Berlin Wall

What may be the most famous phrase of Reagan’s presidency almost didn’t make it past his advisers. According to the U.S. News & World Report, a cautious State Department warned the president against showing up Gorbachev (at that point only two years into his tenure as Politburo chief) and counseled him to avoid any mention of the wall. But speechwriter Peter Robinson, visiting West Berlin in advance of Reagan, found Berliners’ deep-rooted dislike for the wall impossible to ignore. Feeling that something had to be said, the writer placed in his draft the famous challenge: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Chief of Staff Howard Baker and Deputy National Security Adviser Colin Powell strongly objected to the language, worrying that its aggressiveness would alienate and embarrass Gorbachev; Reagan left the issue up in the air until days before he was to give the remarks. “I think we’ll leave it in,” he told Deputy Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein in Italy before the trip. Pressed on the issue again in the limousine on the way to the remarks, the president was firm: “The boys at State are going to kill me for this, but it’s the right thing to do.”