On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"—a direct challenge to the Berlin Wall, which had divided the city since 1961. The speech was written by Peter Robinson, a White House speechwriter, who crafted the now-famous phrase despite initial resistance from some within the administration.
The speech was part of Reagan’s broader push for greater openness and reform in the Soviet bloc, aligning with Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). While the speech initially received mixed reactions, it later became a defining moment of the Cold War, symbolizing the West’s opposition to Soviet control and the push for German reunification. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, just over two years after Reagan’s speech, marking the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War.