It was a laughable comparison. For one thing, Reagan’s line was not a slip-up. For much of the following, I am relying on an account of the drafting and delivery of the speech from former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, who wrote it. In the weeks leading up to the speech, some in the Reagan administration opposed the proposed “tear down this wall” declaration. The president favored it, and thus it stayed in the speech. Robinson’s article, on the National Archives website, includes an image of the page of Reagan’s speech that contained the declaration. So “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” was not a mistake. It was a planned remark.
