From the S&S archives:
Berlin Wall 'must come down,' Bush tells crowd in Germany

MAINZ, West Germany — Declaring the time ripe "to part the Iron Curtain," President Bush on Wednesday called on Europe to overcome its old divisions and bring down the Berlin Wall.

"The world has waited long enough," Bush said. "The time is right. Let Europe be whole and free."

In the only major speech of his four-nation European visit, Bush said democratic ideas are sweeping throughout the communist world — "from Budapest to Beijing" — inspiring the public to make the first tentative moves toward freedom.

"Today, Poles are taking the first steps toward real elections, so long promised, so long deferred. And in Hungary, at last we see a chance for multiparty competition at the ballot box," he said.

"We seek self-determination for all of Germany and all of Eastern Europe. We will not relax. We must not waver. Again, the world has waited long enough."

Buoyed by his successful debut at the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, in which he proposed dramatic cuts in conventional forces, Bush spoke confidentially before an audience of about 2,000 Germans and U.S. servicemembers in the Rheingoldhalle, the city's meeting hall.

Crowds pressed against police-erected harriers hours before the speech, hoping for a glimpse of the president and first lady as they were driven swiftly through the streets from his helicopter landing site. About 250 protesters, tightly controlled by police, held signs that read, "Bush is not welcome here."

Inside the hall, the audience greeted the president's arrival on stage with a standing ovation and interrupted his speech often with vigorous applause.

Saying it was time to move into a new era of EastWest relations, Bush outlined a four-point plan "to help Europe become whole and free."

He called for free elections in Eastern Europe, where "brave men and women are showing us the way." In Poland, he noted, the worker's movement, Solidarity, has won legal status.

"The forces of freedom are putting the Soviet status quo on the defensive. In the West, we have succeeded because we have been faithful to our values and our vision," Bush said. "But, on the other side of the rusting Iron Curtain, their vision failed."

He said Western governments have the responsibility "to lend counsel and support" to those trying to form the "first truly representative political parties in the East, to advance freedom and democracy."

He noted that already the barbed-wire and minefields along the Austrian-Hungarian border were being removed. "Just as the barriers are coming down in Hungary, so must they fall throughout Eastern Europe," he said. Nowhere is the division of East and West more noticeable than in Berlin, where "a brutal wall cuts neighbor from neighbor and brother from brother," Bush said. "That wall stands as a monument to the failure of communism. It must come down."

"Let Berlin be next," he said to enthusiastic applause.

Bush proposed that Berlin become a center of commerce and cooperation instead of confrontation. "Bring glasnost to East Berlin," he said referring to the Soviet viet policy of openness.

Challenging the Soviet Union to move quickly to reduce the armed camp atmosphere in Europe, Bush repeated the measures he proposed at the NATO summit for cuts in U.S. and Soviet combat troops in Europe and negotiated and mutual reductions in tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, combat aircraft and helicopters.

He told the leaders of the East that they were "unleashing a force they will find difficult to channel or control: the hunger for liberty of oppressed peoples who have tasted freedom."

Bush reiterated an earlier call for the Soviet Union and its allies to open their skies to reciprocal unarmed surveillance flights to monitor military activities. He also called for a ban on chemical weapons.

"Let the Soviets know that our goal is not to undermine their legitimate security interests. Our goal is to convince them, step by step, that their definition of security is obsolete, that their deepest fears are unfounded."

Finally, in the spirit of cooperation between Eastern and Western Europe, Bush offered technical training, assistance in drafting laws and regulations, and new technologies for tackling environmental problems in Eastern Europe. "I invite the environmentalists to visit the West, to share knowledge so we can succeed in this great cause."

Bush said that over the past 40 years, NATO had helped forge a "second Renaissance of Europe," providing the way to heal centuries-old rivalries and begin an era of reconciliation and restoration.

The European Community's 1992 single-market plan will "institutionalize what has been true for years — borders open to people, commerce and ideas. No shadow of suspicion, no sinister fear, is cast between you," he said.

Turning to the future, Bush said: "Forty years of Cold War have tested Western resolve and the strength of our values. NATO's first mission is now nearly complete. But if we're to fulfill our European vision, the challenge of the next 40 years will ask no less of us. Together we shall answer that call. The world has waited long enough."

Speaking before Bush's address, Carl-Ludwig Wagner, governor of the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, noted the kinship between his state and America as a result of the large number of immigrants from the state to the United States.

But Wagner also mentioned the burden his state bears, including low-level military flights and the heavy concentration of troops in an area the size of New Jersey. He expressed hope the German and American governments would find a solution to the problem.

Introducing Bush, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stressed the debt his country owes. the United States for enabling a free society to flourish after the devastation of World War II.

"As for our common understanding of federalism, we Germans and Americans are probably closer to each other than many other nations," Kohl said.