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“'Tear Down this Wall!': Reagan and the Berlin Wall by Romesh Ratnesar

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Romesh Ratnesar, deputy managing editor of Time magazine, recreates Ronald Reagan’s historic June 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate and his famous challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev in “Tear Down this Wall!” United States policymakers, after decades of diplomacy, felt the time had come to pressure the Soviets to ease their grip on Eastern Europe and open up Berlin. The speech was a turning point in the relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev and marked, if not the end of the Cold War, then the beginning of the end. A book signing will follow the program.