1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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Twenty years ago, on November 9, 1989, the most visible symbol of totalitarian evil--the Berlin Wall--tumbled down. Two years later, the Soviet Union officially dissolved itself on Christmas Day 1991. What were the trumpet blasts that finally destroyed the Berlin Wall and brought freedom to millions? Former Speaker of the
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House Newt Gingrich, now an AEI scholar, will discuss how, in addition to the political, economic, and military factors that contributed to the defeat of Soviet communism, spiritual factors were also decisive in achieving victory.
This fact was most evident in the peaceful elections that took place in Poland on June 4, 1989, when Solidarity, the first officially recognized independent trade union movement in the Soviet bloc, won decisive parliamentary victories and formed the first noncommunist-led government in Eastern Europe since World War II. These Polish elections took place exactly ten years after the first pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to his homeland-nine days that transformed the spiritual and political landscape of Poland and set the stage for the birth of Solidarity. These elections also followed eight years of President Ronald Reagan's constant moral and material support for the cause of freedom in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe.
Please join AEI senior fellow Newt Gingrich, former congressman and U.S. envoy to Poland and the Soviet Union Bob McEwen, and vice president for policy at American Solutions Vince Haley as they reflect on the contributions of Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan to the spiritual renewal of the West, a change that set the stage for the most significant advance of freedom in our lifetime. They will also examine the lessons we can learn from both as we confront contemporary challenges to freedom and human dignity.
| 1:45 p.m. | Registration | |
| 2:00 |
Introduction: |
Chris DeMuth, AEI |
| Presenter: | Newt Gingrich, AEI | |
| Discussants: |
Vince Haley, American Solutions |
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| Bob McEwen, Renewing American Leadership | ||
| 3:00 |
Adjournment |
WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 9, 2009--AEI senior fellow Newt Gingrich, former congressman Bob McEwen, and American Solutions vice president of policy Vince Haley spoke Monday about the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, marked the anniversary by reflecting on the spiritual factors that led to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. In particular, he spoke about a deep Catholic faith as decisive in sustaining the Polish resistance movements, as well as the moral leadership of individual figures-- most notably, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
Even as the rest of the world accepted a tight Soviet grip on Eastern Europe as an inescapable fact, Gingrich recounted that Reagan and John Paul II stood apart with their optimism and faith in God and the human spirit.
"Reagan understood the power of moral force, Reagan understood that words really matter, and Reagan understood that confronting evil is a part of the survival of civilization," Gingrich said. "He ended up with two people who shared that sentiment. One is Margaret Thatcher…[and the other is] Pope John Paul II. In doing the research…you really begin to understand the message of faith, the message of salvation, and the centrality of the cross in the fight."
Though Reagan's 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate is best remembered for his challenge to Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," he actually concluded his speech by chiding the East German government for its futile efforts to remove all vestiges of religion in Berlin.
Furthermore, the Pope's initial visit to his native Poland in 1979 was pivotal in inspiring the rise of the Solidarity movement, a point that Haley addressed later in the event.
Gingrich noted that many on the political Left today try to downplay the importance of the fall of the Wall, a sentiment exemplified by President Barack Obama's skipping the celebrations in Berlin on Monday.
". . . Obama found time to go to Copenhagen for the Olympics, and,as a candidate found time to go to Berlin, but couldn't quite find the time to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. . . because in his world view, it involves all the wrong symbols," Gingrich said. "It doesn't involve embracing Hugo Chavez, it doesn't involve appeasing Ahmadinejad, it doesn't involve ignoring Kim Jong-Il, it doesn't involve any of the patterns of appeasement and avoidance which are at the heart of this administration."
Former Ohio congressman Bob McEwen recalled his experiences as an official United States overseer of the first free Polish elections in June 1989. McEwen was the first official visitor to be received by freely elected Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who did not know how the Soviets would respond to the audacious display of democracy.
McEwen explained why he came in 1989.
"I still bristled at the fact that 1956 when those Hungarians stood up, nobody came to their aid, or in 1968 when the Prague Spring was being crushed, nobody said anything or did anything to help them," McEwen said. "But now I was in Warsaw as a member of Congress, and if [the Soviets] were going to roll the tanks in, I was going to be there."
McEwen also cited Reagan as the critical figure that inspired millions worldwide.
"[In 1981] the question was not whether or not America would have a declining standard of living in the 1980s, the question was whether or not Americans could learn to adapt to their declining standard of living. . . By 1989, just eight years later, the entire world--from Moscow to Managua, from Warsaw to Berlin--is chanting 'USA, USA, USA.' What is it that makes that difference? Reagan said 'America is in the midst of a spiritual reawakening and a moral renewal. . . '"
Vince Haley concluded the panel's discussion with a reflection of Pope John Paul II's historic visit to Poland in June 1979 and the spiritual impact the trip had on the eventual reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Haley said the pope's message of hope gave the people of Poland, and all the people living under the shadow of communist rule, the courage to resist Soviet subjugation and seek out the blessings of liberty.
Speaker biographies
Christopher DeMuth, D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI, was president of AEI from December 1986 through December 2008. Previously, he was administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; taught economics, law, and regulatory policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law; and worked on urban and environmental policy in the Nixon White House.
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a senior fellow at AEI and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Mr. Gingrich is a member of the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Commission on National Security and an advisory board member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is also a news and political analyst for Fox News Channel and writes a weekly newsletter for Human Events and a Friday column for the Washington Examiner. He is the author of twenty books, including the New York Times bestseller Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works (Regnery, 2008) and more recently To Try Men's Souls: A Novel of George Washington and the Fight for American Freedom (Thomas Dunne Books, 2009). Along with his wife, Callista, Mr. Gingrich hosts and produces historical and public policy documentaries. Recent films include Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, We Have the Power, Rediscovering God in America, and Rediscovering God in America: Our Heritage. Nine Days That Changed the World is currently in production and will be released in the next few weeks. Mr. Gingrich is the chairman of the Gingrich Group, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, and general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.
Vince Haley is the vice president for policy at American Solutions for Winning the Future. Formerly research director for Newt Gingrich at AEI, Mr. Haley is a contributing author of Mr. Gingrich's New York Times bestseller Real Change: Moving From the World That Fails to the World That Works (Regnery, 2008). Mr. Haley is an associate producer of Nine Days That Changed the World, a documentary about Pope John Paul II's nine-day pilgrimage to Poland from June 2–10, 1979, to be released in the coming weeks. Mr. Haley is also an associate producer of the documentary Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny.
Bob McEwen is the chairman of Renewing American Leadership, an organization dedicated to defending American exceptionalism. An Ohio native and former U.S. representative, Mr. McEwen represented Ohio's sixth district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1993. During his time in Congress, Mr. McEwen was elected by his colleagues to the Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Rules. On August 23, 1989, Representative McEwen and U.S. Senator Robert Dole participated as U.S. observers in Warsaw, Poland, to the first ever parliamentary election of a non-Communist leader of a Soviet bloc country. Hours later, the new Polish prime minister, in his first official act, received the congressman and senator prior to meeting with the Soviet representatives of the regime that had occupied that nation for fifty years. This election was the spark that encouraged the collapse of Soviet-dominated governments throughout Eastern Europe, culminating in the destruction of the Berlin Wall ten weeks later. Senator Dole and Representative McEwen met the following day with President George H. W. Bush and the U.S. national security team to fashion the U.S. response and position in support of Warsaw Pact nations seeking to break away from Soviet domination. Representative McEwen served as an official U.S. observer in Moscow during both the 1991 Soviet coup attempt and to the Kremlin in January 1992 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Mr. McEwen is senior adviser with the nationally recognized law firm of Greenebaum, Doll & McDonald.
