Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!President Ronald ReaganThe Berlin Wall was constructed after World War II, as part of the post-war treaty process between the countries of Europe. As a result, the German capital city of Berlin was divided in half, along with the rest of the country. Eastern Germany became Communist, controlled by the Soviet Union. Western Germany remained democratic. On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the wall in West Berlin and gave this historic speech. 1     Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East. To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a special word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to you just as surely as to those standing here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow countrymen in the West, in this firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. [There is only one Berlin.]2     Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same — still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.3     President von Weizsacker has said, “The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed.” Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph....4     In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder1. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter2, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty — that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom....5     Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany — busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. Where a city’s culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. Where there was want, today there’s abundance — food, clothing, automobiles.... From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth....6     In the 1950s, Khrushchev3 predicted: “We will bury you.” But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind — too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.7     And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.8     Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.9     General Secretary Gorbachev4, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Question

In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: “We will bury you.”

How does Reagan effectively use this quote to develop his ideas?

A.
Reagan recalls Khrushchev’s statement in order to shame and ridicule the Soviet Union and other Communist nations that reject Western economic freedoms.
B.
Reagan uses Khrushchev’s boast that the Soviet Union would dominate the West as a stark contrast to the reality of the Communist nations’ struggles and the Western nations’ success.
C.
Reagan includes Khrushchev’s prediction to remind General Secretary Gorbachev of the direction the Soviet Union should be headed and prompt him to act.
D.
Reagan includes a reference to Khrushchev’s threatening words in order to emphasize the great danger that the Soviet Union still held for the West.

Answer 1

B. Reagan uses Khrushchev’s boast that the Soviet Union would dominate the West as a stark contrast to the reality of the Communist nations’ struggles and the Western nations’ success.

In this excerpt, Reagan effectively employs Khrushchev's prediction to illustrate the failure of Communist systems compared to the prosperity and success achieved in the West. By contrasting Khrushchev's assertion of dominance with the present realities of economic hardship and backwardness in the Soviet Union, Reagan underscores the triumph of freedom and capitalism over totalitarianism and oppression. This rhetorical strategy serves to reinforce his broader theme of freedom leading to prosperity and hints at the eventual decline of Communist power.