the background of "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"

Credit for the phrase goes to "the writer who had the assignment, Peter Robinson". For text and audio of the speech of June 12, 1987, click here. (The key phrase is uttered around minute 12 of the recording. Good luck in trying to listen to it without tearing up.)

Reagan invokes Kennedy and the blockade of Berlin. Along with Reagan's reduction in marginal tax rates, these two crucial parallels in public policy tie their presidencies together. If you liked Kennedy, you have to respect Reagan.

From President Reagan's head speech-writer, Anthony Dolan, in the Wall Street Journal (hat tip: Linda Christiansen)...

Ronald Reagan would embarrass himself and the country by asking Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, which was going to be there for decades. So the National Security Council (NSC) staff and State Department had argued for many weeks to get Reagan's now famous line removed from his June 12, 1987, Berlin speech.

With a fervor and relentlessness I hadn't seen over the prior seven years even during disputes about "the ash-heap of history" or "evil empire," they kept up the pressure until the morning Reagan spoke the line....

The Berlin event for us was the quintessential chance—in front of Communism's most evocative monument—to enunciate the anti-Soviet counter-strategy that Reagan had been putting in place since his first weeks in office....

As commentators have noticed, much of the rest of the speech is also memorable, with enduring ideas and stately cadences....