Romesh Ratnesar
is Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. A former Time deputy managing editor and foreign editor, he has reported from many countries around the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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Nov 2009
“Why the Wall Fell” in Time Magazine
Time just published a piece by me adapted from Tear Down this Wall. Here's an excerpt:
The fall of the Berlin wall caught the world by surprise. For months, East Germany's beleaguered communist rulers had tried in vain to silence a growing opposition movement and stem the tide of people pouring out of the country. On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, an East German official held a press conference to announce new government travel policies but inadvertently announced that crossings to the West would be opened "without delay." Within hours, thousands of East Berliners began lining up at checkpoints near the Wall. At first the border guards tried to check passports, but they quickly realized it was futile. The masses surged through. Many of them ran. Crowds of West Berliners waited on the other side, hugging strangers and popping champagne. The scenes were stunning. By the fall of 1989 cracks in the communist bloc had started to emerge. But few people imagined the Berlin Wall would disappear anytime soon.
Ronald Reagan did. "I didn't know when it would come, but I have to tell you, I'm an eternal optimist," the former President said in an interview with ABC's Sam Donaldson that night...
Read the rest and see images and related articles at the Time Magazine Website.
Photo from the Time Website, Credit: Tom Stoddart / Hulton Archive / Getty
