Which U.S. president said “Tear down this wall!” in a 1987 Berlin speech?

Ronald Reagan said “Tear down this wall!” in a speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on 12 June 1987. The sentence became one of the most recognizable Cold War quotations.

Reagan was addressing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and urging him to demonstrate greater openness by removing the Berlin Wall. The speech celebrated West Berlin’s resilience and presented the divided city as a symbol of the conflict between communist and liberal-democratic systems.

Some advisers reportedly worried that the wording was too confrontational, but the line remained in the final address. At the time, the wall still appeared politically durable, and it stood for another two years before opening.

Reagan’s speech did not itself cause the wall to fall. Changes in Soviet policy, reform movements across Eastern Europe, East German protests, and a rapidly weakening GDR all contributed to the events of 1989. The quotation later became associated with the peaceful end of the division.