Presidential Crises, Episode VII: The Berlin Wall & The Soviet Fall

The Past, the Promise, the Presidency

This week's crisis could have ended with the world in a giant blaze of nuclear flame, but it didn't. In fact, it's an example of how a crisis can be handled so effectively, that most people don't even remember it as a crisis. This week, we are talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

It's November, 1989. Reagan famously delivered his "tear down this wall" speech in 1987, but West and East Berlin are as divided as ever. In the summer of 1989, Chinese military forces had mowed down peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square. Horrified by the images of violence, American leaders, and George H. W. Bush in particular, were eager to avoid provoking a similar crackdown in Eastern Europe.

The stakes couldn't have been higher. Both sides were armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, and they had itchy trigger fingers.

Then, unexpectedly, at a press conference, a mid-level bureaucrat ordered an enormous change in policy. He accidentally announced that residents would be allowed to leave East Germany. Word spread like wildfire. Within hours, thousands of residents were lined up at the gates to cross into West Berlin.

Why didn't this moment turn into one of violence and bloodshed?
What were the repercussions of the collapse of a global superpower and its economic system?
How might things have gone differently?

To answer these questions, we have two dynamite guests. First, we have a voice that you will probably recognize. Our podcast host, Dr. Jeffrey Engle. When he’s not hosting The Past, The Promise, The Presidency, Jeff works as the founding director of the Center for Presidential History. He has also written or edited twelve books on US foreign policy, including The China Diary of George H.W. Bush: The Making of a Global President and The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989.

We then spoke to Dr. Mary E. Sarotte, who is the Kravis Professor of Historical Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also the expert on the expansion of NATO in Germany at the end of the Cold War and the author of Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, and 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe.