Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall

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Pilawt

Pilawt

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Pilawt
The speech was thirty-one years ago today.

A few years ago I had occasion to see a mark-up copy of the speech, sent to National Security Council staff for comments almost two weeks before the speech was delivered.

Attached below is the June 2, 1987, transmittal letter from NSC staff to Colin Powell, with their overall appraisal of the content. The second image is one of their suggested revisions.



Five years later, the two leaders, now in retirement, met at Reagan's ranch near Santa Barbara (easy to find - the GVO VORTAC is on the property). Their respect and affection for one another was obvious.



Within a few minutes, Ronald and Nancy were showing Mikhail and Raisa around the ranch. Nancy pointed out that "Ronnie built all of these fences."

Gorbachev looked out at the fences, folded his arms and said (through interpreter), "Well, we shall have to inspect the quality. ... Trust -- but verify."

True story.
 
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This is super interesting. So what they pretty much were saying, is one of the most famous speeches ever was "mediocre" and a "missed opportunity", and they wanted to remove the line that made it famous?
That's really interesting to see.
 
Closed pending MC review.

Reopened.

The MC has voted to reopen this thread after deleting some posts, as the first post is an interesting piece of history. Please refrain from partisan comments and bashing, or the thread will be closed again.
 
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Clipped from an article in the Washington Post:

Robinson has said that when he showed the draft to Reagan, the president immediately embraced the tough language. But White House chief of staff Howard Baker said the challenge to Gorbachev was “unpresidential,” Secretary of State George Shultz said the times called for caution rather than brassy naivete, and other officials thought the call to tear down the wall would raise false expectations.
It was only when Air Force One landed in Berlin that a White House official approached Kornblum and said Reagan had decided. “Congratulations, your sentence made it in,” the official said.

Reagan nailed the delivery, coming across as tough and morally clear. “It was a defining moment of the Reagan presidency,” Ratnesar said, “because it embodied what Americans most admired about Reagan as an orator and great communicator.”

Full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-moment/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0bd09b32c686
 
Everskyward said:
Closed pending MC review.

Reopened.

The MC has voted to reopen this thread after deleting some posts, as the first post is an interesting piece of history. Please refrain from partisan comments and bashing, or the thread will be closed again.
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hahahah! my first thought was "why bother saying 'pending review', y'all never unlock a thread after it's locked. well IN YOUR FACE, eman!
 
I think Trump just told Kim Jong to end his nuclear program, but I think it was ended when the N. Korean nuclear test facility colasped last week. Does that count?
 
I had a student from East Germany. He was standing on the wall when it came down. Well, on the panel next to the first one that came down. I wish I could have copied a few of his pictures.

He said he was arrested several times for general hooliganism..... which means they could not prove he was anti-socialist.
 
Imagine how good it could have been if Toby and Sam had worked on it.
 
Everskyward said:
Closed pending MC review.

Reopened.

The MC has voted to reopen this thread after deleting some posts, as the first post is an interesting piece of history. Please refrain from partisan comments and bashing, or the thread will be closed again.
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My post that was deleted was clearly non-partisan. It was an accurate historical portrayal of every President since I’ve been old enough to remember.

So, I think you meant to say “any post that might bother someone who idolizes lying politicians”.

Cluemeister said:
Thank God for Ronald Reagan.
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I mean heck, y’all left that.

I didn’t invoke any deities so I guess my comment that contained “interesting history” was not accurate enough. It must have needed some religion sprinkled in it to make it sound legitimate.

Sorry I bothered the Federalists and Statists with facts.
 
denverpilot said:
My post that was deleted was clearly non-partisan. It was an accurate historical portrayal of every President since I’ve been old enough to remember.
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Your posts are clearly contradictory...in the deleted post you used the word "youth"...in this post you use the word "old" to describe yourself in the same time frame. :eek:

:D
 
MauleSkinner said:
Your posts are clearly contradictory...in the deleted post you used the word "youth"...in this post you use the word "old" to describe yourself in the same time frame. :eek:

:D
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Hahaha. That must be it.

Regan (and every other politician, again not partisan) spending my country into the poorhouse isn’t “interesting enough history” for PoA but some speech he gave, is. SMH.

Well THANK GOD for partisans or whoever the hell supports these idiots and can’t read a balance sheet as “interesting history”. :)

I think stealing trillions from supposedly “free” people at threat of imprisonment via force, is pretty interesting, historically speaking. Especially when those free people think speeches are cool enough a pay back for that. Rah rah. Cheerleaders.

Matches the downfall timelines of a whole bunch of civilizations in “interesting history” too.

Probably more “interesting history” is us spending trillions to “save” Germany as a democracy, and re-unify Berlin, so they could just vote to be more Socialist... and ship us crappy cars with illegal diesel modifications. :) That was worth it. LOL.

That’s the really “interesting history”. The speech is pretty boring compared to what the actual outcome of us meddling in Europe gets us for our trillions spent. Every time.

Regan wasn’t the first and wasn’t the last. It’ll be interesting to see who is the last, though.

Bankruptcy beckons, from the pages of “history”.
 
eman1200 said:
hahahah! my first thought was "why bother saying 'pending review', y'all never unlock a thread after it's locked. well IN YOUR FACE, eman!
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And now you see why they usually stay locked.
 
Everskyward said:
And now you see why they usually stay locked.
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Lock it, it's not Regan Worshipers of America.

EdFred said:
That's because some people are functional idiots.
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Or they're just happy to get it locked again since there's really nothing to talk about, about it. It's a political speech. What would one say about it on a supposedly non-political forum other than "wow, nice paper... and look at that penmanship"...? LOL...

Lock it down... dump it... who cares?

"Dead politician plays oligarch and lectures other country, after running own country bankrupt to force other country to go bankrupt first, over fake nuclear war that cost trillions of dollars for no reason."
 
Whatever one thinks of Reagan, his Berlin Wall speech and the accompanying foreign policy are significant because they were markers of major changes in world history. Whether you agree with the speech or accompanying policies is irrelevant to their impact.

The cause of the collapse of the USSR is more complex than one speech or a few years’ worth of foreign policy, but there is no question that Reagan had a significant personal impact on the process through the development of his relationship with Gorbachev. That relationship is evident in the picture in post #1, and was especially evident in Gorbachev’s behavior at Reagan’s funeral. I suspect that the personal relationship these two men developed transcended politics for both of them.

It’s a shame that such historical trivia can’t be shared without folks hijacking the thread to air their own grievances. This is the kind of behavior that preschool kids demonstrate. Perhaps all posts but the first should be deleted, and the thread locked at that point.
 
JGoodish said:
Whatever one thinks of Reagan, his Berlin Wall speech and the accompanying foreign policy are significant because they were markers of major changes in world history. Whether you agree with the speech or accompanying policies is irrelevant to their impact.
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What exactly changed? We're still screwing around with proxy wars half a freaking century (almost) later.

So okay, I've got the new rules now: Political nostalgia is okay, but discussing the modern results of said identical stupidity, isn't. We can't talk about MODERN results of the speech, or MODERN proxy-wars, since that would be "political" and not allowed here... but the speech is OLD politics, so then it magically okay. Roger.

Everskyward said:
Some people probably do, like the person who started it. He shared an interesting look at history, then people dumped on the thread.
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There's literally nothing interesting about statism and imperialistic sword rattling. Repetitive tribal garbage with nukes. It's freaking stupid, expensive, and useless, whether it was in the 80s or today.

What was interesting about it? Do tell. This should be good. Remember, you can't mention anything political. Nice handwriting? Cool penmanship?
 
denverpilot said:
What was interesting about it? Do tell. This should be good. Remember, you can't mention anything political. Nice handwriting? Cool penmanship?
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It's all personal opinion from MC. Facts don't matter.
 
denverpilot said:
What was interesting about it? Do tell. This should be good. Remember, you can't mention anything political. Nice handwriting? Cool penmanship?
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What was interesting about the original post was bringing to light the fact one of President Reagan's most famous lines, if not the most, was rejected by all his national security and foreign policy advisors, and he decided on his own to ignore them and use the line anyway.

If you read the article Cluemeister linked to, they point out that the line didn't really make that much news at the time, and doesn't deserve the credit many people try to give it for the downfall of the Eastern block.

As someone who lived through those times in the Air Force working on systems designed to fight through and win a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and see that threat drastically change almost overnight, I found both the OP and linked article interesting.
 
Everskyward said:
I'll just let you dig your hole deeper here...
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At least someone who saw it confirmed my post wasn't partisan, nullifying the lie used as the reason it was deleted. Deleting the evidence and then saying that you were right, and I'm "digging a hole", is pretty low.

The only hole here is the inconsistency of being called "partisan" by the MC for posting something 100% non-partisan, and having it deleted to make y'all look good.

[Insert another MC excuse here allowing a purely political post with no aviation content because "interesting historical potato / dead politician"].
 
Van Johnston said:
What was interesting about the original post was bringing to light the fact one of President Reagan's most famous lines, if not the most, was rejected by all his national security and foreign policy advisors, and he decided on his own to ignore them and use the line anyway.
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Why is that interesting? Are Presidents supposed to do everything their advisors tell them? I thought that was kinda a “Commie” thing more than a “President” thing.

I don’t find anything particularly interesting about it, other than a President being a President. Our system of government hasn’t changed and the Cabinet isn’t a democracy. Oligarchs gonna oligarch, as the kids would say.

And since we know something else about it these days... Are secret early-onset Alzheimer’s patients particularly consistent in their words or deeds at all times? (Yeah, I went there.)

Maybe that’s the “interesting historical” part? Just nobody wants to say it?
 
denverpilot said:
Why is that interesting?
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Are you asking Why is that interesting to me? Or are you asking Why do I think that should be interesting to you?

If the former, I don't have anything to add to what I said previously. If the later, I don't presuppose it should be interesting to you, and acknowledge that it is not.
 
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