the Soviets to expend even more capital they didn't have) controversial defense programs like the MX missile system and the Strategic Defense Initiative.
The Soviets just couldn't keep up, and the cumulative weight bearing down upon them from all sides of the Western alliance finally proved them to be inadequate to the task.
T.
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by big kahuna on Nov 9, 09 9:21)
blindshadow
Nov 9, 09 10:15
Post #2 of 12 (234 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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This was Bush's fault. He ruined that wall.
Brokeneck dave
Nov 9, 09 10:31
Post #3 of 12 (228 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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I have a piece of that wall sitting in a box along with other mementos in my junk drawer. Berlin was and is an interesting and fabulous place. It was stunning for me to witness (in the early eighties) the interruption and fracture of a city as well as a nation by the "iron curtain". You had the oppulence and flavor of the free west on one side and a few meters away, still bullet holes from WW2 in a drab and gray world. The image of streetcar tracks just ending at the cement wall is still fresh in my mind.
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Races: I will complete the ride that almost killed me, as soon as I am able. After that, who knows? They don't book them that far in advance.
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big kahuna
Nov 9, 09 14:09
Post #4 of 12 (204 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [Brokeneck dave]
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Truly an incredible moment. And only two years later, the "Evil Empire" crumbled completely. I can assure you, we weren't thinking that way in the 60s, 70s and most of the 80s. Back then, it seemed like the Soviet Union would last forever.
T.
TBinMT
Nov 9, 09 17:19
Post #5 of 12 (182 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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"Truly an incredible moment. And only two years later, the "Evil Empire" crumbled completely. I can assure you, we weren't thinking that way in the 60s, 70s and most of the 80s. Back then, it seemed like the Soviet Union would last forever."
I know. I remember, but as it turns out we were somewhat clueless. Our espionage and on-the-ground intelligence was abysmal during the Cold War, even if we did alway maintain the technological edge. The Soviets and East Bloc dug their own grave, and the West was obliged to help that process. In hindsight, I find it amazing that the Soviets and East Bloc did as well as they did and held on as long as they did, rising from the rubble after WW2 and with terrible economies that never got to 10% of those in the West.
1989 was an amazing time and I remember it well.
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by TBinMT on Nov 9, 09 17:23)
Mr. Tibbs
Nov 9, 09 17:23
Post #6 of 12 (178 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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I was working in a pizza joint when the new broke. The owner's grandfather was visiting and burst into tears. He had faught from Normady to Berlin. I love it because I live by the John Wayne motto, "Fuck communism."
Mr. Tibbs will justify your sins.
Helitech
Nov 10, 09 5:13
Post #7 of 12 (147 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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I think we need to take a look at the low end of this move . While we can salute the US and freeing the east germans . It ends up WW2 and the cold war were just financial and raw material wars . Some of the Axis powers had bigger - faster - more advanced gear than the US , they didn't have 1000 of them . they ran out of money first
For the wall imagine your family is split in two for 20 -30 years . Your brother and his family live on the east side in a gov. apartment - low end job - low end life style .
The wall comes down and you're happy the family is together . Now your brother is upset he doesn't have an Audi - nice house - tickets to all the soccer games . The government adds taxes and helps assimilate the no medical - no retirement - no history folks ,, add some africans and Vietnamese - russians with low or no language or work skills . Now you have a huge burden to all the social services .
To this day they have over flow apartments that are essentially " welfare projects " .
http://slog.thestranger.com/.../i-want-my-wall-back
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edwinj
Nov 10, 09 6:59
Post #8 of 12 (136 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [Helitech]
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That blog reminds me why the arty-intelligentsia really annoy me.
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LLLEEEEEEEEEEEERRRROOOYYY JEEENNNNNKKKIIINNNNNS!!!
big kahuna
Nov 10, 09 8:01
Post #9 of 12 (127 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [Helitech]
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I think we need to take a look at the low end of this move . While we can salute the US and freeing the east germans . It ends up WW2 and the cold war were just financial and raw material wars . Some of the Axis powers had bigger - faster - more advanced gear than the US , they didn't have 1000 of them . they ran out of money first
For the wall imagine your family is split in two for 20 -30 years . Your brother and his family live on the east side in a gov. apartment - low end job - low end life style .
The wall comes down and you're happy the family is together . Now your brother is upset he doesn't have an Audi - nice house - tickets to all the soccer games . The government adds taxes and helps assimilate the no medical - no retirement - no history folks ,, add some africans and Vietnamese - russians with low or no language or work skills . Now you have a huge burden to all the social services .
To this day they have over flow apartments that are essentially " welfare projects " .
They have freedom. To do what they want and how they want. That counts far more for the human spirit than some sort of financial tote board. And I'm sure most Germans who lived in the former DDR would say they're happy with the current arrangement as it stands.
People in endless numbers have died willingly to gain freedom. Germany today is far more whole and far happier than when half of it was being suffocated under a Soviet jackboot.
T.
Helitech
Nov 10, 09 8:38
Post #10 of 12 (122 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [big kahuna]
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They have freedom. To do what they want and how they want. That counts far more for the human spirit than some sort of financial tote board. And I'm sure most Germans who lived in the former DDR would say they're happy with the current arrangement as it stands.
People in endless numbers have died willingly to gain freedom. Germany today is far more whole and far happier than when half of it was being suffocated under a Soviet jackboot.
T.
Agreed
I think you're painting with a broad ( truth -justice -and the American way ) brush . We aren't near as nice as portrayed in years gone by stir up wars in south america for politics and cheap copper .
Russian and east germans have this poker faced mind set . That when given freedom they bitch about costs and lack of status . Almost ungrateful you saved their ass .
While the have supplied us with skilled engineers and chemists . The Crime side has made it a wash / break even point ......
Hurray for freedom ..... I wish them at all a better life
UrsusAdiposimus
Nov 10, 09 11:20
Post #11 of 12 (99 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [Helitech]
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I lived in Russia for two years in college and part of grad school (I speak the language and it's what I "specialize" in for a living). I am 25 years old and don't even remember the USSR. But me and my other friends in the field always joke about how amazing it is that Russia could have ever been seen as a major threat to humanity. The social and economic dysfunction of Russia as a society is absolutely dumbfounding. Intellectually, I know the USSR was a big deal. But in my own life I only know Russia as a washed-up basket case.
BTW Big Kahuna - people in Russia really don't give a shit about freedom. At all. They would look at a statement like yours and laugh. The ones who are happy with the end of communism are the ones who have materially benefited from capitalism. But no one - absolutely no one I ever spoke with in Russia or anywhere in my travels in Eastern Europe ever once cited "freedom" as a benefit of the wall coming down. And if they did, it was in the context of "we are allowed go on vacation to France now and we couldn't before."
I think the end of communism was a wonderful thing. Taking a bus from Tallinn, Estonia to Saint Petersburg, Russia feels like traveling back in time 50 years. But it ended because people in the region longed for the material prosperity that they knew existed in the West, which has been forthcoming for some in the region, and not for others.
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Helitech
Nov 10, 09 14:22
Post #12 of 12 (91 views)
Re: So the Berlin Wall Came Down 20 Years Ago Today... [UrsusAdiposimus]
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I lived in Russia for two years in college and part of grad school (I speak the language and it's what I "specialize" in for a living). I am 25 years old and don't even remember the USSR. But me and my other friends in the field always joke about how amazing it is that Russia could have ever been seen as a major threat to humanity. The social and economic dysfunction of Russia as a society is absolutely dumbfounding. Intellectually, I know the USSR was a big deal. But in my own life I only know Russia as a washed-up basket case.
Quote:
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A few of my relatives visited a baltic town which was german - polish - russian depending what year it was . They had grown up there in 30s - 40s
Only a few landmarks remained train tracks and a water tower . The war had wiped clean any other history .
They watched 3 13 yr old boys finish a bottle of vodka in 5 minutes . They had a few laughs and headed home .
Once you see that dull stare "the eastern block look " I call it , you'll never forget .
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