Reagan's role overstated

Your Nov. 9 editorial attributing to Ronald Reagan the major role in bringing down the Berlin Wall 20 years ago is misleading. It wasn't Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech that brought an end to the wall; it was Gorbachev's frank statement to the East Germans: "Life punishes those who come late," meaning that he realized all the economic trends were against the Soviet bloc. East German officials now knew they could not count on Soviet intervention and gave up. If Andropov, a very different Soviet leader, had lived longer, Reagan's belligerence might have triggered nuclear war, as he nearly did with the 1983 military exercise called Able Archer 83.

Breck England

Bountiful