My previous book called 1989, the struggle to create post cold war europe. These books are in the reverse order. 1989 talks about the Foreign Policy that followed the fall of the berlin wall. The collapse is actually about the fall of the berlin wall. So the new book is a prequel to my previous book. So how did that happen . This book is about the Foreign Policy that followed the fall of the berlin wall, and when i did book talks like this one, id say, im here to talk about the Foreign Policy that followed the accidental opening of the berlin wall. And often i would not even get to that sentence. Somebody would interrupt me and say, timeout. What do you mean the accidental opening of the berlin wall . That was the polite version. Sometimes i also got, youre an historian. Dont you know that president reagan opened the berlin wall . When he went to berlin in june of 1987 and said, mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, that the wall opened . I got that question so many time is realized that it was not a oneoff question, that it was a deeply held belief here. Theres actually a cartoon in the new yorker about it. It has a man reading a fairy taleto his daughter, and it con tis of the falling, tear down this one, one king said to the other, and dont came, and they all lived happily ever after. You know when something earned its own new yorker cartoon its a cultural phenomenon. I thought for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall there should be a good book in english about this topic. I read german. I lived in germany for a number of years, and i thought if i didnt read german, what would i read in english . The more i looked, i realized there was not one good book on the opening of the wall in english. Then the more i thought about it i realized this lack of a good book, this lack of an accurate account was more than just a historical interest. The belief that the United States single handedly opened the wall has affects on u. S. Foreign policy to this day. It has the effect of making the United States think that it single handedly opened the wall with little risk and little cost and that it can repeat the experience quote, from berlin to baghdad. Which was a frequent saying in washington in 2001. Also gave right to a very triumphant attitude about the berlin wall. So, for example, at the george h. W. Bush president ial library, you see a statue of horses galloping over chunks of the berlin wall, showing the triumph of the american wild west over the berlin wall. Theres a similar statue at the Ronald Reagan president ial library. A s a much simpler statue, single panel of the wall, what is priceless if you think about the eyewatering price of real estate in Southern California, you suddenly realize how much it means an entire hilltop is dedicated to this memorial. Its part of the Ronald Reagan president ial library site and also his grave site. So, these are just two of the memorials that exist in the United States. There are many of them. Theres one in missouri, number in washington, d. C. The embodiment of the sense that the United States opened the events the author of this and can repeat it. And when i actually looked at the evidence, when i actually interviewed the people who were there, that was not the story i saw. Theres a saying in english, success has many fathers. The opening of the berlin wall was a huge success. So nowdays there are many, many fathers, and for the 25th anniversary i decided to try to let the actual fathers and mothers of the event speak in their own voices. So, thank you very much for taking the time to come out tonight and help me tell their stories. Let me still talk about famous people for a minute, to set the context. Of course, the context, the cold war context, the superpower contest was crucially important. Nothing im going to tell you about the details of the opening of the wall challenges that. The contest between mikhail gorbachev, the leader of the soviet union time magazines man of the year, time magazines man of the decade. Man of the year in 1988 and man of the decade in 1990 and then went on to the Nobel Peace Prize and a number of other awards. He came to power and instituted reforms. He made clear that soviet tanks would stop rolling into Eastern Europe, as they had done in poland and hungary and east germany in the past. He made clear he wanted reform to be the order of the day. But that wasnt enough to open the wall. It creates the possibility that it can open but not the actual reality of the opening. He of course dealt with his american counterparts, president Ronald Reagan and president george h. W. Bush, who previous to becoming president was Vice President george h. W. Bush under reagan, and he had a series of summit meetings with Ronald Reagan but they did not result in any agreement to open the wall, even though there were agreements about arms control and other issues. Bush president george h. W. Took office in january 1989, it turns out that he had an entirely different attitude. That was one of the biggest surprises of my research, was discovering the way that the Bush Administration when i say bush today im talking about george h. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, not the son, not george w. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. When george h. W. Bush took office, even though in public they said very kind things about the departing president reagan, internally the tone was very different. So internally, president bush, when he took office in 1989, essentially stepped on the brakes. He and his team thought that orbachev might not be for real and might be trying to lull the United States into a false sense of security and they didnt want to be trapped by the ruse. There was a tiny chance he was for real but he could be dispensed with a single bullet and the soviet union retained the capability to destroy the United States. So either way, either he was a fake or for real, either way the result was the same. The new bush team thought they needed to be very wary of hip. So the new bush team decided to really clean house in a radical way. Political scientist arent as interested in the history of this period, just interested in the mechanism of political transition, so how one president ial administration switches to another, studied this transition from reagan to bush as one most hostile ever, as paul light, an expert has put it, the Bush Administration, quote, fired everybody. And the internal discussion shows why. Secretary baker talked about reagan holdovers who were incapable of thinking things anew, whose thinking was mush, and the bush team needed to restore american security. So, this intense process of american soviet reproachment comes to a halt under the Bush Administration. So he is not making progress on a plan to open the berlin wall ither. As a matter of fact, he actually ended the practice of annual summits with gorbachev. So it seems like a new chill is returning to the cold war, and then even more frighteningly in the spring and summer of 1989 there are protests throughout china. They are most visible in tiananmen square, in the heart of beijing, where chinese art students build a goddess of democracy who stares down mao in the face in tiananmen square. Those who visit the square know this statue is no longer there. Of course, in june 1989, the Peoples Liberation army starts shooting at the people. Clears the square. Theres of course the famous image of a row of tanks halting briefly in front of what a man who is now known as tank man, one demonstrator who is soon hauled away to we know not where. The happens in the summer of 1989 and is deeply scary. Id like you for the remainder of my talk to keep the image of iananmen square in your heads. Be know the ending of the berlin is peaceful but the people im going to talk about, the people on the streets dont know that. The image they have in their mind is of tiananmen square. Theyre very afraid that the practice of a communist regime using force to defend itself is something that will be repeated in cold war europe as well. So, they dont know if this is going to happen to them or not. So, if you can just keep that kind of sense of uncertainty in your mine is a talk about the rest of the events it will help you understand the mental world and some ways the courage of the people im describing. In the summer of 1989, there were of course protests in europe as well. The Solidarity Movement in oland, under leadership of to ensia has tried constitute reforms in poland. It was a crucial trail Blazing Movement from protesters across Eastern Europe and the summer of 1989 it gets the polish regime to agree to semi free elections. Semi free. Itself actually wins 99 of the 100 seats its allowed to contest. But it has to still share power with the communist regime. So it seems like that might be the way forward. A very slow process where the reformers grab one handhold but still have to share power. That might be how change comes to Eastern Europe. But then something very expected happens. The hungarian regime, which is also interested in reform, the hungarian regime decides to put holes in the iron curtain. At first only for its own citizens. It decides to open the border for hungarians to cross into austria. What they do not anticipate is that other east europeans and east germans will try to sneak out through the holes as well. And the hungarian government is bound by treaty to east germany not let east germans out. It can only make this decision for its own citizens. So first it has to restrain and send back the east germans and does so with force and theres even an east germn who is killed n front of his wife and child in august of 1989, trying to get out via hungary. And it becomes a huge crisis and the west german chancellor, helmut kohl says to the leader of hungry, i have friends who run banks. If you let these east germans out and my banks will be very good to you. So the hungarian leader decides to let the east germans out in september of 1989, and indeed, west german banks immediately afterwards are very, very good to hungary, and make loans to hungary. So, now there is a hole in the iron curtain. What is happening is east ermans are going south through czechoslavakia to escape via back into west germany, a whole flow of people going down and up from east germany down to czechoslovakia, through hungry and back up into west germany, and this horrifies the east german regime. It seemses themselves bleeding to death. So the east german regime tries to choke off travel to hungary, and that only results in a new crisis which is refugees piling up in the west German Embassy in prague. So the east german machine makes the decision too seal the borders to east germany entirely. This turns out to be a huge mistake. It turns east germany into a pressure cooker. Theres a theory of life under dictatorship that helps explain while. According to theory if you live under a dictatorship you basically have three choices how to conduct your life. Loyalty, exit, or voice. Loyalty, exit, or voice. And what that means is either you can just be loyal and just put up with and it not complain, and stay quiet. Which had happened during long periods in east german history. Or you can exit. You can try to flee, and so when the border opened, between hungary and astoria, suddenly exit became an option. Then when the east german regime sealed off east germany, exit was withdrawn and loyalty seemed no longer tolerable so the only remaining option was voice or protest. And so there starts to be massive protests, particularly in the southern part of east germany, region historically nope at saxony, because people have been trying to get to czechoslovakia and hungary and get stuck there. So huge numbers of people who taken ven up everything, everything they can in two okays taken their children they are fed up and are not going to go home. As you tart to see in this region huge numbers of protests. Theyre particularly large in this city, the city of leipzig, a city in saxony. I realize this might be hard to see the text you. Dont need to see the exact words. If youre interested in the details, feel free to buy the book. But let me just point out a few things to you here. Your see a ring road here around the city center. That ring road is where an old medieval wall was built and when it was turn down it was turned into a ring road. Heres the main train station up here. What starts to happen in the city of leipzig. Starts to be large protests at the nikolai church, and the protesters come out of the they meet at the church, come out, gather here at the square, and they try to get as far around the ring road, around the city of leipzig as possible, and the police and east german secret employs stop them. This keeps happening again and again and the police are using increasing level of violence and more people show up and they use more violence and it becomes apparent to everyone involved that the night of october 9, 1989, october 9, is going to be the showdown, and one of the biggest surprises in my research i thought i knew his time period fairly well having already written a book about it. One of the biggest surprises when i got into the secret police records, local police records, the east german regime was planning a tiananmen level event in leipzig on the night of october 9 them. Guns went out, towards shoot ent out. Machine guns went out. Its hard to save exactly how many but at least 8,000 Security Forces deployed. Possibly over 10,000. Hospital staff were told to come in, bring extra blood reserves. Hospital staff had leaves cancelled. Schools dismissed kids early. Businesses sent people home early. The regime prevented foreign journalists from coming to the city because they didnt want the world to see what they were planning. He dissidents involved decided they needed to do two things. The first thing, they needed to show up in massive numbers to show they were not afraid. And safety in numbers is a huge factor in order to get as far around the ringing a possible. Another small group of dissidents decided they should do something else. They should try to film what was happening so that no matter what happened, if it was bloodshed no matter what then world would see it. So try to film a video cassette and smuggle it out and the man in charm of doing this was this man here. I apologize for the poor quality of this photo. Its an east German Secret Police photo taken without his knowledge or permission. Its actually part of a series. He was followed extensively by the secret police as he put it to me, almost like having a weird diary of your own life you didnt write because theres a complete record of his daily movements for most days and photos. Heres a series of three surveillance photos. Here he is again. With his back to the camera. And now here is another urveillance photo. And the reason the secret police followed him, he decided the way to fight the regime was with information. He had started making video casssets of environmental abuses and human rights abuses and started smuggling them out to the west, to a friend in the west who worked at a western television station. And then they would then be broadcast. And turned out he was really good at this so good in fact he actually was earning so much money in the west as a video journalist he owed taxes on his footage, which became a problem because his friend had to pay it for him. And secret police were frustrated by the mans activities and the only reason they didnt put him in jail is they figured he couldnt possibly be causing as much trouble by himself as he was causing. They figured he had to have dozens of helpers, possibly including western intelligence agencies, and they decided they would follow him and interrogate him but not arrest him because they wanted to catch him meeting with his helpers so it could arrest them as well. The problem was the really was doing this mostly on his own or the help of two other friends. So the secret police would openly follow him. Five guys would stand in the courtyard of his building and follow him but he never met with the helpers. He never went and met with the dozens of helpers they were expecting. He didnt know this so he lived in constant fear of arrest and constant fear that the five agents or more following him around would steal his cameras, but it didnt happen. That was crucial in the fall of 1989. So, in the fall of 1989, october 9th, he lived in berlin. He and a friend go to leipzig and hide on the roof of a church, on the northern arc of the ring road around the city center of leipzig. So as their friends are gathering to march, they basically crouch down in pigeon dung on a church roof and prepare to film whatever is going to happen, and on the ground, the protesters assemble, and something amazing happens. Despite everyone knowing that this was going to be the tiananmen, in the diaries, of people who were there you see in the notes, i tonight is china. Despite all of that, at least 100,000 people, possibly more, show up to protest. And the regime did not expect that. And they also maintained strict nonviolence. So they give no cause to the Security Forces to attack, which is good, because the ordered orders said if you are attacked, youre allowed to attack in response. So the roughly 100,000 people assemble and they start to move across the ring road, the local commander, the Party Commander on the ground, doesnt know what to do. He is the Party Commander already is someone who didnt expect to be in charge that night, he was actually the second Party Secretary. The man who was supposed to be in charge was the first Party Secretary, but he had, and im not making this up, you cannot make this up he called in sick that night. [laughter] and so the second Party Secretary suddenly found