BackboneAmerica

As many of you know, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And do you know what? In all the hoopla surrounding the celebration yesterday — not one person at the commemoration event in Berlin mentioned the role of Ronald Reagan.

Can you imagine that?

Tom Brokaw — like many commentators — yesterday was quick to laud the role of Mikhail Gorbachev — the darling of the media and the Nobel Committee. Gorbachev did, of course, play a pivotal role in changing the Soviet Union and opening it up to the West. But what most analysts have missed is that Gorbachev didn’t get their alone. He didn’t so much as jump as was pushed — by a resolute Ronald Reagan who was unwilling to compromise with the Soviet state and kept up a relentless pressure that broke the back of the Soviet economic system.

Ronald Reagan deserves much of the credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall — and don’t let any revisionist historian tell you anything different. Reagan’s force of personality — the force of his conviction that the Soviet Union was a system that could not stand against the march of freedom — made it clear to Gorbachev that the Soviets could never prevail. In the face of liberal pressure to “stand down” and to give in on Star Wars and other strategic initiatives, Reagan stood fast.

The result is history. Only today that history is told with a liberal bias that sees to minimize Reagan’s pivotal role.

Don’t believe it. Berlin owes a huge debt of gratitude to Reagan.

Here is Reagan’s famous “Tear down this Wall” speech of 1987. What other leader would have the courage to make this speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate?

Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech in Berlin, June 12, 1987