Political, military and academic officials observed the 24th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday at Eureka College. Eureka has a section of the wall that fell, marking the end of the Cold War. Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar was one of the guest speakers to mark the anniversary. He says the Berlin Wall fell because both President Ronald Reagan and Soviet statesman Mikhail Gorbachev were willing to compromise:
“Both of those gentlemen showed I think a characteristic we could us e alittle more of in politics and government. That was a civility, a willingness to meet the adversary halfway and see if they couldn’t solve the problem,” Edgar says.
Reagan is Eureka College’s most famous graduate. Yesterday’s ceremony displayed the flags of more than 20 countries that became democracies after the end of the Cold War.