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Who really said it

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Spoken by Ronald Reagan 1911–2004 · 40th President of the United States
Verified Free to reuse

Reagan said it at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on 12 June 1987, near the end of his “Remarks on East-West Relations.” The sentence stands word for word in the official text released by the U.S. government and in the President’s own typed backup reading copy held by the Reagan Library.

Last verified 3 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan, "Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin," 12 June 1987 — Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987, Book I, 634–637.

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Evoking the world of Ronald Reagan — 40th U.S. President (1981–1989); earlier a film actor and Governor of California. Theme: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Speech
Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin
Delivered
12 June 1987, 2:20 p.m., Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin
Official text
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987, Book I, 634–637
Drafted by
Peter Robinson, White House speechwriter

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, 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! From the Brandenburg Gate remarks

The famous sentence is the last of three imperatives. In the President’s typed reading copy each stands alone on its own line, in capitals, ending with a period rather than the exclamation mark of the published text.

President’s backup reading copy, Reagan Library, 1987
Read the President’s typed reading copy (PDF)
Full text of the speech at the Reagan Library

How we verified it

Public domain

The speech is a work of the United States Government — remarks prepared for and delivered by the President in the course of his official duties, and published by the Government in the Public Papers of the Presidents. Under 17 U.S.C. § 105 ↗, “copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government,” so the text is free to quote and reproduce.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets muddled

The attribution itself is not in doubt — Reagan said these words, on camera, in front of the Wall. What gets muddled is who wrote them, what the sentence actually accomplished, and which demonstrative it uses.

Peter Robinson drafted the line — and Reagan’s chief speechwriter later claimed otherwise contested

Robinson has described writing the passage in his own National Archives account ↗, and the President’s backup reading copy is headed “(ROBINSON).” Chief speechwriter Anthony Dolan later published a Wall Street Journal article in November 2009 arguing that Reagan produced the line himself in an Oval Office meeting before Robinson’s draft, which prompted a published exchange of letters between the two men ↗. Either way, Reagan chose to say it over his advisers’ objections.

Not the speech that opened the Wall overclaimed

The address drew little notice at the time; TASS called it “openly provocative, war-mongering,” and the senior U.S. diplomat in Berlin, John Kornblum, said it “wasn’t really elevated to its current status until 1989, after the wall came down” (Wikipedia’s survey of the reception ↗). The Wall opened on 9 November 1989 ↗.

“Tear down that wall” variant

The demonstrative slips easily — Robinson titled his own Hoover Institution essay “Tearing Down That Wall” ↗. The delivered text reads “this wall,” paired with the line before it, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!”, because Reagan was standing at the gate and in front of the Wall.

Reagan said it, in these words, at the Brandenburg Gate on 12 June 1987 — the official text ↗ and his own reading copy both carry the sentence.

Context

Why it mattered

The line began at a dinner table, not a desk. Speechwriter Peter Robinson went to West Berlin ahead of the trip and asked his hosts whether they had gotten used to the Wall; Ingeborg Elz answered that if Gorbachev were serious about glasnost and perestroika, “he can prove it. He can get rid of this Wall.” Robinson took the thought home and turned it into three hammer-blow imperatives: come here to this gate, open this gate, tear down this wall.

Then his own government tried to delete it. By Robinson’s account the State Department and the National Security Council fought the passage for weeks, calling it naïve, needlessly provocative and a cruel gimmick that would raise Berliners’ hopes, and sent over no fewer than seven alternative drafts — one offering only that “one day, this ugly wall will disappear.” Reagan kept his version. Deputy chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein remembered the President smiling and saying, “Let’s leave it in.”

The boys at State are going to kill me, but it’s the right thing to do.

What happened next

The speech was not an instant sensation. Coverage at the time was thin, and the Soviet press agency TASS called it an “openly provocative, war-mongering speech.” The senior American diplomat in Berlin, John Kornblum, later said the address “wasn’t really elevated to its current status until 1989, after the wall came down.”

The Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989, when, in the State Department historian’s words, “thousands of jubilant Germans brought down the most visible symbol of division at the heart of Europe.” Reagan had left office ten months earlier; the sentence he insisted on keeping became the epitaph for the Wall rather than the cause of its fall.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Freedom Courage Leadership Change

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Official text of the Brandenburg Gate remarksreaganlibrary.gov

The Reagan Library’s transcript of the 12 June 1987 speech, with the note that the President spoke at 2:20 p.m. at the Brandenburg Gate.
Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlinpresidency.ucsb.edu

The American Presidency Project’s full text of the speech, dated 12 June 1987.
FRUS 1981–1988, Vol. I, Document 303history.state.gov

The State Department’s documentary series prints the remarks and cites the source text as Public Papers: Reagan, 1987, Book I, pp. 634–637.
Peter Robinson, “Tear Down This Wall” (Prologue, Summer 2007)archives.gov

The speechwriter’s own National Archives account of drafting the line and of the seven alternative drafts sent by State and the NSC.
Peter Robinson, “Tearing Down That Wall”hoover.org

Robinson’s longer essay recounting Ingeborg Elz’s dinner-table remark and Reagan’s insistence that “that Wall has to come down.”
“Tear down this wall!”en.wikipedia.org

Survey of the speech’s reception, the TASS reaction, and the later Robinson–Dolan disagreement over who first produced the line.

The speaker

About Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

1911–2004 · 40th U.S. President (1981–1989); earlier a film actor and Governor of California

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on 6 February 1911 and died in Los Angeles on 5 June 2004. He acted in Hollywood films, led the Screen Actors Guild, and served as Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 before winning the presidency in 1980. His Cold War rhetoric — delivered with an actor’s timing and defended against his own advisers — produced the single most quoted sentence of his eight years in office.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Ronald Reagan, “Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin,” 12 June 1987, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987, Book I, 634–637.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/mr-gorbachev-tear-down-this-wall/

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