Under two hours. Welcome, everyone. It is wonderful to see you all Plenary Session to commemorate the fall of the berlin wall. Honor and pleasure to the chair and moderator. Us have beenwho meetings for four more, its aen little short of remarkable that were marking 25 years since the fall of the berlin wall. The remarkable because on one hand, we can recall that event so vividly but on the other hand, it is sometimes it seems like it took place a lifetime ago. Remarkable because ourthose of us who pursued degrees and published our first books during the proceeding in some case before the construction of the wall. [laughter] seemed sose unimaginable. Indulge you, can session with him and no one was more associated with the cold war. There were lots of talk about the integration of europe, the but no one thinking, was talking about the reunification of germany. Also the time that john series of the conferences on soviet relations. Soviet andthat American Scholars got together. Scott armstrong had just come up with the idea of this theme a National Security archive. But in the end of the cold war, not a chance. Discussion of it at all. What is not remarkable is were closer now than we were then consensus on the fundamental questions regarding germany and their aftermath. Concern theons drivers, whether they be individual, state, or international. These questions concerned the consequences whether they be international, state, or individual. These questions concerned the the legacy also, states, of individuals, and international. While we have not reached any is none in oure articulate the terms of the debate and move the ourersation forward than three speakers tonight. Them need introductions but i will do them anyway and i will do them all at once in the so we can will speak forre there is maximum time our general conversation as well remark. Opening her newest book the collapse the accidental opening of the berlin wall be l appear on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Her last book, which were all familiar with, the struggle to post cold war europe was Financial Times book of the year. The d. A. D. Prize for foringuished scholars european studies. Princeton university will publish an updated anniversary the autumn of 2014. Header. Ets a double mary serves as dean of history at the university of Southern California and is visiting on leave as a professor of government and harvard. T she is a white house fellow and of the advance professor and council of relations. Faculty fellow at u. V. s miller center. Hes the author of several books cold war and on u. S. Relations with europe, including for the soul of man kind, which fromhe george lewis prize association. All 20022003, he was a professor oxford. Of has been the resip yentsz fellowships from the United States institute of peace, the hedward Wilson Center and served as president of schaferer. Recoedited on Times American foreign war. Y after the cold he is writing about the foreign the george w. Bush administration. Will be jeffker engle. Finding director at methodist university. Doctoral fellowship and taught at the university of yale, university of pennsylvania and texas a m. Texas a m, he was the 52 school andt the bush. He director of programming while at texas a m he received a star award for teaching a universityp and system chancellors teaching award. Nce among the numerous books and he has written and won the bird song prize and a recent recipient of norwegian nobel. Peaceful end of the cold war. Mary . Thank you very much, richard. Thank you to the society for speak. G me to also, it is great that cspan is can so many more people join us in our discussion today from their homes. Of course, the people here have an advantage. Gave you twoisely free drinks before you had to so imistening to me hoping that will help be the penetratingd questions. I have a few minutes to tell you about the fall of the wall. Colleagues will talk about legacy and interpretation. As richard mentioned, i have a book coming out on this top nick the fall. The anniversary itself is november 9. Lot of mediaa coverage, i hope of my book but 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall. He made thisthat session where we talk about the significance of this event. Things that sorry, minor technical difficulties. Great events dont always have great causes. I decided to write this book after i wrote my last book, 1989, i got a lot of unexpected questions. 1989 is actually about the Foreign Policy that followed the the berlin wall. Pages summarized in a few in the unexpected way the wall came down. I would go out and give talk about that book and i would get and say im here to talk events thattingal come after the berlin fall. Would stop me and say dont you know that reagan wall in 1987 . And the first time i got that kind of shocked timey the fourth and fifth i was no longer shocked. There is not a lot in languages than german about the shortterm events that bring wall. He fall of the there is excellent scholarship fort the longer term causes the fall of the wall. The shortterm events are not well known in the world. Anspeaking i tried to put together that story. Researchingstart something it ends up being more complicated so it ends up being a Fascinating Research topic. We willhave questions talk more about them. Precursor about the tinyvember 9, 1989 then a bit about how we think about legacy,ents, memory, and themes that my colleagues will emphasize as well. Unexpected event actually had in berlin but in which is to say there were a rapid series of deaths. Half years, there sovietr leaders of the union. Many funerals in a row, they were known as the funerals. Margaret thatcher remarked at funeral, that the aviets know how to do funeral. Im definitely coming back next year. Wrong. Nt they decided to take a risk on a his 50s and that man was gorbachev. Chehnenko dies, he begins remarkable series of summit reagan. With ronald unexpected and it is matched by an unexpected level of interest matched by Ronald Reagan. Is more sceptal of gorbachev, that either he was a for real and he may have good intentions but he auld be disattached with single bullet and the soviet the capability of destroy the United States. H. Bush team, once george bush became president , when im speaking of bush, im referring to george h. Bush was more cautious. In of the Biggest Surprises my research on how much tension between the reagan team and the bush team. Used the reagan to transition as saying bush fired everyone. Referred to mush reaganites. The practice of annual summits bosh chov comes to an end. It is not going to be a cold war year. There is a massive protest in 1989. Just had that anniversary. Observed insary was china in silence. To commemorate homes. Their we, of course, know the cold war peacefully but the people at the time did not know this. Unfolded in is the 89, the images on the mind were thatmages of the square, lone figure standing in front of communistank, of a party using bloodshed to defend power. D on the fall of the berlin wall was not a forward end conclusion. Catastrophe loomed around every was on thebloodshed mind of the people who were there on the ground. Still a forbidden square of chinathe republic but we have the ability to examine what happened in europe. Happen in eastern created as his reforms new opportunities . Would there be a similar kind of violence as there had been in china . That was an open question in the summer of 1989. This is a map of cod war europe. In the summer of 1989, the and they of the end did not recognize this quickly enough. Beginning of the end started ray allowed gar border. Cross the hundred gar yans first respected it. As a result of financial inducements from west germany in september, hungary decided to east germans leave as well and they flooded out in mass numbers. This is a photo from the secret archives. This is abandoned vehicles. They had to go down to the becausend collect these east germans would abandon these west. Hey fled to the people waited as long as 16 vehiclespurchase these a abandoning it was such dramatic statement and they had to collect them and bring them east germany. It tested even the people who were at home. Many people who stayed home had to justify staying at home. Home became ay at insult. So suddenly this massive exodus where east germans would cross austriaer and through. Nd up through west germany took at german regime series of steps that you wouldty culminating. East germannse, the ruling regime demonstrated the of albert hershman. You can find someone way to exit find so some way to protest quiet and be loyal. Loyalty had been a popular choice. Hungarian. Undre they decided to close their own borders. Since exit then was no longer an option, voice became the dominant option and the number of protests and size of protests. Ere increased the media was still under events had to be smuggled out. Interviewed basically former smugglers who used to smuggle them out to the west so it could make it to eastern who could broadcast soback to Eastern European they could see it. Event on thean night of october 9, 1989. Biggest surprise of my research, the orders to distribution of machine guns are bullet, just for avel of preparations bloody and violent event. Here. S is in that event might have happened we might be talking about events but they behaved in unexpected ways. Their numbers were massive. There were over 100,000 weresters and they peaceful and nonviolent. Deployed military actually started joining them. Event and itrkable was not understood like it should be. Smugglers i mentioned smuggled out video images of the failure of the to carry out its plan. Westernse made it to broadcasters that fueled the easternfidence of the more. S even and marchedd here around this way and this would germanyn a civil war in. Ould have started they were able to circle the october 9. The peaceful kept grow. The hard line leader of east wasany was ousted and he prince. By a crowned he knew that things had gone i willrong so he thought do things differently. I will still maintain control a good game in public. Sound like im doing reform but im going to state. The power of the to issue minor changes to existing travel laws, of these a stop to all andds that were protesting announcement to this fraudulent change that the journalist in room thought it was a real change. There is remarkable video is arguably the worst press conference in the world. German spokesman goes from bad to worse in his efforts on. Xplain what is going before he finishes speaking he peddling but reporters rush out to file reports and those reports say the wall is open. German hear the reports that are not accurate, this newfound selfconfidence inspired by gorbachev and inspired by what each other. By they stormed the wall. Night,tical point that the point where the berlin wall first opens. Is a Border Crossing or was berlinr crossing in an aerial photo. Berlin is at the top so on other end of the bridge. If you come in a car you have to the car processing lanes where you have to go to the finalbarrier and post before you go to the west and the pending would be in these houses. This becomes a critical point ofause there are a number check points but the other ones, the residences near to them have been given to say secret police employees. Stormy were not likely to the wall. This is kind of out of the way this was whered were known as the undesirables live. Those political undesirables numbers onn large the night of november 9, 1989 tried to get in the Border Crossing saying you should let us pass the wall is open. Saw peer called their speurssay the wall is closed. All kinds of reports start coming into the center where crowds are showing up and all of them are convinced that the wall is open. Orders to this effect and the headquarters say closed, business as usual. But it is harder and harder for the Border Guards who are facing tens of thousands of people who for theirng to fear own safety. This is the man who opens the the practical since. This is the guy who is the first one to fold to say, you know what, were going to shoot these people or were going to open up and i say we open up. He is an officer. He was not in charge. He was in charge of the night watch. Was on his watch that this came to a head. His personal file photo. It shows his age in 1989. Of being told tellsss as usual, when he snaps ands cal, he opens the wall. He puts himself out of a job and he ended up unemployed and taxi in berlin and now lives on a small pension. Is just a very brief summary of the dramatic events lead to the shortterm of the collapse of the wall. Remark and ieneral will hand it over to my colleagues. Interesting to me is how this is treated in germany. The United States, we have a number of grand memorials to the collapse of the berlin wall. Are very big insulations berlin walls of the at the george bush library, library, inn fulton, missouri. Nowest germany, theres is major memorial to the fall of the wall. There are small memorials but no big one. There is more going onioned the beauty problem. Trying to memorialize a is not an attractive site. It seems there is more going on with that and it was the ongoing shouldersy on how we interpret this event and the legacy. There is so much disagreement has not reached a point adequatecanne memorialize it. This topic iabout still have people stating that Ronald Reagan opened the wall. Spoke, the wall fell. Or you had some kind of order by the regime because great events mustgreat causes and they have decided. It is hard to process the role and accident in history and local actors. Another surprise for me, this was not a story of elite because there was no order to open the wall. I had to look elsewhere for my main characters. This was a story of revolution from below. The fact that people wanted the open as well but that explanation causal that people wanted the wall to be open in 1961 but it did not fall until 1989. When i came to scwieb as the middle. Of the Eastern Europe bureaucrats. Photo of theent street. There is basically nothing there. Picture because i got a tip from a friend that all of the remaining traces, including the lane lines were going to be ripped up so a Discount Grocery store could be put in. Took a picture of the lane lines and lane numbers that were still there before they got ripped up. If you go there now where the is an wall opened, there Discount Grocery store. Societies insists there should be informational panels but they were installed on the cheap. One as soon as it went up fell prey to vandalism. This is people crossing the wall and someone put a sector on it, and that is the end of that. That is at the site of where the wall opened. The site, that marks momentous event. Hand, we have the u. S. Majors to the fall of the wall where the germans are hesitant to celebrate this triumph. Longer terme are consequences that they feed into thestaken perception that United States was the solar sole author of these events. A misguidedd repeation that they can this performance. We need a better understanding of what happened in this event. To understand the role of chance and the local actors. Knewance ofave a newance o the rule. Theok forward to discussion. [applause] so over the years ive learned the importance of most significant point first. Whatt to tell you despite richard employed, i did not my first book before the war. Ruction of the [laughter] more about more and the history leading up to the wall, as we learn more and more of the texture from peoplevent jeff. Ary and theink we understand better. A lot and tore is to step back of youelf and ask all happened and what should be commemorating . What is there to celebrate . Drawn . Ssons to be about five years ago approaching jeff0th anniversary engle invited a group of the texas a mto to discuss the fall of the wall. They talked about the fall of in easternwall europe and my good friend came meaning of thehe fall of the wall. They talked about the meaning of russia. Of the wall in i talked about the meaning of the fall in the United States. That conference, which i think jeff is going to talk a bit more in a few minute, at that conference, i was very by the divergent meanings attached to the fall of the berlin wall. Europe, she explained wall signified institutions. Of the wallhe fall to avoid the need naive leadership. China, the fall of the wall reactivateeed to politicaleform refirmization. I talked about the fall of the wall in the United States. It meant thesized tyranny. F freedom over it confirmed the redempive role states. Nited the utility of power, the containment and freedom. Rsal appeal of reaffiedcoming down americans exceptionallist view themselves. Triumph view was very widespread and it was very dangerous. It encouraged the use of military power and armed force. It nurtured a loserry hopes of a peace. Tic assumptionsnaive of thehe benevada lance markets. To emphasizeant shared among george h. Bush and the clintons and cheney and doug fife. Bush 41 as jeff and others have emphasized were andes an cautious prudent. President bush 41, could not resist to take credit of the of 1989 and 1990. He liked to say during the theaign, we brought about fall of the iron curtain and the imperial communism. Platformthe republican further the fall marks anrlin wall apock lipt call change in the we live. We the republicans cause the of collectiveness, not threat but thery threat. Dismantling of the collapse of ensuing europe and ussr inspired the utility and supety and not only among republicans. Here in the United States, the Clinton Administration went predecessors. The depression firewall between commercial and investment repealed. S Alan Greenspan were determined regulate the not expanding sectors of the financial economy like derivative trading and security of mortgages. Governments toer deregulate financial controls as conditionn and as a the crisis of the late 1990s. After 9 11 memories of the wettedwall coming down the at tide of officials to show strength. Them to thinkred that displays of u. S. Power enthusiasm. With memories of the jubilation in medicine them think that the bepling of saddam would greeted with the same enthusiasm of the wall. Tling november 9, 2001, bush 43 day. R