Tear down this wall

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Image:ReaganBerlinWall.jpg "Tear down this wall" is the famous challenge from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, right by the Berlin Wall, on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev, who then was the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, to tear it down as a symbol of his desire for increasing freedom in the Soviet bloc. Although the wall was technically the responsibility of the East German government, the United States considered East Germany to be a Soviet puppet state.

Reagan delivered the Tear Down This Wall speech, over the objections of the State Department and National Security Council. National Security Advisor (and future Secretary of State) General Colin Powell was one of the administration's major opponents of the speech.

On October 18 1989, East German leader Erich Honecker resigned, and on November 9, East Germany's new leadership removed all restrictions on East Germans leaving the country, effectively marking the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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