Tear Down This Wall
Reagan's June 12, 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin — the canonical American Cold War demand for the end of Soviet division of Europe
Tradition: American Cold War political rhetoric
"Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" — Reagan's June 1987 Berlin Wall speech, the canonical American Cold War demand for the end of Soviet division of Europe
"Tear Down This Wall" is Reagan's most famous speech as president — delivered June 12, 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, on the 750th anniversary of the city's founding. The speech's famous central demand — "Mr Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" — addressed Mikhail Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader whose glasnost and perestroika reforms had created openings in the Cold War standoff. The State Department and National Security Council had initially objected to the "tear down this wall" line, but Reagan insisted on keeping it. Two and a half years later (November 9, 1989), the Berlin Wall fell. The speech has become a central American memory of the end of the Cold War, though the historical relationship between the speech and the actual events of 1989-91 is more complicated than the popular narrative suggests.
Author
Editions cited
- Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987 Book I (GPO, 1988)
- Reagan, in His Own Hand (Skinner et al. eds., Free Press, 2001)
School Embodiments
A working political realism: the Berlin Wall as the concrete physical symbol of the Soviet division of Europe; the political demand testable against actual events.
"Real Berlin Wall and political demand for its removal." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
Reagan's political method is pragmatic-realist — testing policy positions against actual political conditions and possibilities.
"Policy tested against political conditions." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
The speech's civic-religious framework draws on American Protestant tradition of freedom as gift and demand.
"American Protestant freedom framework." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the speech's religious framing of freedom against tyranny has substantial overlap with evangelical-Protestant political thought.
"Evangelical-Protestant political framing." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the demand for the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination has substantial overlap with liberation-political analysis, though Reagan's framework is broadly conservative.
"Liberation framework for Eastern Europe." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the speech draws on the broader fusionist American conservatism that integrated Catholic-natural-law sources.
"Fusionist conservatism with Catholic sources." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the speech's engagement with Eastern Europe (especially Catholic Poland, Orthodox Russia/Eastern Europe) draws on these traditions.
"Eastern European religious tradition context." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the broadly naturalist framework of international relations underlies the political analysis.
"Naturalist international relations framework." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: the systematic political-philosophical argument has rationalist structure.
"Systematic political-philosophical argument." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A retrospective relation: the historical process of Cold War ending has process-philosophical structure.
"Historical process of Cold War ending." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
A complicated relation: American civic-religious freedom-tradition has transcendentalist roots.
"American transcendentalist freedom-tradition." (Tear Down This Wall, paraphrasing)
Internal Tensions
The historical relation between Reagan's rhetoric and the actual events of 1989-91 has been continuously analysed. Some historians credit Reagan's pressure with significant contribution; others emphasise Gorbachev's own reforms, the internal Soviet collapse, and broader structural factors. The speech's rhetorical power as American memory of the Cold War's end has been continuous regardless of the historiographical debate.
I. Time
The late Cold War historical-political time; the 1987 moment of opening possibility.
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II. Space
The Berlin Wall as the concrete spatial-political symbol; the divided European space.
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III. Matter
The Wall itself as the material structure dividing Europe; the embodied citizens on both sides.
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IV. Observer
The German citizens of both East and West Berlin; the global audience; Gorbachev as the addressee.
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V. Energy
The political-rhetorical energies of the speech; the broader Cold War political energies.
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VI. Information
The political tradition of freedom-from-tyranny preserved and proclaimed.
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Personas that cite this work
Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How Tear Down This Wall resolves each dilemma
51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 3 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 6 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.