Transcripts For CSPAN3 Fall Of The Berlin Wall 20141109

Lifetime e a took place a lifetime ago. And its collapse seems so unimaginable. If i can indulge you for a second, the year before the collapse, i had organized a conference. Withe was more associated the cold war. Some of you were there. Of talk aboutt the integration of europe. , knownial the soviet was talking about the reunification of germany. Off desk also the time john and bill had begun their series on sovietamerican relations, the first time sovietamerican scholars got together. Scott armstrong had just come up with the idea of a National Security archive. But the end of the cold war . Not a chance and no discussion. Notequently, one is remarkable, what is now much closer now than we were then, by reaching a consensus regarding events in germany, and then of course, there aftermath. These questions concerned the drivers, whether they be individual, state, or international. These questions concerned consequences, whether they be international, state, or individual. These questions concern the significance, the legacy, and also, in terms of individual states and international. While we have not reached any consensus, there are none in our profession qualified tubes is to articulate the terms of the debate and move the conversation forward in our three speakers tonight. None of them need an introduction. I will choose them anyway. In thedo it all at once, order in which they will speak. I think i can sort that out now. Ensure there is a maximum time for our general conversation, as well as their opening remarks. Book thest collapse, the accidental opening of the berlin wall, will appear on the 25th anniversary of the her lasthe wall area book, which im sure were are all familiar with, 1989. It was a 6 a Financial Times book of the year, and it one it price for distinguished scholarship in german and european studies, and the triple shulman prize for distinguished scholarship on communist Foreign Policy. Princeton university will publish an updated university ofiversary edition in august 2014. She gets a doubleheader. She serves as dean of her fetzer of history in the university of Southern California and is currently on leave as the visiting professor of governing history at harvard. She is a former scholar, white house fellow, and member of the institute for advanced study in princeton and is a lifetime member of the council in foreign relations. A professor of American History at the university of virginia and a faculty fellow in the Global Era Program at the miller center. He is the author of several books on the cold war. And on u. S. Relations with the soulncluding for of mankind, which won the george lewis prize from the American Historical Association and a preponderance of power, which won the highcroft prizes. In 2002 and 2003, he was a professor at oxford and has held the kissinger chair at the library of congress. Now it has been the recipient of at foreign relations, the United States is attuned tune of peace, the Woodrow Wilson center, and the norwegian institute. And of course, he serves as president. Most recently, he collaborated in certain times Uncertain Times after the foreign were. He is coediting a book on strategy making and writing about the Foreign Policy of the administration. The last speaker will be jeff engel. He is the founding director of the center for president ial history in George Washington university. Prior to that, he held a doctoral fellowship and taught at the university of wisconsin, administration. Yell, the university of pennsylvania, and texas amm. At texas a m, he was the 52 professor at the bush school and director of programming for the institute for teaching and mentorship. Amm, he received a silver star award for teaching and Membership Committee distinguished Teaching Award from the association of former and the University System chancellors teaching excellence award. The numerous articles and books he has written and edited, cold war at 30,000 feet 1 8 prize. Won a prize. Of thet recipient Norwegian Nobel Institute senior fellowship. He is currently writing when the world seemed new. Should george h. W. Bush, a surprisingly peaceful were. Thank you very much and thank you to the society for inviting me to speak any particular, for organizing this. It is great cspan is here. Many more people can join us in our discussion today in our homes. The people here have an advantage. Doesty wisely gave me tea free drinks before they start listening to me. Hopefully, that will blunt the edge of your skeptical and penetrating questions. Minutes to a few tell you about the fall the wall. Enough to was kind mention, i have a book coming out in the fall. Will be, the anniversary itself will be november 9 30 will see a lot of Media Coverage of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall. It was great schaefer had chosen to make this, where we talk about the significance of the event. One of the things amazing to me is that great event still not him do not always have great causes. I decided to write this book because after i wrote my last lot of unexpected questions. 1989 is actually about the Foreign Policy that follows the collapse of the berlin wall. The unexpected way in which the wall came down, the bulk of the book is about International Policies afterwards. I would talk about that book and say, im here to talk about the Foreign Policy that follows the opening of the berlin wall. Sometimes, it would stop me and say, timeout and what do you mean . Sometimes, i would say a lot more pointed questions. The first time i got the question i was shocked. By the fourth and fifth time, i and i longer shocked, realized there is not a lot in language other than german about the shortterm events that bring down the fall the wall. Theres a lot about the longerterm causes, but the proximate cause, the shortterm event, are not wellknown in the nongermanspeaking world. I decided to try to put together that story. And it only since more complicated than you expected, so and end up being a Fascinating Research top research topic. If we have questions, we can talk more about them. Briefly, i want to talk a little bit about the priest or bitursor and then a tiny about how we think about the events, memory, and legacy. Hemes it is important is a the first you first event, the requester leaders of the soviet union. Georgia died in 1984, there were so many funerals, it became known as the working funeral. Famouslythatcher remarked, the soviets really know how to do a funeral. Im definitely coming back next year. It turned out, she was not wrong. After that embarrassing sequence of events, finally willing to that man turned out to be mikael gorbachev. In marchmes to power 1985. After he finally dies, and of forms in the soviet union, but he also begins a remarkable series of summit meetings. Mikaelss ascension to power is not expected and it is also matched by someone a an unexpected level of interest with Ronald Reagan. George h. W. Bush is much less cap go. National security advisor likes to point out either or he waswas a fraud for real, but he may have good intentions. He could be dispatched with a single bullet. This of the ability to destroy the United States. Either way, the u. S. Should stay on guard. Once it actually took office, once george h. W. Bush became president , when i speak about referring reform to george h. W. Bush hurray one of the picks present my research was how much tension was between the reagan team in the bush team. Biblical scientist not interested in the political scientists not interested in this topic, actually used reagan transition as an example of a particularly vicious one. Some scholars say bush fired everybody. I was very surprised to see what documents that referred to mush whobrain reaganites, people had given into all kinds of phrases, saying it is good grownups are back in charge. The practice of annual summits come to an end. Not a traditional cold war year. We just had that anniversary and that was observed in china with silence as people tried to commemorate in their homes. 1989 looks very different in china as it does in europe. I would ask you to bear this in mind. Europe the cold war in ended peacefully. People at the time did not know this. As the events unfolded, the images on the minds of protesters and demonstrators were the images from the square, that lone figure standing in front of the tanks, using bloodshed to disband its hold on power. Try to keep that image on in mind as we talk about 1989. The fall of the berlin wall was not a preordained conclusion. Bloodshed was on the mind of the people there on the ground. It is still a forbidden zone today in the peoples republic of china but we have the opportunity to examine what happened in europe. The question is, what would happen in Eastern Europe at as reforms gradually query created opportunities question the beginning of the end came when hungry decided to allow hungarians to cross into south africa and began taking down border certifications on the hungarian border. In the first instance, theres prevented was an existing treaty and the hungarians at first respected it. As a result of financial inducements from west germany in september, hungry decided to start letting east germans leave as well. This is a photo of abandoned vehicles. Down to thego border and collect fees because the germans had to ban these in the west. They sometimes had to wait as long as 16 years to purchase the vehicles. Abandoning it is quite a dramatic statement. There were so many of them, they had to collect them in the depots as such as this one. And then bring them back to east germany. This was a massive exodus that test even the people who were at home. People who stayed home actually had to justify staying at home. The phrase stayathome became a term of insult. Suddenly, germans would go down suddenly threatens the very existence of the regime itself, which it had not anticipated would be the case. Eastern and rolling regime took a series of steps that ultimately culminated even though it did not wish this to happen in the ultimate in the opening of the berlin wall. In response to the massive exodus, the east german ruling theorydemonstrated the of albert hirschman, who had formulated People Living under a dictatorship have essentially three choices. A way toither find exit, or find a way to protest and use your voice, or you can stay quiet and be loyal. Much of east germany, loyalty had been a popular choice. The east german regime decided unwisely to close its own borders to prevent any further exit. Was no longer an option and loyalty no longer these like an option, was no events can make it to western broadcasters, who could then broadcast them back to the casino. The east german regime, realizing it is creating a new monster, essentially planned the square event in the city on the night of october 9, 1989. This is perhaps the biggest therise of my research, orders to shoot, distribution of machine guns and bullets, the level of preparation for a bloody and violent event. Knownegion historically in the city here. That event might have happened and we might talk about 1989, thefor the fact that demonstrators behaved in two unexpected ways. The numbers were massive and there were over 100,000 protesters, which no one in fact it. They were peaceful and nine and nonviolent. Troops actually began joining their ranks. I described that process in interviews with Police Officers and others in the course of the book. It is a remarkable event that has not been understood as it should be because it is a chief stepping stone on the path of the wall. Out videoers smuggled images. As those mated to western broadcasters and broadcast back into Eastern Europe, that fueled it even more. The protests took place around the city road. They gathered here and were marching around this way and the was supposed to be location of civil war in germany when it started. Protesters overwhelmed the police. To from there, the prince had new and had known things were going badly wrong, but he thought, i will do things differently, maintain control, but talk a good game in public. In public, i will say things that; institute reforms, but im still going to institute the power to save all the peoples lives. The state still has to give permission if anyone wants to leave on my watch. Issue minord to changes to existing travel laws, mainly to stop all the crowds protesting. The announcement of this minor and fraudulent change was so badly botched, the journalists in the room thought it was a real change. It is arguably the worst press conference in the world, where the clinical spokesman just goes from bad to worse in the efforts to explain what is going on. He starts backpedaling as quickly as is can as he can. Those reports say things like, the wall is open. Inspired by the success of solidarity in poland and inspired by each other. Just on the other side of the bridge, is berlin here. This is the entrance to the checkpoint. If you were to come into a car, you would have to go to the car process a glance. Go over to the west and the pedestrians processed these houses. It is a huge walled off area. Illyria is the checkpoint. Given over to secret police employees. This was kind of out of the way in the north. Was known ase what political undesirables live. Numberswed up in large on the night of november 9, 1989, and they started getting into the Border Crossing, saying you should let us pass. Were baffled. Rds the superiors said, keep the gates closed, business as usual. Came a map of development. This is the critical point, where it will come to a head heard similar things start happening at all the dividing points as well. All points are coming to the center. Convinced thee wall is open. No orders to this effect, and the headquarters keep saying keep the gates closed, business as usual. But it becomes harder and harder and tens of thousands of people are starting to fear for their own safety. This is the man who opens the wall in the practical sense. Either, we will shoot all these people or open up. He is a an officer and was not in charge of the night wash. Night watch. This shows his age roughly as it would have been in 1989. After hours of being told this is is as usual, when he tells his superiors it is not and there are 25,000 people here, he is called a coward and he snaps and decides to open the wall. Man put himself out of a job and after the wall came down, he ended up unemployed and for a while, driving a taxi in berlin and now lives in the berlin. S of a brief summary of the dramatic and unexpected events that lead in the short term to the collapse in the law. Let me make a few general remarks and i will hand it over to my colleague about reaction in memory. Is how interesting to me were treated now germany. Pieces of the berlin wall at the Ronald Reagan library there is no major memorial. There have been attempts to build one, but it has been controversial. Memorials, but no big one. There is more going on here than just what the museums are going on youre trying to memorialize some kind of site. How do you do that when it is not actually an attractive site. It seems there is more going on to that. This has to do with how we interpret this event and its legacy. There is still so much disagreement that it is not the point. Also speaks for a lack of a clear understanding. When i speak about the topic, i hee people asserting timmy opened the law in 1987. He went to the wall and tore down the raw and when reagan spoke, the wall fell. [laughter] he opened theor you had an order bt german grid east german regime. Somehow, the east german regime must have decided it is hard to process the role of chance and accident in history. The agency of local actors. That was another surprise to me as i was writing the book. There was no order to open the law. I had to look elsewhere for my main it is true this is a story of from revolution from below. As best it is a causal exclamation. People wanted open from the minute it was built in 1961. It did not fall until 1959. I cant describe it as the history from the middle. Its like deputy scott debit officers, people who contributed to these events, not these great political leaders. This is a recent photo of the street here instead of a grandiose him grandiose memorial there, there is basically nothing. I got a tip from a friend that all of the remaining, including the east german lane lines, those are the lanes i pointed out to you, would be ripped up so a Discount Grocery store would be put in. A picture of the few lane numbers that were there. And if you go there now are to the site of where the berlin wall opened, there is now a grocery store. Some local historical societies insisted there should at least be informational panels, but those were installed cheaply. You can see here one, almost as soon as it went up. Attention ofthe people crossing the wall on the night of the knife there it you can see someone put a sticker on it and that was the end of that. On the one hand, we have a trial u. S. Memorial, where the germans themselves are hesitant to celebrate the trial. Longerterm consequences, which we will discuss more, that they feed into a perception that United States was not the author of these events, that it rapidly the dictatorship, and it fueled a misguided sense that the u. S. Could easily repeat a performance. We need a better understanding of what happened in this event. We need to understand the role of chance and the agency of local actors and we need to have a more nuanced understanding of the role of the United States and Foreign Policy in this event. Thank you for listening to me and i look forward to the discussion. [applause] years, i have learned the importance of stressing my most significant point first. I want to tell you that despite what richard implied, i did not publish my first book you for the construction of the wall. [laughter] as we learn more and more about the history leading up to the demise of the wall, as we learned more and more of the texture about that event from iople like mary and jeff, think we understand the technical history, the empirical history, a lot better. But my desire is to try and step myself and to ask all of you to think about is the 25th anniversary, what should we question myting what is there to celebrate . What lessons are to be john. Approaching the 25th anniversary, jeff invited a group of scholars down to texas and maam. To discuss the meaning of the fall to the berlin wall. Was there to talk about the meaning of the fall of the berlin wall. Came and talked about the meaning of the fall of the wall. I talked about the meaning of the fall in the United States. In brief in western europe, the demise of the wall signified the of the x efficacy of multilateral institutions. Wallssia, the fall of the signified the need to avoid inve and miscellaneous wall tohe fall of the liberalization. I talked about liberalization. I talked about the meaning of the fall of the berlin wall in the United States. Here, i emphasized that it meant the triumph oftyranny. Rolenfirmed the redemptive of the United States. The utility of power. Of containment, and the universal appeal of freedom. The wall came down freedom over and reified the exceptional view of themselves. This view was very widespread and it was very dangerous. It encouraged the use of military power, nurtured it illusory hopes of a democratic peace, inspired naive about thes benevolence of unregulated markets. This view, i want to emphasize, was widely shared amongst w,dent man like george h amongst prominent democrats like the Clintons Thomas amongst conservatives like dick cheney, of ongst neocons liked doug and paul will full its. Bush 41, as jeff andd others have so well emphasized, was cautious and prudent. But by the time of the 1992 president ial campaign, president bush could not resist the temptation to take credit for the events of 1989 and 1990. He likes to say during the campaign, we brought about the fall of the iron curtain and the death of imperial communism. In 1992, the republican platform went further. The fall of the inlin wall marks a change the way people live. We republicans saw clearly the dangers of collectivism. Not only the military threat, but the deeper threat to the soul of people found independence. Dismantling of the wall and the ensuing collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and ussr, discredited government and furtherance wired belief in the utility and superiority of free markets. Not only among republicans. States, theunited Clinton Administration actually went much further than its predecessors in dismantling government regulation over capital flows and financial markets. Betweenession firewall commercial and investment tanking was repealed. Larry summers and alan were regulate thet to expanding sectors of the financial economy like derivative training and the security of death the securitization of mortgages. Forced other governments to deregulate financial controls as a condition for free trade pacts, and as a condition for securing Financial Assistance during the Asian Financial crisis of the late 1990s. 9 11, memories of the ,erlin wall were coming down and attempted officials to use force and show the strength. They were inspired to be met with enthusiasm. Memories of the jubilation of they did not9, think the toppling of saddam would be greeted with the same enthusiasm as the dismantling of the wall. On november 9, 2001, bush 43 declared word World Freedom day. Berlin walle the and the defeat of to tear it totalitarianism in central and Eastern Europe, freedom will try out will triumph in this were against terrorism. A little over a year later, observing the videos of toppling the statue, secretary of defense said, watching the iraqis, one cannot think, one that one cannot help but think of the fall of the berlin wall and collapse such the views thatd informed the National Security strategy statement of 2002. You all remember the quotation in the introduction. Between liberty into talent terrorism. The model for natural for success. Freedom, democracy, and Free Enterprises. Now that we know the history of the wall coming down, now that we know the contingency of the event and agency of ordinary people, what should we be thinking about. Commemorating be is it the efficacy of strength, power, containment . What lessons should we draw . Should acknowledge and confirm the appeal of fundamental human rights. Agencyld recognize the of the organizations championing human rights and civil society. And reestablishing the rights inscribed in the 19 48 declaration. The right to life, liberty, and the security of the person. The right to every person for the quality of the law, the from arbitrarye arrest. The right to be free from arbitrary interference from privacy, the right to movement and travel. The right gainful employment, educational opportunity, and those are the fundamental rights that had such wide appeal to the peoples of is berlin, east germany, and Eastern Europe. Second, i think we should emphasize and celebrate the attractiveness of a social market economy, not a Free Enterprise economy. It was indeed the principles of the social market that were incorporated into the law establishing the Monetary Union of the federal republic. A social market meant combining free markets with regulated governmental competition and with a commitment to social equity and a social welfare safety net. Struggleeological between Free Enterprise and wonunism, the social market the cold war. The reaganding thatcher assault on government regulation, not with the ending the rise of neoliberalism, we should remember that the social safety net did not he wrote did not even rode in the 1980s. Elsewhere, i have shown social was crucial to the ability of the west to exhort the shock of the 1970s. The social market, not the free market, so to speak, won the cold war. Third, we should acknowledge the efficacy of institutions and European Economic integration. The berlin wall came down because of german reconciliation and because of the success of , anduropean coal and steel because of what was inspired by the respective european union. The berlin wall came down because of the resilience of western economies, and because of the appeal of the culture of mass consumption. I think it is important to they werethat ential that jocks backdrops for the success of , wepean economic fourth should emphasize and commemorate new norms of international conduct. The force andriy honoring of selfdetermination. Norms gorbachev embraced. That embrace was the precondition for the wall coming down. Fifth, we should applaud the efficacy and the agency of wise bush, and most, of all, gorbachev. Reagan grasped that negotiating from strength meant negotiating, reaching out, and ultimately, it meant nurturing and understanding of the adversary. That prudence and selfrestraint were critical. He must notd that overreach, that he must not provoke a clampdown, that he must do what he could to help avoid a repeat of budapest, 1956, Barack Domenech and 58, and the recent events in tiananmen. Cold grasped immediately the opportunity to reunite germany, and he also realized a united germany had to be embedded within the supernational institutions. When he pressed ahead. With his championing of the Monetary Union. He understood it was a prerequisite to the coopting prospective german power and to reassuring jeremys neighbors. Most of all, we should honor gorbachev. Conductced new norms of and reconceived the meaning of security for his country, and oferstood the priority reform, even if he did not know how to bring it about. Knowledge the complex interactions between human agency, structural developments like globalization and the communications revolution, and contingent events like a spokesperson misstating the conclusions of the meeting. We historians need to strive for complexity as a precondition for extrapolating accurate lessons and appropriate meanings. As we reassess, we can also acknowledge that the leaders make mistakes, that not all of the promise of the wall coming down was realized. Partly because of the conservative instincts of bush, and partly because of the incoherence and ambiguity of the vision. Because in international affairs, challenges are too complex and competing pressures for statement to achieve perfection. The 25thll think on anniversary of the dismantling of the wall, there remains much to celebrate. The end of the division of germany, the end of the division of europe, the end of the cold war, the end of a nuclear arms race, the end of a bad century of war, depression, and to tell terrorism. Editorial on november 12, 1989, i think the editors of the New York Times put the events in proper respective. Crowds of wrote young people danced on top of the berlin wall thursday night. They danced for joy. They danced for history. They danced because the tragic cycle of catastrophe 75 years ago, embracing two world wars, a holocaust, and a cold war, seemed at long last to be nearing an end. We can still rejoice about such matters. Thanks. [applause] you can all rejoice that we are nearly done. By first thanking the Program Committee for putting together this tonight and doing their usual excellent job of creating a fascinating conference. Thank you to sarah snyder, the cochairs, and also the president for helping to organize this comment our incoming president. And for this opportunity. Thank you to richard and my fellow panelists forgiving a lot to discuss once i am done. 25 years ago, the world changed. The impossible happened. Seeshing wholly unexpected global attention and fundamentally altered a people, a confident, and the entire world is some. With consequences that continue to reverberate to this day. I speak, of course, on what happened on june 4, 1989. The date polish voters rejected their government. Was no more. Moscow has his influence was no more. A homegrown polish democracy took its place. Perhaps this is not the moment you thought i was referring to 225 years ago phil you must be thinking about december 2 of 1989, when soviet american forcials met at a summit the formal end of the cold war, h raised for writers or perhaps may 2, when hungarians dismantle their border with austria, opening a window to the iron curtain that was never again shut. We gather tonight to consider the fall of the berlin wall 25 years on, my first thought is a reminder berlin was not the whole story. It was important, but also but one peak on the interconnected waves of change that struck the world in 1989. Any number of events, elections, openings, or summits, could stake an equal claim to historic significance, the moment when the cold war had gripped humanity for the half for the last century truly came to an end. Perhaps to further the point, when youre asked to consider what is the most significant event of 1989, you would think of the square. What occurred within the beating heart of the world passes most populous country. This would get my vote. Long after we in this room have gone to the great big archive in the sky, historians will still note and long reminder long remember june 4 of 1989. On the very day the polish voters stood up, china passes growing Reform Movement was mowed down. As china passes leader declared to his colleagues at that moment, we must deal severely to defy orders. We can afford to shed some blood. Just try as much ass not to kill everyone. I china, of course, has not been the same since. The moment tank toppled the goddess of delivery, it effectively cut a deal with its own people, guaranteeing Economic Growth in exchange for stifled political desk localization. The free market without the freedom. Chinese leaders have today an awful fear of what would happen if they did not hold up their end of the bargain, failing to fulfill prosperity. Frats, as you further consider 1989, and must be said that asia is not your cup of tea. Perhaps you prefer your history of 99 1989 more hegemonic, more colonial, more europe centric. Let me offer mikael, the man i think is the most important of the entire 20th century. To save thehe social system he loved through the revolution of ideas, he sovietp assuring the union into its grave. 1989 was the year he fully articulated his common european home, a bridge of ease and west built on foundations of peace and prosperity and human possibility. Single most profound articulation of a new world order since Woodrow Wilson, his authorsting position as the world passes most popular man. At least outside of russia. As the New York Times famously editorialized, imagine an alien space station approach earth and sent the message take me to your leader. That would be him. Stop for a moment. 1989, the worlds leader. Whose country was in decline and economy was in shambles. Where Life Expectancy dropped, where alcoholism rose. He was the worlds leader. No wonder george bush jealously feared him as 1989 began. As president of the United States, bush was supposed be the world passes most powerful leader, not this odd social soviet intellectual. Dangerous ruse the common european home to ieal a cold war victory area will return to bush momentarily, but let me say the striking a. For all of his visionary speeches, gorbachevs important words were uttered behind closed doors. In 1989, it was often recalled as the year so much happened. I contend it is what did not happen, the decisions not made, but rather when moments leaders chose not to act that made all the difference. Bob gates, who was the deputy of National Security advisor, has repeatedly whether they want to listen or not, warned anybody in humant never before history had a major empire great powerthout a war ensuing. Never before in Human History had chaos not filled a power vacuum. Around the surging world in 19 89, it had all the makings of a chaotic year. Oftenas a year most retold by historians as a story of crowds, crowds marched, regimes fell. This version have a nice warm feel to it. It gives the crowd agency. It makes us feel good thinking that democracy and people have real power. Will hitchcock message summed up this thinking when he wrote that gorbachev did not give freedom, they took it. This is a nice warm version of events. Do not get me wrong. Crowds matter. Success or failure ultimately rested in 1989 in the hands of gain that strove to , and keepat bay repression at a minimum. Fed up by decades of repression, Eastern Europes crowds marched. Powerng so, they returned, and over events back into the hands of the leaders they despise, the leaders who, therefore, had one more fateful decision to make. To fire or to topple, to douse the flames were, to let them burn. Know ifers they did not the buckets they held contained water or gasoline. Thankfully, Eastern Europes leaders chose the most peaceful path. Looking back on 1989 and asking what it all means, it seems to me clear that gorbachevs greatest moment was not a stories beach, but instead when europesastern communist people that moscow would no longer support the violence against their own people. This would not be 1953. This would not be 1968. This would not be 1956. This would not be 1956. Gorbachev had said no. Geo board of violence. Becoming physically ill in april of 1989, months before the wall fell, before, when soviet police violently dispersed a crowd of georgian protesters, 20 in that crowd died. The moment terrified him. Why . He had not ordered the crackdown. He had not ordered the violence. He, the most powerful man in the soviet union, had less power when crowds and Police Clashed than the loneliest soldier scared and armed with a gun, with the least subdued protester wielding a rock. Either could spark a melee that could quickly spin out of control. Either could start the chaos that could ultimately consume the world. We must never forget that all that occurred in the fall of 1989 in europe happened after Tiananmen Square and that leaders on both sides of the crumbling iron curtain drew a direct line between the two. At the moment that the rest of the world shunned chinese visitors following Tiananmen Square, Sarah Connor Kirk of east germany publicly invited chinese officials to teach the stasi what they could about what he called crowd control. For george bush, it was a recurring nightmare. As bush wrote, if we mishandle this, you would invite crackdown and invite negative reaction that could result in bloodshed. Bush therefore responded by doing and saying as little as possible lest he riled up hardliners, practicing hippocratic diplomacy. First, do no harm, even if it meant doing nothing. Why . Because he believed action carried more risk than potential game and because he fundamentally that the stream of history would continue to flow in that direction, washingtons, so long as he did nothing to change its course. Democracy was on the rise. Freedom was on the march. We were all lucky. It was not all luck. It was also the work of leaders bent on keeping chaos that they. At bay. Communist regimes looked into the abyss in 1989, and they blinked. East germany, absolutely gone within a year. So to the soviet union ultimately do not have the stomach to fire on their own crowds. It was also gone by years end. Chinas communist regime remains to this day, offering the trouble in lesson that those who accept reforms sought other states toppled. The regime that sent in the tanks survived. What then is the ultimate lesson of 1989 . We all know the fallacy of trying to draw ironclad lessons from history, but i think if there is one one lesson, it is not just a story of europe or Eastern Europe or berlin, but instead it was an intertwined global affair. The lesson is this there were, in fact, as the professor mentioned, multiple lessons. When one thinks of 1989 and why it matters, it largely depends on your National Point of view. For the americans, the central lesson was that they had one won. Ronald reagan singlehandedly tore the berlin wall down brick by brick. I like to think he took off his shirt like putin before he did it. Because he believed in freedom and because he also believed in strength. This person of history offers a blueprint for future american success. The world wants to be like us. Deep in their hearts, Everyone Wants to be free americanstyle. It was just a little push with just a Little American military force. We shall be greeted as liberators. Of course, we saw how well that turned out in 2003. Others have different lessons from 1989. Chinas lesson, that repression worked as long as leaders are tough enough to crack down and crack down hard and so long as the people who survive can be made to remain fat and satisfied. Europe also has its lesson the crowd that formed on the far side of the iron curtain did not want to the american. Leaders in brussels, paris included, they instead want to be european and desired to join the collectivist spirit embodied in the nascent european union. Their lesson . That integration works so long as europeans stick together, peace and prosperity will r eign. That is a troubling lesson, it seems to me, six years removed from a financial crisis which has seen european relations strained, while reinvigorating nationalist forces throughout the continent. What of the russians . Their lesson is the clearest of all 1989 was the moment that gorbachev gave in. He trusted the west, expecting nato to hold germanys border. Russia instead received chaos, economic collapse, and nato expansion. Vladimir putin has repeatedly called the soviet unions demise the single greatest strategic strategy tragedy in russian history. His real takeaway in 1989 is the realization that russians should never, ever trust the last again trust the west again. It pains me to say, though there is much to celebrate for 1989, the lessons we might take from it are not wholly optimistic. It is that true change occurs when leaders are willing to let the stream of history run its course, but sadly, leaders Strong Enough to resist the urge to steer history along our sadly rare, especially those who are intoxicated by the power at their command. Another lesson is that collectivism is easily undermined by jealousy, nationalism, and ethnicity, and that violence can indeed keep chaos at bay for a while. Finally, it is how one stands on the issues of 1989, it depends on large measure where one sits. As Deng Xiaoping told his inner circle, we are not afraid to shed a little one. You carry these things out, you see, and the westerners forget. I think ultimately he was only partly right. The world is not forget. It simply remembers what it wants. Thank you. [applause] ok. Now those who probably intended to defect from the beginning have defected. [laughter] we can have an opportunity im sure many of you have questions or comments. If you will raise your hand and please identify yourself, it will be easier for us, and it will certainly be better for the filming. Please go to the microphone. Hi. Im from the university of north florida. Ive written extensively on american policy in poland. I want to thank you all for your insightful comments. I never want to follow mel leffler f g talks after he talks to read it was wonderful. Im also very happy that dr. Engel reminded us of the two things that happened on june 4. There are two options there is the polish option, successful elections, and then there is the tiananmen option. In washington, they thought about tiananmen. I like to think that the polish experience opened the door for the other crowds to take power. As a comment on what you said, dr. Engel, not all in east european leaders were troglodytes. There were reformers ahead of gorbachev, in a way, in Eastern Europe, and i think that should be remembered. The fear in poland was never that he would call for shots, but that he would be removed as gorbachev might have been. I think that is important to remember, that he had partners. My question is to married m ary. You talked about unintentional actions of the middle but also the agency of local actors. My question is, what did you discover about why on october 9 those guards didnt shoot, those stasi members didnt shoot . It is an action. It is embracing a path that rejects what youre told to do, as well as like jagr did the same thing. The motivation of these leaders is really important and something i dont quite understand. I would ask you to respond to that and explain why they took this step not to act, not to shoot when given the order that night on the 11th im sorry, the ninth. Thank you. Jeff, did you want to say anything . I like your work. [laughter] i would like to recommend to all of you his forthcoming book empowering revolution. I have learned so much about what happened in poland, and im looking forward to seeing the book, as well. Thank you for your question. It gives me an opportunity to talk a little bit more about the book. As i mentioned at the end of the talk, when i set out to write a book, i need to figure out the locus of the agency. As i said, it was not among the elite political leaders. There had not been an elite decision to tear down the wall. It was not a topdown story. Then i tried to look at it as a bottomup story. As i mentioned, i realized that while it was true, it was not sufficient. It was not enough to say people wanted the wall to come down. People wanted to wanted the wall to come down from 1961 onward, and yet it didnt come down until 1989. I ended up unexpectedly focusing on this middle tier. This gets your question about the difference between unintentional action and agency. I found that the agency of local actors extremely significant but that agency was at times unintended. The politburo spokesman at the press conference do not intend to botched announcement. I ended up looking on the one hand not only at dissident leaders, smugglers, people who spent a lot of time in prison, people interrogated by the stasi, but also loyalists and people that thought with what they were doing they were going to save the regime. Those were midlevel bureaucrats who provided the wording of the politburo decision that turned out to be very unwise. The deputy passport officer. There were many loyalists involved who were trying and effectively to save their regime, and what they did ended up making the situation worse. Her agency was important, but it wasnt his same as their intention. I ended up doing a huge number of interviews for this book. I intermune interviewed harold jagr, the man who in a practical sense opened the wall. I did interviews and leipsic, as well. The causes were many, but they all came together at that moment. As a historian, i have rarely seen monocausality. In leipsic, there was a combination of events. The overwhelming number of protesters, the fact that they were handing out huge numbers of leaflets they have produced saying no violence. One over the armed guards who had been told to expect a mob. The guards felt betrayed. At the Senior Leadership level, the Senior Leaders in like sick mysterious and like sick in leipsic mysteriously stopped hearing from berlin on the moment to shoot. In a centralized system like that, all important decisions are from the center. The Party Leaders were trying to confirm their orders, and mysteriously, they were hearing nothing about it. The leipsic local leaders at that point began to feel themselves being left in the lurch and were not as willing to go forward with it. There are a whole bunch of factors that come together. With Harald Jaeger, Harald Jaeger is an amazing figure. He had been working that that Border Crossing for 25 years, and nothing unusual had ever happened. You have to imagine, is been sitting there for 25 years, you are a deputy passport control officer, stasi off sir on the night watch officer on the night watch, youve given 25 years of Loyal Service with multiple awards from the stasi, you have only one minor demerit on your record, you are an exemplary servant of the regime, you are loyalists, and even though you know your state is crumbling, you are still willing to put on your armor your uniform and worked a 24hour night shift. He called his superiors and superiors called him a coward, that combined with his personal fear that tens of thousands of people were chanting open the wall. There were even random factors. Recently, he was suspected of having cancer, and he had undergone tests for cancer. She was due to get the results the next day. It turned out he didnt have cancer, but on that night, he didnt know that. The changes in the world, gorbachev, right down to the personal i may be dying, and they are calling me a coward. And that moment where he was fed up, he said to his men, should we open up or shoot all these people . He decides to open up. What is interesting for me, these things on describing to you, these should not be worthy of historical study, but as they interact with broader factors, thats an amazing phenomenon worthy of study. Jack . I think its a great question, and one of the things that i think is really fascinating about marys story in leipsic in particular, which she tells remarkably in her new york book, is the difference between what happened there and what happened in tiananmen, one of the things we should recall about Tiananmen Square is that the world generally remembers the event is occurring on the night of june 4 when the tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled in and the machine guns opened up. There had been a series of attempts over the previous week by the chinese regime to take back the square by force without the use of deadly force, and at each stage, they have been repulsed by the Chinese People of beijing. Fewer students than we recall, more regular workers and residents who have physically repelled and pummeled the soldiers who tried to enter tiananmen. The soldiers who were firing on june 4 have basically been beaten up by the people for a week at this point, and so its not the first moment of violence. Deadly force was not the first choice. It was a choice that occurred after continued pressing and continued violence that escalated. One could only think what would have happened in leipsic if those soldiers who were staring down the crowds, if the crowd had gone to within 30 yards of their position, while they had machine guns, if the crowd had been hurling rocks and hurling rocs for a week at that point, what their reaction mightve been it would have been far different, i think. Jeff and john . You get creaky after a while. It is nice to be back in shape after all of these years. You are one of the people who published before . [laughter] correct. It was very enjoyable and thoughtprovoking, your presentations. A couple of points one, and i think this is directed at mel, and maybe im stretching my point, but maybe it was a good thing we had the soviet union around for american capitalism to have a friendly face, a s mile, and a positive approach to the workingman and unions. That is gone. Is there a connection . A general question when, please, when will we see the end of the america trying to see the world in its own image, in terms of interpreting complex events that happen . Im thinking of right now, and once again listening to our political leaders, your political leaders, not mine it just seems to me that the rhetoric just goes round and round and round, and it stops with how great we are and however one should, in fact, be embracing our values. Those are two questions. Im not exactly sure what you meant was it a good idea for the United States [indiscernible] the soviet union, there was an enemy. Global capitalism, whatever you want to call it a workingman in america was happier and better off. [indiscernible] i think its important simply to realize the initial context of the cold war. Rather than american officials being happy that there was a clear model that the soviet that the United States or western capitalism was superior, the real context of the origins of the cold war was the widespread apprehension that existed after the depression and world war ii about the viability and vitality of communism. One of the main reasons the cold war starts is because of the fears of american officials about the appeal of communism. I think that american officials prefer to have the situation that existed after 1990 than what had existed before. I dont think they liked having the soviet union around as a framework. I really dont. As for the rhetorical lessons, i think, yes, american officials and american journalists and the American Media and quite a few historians and scholars have disseminated an exceptional list view of triumphalism. Ive taken issue with that exceptional list view exceptionalist view. Many people in this room have taken exception with it. What i think is important is for us to carry on, to continue to try to communicate our views. I think a very good example of this has happened in the last two weeks. Some of you who read the New York Times and the new republic know that bob kagan has written an incredibly influential essay about what we should learn from the experience of the 20th century, from world war i, world war ii, about american leadership. The bottom line, bob kagan argues, is that what is necessary to have a peaceful, stable, and democratic world order is for the United States, as it has done in the past, to assert its power and assume leadership. Allegedly, president obama called bob kagan to the white house to discuss this article. That is what i read in the New York Times. I know for a fact that Hillary Clinton had dinner with bob kagan to discuss this article. I would wager that probably the majority of people in this room do not quite agree with that story. Not that it is totally wrong, in my opinion, but that it has pretty significant problems. I would suggest that everyone who disagrees with it should read it and try to publish something about it and make an impact, communicate your views, affect Public Perception and the memory we have about these events. His article appeared in the new republic in the new republic. Hes a public intellectual. Other people can write and try to communicate a counter view. If we are unhappy with the exceptionalist view of triumphalism, that is what we historians should be trying to do without getting caught in our own ideological biases, i would suggest. Jonathan . Jonathan winkler, im going to make half the panel feel old. I was a freshman when the wall fell. At least you werent there when the wall went up. [laughter] i dont know where my parents are. Let me play the role of splitter. You suggested there was a contrast. On the one hand, those who tried to stand against the crowds with violence and succeeded, and then those who exceeded to the crowds , their regimes went away where do we put romania and that went away. Where do we put romania in that . I think the romanians like to be different. I think we actually have to put romania in a third category. We should recall that ceausescu did not have opportunity to enact atn in men as he wanted. She was forced to flee before it. Given the opportunity, i think he would have fallen squarely in the troglodyte camp. It was he and honecker that were really the ones who were telling the rest of the soviet bloc that gorbachev had gone too far, that we must hold fast our socialist roots and hold fast against the crowd. They were increasingly outnumbered. Romania, i think, is the first place where we can see importantly less an interaction between the crowd and the regime than really the first steps of a civil war. Violence in romania that occurs, in the two weeks particularly around christmas and after, and up being villager after villager, village against village, many driven by longterm ethnic tension and conflict. I would say that romania is actually a best case example of a precursor to yugoslavia and a good example that communist regimes had done a really effective job of clamping down historic tensions, which bubble up in the aftermath. My name is david mayers. I teach at boston university. When we try to sort out the erosion of soviet power in Eastern Europe and then its collapsed, how important and its collapse, how important is our understanding of faithbased dissent . John paul ii, poland, a versatile for what took place later on, and then in light said in leipsic, it was the protestants who played a role. If you could just comment on those questions. That was another category of mental actors i discovered, local church leaders, parishioners, prayer groups at churches. Certainly in poland, the role of the Catholic Church can hardly be overstated. Greg knows about this much more than i do. The case of the role of the church in leipsic was significant but more complex than i originally thought. The superficial narrative is that the church sheltered dissidents, and there are a number of books with titles that say the churches that knocked down the wall. When i would interview former churchbased dissidents, they had mixed feelings. On the one hand, they said, the stasi, the secret police tolerated the churches giving shelter because it made surveillance easier. It was basically onestop shopping for the stasi. If you have the churches as a primary site of dissident activity, and internal stasi reports made it clear that churches were the main sights of this activity, then you could just observe the churches to read stasi turned a number of church staff who worked a stasi agents, and that was uncovered in years after. When i interviewed the dissidents, they had mixed feelings. I found out afterwards this minister was a stasi agent. On the other hand, we have shelter. We had a space to meet and organize. The church was very important to us. Some of the ministers really cared. Some of the parishioners really supported us. On the whole, the church was a really vital space, but the actual picture is much more ambivalent than you would imagine. The church was a crucial spaces sheltered dissidents, but the irony is that the stasi permitted the space to exist as long as the activity in there did not become too energetic. When in 1989, when factors come together, gorbachev, the example of solidarity, the mistakes the regime is making, some of that activity explodes exponentially. The stasi is unprepared for it. The role of the church is critical but ambivalent. The other factor that came into play when i interviewed a number of these dissidents, they would say to me, i am a christian. Someone say, im not religious at all, but i walked into a church, and it was the only place in my country where people said what they thought. Even though i didnt become religious, i value to that space and dialogue. I participated wholeheartedly in these groups even though i am not a certain faith. As is so often the case with historical events, when you get down into the nittygritty details, the picture is a lot more complicated. There were people involved in faithbased organizations, but their actions were not focused on their faith. If you had to summarize it in a nutshell, the churches were important and mattered as shelter and managed to be more valuable than the stasi surveillance that accompanied them. I want to pick up on this point, because i think it is quite crucial. It helps further the broader point we are all making, all four of us. The different nature of national perceptions, including exceptionalism. Here is a good case where the prototypical american has a different view of what it means to say the church played an influential role in influencing events than would somebody in Eastern Europe at this time or even western europe at this time. As mary points out, the church is a social institution as much as anything else, and the american evangelicals and missionaries who are supporting Church Movements clandestinely during the 1980s, they are driven by a sense of faith, that the regimes greatest outrage is prohibition against religious freedom. The people they are interacting with her using the church most often as a vehicle for organizing and social dissent or social protests or even social safety from the regime, though not necessarily being animated by a great desire for religious freedom themselves. Its an important lesson here, especially as we recall with the exception of vatican city, the United States is just about the most religious country in the world. Consequently, it makes us more prone to think that people around the world who are organized by religion are acting at the same level of passionate faith that so Many Americans are. I am Michael Donohue from marquette university. The strongest impression i got out of that night was an enormous amount of inordinate creaking that went on. You could see the west germans and east german celebrating on the wall, passing bottles of champagne and schnapps and beer. He said that even occur in the United States. It was much more limited, but people went out on their lawns. I lived in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in providence, rhode island. We didnt have the champagne, more like budweiser, but a lot of people did go out. It was kind of a celebratory night. The doctor told me once that the worst effect of a hangover kicks in about 11 hours after you start raking. It seems like the hangover americans had occurred 11 years after, 9 11, and the most serious question i wanted to ask there was a lot of commentary and oped pieces by a lot of distinguished historians shortly after the event that this was the end of the short century, the end of the 75yearold 20th century, and it started in 1914 and ended in 1989. That quickly was eclipsed 11 years later with this idea that actually 9 11 is the start of the new 21st century. I was wondering if you had any commentary, is this the end of the 20th century, do you think . Is it that formidable of an event that it supersedes what happens 11 years later . Im sure my colleagues here have a lot to say on this issue. Simply stated, yes, i think it is the end of a short century. I think that is a good framework to see it in, see the events of 1989 symbolizing the end of many things, and i would say the next step and is a decade of transition, and yes, you are right, after 9 11, we Start Talking about a new century and a new war on terrorism, whatever that might mean. Ways, imany important think it is the end of the century, but as so many of us have been writing during the 20 15, 20eam, years, there are other important developments that transcend the cold war that are happening parallel to the cold war that intersect, at times, with the cold war, that affect the cold war, and that are very influential after the cold war. You know, issues of demography, issues of globalization, and so forth. Part of the answer to your question is revolves around, what do you think in terms of International History are the most essential issues of the 20th century . If you think it is demographic growth or disease or globalization, then you can have a different view of the events of 1989 to 1990. If you think it is the world wars, the rise of totalitarianism, etc. , then you 1990 as ane 1989 and appropriate book and bookend. Let me put a different spin on that, in part agreement. I think it is true that it is very easy to look at 1989 as the end of the 20th century. Uncomfortable with that because i think there are broader trends trends such as globalization, but most importantly, trends such as the proliferation of Information Technologies that are crucial to the United States and its allies being able to see a future beyond the cold war, which the soviets could not. This is significant because it think it helps us not so much looked back at what 99 1989 meant as an ending point about what it means going forward. I think it tells us that 9 11 i have to be careful how i say this 9 11 was not that important. The trends that spawned 9 11 still continue and we are afraid even more of. 9 11 was, in many ways, and expected manifestation of trends of information flowing and media flowing, which 1989 allowed to flow to a dramatic shift a dramatically larger part of the world. In essence, writing 89 opens the floodgates, and we are still seeing what comes later. Just to follow little bit on what jeff has said, i was surprised researching my book about a disconnect i saw. There were all of these dramatic events from the ground up. You have solidarity in poland. You have a peaceful revolution in germany. All of these dramatic changes for the lives of eastern berliners. They have dramatically more life choices as of the sudden. All of a sudden. When i looked from the topdown, i didnt see changes. The predominant cold war Security Organization and the cold war was nato. It is still nato. The European Community existed before. Theyve renamed themselves the european union. What surprised me was the mismatch from the dramatic change on the ground up and the perpetuation of cold war institutions into the postcold war era. Perhaps the Biggest Surprise for me, we saw an cold war europe this clear dividing line between eastern and western europe. This was the warsaw pact over here, this was nato. The fact that russia got left on the periphery i mean russia, not the soviet union with nato expanding into Eastern Europe, there is still a dividing line just moved eastward. I came to see 1989 not as an end to the 21st century. So Many Organizations that dominated the 20th century persisted into the cold war into the postcold war world. When you get to 9 11, you are trying to respond to 9 11 with cold war institutions. If you look at the 9 11 report, the report says one of the reasons the United States was unprepared to deal with 9 11 was because its security institutions were still those formulated to fight the cold war. That is true, but that was also a strategic decision in 1990 to protect ash to perpetuate his institution. I came to see 1989 not so much as an ending because there was so much perpetuation from the 20th century into the 21st. We are living with that awkward juxtaposition between cold war institutions, formulated to defend western europe, and the challenge of the 21st century. What has been amazing with the crisis in ukraine and with putin is they such institutions seem newly relevant. There is this new rethinking of the cold war. I dont see 1989 as the enemy short 20th century. Let me say one more thing. There is one other view of this that i think is george bushs. H. W. That 1989, in essence, is 1946 in a good way. 1989, we are finally going to get rid of this albatross around our neck, this Global Operation that was the cold war, that kept us from fulfilling the u. N. Mandate he had fought for in world war ii of states working together cooperatively and respecting sovereignty. There is a sense of the 1989 is a chance to finally do what we were always supposed to do and do it right. One criticism of the view that one could make is that it doesnt take into account some of these broader Global Trends because nowhere in bushs vision of a new world order is articulated a manifestation of 1949 nowhere in there is a sense of nonstate actors. He can only conceive of the world in terms of states. Nato continues to persist because when one considers how to defend oneself, of course one thinks about other states. States are still the most powerful force in the world to this day, with the exception of perhaps google, but they are simply more powerful than other states other nonstate actors, which bush was not ready to integrate into his worldview. One thing that i want to comment on i taught a course at the Army War College this last spring, and it had a Large International demographic in my class. In the course of the conversation, we were talking about 1989, 2011, the trends from the 20th century, and to fastforward, a consensus developed among the students that 25 years ago excuse me, from now, we are not going to be talking about 1989 so much. We are going to be talking about 1979 much more than 1989. Jeff, you mentioned that 1989 was when the world changed. It was a global affair, but there was a big chunk of the globe that has not been discussed at all tonight. We basically went from europe to china, from europe to china. As i said, it has made me think about what began and what ended at different times. I dont in any way challenge the view that 1989 constitutes the end of an era of the 20th century, but it seems to me something had begun before the end that isnt just the trends that go on. If there were political events that triggered something different, and that in a quartercentury from now, if im in the Intelligence Community and im writing Global Trends 26 feet, i may be thinking about 1989 very differently. When i think of 1979, presume you are referring to events in the middle east. Collects afghanistan, yelm in getting overthrown. There is a common a common denominator. Most likely prevalent in the Career Trajectories of most of your students of the army while Army War College, they had spent the last decade concerned with radical islam. If you ask them, what is the most important thing going forward, theyre going to presume something they have to deal with on a daily basis absolutely correct. We should make sure that the next 10 years are a conflict against someplace really innocuous like iceland, and then we will be able to see iceland is a really important place 60 years from now. Im from the university of warwick, u. K. Thanks for your comments, everyone. Sometimes when i think about these complex historical events like the end of the cold war, it reminds me of a quick that was said about the danishprussian war of 1864, which was fabulous for its complexity. He said, only three people ever knew what actually happened. One is dead, one is mad, and ive forgotten everything ive ever known. The question is very simple it is about the historiography if there is one thing about this important event that you could change, what would it be . If there was one thing about the historiography about the end of the cold war, what would it that you could change, what would it be . Im still trying to figure out which one of us is mad, which one of us is dead, and which one of us is forgotten. I will let you go first. Im not sure i can address that. I think when we try to periodize things, richard, you are quite right. There are always continuities and discontinuities. Things that started in the 1970s and 1980s are going to be important after 1989, but it seems to me that if you think about some of the basic issues, such as the nature of the configuration of power in the International System, the configuration of power in the International System was absolutely transformed between 1989 and 1992. I would say that that change is far more significant than the fact that nato continued in a new form, the fact that the soviet union and the warsaw pact disappeared, and american strength was predominant. It was extraordinarily important. The other thing is, depending on how you want to define it, 50 years, 70 years, there were competing ways, competing models of political economy. What is really important about 1989, 1990, 1991 as symbolic demonstrated to all humankind that the communist model was no longer a viable alternative way of life. Yes, that is important as giving rise to the importance of islamism. The destruction of communism as a framework for ordering the political economies of societies is really important everywhere. It is not just the events in berlin, but it is also obviously the trajectory and the reconfiguration of the political economy of china during these years. These things intersect. On the whole, you have two huge transformations the transformation in the structure of power in the International System, transformation in the perception of the viabilitys a certain political economies. Those are huge changes that i think helped to define the 20th century. Can i say one thing really quick . Just briefly, if i understood your question, you said, what about the historiography would i like to change what i would like to change is theres a lot of writing about the cold war and the end of the cold war that talks about europe without talking about europeans. There is writing on the berlin wall coming down that doesnt involve berliners. There is writing on the end of German Division that doesnt involve germans. Im trying to bring in these local actors to show the significance of their agency. In the United States, our Foreign Policy goes badly awry when we forget the agency of local actors. I will give you a quotation from a former activist i interviewed this is a woman who was a very active protester in east germany for years before the wall came down she said, it still amazes me when i read history books about the history i made, i read these history books, and they say, the wall fell, and it gave us our freedom. We fought for our freedom, and then the wall fell. She is right. You would like to bring that understanding, that there was a peaceful revolution and it mattered and that it was causal, into the historiography. There were people on the Ground Fighting for their freedom, and then the wall fell. Before i bring this session to a close, which im sure we will continue the discussion, i should mention that i was negligent at the beginning. I meant to mention that many of you noticed that james wilson was supposed to be on this session. James has just published a terrific book on the end of the cold war. It is a triumph of improvisation. James also works for the state department, the historical office, and he is actually a leader of the team working on the ukrainianrussian crisis. He did not feel comfortable leaving that. We should feel comfortable that he is at work, solving international crises, while we figure out what is missing from the historiography. In any event, we all missed having james here. With that, let me thank our panelists for a wonderful i really want to thank them because i had insisted that they speak for 1012 minutes each. Fortunately, as is my life, theyve ignored me completely, and i think we have all benefited from it tremendously. Thanks very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] the berlin wall fell 25 years ago. We will revisit that they tonight that day tonight. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern time here on cspan threes American History tv. The cspan cities to or takes the tv and American History tv on the road, traveling to u. S. Cities to learn about their history and literary lives. Next week, we visit madison, wisconsin. It is a Glorious Service for the country. Its an unending struggle to make government representative. Pablo fall is probably the most important political figure in Wisconsin History and one of the most important in the history of the 20th century in the United States. He was a reforming governor. He defined what progressivism is. He was one of the first to use the term progressive to self identify. He was a United States senator who was recognized by his peers in the 1950s as one of the five greatest senators in American History. He was an opponent of world war i, stood his ground advocating for advocating for free speech. He was about the people. War,e air after the civil america changed radically from a nation of Small Farmers and small producers and small manufacturers, and by the late 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, we had concentrations of wealth. Inequality, and we had a concern about the influence of money in government. Of thet the later part 1890s giving speeches all over wisconsin. If you want to the speaker for your club or your group, bob would give a speech. He went to county fairs. He went to every kind of event you can imagine and build a reputation for himself. Was ready to run for governor advocating on behalf of the people. Again, two issues one, the direct primary. No more selecting candidates from convention. Two, stop the interests, specifically the railroads. Watch all of our events from smx saturday starting at noon eastern on cspan2 and next afternoon at 2 00 on American History tv on cspan3. The 2015 cspan student cam video competition is underway. Opened wall middle and High School Students to create a 57 minute documentary on the team you,ree branches and showing how a policy of the federal government has affected you or your community. There are 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totaling 100,000. For how to get started, go to studentcam. Org. The university of pennsylvanias law school and director of its center for technology and competition people who oppose prioritize nation. Prioritization. There is something in there called the type of service flag. Highbandwidth services, different forms of prioritizati thethat has been part of net from the beginning. People say, thats an artifact. Internet,designed the they included another field called the label field to do another form of prioritization. If you look at the engineering and say that prioritization was never going to be allowed, you have to look at the engineering. It was a design feature from the beginning. It talks to the way people are using their networks today. We have all been frustrated. Ipbased service to your phone is called voice over lte. It uses prioritization. A lot of video and other things, too. Monday night at 8 00 eastern on communicators on cspan2. Railamerica brings you archival films that take you on a journey through the 21st century. Produced by frank capra, the negro soldier is a 1944 documentary the film traces the history of africanamerican contributions to society during war and peace. The getting with the revolutionary war and sean for work as teachers, judges, scientists, artists, musicians, athletes, and soldiers. This film was recently restored by the national archives