Today is 38 years since Ronald Reagan’s ‘tear down this wall’ speech, which ushered in the most free and fair election Russia has ever had, says Eliot Wilson

There is such a thing as coincidence, and sometimes a specific date arises again and again in the same context. Today’s date, 12 June, was like that in the final years of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

(There is a ready-made conspiracy theory for those inclined that way: it is also the feast of St Leo III, the 9th century pope who refused to make additions to the Nicene Creed which would have – and eventually did – split the Eastern and Western churches.)

Let us start in 1987. President Ronald Reagan, 76 years old and well into his second term, was visiting West Berlin for the commemoration of the city’s foundation 750 years before. It had been divided from north to south and was still under military occupation dating back to the Second World War. To the East was the Soviet Sector, while free democratic West Berlin comprised the French, British and United States Sectors.

The prospect of Reagan’s visit was not popular among West Berliners, and 50,000 protestors took to the streets on the day before his arrival. West Berlin was a mecca for leftists, radicals and anyone who felt part of a counter-culture, while Reagan was the epitome of American militarism and power........

© City A.M.