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  "path": "/the-west/2024/06/12/deseret-news-archive-tear-down-this-wall-if-it-were-only-that-easy/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-12T16:22:36.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.deseret.com",
  "tags": [
    "Reagan says wall is dramatic proof of a failed dream”",
    "Gorbachev hails Reagan as ‘great peacemaker’",
    "Reagan and Gorbachev hail year of achievement”",
    "Gorbachev, Reagan nominated for Nobel”",
    "Reagan asked Gorbachev to autograph magazine cover”",
    "The sultan of sound bites",
    "This week in history: The fall of the Berlin Wall",
    "Germany marks day wall fell",
    "A look at the 1989 Associated Press report from when the Berlin Wall crumbled",
    "In our opinion: The collapse of the Berlin Wall brings its own set of obligations for Americans",
    "Deseret News timeline",
    "We were there: See Deseret News front pages from 45 big moments in Utah, world history"
  ],
  "textContent": "_Editor’s note: This story was originally published on June 12, 2024._\n\n_A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives._\n\nOn June 12, 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, stood before the Brandenburg Gate and exhorted Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”\n\nAccording to news reports then and now, the Berlin Wall had been erected in 1961 in response to the mass migration of East Germans to West Germany. Between the end of World War II in 1945 and the creation of the Berlin Wall in 1961, approximately 3.5 million East Germans escaped to the West. One of the easiest ways for East Germans to do this was simply to go to East Berlin, cross the street into West Berlin, then take a flight from Tempelhof airport to West Germany.\n\nMost of the people who defected to the West were educated professionals, people who realized that they and their families could enjoy a much greater standard of living in the West, as well as the basic freedoms they had been denied. From the communist perspective, since these people had been educated at state expense, they were thieves who had stolen their education, and it was humiliating that its society’s most educated people rejected the communist system and fled West in droves.\n\nReagan was in Germany to help Berlin commemorate its 750th anniversary, but took the opportunity to prod Gorbachev into further action on his openness policies.\n\nHistory will show that within two years, the wall had been symbolically torn down. But there is much more to that story, and certainly other factors within that proud country that played a more significant role than one speech by a foreign president.\n\nIn 2024, it’s hard to imagine anyone taking such a stand, or making such a bold statement, and surviving the X-verse or the weekend talk shows or the next election. But as a moment in time, the lessons to be learned from that moment are fascinating.\n\nHere are some archived Deseret News stories from that period of time and in reflection.\n\n“Reagan says wall is dramatic proof of a failed dream”\n\n“Gorbachev hails Reagan as ‘great peacemaker’”\n\n“Reagan and Gorbachev hail year of achievement”\n\n“Gorbachev, Reagan nominated for Nobel”\n\n“Reagan asked Gorbachev to autograph magazine cover”\n\n“The sultan of sound bites”\n\nAnd two years later:\n\n“This week in history: The fall of the Berlin Wall”\n\n“Germany marks day wall fell”\n\n“A look at the 1989 Associated Press report from when the Berlin Wall crumbled”\n\n“In our opinion: The collapse of the Berlin Wall brings its own set of obligations for Americans”\n\nDeseret News timeline\n\nWe were there: See Deseret News front pages from 45 big moments in Utah, world history",
  "title": "Deseret News archives: ‘Tear down this wall.’ ... If it were only that easy"
}