President Reagan To Be Honored For Fall Of Berlin Wall

Sources - Newsmax, Reagan Legacy Foundation, Reagan Library

President Reagan To Be honored For Fall Of Berlin Wall

November 9th will be the twentieth anniversary of the fall of The Berlin Wall. And Former President Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan is to be honored in a celebration of that event. Michael Reagan, son of President Reagan will be there on behalf of The Reagan Legacy foundation, for the ceremonies. Michael Reagan will also head a delegation to be joined by world leaders for the "Freedom Party"at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on November 9, 2009. President Reagan will be honored for the role he played in the liberation of East and West Germany as well as the rest of Eastern Europe, which will take place at the "Checkpoint Charlie" Museum, where Reagan uttered his now famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!" Soon after on November 9,1989, Gunter Schabowski, an official of The East Berlin SED Party, announced that the citizens of The GDR were free to leave. A short time later, migration to the border began with demands for an immediate opening. Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon BrownGordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry MedvedevDmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas SarkozyFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy are among those expected in Berlin for the ceremonies. Former President Reagan gave his speech on June 12, 1987 just two years, five months and three days shy of the wall coming down. Newmax TV's Ashley Martella interviewed Reagan's son Michael about the event.

"This is something he wanted from the early 1960s," Michael Reagan responded.

"In a debate with Bobby KennedyBobby Kennedy he said, 'Why don't you have your brother tear down that wall?' That was in 1962. In a 1964 speech he talked about freedom for all those people behind the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain.

"This is something that concerned him to his bone from the time that wall went up on the night of August 12, 1961.

"That wall began to go up at 1 a.m. the morning of the 13th, and by the time you would have woken up on the morning of the 13th, the barbed wire, the guns and the dogs would have been there.

"The communists had hired every single mason in Germany to come to Berlin — they didn’t even know why — to begin building that Berlin Wall. Yes, my dad wanted that to come down, wanted to put communism on the ash heap of history.

"And he was the only one — aside from Peter RobinsonPeter Robinson, who wrote the speech with my dad — the only one in … the government that thought that line, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,' should even be in that speech."

Martella asked Michael if he thinks it is odd that Obama, as president of the United States, is declining to attend the anniversary ceremonies.

"I don't find it odd. I find it completely consistent with Barack ObamaBarack Obama, how he uplifts the enemies of freedom and pushes those who yearn to be free away as if there's something terribly wrong with us," Reagan said.

Former President George H.W. BushGeorge H.W. Bush, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev and other prominent world figures are expected to be in Berlin to mark the anniversary, "but it is sad that the president of the United States doesn't deem it that important for him to be there," Michael Reagan said.

"But it does not surprise me that he doesn't really uplift the United States of America. He only goes overseas to point fingers across the ocean and blame George BushGeorge Bush for everything."

Asked about the significance of the Berlin Wall's demise, Michael Reagan said: "That people have forgotten. The significance is that it happened two decades ago, and here's the problem: Young people in that part of the world are now being led to believe that America put up the Berlin Wall to keep the communists out of the American sector.

"This is what happens with education when there is no education. You have a group of people in the Eastern Bloc who don't know how they became free, and you have young people in America who don't know how to stay free.

"Hence I formed the Reagan Legacy Foundation a couple of years ago to support the young men and women who serve on the USS Ronald Reagan with scholarships for ongoing education.

"We've expanded it now in the last year, and for the first time my father will be honored in Berlin. We are doing it through my foundation by putting a Reagan room in the Checkpoint Charlie museum that overlooks Checkpoint Charlie. It tells the story of those people who escaped, those people who died trying to escape."

President Reagan was a Great Believer in SDI, The Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as "Star Wars Missile Defense System, And, now widely accepted throughout the world for helping to bring down The Soviet Union. Martella also asked Michael if Obama's decision to remove the planned missile shield in Eastern Europe is an attempt to "appease" the Russians.

"It is an attempt to appease the Russians," Reagan stated flatly.

"The SDI, Star Wars, brought the communist regime and the Soviet Union to their knees. This is the one thing at Reykjavik that Gorbachev wanted my father to give up in order to sign the treaties on nuclear weapons, and my father said no."

President Reagan had met with gorbachev in Iceland in October 1986. But, the meeting fell apart when Reagan refused to give up The Star Wars program.

Michael Reagan told Newsmax about "the only reason" his father wanted to become president.

"He told me back in 1976 he was tired of United States presidents always kowtowing to the Soviet bloc, that every time we would get together, the Soviet bloc would always ask the American president to give up something to get along with them.

"He said he wanted to be the first president to sit down with the secretary-general of the Soviet Union, and when he was told what he would have to give up to get along with them, he said, 'I want to be the first president, Michael, to get up from the table, walk around to the other side of it, lean over and whisper in their ear "nyet."'

"He did that in Reykjavik with Mikhail Gorbachev. The president we have today is saying yes, yes, yes, what can I do for you, like somehow kowtowing to the Russians is going to make them friendly."

More information on the reagan Legacy can be found at: www.reaganlegacyfoundation.org