West Berliners, the diplomat explained, had long ago gotten used to the structure that encircled them.Īfter I left the diplomat, several members of the advance team and I were given a flight over the city in a U.S. And no inflammatory statements about the Berlin Wall. The President would therefore have to watch himself. The most left-leaning of all West Germans, the diplomat informed me, West Berliners were intellectually and politically sophisticated. He was full of ideas about what the President shouldn't say. The diplomat gave me quite specific instructions. When I met the ranking American diplomat in Berlin, I assumed he would give me some.Ī stocky man with thick glasses, the diplomat projected an anxious, distracted air throughout our conversation, as if the very prospect of a visit from Ronald Reagan made him nervous. All that I had to do in Berlin was find material. Later that month I spent a day and a half in Berlin with the White House advance team-the logistical experts, Secret Service agents, and press officials who went to the site of every presidential visit to make arrangements. I was told only that the President would be speaking at the Berlin Wall, that he was likely to draw an audience of about 10,000, and that, given the setting, he probably ought to talk about foreign policy. At the request of the West German government, his schedule was adjusted to permit him to stop in Berlin for a few hours on his way back to the United States from Italy. Mikhail Gorbachev was due in a matter of days.Īlthough the President hadn't been planning to visit Berlin himself, he was going to be in Europe in early June, first visiting Rome, then spending several days in Venice for an economic summit. Queen Elizabeth had already visited the city. In April 1987, when I was assigned to write the speech, the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin were already under way. Ronald Reagan, address at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987
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