In East Berlin, at least a thousand young people gathered near the Friedrichstrasse train station hoping to catch the sounds. About two hundred East German police appeared, put up a big metal fence blocking anyone from getting too close to the Berlin Wall, and told the crowds to go home. Shortly after midnight, the East German youths began throwing bottles and stones at the police.
On the second night, about three thousand East Germans gathered again on their side of the Berlin Wall to catch the sounds of the Eurythmics concert. Again, East German police put up a temporary metal fence to keep them away. This time, some of the East German youths tore through the fence and began skirmishing with the police. They began shouting slogans: “Down with the wall” and “The wall must go.” Police chased them down Unter Den Linden, East Berlin’s main boulevard, which ran down to the Brandenburg Gate and, behind it, the wall.
On the final night, the violence escalated. About a thousand East German police with batons charged into a crowd of about four thousand East Germans who had gathered to hear the Genesis concert. Some protesters were beaten, dragged away, and put into police vans. By the third night, the East German protesters had a new series of songs and rallying cries. Some of them were singing “The Internationale,” the Socialist anthem. Others chanted, “We want freedom.” Still others gave voice to the most surprising and novel slogan of alclass="underline" The young East Germans shouted, “Gorbachev! Gorbachev!”13
The demonstrations did not spread. They were not comparable to the massive uprising by workers that had threatened the East German regime in 1953. Yet there had been no unrest of any kind in East Germany for more than a decade. Witnesses said some of the youths at the rock concert seemed to be merely intoxicated. Nevertheless, the three nights of skirmishes over the rock concert demonstrated again the continuing, underlying discontent among ordinary East Germans with the Berlin Wall and with their own government. West German political leaders might be prepared to accept, for pragmatic reasons, the presence of the wall as an enduring if unpleasant fact of life in the city. Many East Germans were not.
In their chants of “Gorbachev, Gorbachev,” the protesters gave voice to the hopes that the Soviet leader was inspiring in East Germany. They exposed the tensions between the Soviet Union and Honecker’s East German regime, which was rejecting Gorbachev’s drive for glasnost. The differences between the Soviet and East German governments were illustrated by their separate reactions to what had happened at the rock concert.
Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Pyadyshev was asked about the nights of upheaval in East Berlin. “In shouting, ‘Gorbachev, Gorbachev,’ we’re not in the least annoyed by that,” he answered. “We can only be pleased with that.” By contrast, East German officials at first denied there had been any incidents at all and later suggested they were the result of a “provocation” by West Germany.14
Because Reagan was to arrive in Berlin within days, the East German demonstrations were unsettling to American diplomats. Many of them recalled the disastrous events of 1956, when Radio Free Europe, the American radio station funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, broadcast encouragement for the Hungarian revolution. Hungarians taking to the streets were given the false impression that the Eisenhower administration might intervene on their behalf. Instead, the United States took no action as the rebellion was crushed.
Richard Burt, the U.S. ambassador to West Germany, sent a nervous cable to Secretary of State George Shultz and National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci, telling them the disturbances in East Berlin meant that “the speech will have even greater resonance than it might otherwise have had. It will be especially important to strike the right balance between inspiring hope and opposing totalitarianism, while making clear that [Reagan’s] is a vision of change through peaceful means.”
By this time, Burt knew it would be unwise to try on his own to reopen the acrimonious debate over whether the president should say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” That question had been decided—more or less.15
-12-
VENETIAN VILLA
During his final years in the White House, Ronald Reagan traveled abroad in a style that was both leisurely and regal. During his first trip to Europe as president in 1982, he had closed his eyes and dozed briefly during a meeting with Pope John Paul II at the end of a long day. Ever since, aides and his wife, Nancy, had made sure that he had plenty of time to rest overseas before he met with foreign leaders.
The president was scheduled to take part in the G7 summit, a gathering of the leaders of the world’s seven leading economic powers that was to begin in Venice on Monday, June 8, 1987. The Reagans arrived nearly five days early, on the night of Wednesday, June 3, and went into seclusion eight miles outside the city at an eighteenth-century palazzo, the Villa Condulmer. The villa and its extensive gardens were being used as a hotel and golf course, but the entire complex was emptied out for the Reagans. White House stewards took over the cooking and service. Reagan’s personal physician and Nancy Reagan’s hairdresser also traveled in the presidential entourage.
A White House advance team had flown in a special bed from Portugal and installed it in the villa. The Reagans had slept in this king-sized bed during a state visit to Lisbon in May 1985, and had found it especially comfortable. White House aides were unable to explain to the press whether the beds in Villa Condulmer (or elsewhere in Italy) were too soft, too hard, or too small.1 When the Reagans arrived at the villa near midnight, the president took a Dalmane sleeping pill and slept soundly until 8:45 a.m. He slipped off and had breakfast while Nancy Reagan slept until 10:00 a.m.2
They remained at the Villa for the following two days. Reagan’s official schedule euphemistically called these days “Washington Work/Private Time,” but the principal task was overcoming jet lag. Aides had brought videocassettes for the president, and the Reagans spent their first night in Italy watching a 1947 John Wayne movie called Angel and the Badman. On the second night, they chose Laurel and Hardy. One night at the villa, a White House aide gave the Reagans the tape of a more contemporary movie, Shanghai Surprise , starring Sean Penn and Madonna; the Reagans lasted only fifteen minutes before abandoning it.3
That Saturday, the Reagans flew to Rome for a visit to the Vatican. The president held an hour-long, one-on-one meeting with Pope John Paul II, who was preparing a visit to Poland the following week. One of the main subjects on the agenda was Mikhail Gorbachev; Reagan offered the pope his impressions of the Soviet leader and briefed him on U.S.-Soviet arms-control negotiations.
But as the pope was speaking, Reagan momentarily dozed off again, just as he had in 1982. The official White House photographer, Bill Fitzpatrick, noticed Reagan’s eyes close and purposely dropped his camera, making a noise that woke up the president. On the plane ride back from Rome to Venice, Jim Kuhn, the president’s personal assistant, offered the Reagans an explanation for his tendency to fall asleep during his meetings with the pope. “For some reason, the pope’s voice has a hypnotic effect on the president,” Kuhn told them. “It’s not his fault. If he was to meet the pope again, the same circumstances would prevail. There’s nothing you can do about it, Mr. President.”4
The Reagans enjoyed one more day of rest at Villa Condulmer. The president was meeting with his top aides, preparing for the economic summit and for Berlin. One of the subjects the staff had to address, yet again, was the internal dispute within the administration over the speech Reagan was to give at the Brandenburg Gate. Secretary of State George Shultz, who joined the Reagans in Venice, called Chief of Staff Howard Baker and Deputy Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein, explaining that the State Department continued to oppose some of the language in the speech. Shultz said he shared his department’s objections and hoped that his views would be conveyed to the president.