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...article "The Next Step" misunderstands the major issues that concern Britain, the Lisbon Treaty and membership of the European Union as a whole: the principles of sovereignty, democracy, transparency and accountability [Oct. 19]. Elliott refers to how convenient it would be if Britain, Poland and the Czech Republic "fall into line soon." That phrase should fill the people of Europe with dread. Democratic nations are a collection of people who are governed by those chosen to serve them. The majority of the people of Britain have no confidence in an expensive, faceless bureaucracy like the E.U. I urge all Europeans...
...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...
...years later, Reagan's role in bringing about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful end of the Cold War remains exaggerated, manipulated and misunderstood. To many of his conservative admirers, the challenge to Gorbachev in Berlin epitomized the toughness that made Reagan great: by refusing to compromise his core principles, he defeated communism and won the Cold War. But the truth is that Reagan was more adaptable, politically shrewd and open to compromise than either his champions or his critics prefer to admit. He may have called the Soviet Union an "evil empire...
Reagan was right. (In 1990, Gorbachev not only won the Nobel but was named TIME's Man of the Decade.) Neither Gorbachev nor Reagan was directly responsible for the fall of the Wall; rather, it collapsed from its own weight. But Reagan's speech presciently identified Berlin as the proving ground of Gorbachev's intentions to open up the communist bloc. If Gorbachev truly sought peace and liberalization, Reagan said in Berlin, then he should let the Wall come down. In the end, Gorbachev did, and the rest of the Iron Curtain followed. Allowing democracy to spread through Eastern Europe...
...miraculous year. The countries of Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union had held under tight political control, under threat of military invasion, broke free of this yoke, and many went on to join NATO and the European Union. But as we celebrate the anniversary of the fall of communism in Central Europe, we should remember that not every country behind the Iron Curtain followed the path of those that have successfully entered the fold of Western Europe. Joyous Berliners broke down their wall 20 years ago today—but with Russia’s political influence and their...