For those of us old enough to remember the events, no, not at all.
The story is of course much more complicated, and from my recollection the events in Eastern Europe really got started with Solidarity in Poland sometime before.
But we also know that Reagan was the first US president who was determined to end the USSR, not "contain" it (compare to e.g. G. H. W. Bush's later Chicken Kiev speech), and we did all sorts of things to help bring that about, and this included parts of our civil society like our much more industrial and to the right back then unions.
The actual events resulting in the very quick fall were something of a surprise, we didn't expect that, especially how relatively peaceful it was. But it was something we'd strived to help bring about.
The word "many" leads me to believe that this is the author's opinion without substance, and even with evidence at best ad populum.
I recently read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by J. Loewen [1], and it hits on just this, being the "heroification" of American leaders. I wouldn't doubt that this is what was the popular teaching in K-12 US.
For starters, I don't think many Americans understand any details other than the anecdote that there was a wall in Germany, and it came down. Please, rest assured east Germans, we have done worse than steal your achievement- we don't give it any real thought anymore.
Americans glibly joke about the fear culture around communism from that time, but we have no awareness of the irony of our current fears of isis or Ebola.
Reagan's speech at the wall was iconic, but you really need to be over 35 to be aware of it.
I am an former Est Germany. I am older than 35. I can assure you, the Reagan speech did noting.
There where only one or two important speeches, may be 3 if you count Kennedy in.
One of the most important was, when Willy Brand had its visit in East Germany. The only important visit by a western politician in East Germany. The other one, which was not really a speech, but very important, was the one by Genscher for the release of the people into West Germany after occupying the West German embassy in Praha, CZ.
It was clearly more directed at the USSR and specifically Gorbachev. Khrushchev and Ulbricht had unwisely created the concrete, so to speak, symbol of the evil empire, a very visible wall dividing a historic, major city. Where families trying to cross it were shot at, often successfully.
It had to have been terribly embarrassing to Gorbachev to be called out like that, and it strongly cut against many of his and the USSR's themes, e.g. if it's so great, why do you need that wall keeping people inside of your socialist worker's paradise?
Getting back to the 1989 fall, something stayed the hands of the USSR, unlike Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. I believe it's impossible to make an honest case that Reagan had nothing to do with that.
Respectfully, I think you are mistaken to say that Regan's speech did nothing. The reuse of Regan saying "tear down this wall" in various pieces of remix culture is evidence of the iconic nature of the speech.
By no means am I arguing that these words literally tore down a wall. But if anyone can argue that a speech can ever be important, this one was, at least for American culture.
So my point here is that this author is punching at a straw man. I don't know anyone who believes this speech itself contributed to the felling of the wall. It was an event in a much larger storyline that was bigger than the wall itself: the cold war.
Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in '63 is much more present in German culture then Reagan's in '87. If anything, we associate Gorbatchev's Perestroika process as the beginning of the end of the socialist system.
I have never heard anyone imply that the US tore down the wall, so to speak. Common opinion seems to be that East Germany was shitty, and people wanted to leave, and with the changes from the USSR, popular movements made it fall.
There's an American conservative sect that believes Reagan was personally responsible for the fall of Communism, including both the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the USSR. I don't know just how common it is, but it's not entirely uncommon among the "government is evil, taxation is theft, global warming is a hoax" fringe crowd.
Of course not counting those of us who note, as I noted in another posting in this sub-thread, that Reagan just happened to be the very first President who tried to end vs. "contain" the USSR. I.e. the difference between giving it a strong push into "the dustbin of history" as he put it, vs. "personally responsible".
I think you'll have to do better than that to establish the existence of a "sect". I.e. you need to name some of its leaders, the ones making statements, speeches, etc. propagating this program.
I know he didn't come up with this idea independently. I haven't paid enough attention to know precisely who it came from, but given his reading and listening habits, I'd expect the names to be found on a list of contributors to National Review and the list of top talk radio hosts.
You seem awfully defensive about this, given that I said nothing that indicates you are a member, or indeed that anyone in particular is a member until you asked. Are you that uncomfortable with the idea that there are crazy people in the world who hold some opinions similar to your own? That's true of all of us.
Defensive? Perhaps that comes from being viciously slandered and libeled for 4 decades (starting from when I became politically aware in the very early '70s; heck, I'm old enough to remember when the "scientific consensus" was that the earth was entering an ice age and it was axiomatic it all our fault). This brush is broadly used against everyone on "the right"; to bring it back to this discussion and e.g. the impression flohofwoe got as a teenager behind the Iron Curtain in the '80s, by supporting and voting for Reagan we demonstrated a desire to kill those behind it in nuclear hellfire.
Based on my knowledge of the right, I did't know of any such "sect", your language explicitly said there's a specific group of "crazy people" with this set of beliefs. Except you can't identify any of them besides your father, and no one can claim complete clarity in viewing their parents.
Believe me or don't, I really don't care. If you choose to take my post as libel against you, that's your right, but given that I don't know you and apparently haven't described your beliefs, it takes some amazing mental gymnastics to pull that off, and that's on you, not me.
You seem to know a lot about the "government is evil, taxation is theft, global warming is a hoax" fringe crowd, but when questioned, you refer only to your father. You're extrapolating to a whole group of people from a personal family anecdote. Your comment is devoid of data and that's why such drivel is not appreciated.
Yeah, I know a fair amount of what that crowd believes, as a result of lots of exposure, direct and indirect, to the aforementioned talk radio and magazine. No, I can't name names. So what? I couldn't name any hosts on Fox News or CNN, but I can state with confidence from what I've seen of them that a lot of them are full of crap.
If that's not a slanderous statement of 300 million people I don't know what is. Which Americans are you referring to? And in what way do they have a worse understanding of history than billions of other people?
No. That's not a view that I've heard over the years. We hear that Reagan's policies led to severe economic pressure on the USSR which in turn led them to have a more hands-off position with the Eastern-Bloc countries.
As an East-German I find this slightly offensive (edit: Reagan bringing the wall down). It was the peaceful people on the streets, a bit of luck (no hot-heads in the police and military who wanted to open a civil war on their own people), a completely paralysed government and the Russians who didn't want to intervene. Besides, we all know the only American who had a hand in this was Hasselhof, not Reagan ;)
You may want to read the actual article. It says pretty much exactly that.
> In the decades since, many Americans have come to believe that the wall fell thanks to President Ronald Reagan’s direct, personal intervention. In a 1987 speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in a divided Berlin, he told Soviet leaders to “tear down this wall” — and so, we’ve been told, they did.
> This misreading of the actual fall of the wall is, at best, incomplete; at worst, it’s dangerous, contributing to the belief that American leaders can go “from Berlin to Baghdad,” shaping world events while ignoring the complex realities of the locals.
Yes, sorry for being unclear. The article is a good thing and hopefully helps to clean up the misconception that Reagan single-handedly liberated us. My impression of him was more that he was a diehard cold-warrior who'd rather start dropping the nukes. Basically the western equivalent of Brezhnev and pretty much the opposite of Gorbatchev. But that was a long time ago, and I was a teen in the 80's so my memory might be a bit off.
E.g. he resumed food exports to the USSR; I can't find the quote, but I remember something like "we don't use food as a weapon".
The attacks on the USSR were, rhetoric aside, a lot more subtle: bleed it in Afghanistan, deny it hard currency by keeping the price of oil down with the help of the Saudis, and resist and sabotage the export of gas to Western Europe. Further their military bankruptcy, $$$ and capabilities (already in bad shape due to supplying the equipment for 3 complete armored armies to North Vietnam), by continuing Carter's late in the game rearmament program, and make their Strategic Rocket Forces potentially obsolete with SDI (even a partly effective strategic defense negates a counterforce first strike capability). Countering the Soviet's theater nuclear SS-23 deployment. And of course support those in Eastern Europe resisting the occupation.
Or even seemingly small things: ending the Brezhnev Doctrine by taking back the tiny island of Grenada. I've read from many behind the Iron Curtain that that sent shockwaves across it, for it was the first time the US used main force to take back a Communist country. It signaled something important, like Reagan's firm rhetoric.
Diehard Cold Warrior, yes, but a lot more subtle than would "rather start dropping the nukes". He wanted to free those trapped behind the Iron Curtain, not kill them.
Sounds like we're about the same age. I sort of had this impression of Reagan when I was a teen in the US, having grown up in a decidely Democrat household and most of my friends having been as well (university faculty brats, mostly). He was certainly hated and ridiculed in the popular media and entertainment, for the most part.
As I grew up and gained some perspecitve I have come to see Reagan in a much more favorable light.
Can you provide any examples related to Reagan being a risk to start dropping nukes? Or where he ever said or gave the impression that his preference was to start dropping nukes?
I think you're extremely wrong in your character assessment. There are numerous books available on Reagan in relation to what he actually said and wrote about his time as President, none of it indicates he was eager to start a nuclear war.
I can believe that flohofwoe honestly got that impression growing up behind the Iron Curtain (per his website, 12 in 1984). Heck, at the time most of the US Main Stream Media (MSM) portrayed Reagan as being like that. I'll bet that if he tuned into the BBC back then he'd had heard the same thing.
Although we had West German TV in the area I lived I might have been influenced by Eastern propaganda of course (and by MTV with Frankie's "Two Tribes" music clip) ;) TV and magazines were full of how the US is moving the arms race into space (SDI or 'Star Wars' program) in the mid-80's, while 'of course' the Soviet Union was only interested in peaceful research of space.
According to "Command and Control," Regan at one point sincerely proposed to Gorbachev that both countries completely eliminate their nuclear weapons, much to the chagrin of his military advisors.
I don't think a significant number of people actually think Reagan was responsible for the wall coming down. I think the article projects that opinion onto the populace as a straw man to make its point work.
Presidents (mostly rightly) get the credit or blame for what happens on their watch. Reagan was not there opening the gate on that night, no, but his policies and strategy to bring an end to the Soviet Union made it possible for that to happen.
I think the best thing Reagan did was not fuck it up.
The soviet union's collapse was inevitable because their government system simply didn't work, and that reality was starting to land on them in the mid-80's when oil prices started to fall as a catalyst.
Of course, a lot can be said for not fucking it up. I'm not trying to minimize it (much) but I don't think it's fair to say the Soviet Union's fall was due in any part to any "strategy" of the west. At best our strategy helped the fall happen a little faster, but it was inevitable.
You believe it's essentially coincidental that Reagan was the first and only President to have the goal of ending the Soviet Union, not "containing" it? Or as I've noted elsewhere in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=8577120) that the oil price fall just happened?
There were very few people at the time that considered it "inevitable". As late as 1989, that very year, Paul Samuelson, in the introductory university text on economics, still claimed that "[T]he Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and thrive." The conventional wisdom of our ruling class at the time was that the Soviet Union was solid enough that Reagan's material attacks on it were folly, and therefore unjustifiably dangerous.
> You believe it's essentially coincidental that Reagan was the first and only President to have the goal of ending the Soviet Union, not "containing" it?
Coincidental with what? The actual policy change of "Reagan's" that is usually credited for destroying the Soviet Union is the escalated military buildup -- a policy conceived and initiated late in the Carter Administration.
And the actual collapse of the Soviet Union occurred during the first Bush Administration.
In order for there to be even a coincidence, there'd have to be something for this alleged "first and only" status to be coincident with.
A lot of US Presidents did have a hand in bringing it about, from Truman and the Berlin Airlift. without which there wouldn't have been a wall in the first place, to JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner", to of course Reagan.
But in the end it came down to a lot of brave people on the scene. We just helped set the stage. Hmmm, along with Khrushchev and Ulbricht in creating the concrete, so to speak, symbol of the evil empire.
I'm surprised the author makes no mention of the exodus of East Germans to the West via Hungary, which by the time the Berlin Wall came down had been ongoing for 6 months.
How on earth anybody can write a story about the fall of the Berlin Wall (indeed, the entire collapse of the USSR) without discussing the economic collapse in the face of dropping oil prices is beyond me. The details, such as minister speeches and ignored guards are interesting in the color they lend to the collapse, but the principle story is one of overwhelming macroeconomic forces at play.
"The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to September 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically.
That doesn't quite fit the connotations I associate with "overwhelming macroeconomic forces at play". That was a specific policy decision ... which I don't believe you can isolate from things like the USSR's genocidal occupation of Afghanistan, and the Muslim world's many reactions to it.
As I understand it, we strongly encouraged the Saudis in this policy. Visibly, by things like selling them F-15 and E-3A AWACS planes in the early '80s before that policy change (very controversial arms deals back then).
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, as part of Reagan's unique determination to end the Soviet Union, we the USA did everything we could to deny it hard currency, like obstruct and sabotage the export of natural gas to Western Europe.
And like good capitalists, after Reagan took office, resumed making a buck in the process by selling them grain ^_^.
ADDED: Why the bleep didn't Gorbachev et. al. allow a massive increase in household plots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_plot We always expected (see for example Red Storm Rising if I remember correctly) that when things got tight, the restrictions on them would be relaxed and the resulting productivity increase would tide them over. Or was that attempted but failed? Or is this "oil and grains" economic picture a bit too simple (as I've noted natural gas also played a role).
The argument would be that the Policy Decision was simply the reaction to larger forces at play - in much the same way high oil prices resulting in fracking in the US and the Oil Sands in Canada being developed, and taking away market share from Saudi Arabia (weakening their geopolitical position), one could say that it was a foregone conclusion that Oil prices were going to drop in the 80s after the 1973 oil crisis.
That's the thing - every time you see a huge increase in the cost of anything, economic forces kick in, and there is a response.
That's a long winded way of saying there were much, much bigger forces at play than Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani in 1985, and, his announcement can be seen as little more than the result of those forces.
- The political reform started 4 years earlier by Mikail Gorbatchev, which was designed to reinforce the party's strength in exchange for softening very few things.
- The disorganization of the Party and the lack of trust within the Stasi,
- The press conference of Nov 9., where the administrator said something about travels, which wasn't reported acurately but which included words like "effective immediately".
- The massive amount of people in front of the gates.
I would love to have more details about the Perestroika and the reform background. One does not simply walk up with a crowd to a checkpoint without thinking about Tiananmen. I've always wondered whether Gorbatchev had desired freedom for his people and subtely acted to make such events happen.
Is this truly a belief held in the USA? As an east-german this seems equal parts baffling and insulting to me.
If so, i can only thank the author for correcting this belief in a quite public manner.