Re:How the Berlin Wall Really Fell
by hga on Saturday November 08, 2014 @07:25AM
(#8576654)
For those of us old enough to remember the events, no, not at all.
The story is of course much more complicated, and from my recollection the events in Eastern Europe really got started with Solidarity in Poland sometime before.
But we also know that Reagan was the first US president who was determined to end the USSR, not "contain" it (compare to e.g. G. H. W. Bush's later Chicken Kiev speech), and we did all sorts of things to help bring that about, and this included parts of our civil society like our much more industrial and to the right back then unions.
The actual events resulting in the very quick fall were something of a surprise, we didn't expect that, especially how relatively peaceful it was. But it was something we'd strived to help bring about.
The story is of course much more complicated, and from my recollection the events in Eastern Europe really got started with Solidarity in Poland sometime before.
But we also know that Reagan was the first US president who was determined to end the USSR, not "contain" it (compare to e.g. G. H. W. Bush's later Chicken Kiev speech), and we did all sorts of things to help bring that about, and this included parts of our civil society like our much more industrial and to the right back then unions.
The actual events resulting in the very quick fall were something of a surprise, we didn't expect that, especially how relatively peaceful it was. But it was something we'd strived to help bring about.