1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:05,300 We've come around the back of the building where the secret police 2 00:00:05,300 --> 00:00:08,460 are holed up, and you can hear them firing now. 3 00:00:08,460 --> 00:00:11,300 They're firing down, in fact, in this direction every now and then... 4 00:00:11,300 --> 00:00:15,100 It's said that journalists write the first draft of history. 5 00:00:15,100 --> 00:00:17,380 John Simpson, BBC News. 6 00:00:17,380 --> 00:00:19,700 As the BBC's World Affairs Editor 7 00:00:19,700 --> 00:00:22,500 and its longest-serving correspondent, 8 00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:26,100 I've filed many of those initial reports. 9 00:00:26,100 --> 00:00:27,980 From Tiananmen Square... 10 00:00:27,980 --> 00:00:29,540 Everybody knows that the army 11 00:00:29,540 --> 00:00:31,580 has the power to do something about this, 12 00:00:31,580 --> 00:00:33,620 to clear this entire place if it chooses to. 13 00:00:33,620 --> 00:00:35,420 ..to both Iraq wars... 14 00:00:35,420 --> 00:00:38,460 ARCHIVE: After the bomb attack, I carried on to Baghdad. 15 00:00:38,460 --> 00:00:42,700 ..I was on the ground covering world-changing events. 16 00:00:45,620 --> 00:00:48,860 But amongst these era-defining moments, 17 00:00:48,860 --> 00:00:51,580 one event stands out above all others. 18 00:00:51,580 --> 00:00:53,820 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 19 00:00:53,820 --> 00:00:57,300 I think what happened on November the 9th 1989 20 00:00:57,300 --> 00:01:02,500 was one of the great, great days of modern human existence. 21 00:01:05,020 --> 00:01:08,460 The fall of the Berlin Wall. 22 00:01:08,460 --> 00:01:13,100 This Brutalist structure was the fault line of a decades-long 23 00:01:13,100 --> 00:01:16,620 global conflict between the Soviet bloc in the East 24 00:01:16,620 --> 00:01:19,260 and the Allied powers in the West. 25 00:01:19,260 --> 00:01:23,020 I believed its collapse would change the world forever. 26 00:01:23,020 --> 00:01:29,220 When you see the ugliest, and most menacing structure in the world 27 00:01:29,220 --> 00:01:34,100 knocked down in front of your eyes, anything seemed possible. 28 00:01:35,380 --> 00:01:40,660 Now, 30 years later, I'm re-examining the story, 29 00:01:40,660 --> 00:01:45,100 viewing the extensive archive and sitting down with experts 30 00:01:45,100 --> 00:01:46,900 to try to understand 31 00:01:46,900 --> 00:01:50,260 just how accurate my reporting of history was. 32 00:01:50,260 --> 00:01:52,140 ARCHIVE: It's quite extraordinary, this... 33 00:01:52,140 --> 00:01:55,140 And to discover why things didn't quite turn out 34 00:01:55,140 --> 00:01:56,900 how I expected them to. 35 00:02:13,820 --> 00:02:17,540 I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War. 36 00:02:17,540 --> 00:02:21,220 Back then, the world was a terrifying place. 37 00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:24,620 I lived through the Cold War from beginning to end. 38 00:02:24,620 --> 00:02:27,740 I grew up in it, and I was a young man during it, 39 00:02:27,740 --> 00:02:30,540 and I was a middle-aged man by the time it came to an end. 40 00:02:32,180 --> 00:02:36,740 Europe was totally unrecognisable from the Europe we know today. 41 00:02:36,740 --> 00:02:41,620 For a start, Germany was split into two countries, East and West, 42 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:46,380 a legacy of the Second World War that had left the continent divided. 43 00:02:46,380 --> 00:02:49,860 From Stettin in the Baltic 44 00:02:49,860 --> 00:02:52,500 to Trieste in the Adriatic, 45 00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:55,780 an iron curtain has descended across the continent. 46 00:02:56,980 --> 00:03:02,740 On either side of this iron curtain, two hostile superpowers faced off - 47 00:03:02,740 --> 00:03:07,060 the Communist USSR and the free-market West spearheaded 48 00:03:07,060 --> 00:03:08,580 by the United States. 49 00:03:10,460 --> 00:03:14,260 The world stood on the brink of nuclear war. 50 00:03:14,260 --> 00:03:19,580 I just assumed there would be an all-out thermonuclear war 51 00:03:19,580 --> 00:03:21,940 and we'd all be burned to a crisp. 52 00:03:28,780 --> 00:03:34,780 At the epicentre of this seemingly never-ending crisis was Berlin. 53 00:03:34,780 --> 00:03:38,380 The frontier of freedom here is our frontier. 54 00:03:38,380 --> 00:03:42,380 It's America's frontier as well as Germany's frontier. 55 00:03:43,740 --> 00:03:47,540 The Berlin Wall, 28 miles of slab concrete, 56 00:03:47,540 --> 00:03:51,620 became the physical manifestation of the global divide. 57 00:03:51,620 --> 00:03:54,220 On either side of it lay two separate 58 00:03:54,220 --> 00:03:56,460 and vastly different worlds - 59 00:03:56,460 --> 00:03:58,380 East versus West, 60 00:03:58,380 --> 00:04:00,740 Capitalism versus Communism. 61 00:04:00,740 --> 00:04:02,940 Ronald Reagan put it like this... 62 00:04:02,940 --> 00:04:05,420 The focus of evil in the modern world. 63 00:04:08,260 --> 00:04:14,420 I don't know of anybody who didn't just assume 64 00:04:14,420 --> 00:04:19,020 that the Berlin Wall would still be standing in 50 years' time. 65 00:04:19,020 --> 00:04:21,660 Nobody thought that this was going to change. 66 00:04:21,660 --> 00:04:24,820 It seemed so kind of... 67 00:04:24,820 --> 00:04:28,340 ..fixed and powerful and strong. 68 00:04:28,340 --> 00:04:29,580 CAR HORN HONKING 69 00:04:29,580 --> 00:04:30,860 PEOPLE CHEERING 70 00:04:32,780 --> 00:04:36,820 But then, all of a sudden, the Wall was gone 71 00:04:36,820 --> 00:04:39,380 and the world's never been the same since. 72 00:04:43,540 --> 00:04:46,060 People were openly weeping. 73 00:04:46,060 --> 00:04:51,300 I find it quite hard to talk about it now without weeping, 74 00:04:51,300 --> 00:04:54,380 simply because there was so much joy about. 75 00:04:54,380 --> 00:04:57,100 It was such a good thing to have happened. 76 00:04:57,100 --> 00:05:00,700 A wonderful, totally unhoped-for thing. 77 00:05:01,940 --> 00:05:04,060 ARCHIVE: You know, right just behind where we are... 78 00:05:04,060 --> 00:05:06,340 But for all the joy of the occasion, 79 00:05:06,340 --> 00:05:11,020 it also gave me the most humiliating moment in my long career. 80 00:05:11,020 --> 00:05:12,220 STATIC BUZZING 81 00:05:13,900 --> 00:05:16,900 Well, I'm sorry we lost John Simpson rather dramatically there, 82 00:05:16,900 --> 00:05:18,140 I'm afraid. 83 00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:23,180 But despite my own technical difficulties, 84 00:05:23,180 --> 00:05:26,860 the images of thousands of formerly imprisoned people 85 00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:29,060 streaming through the checkpoints, 86 00:05:29,060 --> 00:05:33,100 as the once trigger-happy border guards stood idly by, 87 00:05:33,100 --> 00:05:35,140 were beamed around the world. 88 00:05:36,220 --> 00:05:38,460 It was barely believable. 89 00:05:39,660 --> 00:05:45,620 I just saw these hundreds, thousands of people so happy. 90 00:05:48,580 --> 00:05:53,940 Witnessing this momentous event first-hand gave me incredible hope 91 00:05:53,940 --> 00:05:56,020 for what might lie ahead. 92 00:05:56,020 --> 00:05:58,860 You know, "The future's bound to be good. 93 00:05:58,860 --> 00:06:03,740 "The future's bound to be better because this is the atmosphere 94 00:06:03,740 --> 00:06:07,100 "in which we're approaching the new Europe." 95 00:06:09,780 --> 00:06:15,780 But looking back, things didn't turn out the way I'd hoped they would. 96 00:06:15,780 --> 00:06:19,060 We do have a united and democratic Germany 97 00:06:19,060 --> 00:06:21,820 and the Iron Curtain has fallen. 98 00:06:21,820 --> 00:06:25,900 But I could never have predicted that Russia with Vladimir Putin, 99 00:06:25,900 --> 00:06:28,660 a former KGB agent at its head, 100 00:06:28,660 --> 00:06:31,780 would become such a bitter enemy to the West. 101 00:06:35,700 --> 00:06:37,980 ALL: Hurrah! 102 00:06:37,980 --> 00:06:40,380 Was I wrong to be so optimistic? 103 00:06:40,380 --> 00:06:43,460 And did I miss anything in my original reporting 104 00:06:43,460 --> 00:06:46,740 that would have helped me see what was coming next? 105 00:06:51,740 --> 00:06:54,780 MUSIC: Are Friends Electric by Tubeway Army 106 00:06:54,780 --> 00:06:59,620 The BBC first sent me to West Berlin in the late 1970s 107 00:06:59,620 --> 00:07:03,860 to cover the increasing build up of tension in the Cold War. 108 00:07:05,380 --> 00:07:07,660 It was like nowhere else on Earth. 109 00:07:07,660 --> 00:07:10,780 # And the paint's peeling off of my walls... # 110 00:07:10,780 --> 00:07:14,740 It was kind of a mystery, and a disturbing mystery. 111 00:07:14,740 --> 00:07:19,900 I mean, all the films and the novels about the Cold War and East Germany 112 00:07:19,900 --> 00:07:22,260 and West Germany and Berlin - all true. 113 00:07:22,260 --> 00:07:25,700 All true. I mean, OK, some of them are ludicrous. 114 00:07:25,700 --> 00:07:29,100 But the most ludicrous thing of the lot, in many ways, 115 00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:32,340 was this weird city that had just been chopped 116 00:07:32,340 --> 00:07:34,620 arbitrarily into two sections. 117 00:07:39,580 --> 00:07:43,140 Berlin became the focal point of East-West tension 118 00:07:43,140 --> 00:07:47,300 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. 119 00:07:47,300 --> 00:07:50,820 The city was 100 miles inside East Germany, 120 00:07:50,820 --> 00:07:53,380 but given its strategic importance, 121 00:07:53,380 --> 00:07:57,580 the four allied powers had agreed to share control. 122 00:07:57,580 --> 00:08:02,980 From the outset, however, Berlin was divided along ideological lines - 123 00:08:02,980 --> 00:08:07,460 the Soviet-controlled Communist East versus the Capitalist West 124 00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:11,580 controlled by the United States, Britain, and the French. 125 00:08:12,700 --> 00:08:16,460 But for those who didn't want to live under communist rule, 126 00:08:16,460 --> 00:08:19,180 West Berlin became their escape route. 127 00:08:19,180 --> 00:08:21,220 Throughout the 1950s, 128 00:08:21,220 --> 00:08:25,060 over three million people like the families you see here, 129 00:08:25,060 --> 00:08:27,620 were estimated to have fled west, 130 00:08:27,620 --> 00:08:30,700 greatly angering the East German regime. 131 00:08:31,700 --> 00:08:33,620 Determined to stop the flow, 132 00:08:33,620 --> 00:08:36,940 the communist government hastily built the Berlin Wall 133 00:08:36,940 --> 00:08:38,780 to keep their people in. 134 00:08:41,860 --> 00:08:46,420 ARCHIVE: In 1961, a 28-mile wall was built by the East German authorities 135 00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:48,460 to cut right across the city centre. 136 00:08:48,460 --> 00:08:51,820 The outer borders of West Berlin were mined and fortified 137 00:08:51,820 --> 00:08:54,260 to seal it off from East Germany. 138 00:08:56,300 --> 00:09:00,020 By the time I arrived in West Berlin, the Wall had been standing 139 00:09:00,020 --> 00:09:03,980 for nearly two decades and it dominated the landscape. 140 00:09:06,380 --> 00:09:09,900 When I caught my first glimpse of the Berlin Wall, 141 00:09:09,900 --> 00:09:11,700 I was staggered by it. 142 00:09:11,700 --> 00:09:16,740 It was just grey and concrete and very scary! 143 00:09:16,740 --> 00:09:18,660 DOGS BARKING 144 00:09:21,740 --> 00:09:27,900 The barbed wire, the notices, the loudspeakers, the guard towers, 145 00:09:27,900 --> 00:09:32,220 that sense that you were somewhere really, really dangerous. 146 00:09:38,140 --> 00:09:42,100 And you knew that if you got too close to it, 147 00:09:42,100 --> 00:09:44,940 you could be shot dead. 148 00:09:44,940 --> 00:09:48,940 The Wall itself was actually two walls, 149 00:09:48,940 --> 00:09:51,980 creating a no man's land in between, 150 00:09:51,980 --> 00:09:54,380 referred to as "the death strip". 151 00:09:57,460 --> 00:10:01,220 Trigger-happy border guards and trip-wire machine guns 152 00:10:01,220 --> 00:10:06,020 meant anyone trying to escape to the West faced a daunting task. 153 00:10:09,460 --> 00:10:12,740 It really looked impossible to get over. 154 00:10:12,740 --> 00:10:14,740 As we know, people did do it. 155 00:10:16,260 --> 00:10:19,340 But over 100 East Germans died trying. 156 00:10:19,340 --> 00:10:20,940 GUNFIRE 157 00:10:26,260 --> 00:10:31,220 In October 1979, I had to cross through this daunting structure 158 00:10:31,220 --> 00:10:34,900 into Soviet-controlled East Berlin to film a report 159 00:10:34,900 --> 00:10:38,300 on the 30th anniversary of the state. 160 00:10:38,300 --> 00:10:41,380 It may be that Mr Brezhnev has now given up all hope of getting 161 00:10:41,380 --> 00:10:44,820 anywhere with detente at least for the time being. 162 00:10:44,820 --> 00:10:47,780 VOICEOVER: The only way into the East from the West 163 00:10:47,780 --> 00:10:51,740 was via one of the tightly controlled checkpoints. 164 00:10:51,740 --> 00:10:54,900 I crossed the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, 165 00:10:54,900 --> 00:10:58,420 one of the most militarised border crossings in the world. 166 00:11:02,860 --> 00:11:06,620 A long, long walk down Friedrichstrasse 167 00:11:06,620 --> 00:11:09,540 and then there were huts at the far end, 168 00:11:09,540 --> 00:11:17,060 and the thing I remember most was in the hut was the biggest camera lens 169 00:11:17,060 --> 00:11:21,340 you have ever seen in your life - it must have been about like that. 170 00:11:21,340 --> 00:11:23,420 And went into the hut, 171 00:11:23,420 --> 00:11:27,940 there were customs officials - really hostile. 172 00:11:27,940 --> 00:11:31,740 "What are you here for? What are you doing? Why are you here?" 173 00:11:31,740 --> 00:11:35,180 And after a long while of messing you around 174 00:11:35,180 --> 00:11:38,260 and treating you in a very hostile way, 175 00:11:38,260 --> 00:11:41,220 then suddenly you open some sort of rickety door... 176 00:11:42,260 --> 00:11:43,700 ..and you were there. 177 00:11:43,700 --> 00:11:46,460 You were on the other side of the looking glass. 178 00:11:49,780 --> 00:11:53,260 But this was no Alice In Wonderland fairy tale. 179 00:11:53,260 --> 00:11:57,300 This was real life for millions of people. 180 00:11:57,300 --> 00:12:02,820 There was just a kind of sense that this was a strange society 181 00:12:02,820 --> 00:12:09,900 that was just propped up by the guns of the East German forces 182 00:12:09,900 --> 00:12:12,940 getting their orders directly from the Russians. 183 00:12:16,580 --> 00:12:21,580 In 1979, there was no doubting who was in charge of East Germany, 184 00:12:21,580 --> 00:12:24,740 as I witness the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev 185 00:12:24,740 --> 00:12:27,340 arrive to full military honours. 186 00:12:31,500 --> 00:12:35,140 ARCHIVE: Soviet officials feel that the Americans are now set on showing 187 00:12:35,140 --> 00:12:37,700 how tough they are in dealing with the Russians, 188 00:12:37,700 --> 00:12:41,340 but it's given Mr Brezhnev and his colleagues a lot to worry about. 189 00:12:42,580 --> 00:12:45,180 Enthusiasm for the Russians is mostly left 190 00:12:45,180 --> 00:12:47,380 to the convinced Party members here. 191 00:12:47,380 --> 00:12:49,380 Other people put out more flags 192 00:12:49,380 --> 00:12:51,940 mostly because it's expected of them. 193 00:12:51,940 --> 00:12:55,780 But away from the pomp and ceremony, I found reporting 194 00:12:55,780 --> 00:12:59,980 from such a secretive and closed society extremely difficult. 195 00:13:02,700 --> 00:13:08,460 I mean, to get a television report of two and a half minutes on the air 196 00:13:08,460 --> 00:13:11,700 after the kind of controls and difficulties 197 00:13:11,700 --> 00:13:14,220 that everybody threw in your way, 198 00:13:14,220 --> 00:13:16,700 that was a real achievement in itself. 199 00:13:16,700 --> 00:13:18,540 ARCHIVE: There's a sense of style here 200 00:13:18,540 --> 00:13:20,500 that's rare in the rest of Eastern Europe. 201 00:13:20,500 --> 00:13:22,220 Partly, it's a matter of money. 202 00:13:22,220 --> 00:13:26,500 East Germans are about the richest people in the Soviet bloc. 203 00:13:26,500 --> 00:13:29,860 At special food shops, people queue to buy foreign delicacies 204 00:13:29,860 --> 00:13:34,140 with East German money at double or treble the price in the West. 205 00:13:34,140 --> 00:13:37,380 It's not money that's short, it's the goods. 206 00:13:38,860 --> 00:13:42,860 How do people live their lives when there are watchers, 207 00:13:42,860 --> 00:13:46,820 either official watchers or volunteer watchers, even nastier, 208 00:13:46,820 --> 00:13:51,020 on every staircase, in every block of flats, in every school, 209 00:13:51,020 --> 00:13:53,620 in every factory, in every office? 210 00:13:55,860 --> 00:14:00,060 As a journalist, I only got to see what the regime wanted me to see, 211 00:14:00,060 --> 00:14:03,620 so, to try and understand what my reports were missing, 212 00:14:03,620 --> 00:14:07,620 I'm meeting the historian and author Professor Timothy Garton Ash, 213 00:14:07,620 --> 00:14:09,500 who was a student in East Berlin 214 00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:13,820 at the time I was reporting on Brezhnev's visit. 215 00:14:13,820 --> 00:14:16,780 I just could never get a proper handle 216 00:14:16,780 --> 00:14:19,500 on everyday life in East Germany 217 00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:22,300 because we were always followed round and... 218 00:14:22,300 --> 00:14:25,380 I mean, what should I have looked for? 219 00:14:25,380 --> 00:14:28,580 On the one hand, you knew, we all knew, 220 00:14:28,580 --> 00:14:30,820 this was a secret police state. 221 00:14:30,820 --> 00:14:33,900 It was kind of worse than I think one imagined 222 00:14:33,900 --> 00:14:36,220 just coming in as a foreign correspondent. 223 00:14:36,220 --> 00:14:39,660 On the other hand, and you know this from other places, 224 00:14:39,660 --> 00:14:42,300 there's all the rich normality of life. 225 00:14:42,300 --> 00:14:47,020 Fantastic music - Bach, Beethoven, theatre, 226 00:14:47,020 --> 00:14:51,140 and people who were highly cultured, and had a lot of time. 227 00:14:52,900 --> 00:14:56,220 ARCHIVE: It's now been made a crime to tell any foreign organisation 228 00:14:56,220 --> 00:14:59,140 anything damaging to the East German state. 229 00:14:59,140 --> 00:15:02,180 The new law is an attempt to insulate the country from the West, 230 00:15:02,180 --> 00:15:04,020 just like the Berlin Wall. 231 00:15:06,580 --> 00:15:09,700 I think it is one of the closest, if not the closest we've got, 232 00:15:09,700 --> 00:15:12,100 to the Orwellian ideal of control 233 00:15:12,100 --> 00:15:15,500 because it actually used very little physical violence. 234 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:19,780 I mean, there was some torture, certainly psychological torture, 235 00:15:19,780 --> 00:15:23,580 but, of course, as Orwell says, the ideal dictatorship, 236 00:15:23,580 --> 00:15:25,220 totalitarian regime is the one 237 00:15:25,220 --> 00:15:27,340 that doesn't need to use physical violence 238 00:15:27,340 --> 00:15:29,300 because it controls people already, 239 00:15:29,300 --> 00:15:33,900 and I think the system was about as close to that as we have got. 240 00:15:37,420 --> 00:15:40,540 And they were quite good at telling a story about, 241 00:15:40,540 --> 00:15:44,220 "OK, maybe you have democracy and human rights, 242 00:15:44,220 --> 00:15:45,820 "but we have social rights. 243 00:15:45,820 --> 00:15:48,700 "We look after people's welfare and their economic wellbeing." 244 00:15:48,700 --> 00:15:52,900 And that had quite a lot of traction, I think, in the West. 245 00:15:55,100 --> 00:15:59,500 We accepted the Soviet propaganda. 246 00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:03,860 They said they were there forever and they were going to beat us. 247 00:16:03,860 --> 00:16:06,700 And we might not have thought they were going to beat us, 248 00:16:06,700 --> 00:16:11,100 but we certainly never thought at some stage this whole construct 249 00:16:11,100 --> 00:16:13,660 is just going to collapse in front of our eyes. 250 00:16:13,660 --> 00:16:16,540 It just seemed too powerful, too strong for that. 251 00:16:20,300 --> 00:16:25,420 But then in March 1985, I witnessed the first sign of change 252 00:16:25,420 --> 00:16:28,780 in the hitherto suffocating Soviet regime. 253 00:16:30,340 --> 00:16:32,940 Good evening. Tonight, the Russians have a new leader, 254 00:16:32,940 --> 00:16:34,980 their youngest for 60 years. 255 00:16:34,980 --> 00:16:38,820 Mikhail Gorbachev was unanimously elected today as General Secretary 256 00:16:38,820 --> 00:16:40,580 of the Soviet Communist Party. 257 00:16:42,260 --> 00:16:45,780 Gorbachev's appointment marked a radical departure 258 00:16:45,780 --> 00:16:47,420 from his predecessors. 259 00:16:47,420 --> 00:16:51,220 He was seen by many, including myself, as a reformer. 260 00:16:51,220 --> 00:16:54,220 ARCHIVE: Mr Gorbachev, relaxed as ever, preferred to finish 261 00:16:54,220 --> 00:16:56,540 his coffee before speaking. 262 00:16:56,540 --> 00:16:59,980 He undertook to seek radical solutions to reducing stocks 263 00:16:59,980 --> 00:17:02,380 of nuclear missiles and showed once again 264 00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:05,460 how worried his government was about weapons in space. 265 00:17:05,460 --> 00:17:09,780 But today's talks, like yesterday's with Mrs Thatcher, went well. 266 00:17:09,780 --> 00:17:11,620 It was starting to look as though the Russians 267 00:17:11,620 --> 00:17:13,300 would celebrate the 40th anniversary 268 00:17:13,300 --> 00:17:15,660 of the defeat of Hitler with scarcely a reference 269 00:17:15,660 --> 00:17:18,020 to the part we played in the whole thing. 270 00:17:18,020 --> 00:17:19,460 Now, a new warmth 271 00:17:19,460 --> 00:17:23,700 is seeping into the way the Russians see their history, too. 272 00:17:23,700 --> 00:17:27,020 VOICEOVER: But it wasn't just foreign relations that Gorbachev 273 00:17:27,020 --> 00:17:28,420 was intent on improving. 274 00:17:28,420 --> 00:17:33,260 At home in the Soviet Union, his policies of glasnost and perestroika 275 00:17:33,260 --> 00:17:35,700 created a culture of free speech 276 00:17:35,700 --> 00:17:41,500 and instigated a restructuring of the political and economic system. 277 00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:48,180 When I first met Gorbachev, he went to a state banquet at Hampton Court. 278 00:17:48,180 --> 00:17:52,740 I just saw through - there was a gents' lavatory - 279 00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:55,220 and there was Gorbachev. 280 00:17:55,220 --> 00:17:56,860 And he was he was ju... HE CHUCKLES 281 00:17:56,860 --> 00:17:59,380 He was just doing his hair. 282 00:17:59,380 --> 00:18:04,340 And he put his comb through his mouth to get a bit of spit on it, 283 00:18:04,340 --> 00:18:07,620 to get his hair to lie down, what was left of his hair. 284 00:18:07,620 --> 00:18:10,020 And he was some sort of a likely lad. 285 00:18:11,220 --> 00:18:14,700 But he also seemed a lot more open. 286 00:18:17,380 --> 00:18:22,860 Edward Lucas is a veteran Russia watcher and security policy expert, 287 00:18:22,860 --> 00:18:26,980 an old sparring partner of mine from Cold War reporting. 288 00:18:26,980 --> 00:18:30,380 His views on Gorbachev are somewhat different. 289 00:18:30,380 --> 00:18:35,580 I remember very well watching Gorbachev, and I assumed 290 00:18:35,580 --> 00:18:40,540 that he would be able to liberate thinking in the Soviet Union, 291 00:18:40,540 --> 00:18:43,180 and keep it as the Soviet Union. 292 00:18:43,180 --> 00:18:46,260 I suspect you never believed that. 293 00:18:46,260 --> 00:18:48,780 I know you and I didn't agree about a lot of things, 294 00:18:48,780 --> 00:18:51,660 and I've got an uneasy feeling you got it right. 295 00:18:51,660 --> 00:18:53,660 Well, I think there's a double misapprehension. 296 00:18:53,660 --> 00:18:56,660 One was that it was possible to reform communism, which it wasn't, 297 00:18:56,660 --> 00:18:59,580 cos it was based on lies and mass murder. 298 00:18:59,580 --> 00:19:03,260 And the other, it would be desirable to do that which is also not true 299 00:19:03,260 --> 00:19:05,460 because it was an imperial system 300 00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:08,820 that kept hundreds of millions of people in captivity. 301 00:19:08,820 --> 00:19:10,740 And so the sooner it fell apart, the better. 302 00:19:10,740 --> 00:19:12,980 And if Gorbachev speeded its demise, that was good. 303 00:19:12,980 --> 00:19:15,020 But we should not have wished him any success 304 00:19:15,020 --> 00:19:16,460 in trying to hold it together. 305 00:19:16,460 --> 00:19:18,660 The Soviet Union was like a train 306 00:19:18,660 --> 00:19:21,500 hurtling towards a very rickety bridge. 307 00:19:21,500 --> 00:19:24,180 And once it got to the bridge, the bridge was going to collapse. 308 00:19:24,180 --> 00:19:26,420 MUSIC: Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode 309 00:19:28,900 --> 00:19:35,620 By 1989, four years after Gorbachev first came to power, a populist cry 310 00:19:35,620 --> 00:19:40,500 for freedom was in full swing in communist regimes across the world. 311 00:19:40,500 --> 00:19:42,180 Our first report from Peking 312 00:19:42,180 --> 00:19:44,980 is from our foreign affairs editor, John Simpson. 313 00:19:44,980 --> 00:19:48,740 And as the BBC's chief foreign correspondent, I found myself 314 00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:51,420 reporting on some of the biggest political upheavals 315 00:19:51,420 --> 00:19:53,940 of the late 20th century. 316 00:19:53,940 --> 00:19:56,820 Everybody knows that the army has the power to do something 317 00:19:56,820 --> 00:19:59,460 about this, to clear this entire place if it chooses to. 318 00:19:59,460 --> 00:20:01,820 The only question is, does it choose to? 319 00:20:01,820 --> 00:20:05,380 # And I just can't seem to get enough... # 320 00:20:05,380 --> 00:20:08,460 At the time of martial law, there was intense sympathy in Britain 321 00:20:08,460 --> 00:20:10,460 for Poland and its people. 322 00:20:10,460 --> 00:20:13,820 From Budapest, our foreign affairs editor John Simpson. 323 00:20:13,820 --> 00:20:16,380 The first real chink in the Iron Curtain 324 00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:21,340 appeared in the spring of 1989, when I witnessed Hungarian soldiers 325 00:20:21,340 --> 00:20:25,620 cut the barbed wire fence on the Austrian border. 326 00:20:27,260 --> 00:20:29,620 The Hungarians themselves no longer need exit visas 327 00:20:29,620 --> 00:20:32,020 to cross into Austria and the West. 328 00:20:32,020 --> 00:20:35,420 And now the increasingly liberal leadership in Hungary, 329 00:20:35,420 --> 00:20:38,500 with Imre Pozsgay at its head, is allowing East German emigres 330 00:20:38,500 --> 00:20:40,780 to use the same loophole. 331 00:20:40,780 --> 00:20:42,940 # I just can't seem to get enough... # 332 00:20:42,940 --> 00:20:48,500 People in East Germany were driving through the Eastern Bloc 333 00:20:48,500 --> 00:20:51,460 to Hungary, which they could enter without a visa, 334 00:20:51,460 --> 00:20:56,340 and then hopping across the border into Austria, the West, 335 00:20:56,340 --> 00:20:58,580 and then they'd drive around 336 00:20:58,580 --> 00:21:01,660 in those tiny, smelly little Trabants, 337 00:21:01,660 --> 00:21:05,220 that I spent so much of my time travelling round in myself, 338 00:21:05,220 --> 00:21:08,460 through from Austria into southern Germany. 339 00:21:08,460 --> 00:21:09,860 # I just can't get enough... # 340 00:21:09,860 --> 00:21:12,220 But even seeing this first hand, 341 00:21:12,220 --> 00:21:16,420 I wasn't convinced the world was about to change radically. 342 00:21:17,740 --> 00:21:23,220 I assumed, gradually, East Germany would liberalise 343 00:21:23,220 --> 00:21:27,380 until the difference between them and us wasn't all that great. 344 00:21:27,380 --> 00:21:30,940 But it never, never occurred to me that it would 345 00:21:30,940 --> 00:21:34,180 happen suddenly, quickly. Was I very wrong? 346 00:21:34,180 --> 00:21:38,060 I mean, how...? Well, it was wrong, but, I mean, how wrong was I? 347 00:21:38,060 --> 00:21:42,620 The crucial question for me is not did journalists foresee 348 00:21:42,620 --> 00:21:44,500 what was going to happen next? 349 00:21:44,500 --> 00:21:46,980 Because nobody knows what was going to happen next. 350 00:21:46,980 --> 00:21:50,220 I don't think anyone foresaw it, 351 00:21:50,220 --> 00:21:53,060 that this was actually an empire, 352 00:21:53,060 --> 00:21:57,300 the Soviet empire, and it was an empire that was gradually decaying, 353 00:21:57,300 --> 00:21:59,940 and we didn't know how long that process was would take. 354 00:21:59,940 --> 00:22:02,260 But if people didn't get that, 355 00:22:02,260 --> 00:22:05,180 I think they were missing something really important. 356 00:22:05,180 --> 00:22:07,940 ARCHIVE: Mr Gorbachev himself has come back from a month's holiday 357 00:22:07,940 --> 00:22:10,460 to find a lot of problems confronting him. 358 00:22:10,460 --> 00:22:12,140 This probably isn't one of the... 359 00:22:12,140 --> 00:22:14,380 VOICEOVER: Re-watching my reports from the time, 360 00:22:14,380 --> 00:22:18,420 I wonder just how close I got to reaching Tim's conclusion? 361 00:22:18,420 --> 00:22:21,380 ARCHIVE: ..but if we're seeing the gradual collapse of East Germany 362 00:22:21,380 --> 00:22:25,660 in its present form, Mr Gorbachev and everyone else, East and West, 363 00:22:25,660 --> 00:22:29,020 will eventually have to decide whether or not they're happy to see 364 00:22:29,020 --> 00:22:31,820 the two parts of Germany linking up in some way, 365 00:22:31,820 --> 00:22:35,700 perhaps to form the largest and richest nation in Europe. 366 00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:38,540 One thing, I'm really quite proud of it, actually. 367 00:22:38,540 --> 00:22:43,420 I mean, this was in the summer of 1989, 368 00:22:43,420 --> 00:22:45,900 and it's clear when you watch it, 369 00:22:45,900 --> 00:22:50,020 it is clear that something really big is going to happen. 370 00:22:50,020 --> 00:22:52,380 I mean, at least I spotted that. 371 00:22:52,380 --> 00:22:57,060 What I did get right was that East Germany was unlikely to last 372 00:22:57,060 --> 00:22:59,460 in its existing form. 373 00:23:02,340 --> 00:23:05,420 It was very clear that Gorbachev's policies were resulting 374 00:23:05,420 --> 00:23:07,460 in radical change. 375 00:23:07,460 --> 00:23:10,940 However, most experts agree he had no intention 376 00:23:10,940 --> 00:23:13,260 of bringing down the Berlin Wall. 377 00:23:14,980 --> 00:23:19,380 I don't think he had any plan whatsoever. 378 00:23:19,380 --> 00:23:23,260 I don't think he understood that if he took these steps, 379 00:23:23,260 --> 00:23:29,140 he was actually putting a gun to the head of the horse that he was riding 380 00:23:29,140 --> 00:23:31,900 and he was going to put a bullet through the horse's brain. 381 00:23:33,740 --> 00:23:38,300 So if there was no Soviet political strategy to bring down the Wall, 382 00:23:38,300 --> 00:23:40,500 then just how and why did it happen? 383 00:23:45,740 --> 00:23:49,380 It's always been my belief that the very thing you're watching now, 384 00:23:49,380 --> 00:23:54,300 a televised press conference, played a pivotal role in the collapse. 385 00:23:54,300 --> 00:23:56,180 SPEAKING GERMAN 386 00:23:57,460 --> 00:24:01,100 Because, if this event hadn't been broadcast live 387 00:24:01,100 --> 00:24:04,260 on East German television, then things might have turned out 388 00:24:04,260 --> 00:24:05,700 very differently. 389 00:24:07,780 --> 00:24:11,660 I think it's fair to say that if Gunter Schabowski's press conference 390 00:24:11,660 --> 00:24:16,300 hadn't gone out live, the Wall wouldn't have fallen, 391 00:24:16,300 --> 00:24:18,380 or at least it wouldn't have fallen then. 392 00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:23,780 From the very first moment I visited East Germany, 393 00:24:23,780 --> 00:24:27,900 television and its influence on society, both East and West, 394 00:24:27,900 --> 00:24:30,100 was something that fascinated me. 395 00:24:32,580 --> 00:24:35,900 East Germans know all about the West and its consumer habits. 396 00:24:35,900 --> 00:24:39,500 Nine out of ten of them could watch West German television every evening 397 00:24:39,500 --> 00:24:42,060 and most do in preference to their own. 398 00:24:42,060 --> 00:24:45,540 ON TV: Vietnam. Watergate... 399 00:24:45,540 --> 00:24:48,180 Eventually, the East Germans decided to compete 400 00:24:48,180 --> 00:24:50,580 by making their own programmes better. 401 00:24:50,580 --> 00:24:53,420 The result that they now have far and away the best television 402 00:24:53,420 --> 00:24:54,900 in Eastern Europe. 403 00:24:54,900 --> 00:24:57,220 Sometimes it's a bit hard to tell which station is east 404 00:24:57,220 --> 00:24:59,180 and which is west... 405 00:24:59,180 --> 00:25:01,140 JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYS 406 00:25:03,180 --> 00:25:05,700 Television's something I know a little about, 407 00:25:05,700 --> 00:25:09,900 but to find out how it was weaponised during the Cold War, 408 00:25:09,900 --> 00:25:12,500 I'm meeting Professor Sabina Mihelj, 409 00:25:12,500 --> 00:25:16,460 who's an expert in mass communication in the Soviet Union. 410 00:25:17,900 --> 00:25:22,340 If you were to watch television in the '70s or '80s, 411 00:25:22,340 --> 00:25:25,420 flicking through from East German to West German channels, 412 00:25:25,420 --> 00:25:27,700 there wasn't that much dramatic difference in terms 413 00:25:27,700 --> 00:25:29,780 of the structure of programming. 414 00:25:29,780 --> 00:25:34,060 And a lot of the basic missions and ideas about what television 415 00:25:34,060 --> 00:25:38,340 was for in these societies were intriguingly actually modelled 416 00:25:38,340 --> 00:25:42,300 on the BBC model, the old Reithian - to inform, to educate 417 00:25:42,300 --> 00:25:43,620 and to entertain. 418 00:25:43,620 --> 00:25:48,060 So it wasn't a coincidence that East Germany decided to build 419 00:25:48,060 --> 00:25:51,420 this massive television tower in the middle of Berlin 420 00:25:51,420 --> 00:25:56,260 to showcase its capacity of mastering technology into the West. 421 00:26:00,060 --> 00:26:03,140 The TV tower was the tallest structure in Germany, 422 00:26:03,140 --> 00:26:06,700 the third highest freestanding building in the world. 423 00:26:06,700 --> 00:26:10,700 The communist government knew all too well the power it transmitted. 424 00:26:13,780 --> 00:26:18,700 That enormous television tower right in the centre of East Berlin, 425 00:26:18,700 --> 00:26:21,300 visible from the West, in particular. 426 00:26:21,300 --> 00:26:23,740 I mean, that was a statement on the part 427 00:26:23,740 --> 00:26:26,700 of the communist authorities, wasn't it? Mm-hm. 428 00:26:26,700 --> 00:26:29,140 It definitely was a statement directed at the West, 429 00:26:29,140 --> 00:26:31,780 but also directed at the domestic population, 430 00:26:31,780 --> 00:26:34,340 really showing the domestic population and saying, 431 00:26:34,340 --> 00:26:36,700 "Look, this is what we were able to produce." 432 00:26:38,660 --> 00:26:41,140 The problem was it worked both ways. 433 00:26:43,140 --> 00:26:47,540 A 28-mile-long wall may have kept East Berliners from physically 434 00:26:47,540 --> 00:26:51,780 experiencing the West, but a wall, however high, couldn't stop 435 00:26:51,780 --> 00:26:55,940 Western television from arriving directly into their living rooms. 436 00:26:57,900 --> 00:27:01,500 I seem to remember being in East Germany and people saying to me, 437 00:27:01,500 --> 00:27:05,740 of course, it was difficult to hide the fact that you wanted to watch 438 00:27:05,740 --> 00:27:08,100 West German television, because in those days 439 00:27:08,100 --> 00:27:11,620 you had the aerials on the roof and you had to turn them 440 00:27:11,620 --> 00:27:15,220 in a particular direction to get West German television. 441 00:27:15,220 --> 00:27:18,460 So all anybody had to do was just drive down the street 442 00:27:18,460 --> 00:27:21,260 and see the aerials on the roof. 443 00:27:21,260 --> 00:27:23,900 Yeah. So it was so extensive that it would be difficult 444 00:27:23,900 --> 00:27:25,140 to police, really. 445 00:27:25,140 --> 00:27:27,420 So in the end, there was only one part of East Germany 446 00:27:27,420 --> 00:27:30,660 that couldn't watch Western television and it was tellingly 447 00:27:30,660 --> 00:27:32,100 referred to in German language - 448 00:27:32,100 --> 00:27:33,940 this is something that you may have heard - 449 00:27:33,940 --> 00:27:35,740 as the Valley of the Clueless. 450 00:27:35,740 --> 00:27:37,180 Oh, I didn't hear about that. 451 00:27:37,180 --> 00:27:39,260 So, yeah, this was a part of Germany 452 00:27:39,260 --> 00:27:42,420 where you couldn't reach the signals, essentially. 453 00:27:42,420 --> 00:27:46,380 MUSIC: Master and Servant by Depeche Mode 454 00:27:48,340 --> 00:27:50,740 Outside of the Valley of the Clueless, 455 00:27:50,740 --> 00:27:53,420 the East German government did their best 456 00:27:53,420 --> 00:27:55,820 to divert the gaze of the population, 457 00:27:55,820 --> 00:27:59,500 particularly when it came to Western news broadcasts. 458 00:28:01,540 --> 00:28:03,140 From the '70s onwards, 459 00:28:03,140 --> 00:28:07,020 they were really strategically placing some of the most popular 460 00:28:07,020 --> 00:28:09,660 entertainment programming that they produced domestically 461 00:28:09,660 --> 00:28:13,500 to coincide with important evening news programmes in the West. 462 00:28:13,500 --> 00:28:17,420 So there's this one particular programme that I can remember, 463 00:28:17,420 --> 00:28:20,980 the Kettle of Colour, that was scheduled to coincide with the main 464 00:28:20,980 --> 00:28:24,420 evening news bulletin on West German television at the time. 465 00:28:31,180 --> 00:28:34,260 The statue to democracy has been entirely destroyed. 466 00:28:37,580 --> 00:28:40,620 ..ugly symbol of Europe's division. 467 00:28:44,260 --> 00:28:47,220 Polish authorities who finally clamped down on solidarity... 468 00:28:49,020 --> 00:28:52,100 Dancing showgirls may have worked in the past, 469 00:28:52,100 --> 00:28:56,500 but by 1989, it was clear that East Germans were increasingly 470 00:28:56,500 --> 00:29:00,820 aware of the political upheaval taking place in other parts 471 00:29:00,820 --> 00:29:02,220 of the Soviet bloc. 472 00:29:05,020 --> 00:29:07,180 As Gorbachev arrived to celebrate 473 00:29:07,180 --> 00:29:08,820 the 40-year anniversary 474 00:29:08,820 --> 00:29:13,220 of the state, ordinary East Germans had started to publicly demand 475 00:29:13,220 --> 00:29:15,380 a change in the status quo. 476 00:29:15,380 --> 00:29:18,340 ARCHIVE: Waiting to meet him was the East German leader, Erich Honecker, 477 00:29:18,340 --> 00:29:21,220 a small, dapper dinosaur trying to avoid extinction 478 00:29:21,220 --> 00:29:23,620 in a fast-changing communist world. 479 00:29:25,260 --> 00:29:27,660 VOICEOVER: As official state television 480 00:29:27,660 --> 00:29:29,580 covered the celebrations... 481 00:29:29,580 --> 00:29:33,620 ..Western news reporters, like my late colleague Brian Hanrahan, 482 00:29:33,620 --> 00:29:37,580 were focused on the unrest that was building in the streets. 483 00:29:37,580 --> 00:29:40,020 It began when the police sealed off the railway station, 484 00:29:40,020 --> 00:29:42,460 but it's become a much wider protest. 485 00:29:42,460 --> 00:29:44,260 CROWD CHANTS: Freiheit! Freiheit! 486 00:29:44,260 --> 00:29:46,780 People have been shouting "Freedom, freedom" 487 00:29:46,780 --> 00:29:50,180 and attempts to stop them have made things worse. 488 00:29:55,980 --> 00:29:57,900 INTENSE BANG, PEOPLE SHOUT 489 00:29:57,900 --> 00:30:02,060 Acutely aware of the power these images would have within the state, 490 00:30:02,060 --> 00:30:06,660 the communist authorities banned Western cameras from filming. 491 00:30:06,660 --> 00:30:08,700 The people are throwing away their fears, 492 00:30:08,700 --> 00:30:10,900 but the organisers of the new political opposition 493 00:30:10,900 --> 00:30:12,540 are appealing for calm. 494 00:30:14,380 --> 00:30:18,740 Mark McCauley is a news cameraman who's captured iconic moments 495 00:30:18,740 --> 00:30:20,580 from war zones around the world. 496 00:30:23,660 --> 00:30:27,540 In June 1989, he was with me in Tiananmen Square 497 00:30:27,540 --> 00:30:31,020 and in October of that year, he found himself with Brian Hanrahan 498 00:30:31,020 --> 00:30:32,140 in East Berlin. 499 00:30:33,900 --> 00:30:37,300 The secret police had said under all circumstances, 500 00:30:37,300 --> 00:30:40,940 we must stop foreign media getting this information out. 501 00:30:40,940 --> 00:30:42,500 CROWD CHANTS 502 00:30:43,620 --> 00:30:47,740 As protests spread challenging communist authority, 503 00:30:47,740 --> 00:30:50,660 Brian knew that despite the secret police, 504 00:30:50,660 --> 00:30:53,380 he had to report on what was happening. 505 00:30:54,740 --> 00:30:59,060 Mark was sent undercover with a concealed camera. 506 00:30:59,060 --> 00:31:02,980 I mean, you as a cameraman know, just as I do, that they love 507 00:31:02,980 --> 00:31:05,020 to smash cameras, don't they? 508 00:31:05,020 --> 00:31:07,100 They love to put their hand in the lens. 509 00:31:07,100 --> 00:31:09,220 You had it in a bag or a satchel or something? 510 00:31:09,220 --> 00:31:12,020 Yeah, it was just in a little black bag and it had a little hole 511 00:31:12,020 --> 00:31:15,020 cut out for the lens and a little pop up eyepiece. 512 00:31:15,020 --> 00:31:17,780 So every now and again I'd walk along and have a little look down, 513 00:31:17,780 --> 00:31:20,260 have a look around and then look up again. 514 00:31:20,260 --> 00:31:23,740 Western reports are agreed, however, that the 80,000 who swept through 515 00:31:23,740 --> 00:31:27,300 the centre of Leipzig were exuberant but entirely peaceful. 516 00:31:27,300 --> 00:31:29,260 From Leipzig, Brian Hanrahan. 517 00:31:29,260 --> 00:31:32,660 The demonstration began in the narrow cobbled streets 518 00:31:32,660 --> 00:31:35,220 in the centre of the city, where people seemed unworried 519 00:31:35,220 --> 00:31:37,260 by the menacing presence of large numbers 520 00:31:37,260 --> 00:31:39,460 of plainclothes security men. 521 00:31:42,140 --> 00:31:45,780 The secret footage that Mark was able to smuggle out 522 00:31:45,780 --> 00:31:50,060 allowed Brian Hanrahan to create one of the most extraordinary reports 523 00:31:50,060 --> 00:31:52,260 ever filed from behind the Iron Curtain. 524 00:31:54,300 --> 00:31:57,180 I've seen your pictures, 525 00:31:57,180 --> 00:32:00,660 and although I'm sure it must have been terribly frustrating for you 526 00:32:00,660 --> 00:32:04,660 because you want to get good close-ups of faces and everything, 527 00:32:04,660 --> 00:32:09,980 but that business of the half darkness is extremely atmospheric. 528 00:32:09,980 --> 00:32:13,940 It was a barometer. Leipzig was a barometer of what was happening 529 00:32:13,940 --> 00:32:17,780 because it started in September with 20,000. 530 00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:20,900 And by the time we'd reached the end of October, 531 00:32:20,900 --> 00:32:23,900 I think there were over 300,000 people there. 532 00:32:23,900 --> 00:32:28,060 They'd report it on East German media with just a still photograph, 533 00:32:28,060 --> 00:32:29,700 no moving footage. 534 00:32:29,700 --> 00:32:31,900 And it was very much portrayed 535 00:32:31,900 --> 00:32:33,940 as a troublesome event. 536 00:32:33,940 --> 00:32:37,420 Signs are that there's a struggle going on inside the Communist Party 537 00:32:37,420 --> 00:32:39,940 about East Germany's future policy. 538 00:32:39,940 --> 00:32:42,860 Brian Hanrahan, BBC News, Leipzig. 539 00:32:42,860 --> 00:32:46,100 One of the nights I brought it up to Brian and Brian was a man 540 00:32:46,100 --> 00:32:48,340 of few words. I remember he just looked at the footage 541 00:32:48,340 --> 00:32:51,460 and just turned to me and said, "This is history." 542 00:32:51,460 --> 00:32:53,020 Ah! You know? 543 00:32:53,020 --> 00:32:55,500 Well, Leipzig was what made it. 544 00:32:55,500 --> 00:32:56,700 I mean, yes, 545 00:32:56,700 --> 00:32:59,820 I mean, you were watching history as it was being made. 546 00:32:59,820 --> 00:33:01,620 Brian was entirely right. 547 00:33:03,020 --> 00:33:07,700 Despite this unprecedented coverage of unrest behind the Wall, 548 00:33:07,700 --> 00:33:10,820 little did any of us think that only a few weeks later 549 00:33:10,820 --> 00:33:13,500 the Wall itself would cease to exist. 550 00:33:14,580 --> 00:33:18,260 It was obvious all the way along that something 551 00:33:18,260 --> 00:33:19,500 was going to happen. 552 00:33:19,500 --> 00:33:23,100 I don't think it occurred to me that the Wall would come down 553 00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:27,820 and that Marxism, Leninism itself was just about to kind 554 00:33:27,820 --> 00:33:29,540 of dissolve in front of our eyes. 555 00:33:37,380 --> 00:33:40,940 On the morning of the 9th of November 1989, 556 00:33:40,940 --> 00:33:43,820 biggest date in history from the end 557 00:33:43,820 --> 00:33:46,100 of the Second World War onwards, 558 00:33:46,100 --> 00:33:50,740 the head of the CIA, the head of SIS, 559 00:33:50,740 --> 00:33:53,140 the head of the British Foreign Office, 560 00:33:53,140 --> 00:33:57,820 the head of German intelligence, all woke up thinking 561 00:33:57,820 --> 00:33:59,660 this is just another day. 562 00:34:06,340 --> 00:34:12,220 And not one of them realised that that night was going to change 563 00:34:12,220 --> 00:34:15,100 everything in their lives and our lives. 564 00:34:24,020 --> 00:34:26,500 And the BBC definitely didn't know... 565 00:34:26,500 --> 00:34:29,500 From Warsaw, our foreign affairs editor John Simpson. 566 00:34:29,500 --> 00:34:31,740 ..because I'd been sent to Poland, 567 00:34:31,740 --> 00:34:35,420 a country that had just ousted its communist leaders, 568 00:34:35,420 --> 00:34:38,860 to cover the visit of the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. 569 00:34:38,860 --> 00:34:40,820 ARCHIVE: A West German Chancellor came to make 570 00:34:40,820 --> 00:34:42,740 a new beginning with Poland. 571 00:34:42,740 --> 00:34:46,300 And Poland itself with its Solidarity Prime Minister, 572 00:34:46,300 --> 00:34:48,820 Mr Mazowiecki, has made a new beginning, too. 573 00:34:48,820 --> 00:34:51,380 VOICEOVER: I mean, you wouldn't go to Poland 574 00:34:51,380 --> 00:34:53,260 on the day of the most important 575 00:34:53,260 --> 00:34:56,460 event in your country's modern history, would you? 576 00:34:56,460 --> 00:34:57,980 I mean, you'd, you'd say, 577 00:34:57,980 --> 00:35:00,540 "No. I think perhaps I'll stay at home today." 578 00:35:00,540 --> 00:35:02,860 ARCHIVE: The Polish government spokesman announced 579 00:35:02,860 --> 00:35:04,660 that Chancellor Kohl's visit to Auschwitz 580 00:35:04,660 --> 00:35:06,300 on Saturday would be rescheduled. 581 00:35:06,300 --> 00:35:08,900 No-one seems to have remembered it was the Jewish Sabbath. 582 00:35:08,900 --> 00:35:11,580 VOICEOVER: I'm a great one for always trying to give the impression 583 00:35:11,580 --> 00:35:13,780 that I was everywhere where it happened, 584 00:35:13,780 --> 00:35:17,220 but this, I promise you, is absolutely, literally true. 585 00:35:17,220 --> 00:35:21,900 I was quite close to the German officials around Kohl, 586 00:35:21,900 --> 00:35:24,820 and don't think I didn't play on that. 587 00:35:24,820 --> 00:35:28,540 ARCHIVE: All the same when Chancellor Kohl arrived tonight... 588 00:35:28,540 --> 00:35:31,380 VOICEOVER: And I stood on the edge of the group around him 589 00:35:31,380 --> 00:35:35,500 and this guy was just whispering something into Kohl's ear. 590 00:35:35,500 --> 00:35:41,380 But inevitably I heard one or two words, and one of the words 591 00:35:41,380 --> 00:35:43,740 was "die Mauer", the Wall. 592 00:35:49,740 --> 00:35:53,980 Earlier that day in Berlin, the East German government had decided 593 00:35:53,980 --> 00:35:56,500 to address the unrest within the country 594 00:35:56,500 --> 00:35:58,060 by holding a press conference 595 00:35:58,060 --> 00:36:01,420 to update its citizens on rule changes 596 00:36:01,420 --> 00:36:03,220 to travel to the West. 597 00:36:05,780 --> 00:36:11,300 You have to remember that the thing that was most irksome to people 598 00:36:11,300 --> 00:36:15,980 in Eastern Europe was the lack of freedom of movement. 599 00:36:15,980 --> 00:36:19,500 You were a prisoner. That was the essence of it. 600 00:36:21,620 --> 00:36:27,340 If they could have an orderly system whereby people could just simply go 601 00:36:27,340 --> 00:36:31,780 across and be free to come back again, then I think they thought 602 00:36:31,780 --> 00:36:36,420 they'll get rid of the worst of the complaints that East Germans 603 00:36:36,420 --> 00:36:38,060 had about their system. 604 00:36:41,060 --> 00:36:44,940 Gunter Schabowski, a largely unknown government official, 605 00:36:44,940 --> 00:36:48,260 was tasked with relaying these minor changes 606 00:36:48,260 --> 00:36:50,300 to the assembled journalists. 607 00:36:50,300 --> 00:36:52,700 The viewing public tuned in live. 608 00:36:54,820 --> 00:36:56,140 No-one knew it, 609 00:36:56,140 --> 00:37:00,220 but the world was about to change in an instant. 610 00:37:00,220 --> 00:37:03,780 I feel really a bit sorry for Schabowski. 611 00:37:03,780 --> 00:37:08,540 I mean, although he was the spokesman for the Politburo 612 00:37:08,540 --> 00:37:11,980 they kind of shoved him off to one side and didn't explain anything 613 00:37:11,980 --> 00:37:14,340 to him and then said, "Go on," you know. 614 00:37:14,340 --> 00:37:17,700 "Now, tell the press. Tell the world's press." 615 00:37:17,700 --> 00:37:22,260 And he told the world's press and he got it spectacularly wrong. 616 00:37:22,260 --> 00:37:26,180 SPEAKING GERMAN 617 00:37:27,460 --> 00:37:31,700 What Gunter Schabowski was meant to announce was a phased relaxation 618 00:37:31,700 --> 00:37:34,060 of travel restrictions to the West. 619 00:37:34,060 --> 00:37:36,980 But the fine detail got lost. 620 00:37:36,980 --> 00:37:39,540 It was somebody saying to him, 621 00:37:39,540 --> 00:37:42,060 "So, when exactly does this have a... Take effect?" 622 00:37:42,060 --> 00:37:45,020 And he said, "Unverzuglich." 623 00:37:45,020 --> 00:37:46,900 "Right away." 624 00:37:46,900 --> 00:37:52,220 And that meant, to the people that were watching this live, 625 00:37:52,220 --> 00:37:53,540 right now. 626 00:37:59,580 --> 00:38:03,820 The communist government had only agreed to allow people to apply 627 00:38:03,820 --> 00:38:06,620 for travel permits, but out on the streets, 628 00:38:06,620 --> 00:38:09,300 East Berliners were already heading for the Wall. 629 00:38:13,700 --> 00:38:17,820 I think live television really brought the Berlin Wall down. 630 00:38:17,820 --> 00:38:22,260 Probably if Gunter Schabowski's press conference 631 00:38:22,260 --> 00:38:25,140 hadn't been broadcast live, 632 00:38:25,140 --> 00:38:26,860 the Wall would have survived. 633 00:38:29,620 --> 00:38:34,740 But Sabina Mihelj believes this is only part of the story. 634 00:38:34,740 --> 00:38:38,420 I've always assumed it was because people in East Berlin 635 00:38:38,420 --> 00:38:41,860 were able to watch the press conference for themselves 636 00:38:41,860 --> 00:38:45,100 that caused the whole Wall to disappear. 637 00:38:45,100 --> 00:38:47,340 But do you think I'm right? 638 00:38:47,340 --> 00:38:48,500 Only partially so. 639 00:38:48,500 --> 00:38:52,500 The fact that this was live coverage on television was important, 640 00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:55,340 but it wasn't so much that the audiences in East Germany 641 00:38:55,340 --> 00:38:57,940 were actually watching Gunter Schabowski 642 00:38:57,940 --> 00:38:59,860 and then heard him say that, 643 00:38:59,860 --> 00:39:03,980 you know, the regulation is valid from now. 644 00:39:03,980 --> 00:39:06,540 What was more important was the way in which 645 00:39:06,540 --> 00:39:10,820 this particular press conference was reported by Western journalists 646 00:39:10,820 --> 00:39:14,940 on Western German television and beamed back into East Germany, 647 00:39:14,940 --> 00:39:17,860 because this is where this crucial bit of interpretation happened. 648 00:39:17,860 --> 00:39:19,380 So they hardened it up. 649 00:39:19,380 --> 00:39:20,780 Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 650 00:39:20,780 --> 00:39:22,060 They've simplified it. 651 00:39:22,060 --> 00:39:24,700 They've misinterpreted it a little bit, yeah, 652 00:39:24,700 --> 00:39:27,420 what Gunter Schabowski has actually said. 653 00:39:27,420 --> 00:39:30,860 And then East German audiences have picked up this misinterpreted 654 00:39:30,860 --> 00:39:32,860 bit of the story and acted upon it. 655 00:39:38,300 --> 00:39:42,700 Until now, I hadn't fully understood how misinformation 656 00:39:42,700 --> 00:39:46,700 or, as some might term it, fake news transmitted from the West 657 00:39:46,700 --> 00:39:50,660 played such a crucial role on the 9th of November 1989. 658 00:39:55,580 --> 00:39:59,100 But it seems the television technology that East Germany 659 00:39:59,100 --> 00:40:02,940 had so desperately tried to compete with and then censor 660 00:40:02,940 --> 00:40:07,300 was now a Trojan horse attacking the Berlin Wall from within. 661 00:40:10,340 --> 00:40:13,340 There was actually a banner going across the screen saying 662 00:40:13,340 --> 00:40:16,060 "East Germany opens border," or something to this effect 663 00:40:16,060 --> 00:40:20,700 and then even more so a couple of hours later, when the crowds started 664 00:40:20,700 --> 00:40:22,580 gathering at the border. 665 00:40:22,580 --> 00:40:27,140 But without the interpretation, without simplification 666 00:40:27,140 --> 00:40:31,260 by the West German reporters, none of this would have happened. 667 00:40:31,260 --> 00:40:32,500 Yeah, exactly. 668 00:40:35,660 --> 00:40:39,620 My late colleague Brian Hanrahan and his cameraman Mark McCauley 669 00:40:39,620 --> 00:40:43,260 were in East Berlin at the very moment the world began to shift 670 00:40:43,260 --> 00:40:44,300 on its axis. 671 00:40:45,900 --> 00:40:48,740 We were in the hotel and then someone came into the lobby 672 00:40:48,740 --> 00:40:50,100 of the hotel and said, 673 00:40:50,100 --> 00:40:53,460 "By the way, people are gathering at the crossing points." 674 00:40:53,460 --> 00:40:57,420 We just, all of us, piled into the car and headed off 675 00:40:57,420 --> 00:40:59,820 down to all the checkpoints. 676 00:41:07,340 --> 00:41:11,300 The gates to the West were first opened just after nine last night. 677 00:41:11,300 --> 00:41:14,900 What followed were some of the most remarkable scenes of euphoria 678 00:41:14,900 --> 00:41:17,780 and disbelief Europe has witnessed since the war 679 00:41:17,780 --> 00:41:20,660 as East Berliners took advantage of their new freedom 680 00:41:20,660 --> 00:41:21,940 to cross the Wall. 681 00:41:21,940 --> 00:41:24,060 Brian Hanrahan was there to see it. 682 00:41:24,060 --> 00:41:26,740 CHEERING 683 00:41:26,740 --> 00:41:29,060 Within hours of the government's announcement, 684 00:41:29,060 --> 00:41:31,460 people started turning up at Checkpoint Charlie, 685 00:41:31,460 --> 00:41:34,460 the best known crossing point to the West. 686 00:41:36,340 --> 00:41:39,100 At first, they were told, "Go away, come back tomorrow 687 00:41:39,100 --> 00:41:41,740 "and bring all the right documents with you." 688 00:41:41,740 --> 00:41:44,180 But the crowds weren't satisfied with this 689 00:41:44,180 --> 00:41:46,260 and they've learned that if they push hard enough, 690 00:41:46,260 --> 00:41:48,900 they can have their way. 691 00:41:48,900 --> 00:41:53,540 They pushed on into the guard posts, arguing, demanding, insistent 692 00:41:53,540 --> 00:41:57,420 and suddenly the way West was opened. 693 00:41:57,420 --> 00:41:59,820 PEOPLE EXCLAIM WITH DELIGHT AND SURPRISE 694 00:41:59,820 --> 00:42:01,540 Checkpoint Charlie was open 695 00:42:01,540 --> 00:42:04,820 and they were through, called on by the delighted West Berliners 696 00:42:04,820 --> 00:42:06,740 waiting on the other side. 697 00:42:08,860 --> 00:42:12,580 This did not look like a planned move from the communist authorities, 698 00:42:12,580 --> 00:42:15,460 but rather another panicked response by a government 699 00:42:15,460 --> 00:42:18,860 giving way to the parliament of the streets. 700 00:42:18,860 --> 00:42:22,820 I find it terribly affecting for various reasons. 701 00:42:22,820 --> 00:42:27,580 I mean, one, because the whole business of people 702 00:42:27,580 --> 00:42:31,140 just simply climbing over the Wall 703 00:42:31,140 --> 00:42:35,620 and going through the gates is such a moving thing for me. 704 00:42:35,620 --> 00:42:38,620 But also because of Brian's reporting, 705 00:42:38,620 --> 00:42:41,300 Brian Hanrahan's reporting, 706 00:42:41,300 --> 00:42:43,140 so lovely, so clear. 707 00:42:43,140 --> 00:42:46,020 Of course, he died later. 708 00:42:46,020 --> 00:42:48,820 A very good friend of mine and I'm... 709 00:42:48,820 --> 00:42:52,300 So it's quite sort of bittersweet to watch this. 710 00:42:53,820 --> 00:42:57,140 Beyond the fortifications, a crowd of West Berliners waited, 711 00:42:57,140 --> 00:43:00,980 and two nations, one people merged into a joyful reunion. 712 00:43:03,580 --> 00:43:05,260 Standing on top of the Berlin Wall, 713 00:43:05,260 --> 00:43:06,980 which for years has been the most 714 00:43:06,980 --> 00:43:09,260 potent symbol of the division of Europe, 715 00:43:09,260 --> 00:43:12,180 and there can be few better illustrations of the changes 716 00:43:12,180 --> 00:43:15,220 which are sweeping across this continent than the party 717 00:43:15,220 --> 00:43:18,220 which is taking place here on top of it tonight. 718 00:43:20,660 --> 00:43:23,980 As Brian Hanrahan was standing on top of the Wall and giving 719 00:43:23,980 --> 00:43:28,300 that by now legendary piece to camera, I was still in Poland. 720 00:43:29,460 --> 00:43:32,700 Only yesterday, Chancellor Kohl said there were fewer reasons than ever 721 00:43:32,700 --> 00:43:35,820 against the long term reunification of Germany. 722 00:43:35,820 --> 00:43:39,260 Tonight, that prospect seems a great deal closer. 723 00:43:39,260 --> 00:43:41,460 John Simpson, BBC News, Warsaw. 724 00:43:45,500 --> 00:43:49,340 Although Brian Hanrahan was doing a brilliant job on the ground, 725 00:43:49,340 --> 00:43:51,660 as the BBC's chief foreign correspondent, 726 00:43:51,660 --> 00:43:53,940 I simply had to get to Berlin. 727 00:43:55,700 --> 00:44:00,500 I knew that Brian would do the kind of what happened during the day 728 00:44:00,500 --> 00:44:04,140 and I'd be expected to stand there in front of the camera 729 00:44:04,140 --> 00:44:06,500 and do a sort of "what does this all mean? 730 00:44:06,500 --> 00:44:09,540 "Where are we in the scale of things?" 731 00:44:11,220 --> 00:44:14,300 But getting there wasn't going to be easy. 732 00:44:14,300 --> 00:44:16,420 I was absolutely panic stricken 733 00:44:16,420 --> 00:44:21,300 at being so kind of out of things, even though in terms of miles 734 00:44:21,300 --> 00:44:24,580 I probably was only about, I don't know, 300 or 400 miles away. 735 00:44:27,300 --> 00:44:31,740 And after, oh, I think about three different hops, 736 00:44:31,740 --> 00:44:36,460 I arrived there, and a young and very sweet 737 00:44:36,460 --> 00:44:39,540 and charming young man, a BBC guy, 738 00:44:39,540 --> 00:44:42,340 was given the job of driving me. 739 00:44:44,180 --> 00:44:46,620 He was not a great driver 740 00:44:46,620 --> 00:44:50,060 and we had more than one very, very near miss. 741 00:44:50,060 --> 00:44:52,540 I was getting more and more tense 742 00:44:52,540 --> 00:44:54,340 because I was going to do just 743 00:44:54,340 --> 00:44:59,660 simply a live piece to camera on this, 744 00:44:59,660 --> 00:45:02,500 the most important day in modern history. 745 00:45:05,460 --> 00:45:07,540 Good evening. East Germany has agreed to do 746 00:45:07,540 --> 00:45:09,300 what the West has been demanding 747 00:45:09,300 --> 00:45:11,100 it should do for more than a generation. 748 00:45:11,100 --> 00:45:14,940 And the purpose of my function was to say that the world 749 00:45:14,940 --> 00:45:17,020 is a different place tonight. 750 00:45:17,020 --> 00:45:21,460 So there was nothing really in my career up to that point 751 00:45:21,460 --> 00:45:24,100 that had been more important. 752 00:45:24,100 --> 00:45:27,100 Well, joining us now live from the Brandenburg Gate 753 00:45:27,100 --> 00:45:30,300 is our foreign affairs editor John Simpson. 754 00:45:30,300 --> 00:45:32,340 John, there seems to be a lot of activity behind you. 755 00:45:32,340 --> 00:45:34,060 What's going on there? 756 00:45:34,060 --> 00:45:35,940 It's quite extraordinary. 757 00:45:35,940 --> 00:45:39,220 There's chanting, there's singing, there's fireworks going off. 758 00:45:39,220 --> 00:45:40,500 I can hear every now and then 759 00:45:40,500 --> 00:45:42,740 somebody having a crack at the Wall with a hammer. 760 00:45:42,740 --> 00:45:45,900 They're trying to batter it down with their bare hands almost. 761 00:45:45,900 --> 00:45:48,060 It's that sort of atmosphere. 762 00:45:48,060 --> 00:45:50,060 It actually reminds me a little bit 763 00:45:50,060 --> 00:45:52,420 of being back in Tiananmen Square last May. 764 00:45:52,420 --> 00:45:54,660 A lot of happiness. Any concern, though? 765 00:45:54,660 --> 00:45:56,980 Are they nervous about what may lie ahead? 766 00:45:56,980 --> 00:45:58,540 Oh, no, I don't think so at all. 767 00:45:58,540 --> 00:46:00,860 I don't suppose anybody even worries about what's 768 00:46:00,860 --> 00:46:02,300 going to happen by tomorrow. 769 00:46:02,300 --> 00:46:04,140 You know, right just behind where we are, 770 00:46:04,140 --> 00:46:06,180 there are guards with guns. 771 00:46:06,180 --> 00:46:09,460 But, of course, there's no question of anybody using those guns. 772 00:46:09,460 --> 00:46:12,060 In fact, every now and then, perhaps you just heard it there... 773 00:46:12,060 --> 00:46:14,020 STATIC 774 00:46:14,020 --> 00:46:17,220 Well, I'm sorry we lost John Simpson rather dramatically there, 775 00:46:17,220 --> 00:46:18,340 I'm afraid. 776 00:46:18,340 --> 00:46:21,780 It's very painful for me to watch. 777 00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:26,420 This was, as far as I know, the biggest television audience 778 00:46:26,420 --> 00:46:30,060 the BBC has ever had for a news programme 779 00:46:30,060 --> 00:46:33,460 and I disappear in a fizzle on the screen. 780 00:46:33,460 --> 00:46:35,500 It was absolutely crushing. 781 00:46:36,580 --> 00:46:39,980 ..lost John Simpson rather dramatically there, I'm afraid. 782 00:46:39,980 --> 00:46:44,180 The difference between that and being sentenced to death in court 783 00:46:44,180 --> 00:46:47,260 or something seems very, very slight. 784 00:46:48,660 --> 00:46:55,940 I was in absolute horror and anger and depression and gloom... 785 00:46:55,940 --> 00:46:59,300 ..and I wandered away. 786 00:46:59,300 --> 00:47:02,940 I think as I've wandered off, I thought, that's it. 787 00:47:02,940 --> 00:47:05,540 I ought to jack this game in. 788 00:47:05,540 --> 00:47:08,580 I mean, you know, it's no... It's no fun any more. 789 00:47:08,580 --> 00:47:10,540 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 790 00:47:16,860 --> 00:47:18,340 CAR HORNS BLARE 791 00:47:24,140 --> 00:47:30,780 And then I just saw these hundreds, thousands of people so happy. 792 00:47:32,780 --> 00:47:34,180 I just thought... 793 00:47:35,180 --> 00:47:38,780 ..you know, what happened to me is nothing. 794 00:47:38,780 --> 00:47:42,940 I mean, it's a little speck of total irrelevance. 795 00:47:42,940 --> 00:47:48,420 This is one of the great, great days of modern... 796 00:47:48,420 --> 00:47:50,140 ..modern human existence. 797 00:47:51,820 --> 00:47:53,220 WOMAN SCREAMS IN DELIGHT 798 00:47:53,220 --> 00:47:55,620 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 799 00:47:58,460 --> 00:48:01,740 And I thought about the young kid that had driven me there 800 00:48:01,740 --> 00:48:05,180 and I had been thinking, "The little so and so, you know, 801 00:48:05,180 --> 00:48:06,580 "he should have known better." 802 00:48:06,580 --> 00:48:08,900 And, you know, "I'll mark his card for him." 803 00:48:08,900 --> 00:48:13,780 And I thought, oh, God, how could anybody want to damage 804 00:48:13,780 --> 00:48:17,540 somebody's interests on a day like this? 805 00:48:17,540 --> 00:48:20,180 Which always made me feel quite good, 806 00:48:20,180 --> 00:48:22,100 because he became my boss afterwards. 807 00:48:27,020 --> 00:48:30,020 I mean, I've seen a lot of wonderful things in my life, 808 00:48:30,020 --> 00:48:33,340 a lot of happy things as well as a lot of bad things. 809 00:48:33,340 --> 00:48:37,220 But I don't think I've ever seen anything quite as happy 810 00:48:37,220 --> 00:48:38,780 as that...as that night. 811 00:48:44,900 --> 00:48:47,340 People were openly weeping. 812 00:48:47,340 --> 00:48:51,780 I find it quite hard to talk about it now without... 813 00:48:51,780 --> 00:48:54,060 ..without weeping. 814 00:48:54,060 --> 00:48:57,060 And then after that, all the rules were off. 815 00:48:57,060 --> 00:49:00,180 So later on, I danced on top of the Wall. 816 00:49:00,180 --> 00:49:02,740 I mean, if somebody had said to me, 817 00:49:02,740 --> 00:49:07,900 you know, name the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to you. 818 00:49:07,900 --> 00:49:10,500 I'd never thought I'll dance on the Berlin Wall 819 00:49:10,500 --> 00:49:14,060 with a beautiful young German blonde girl. 820 00:49:14,060 --> 00:49:15,980 I never would have thought that. 821 00:49:27,020 --> 00:49:30,180 The demolition of the Wall began immediately. 822 00:49:30,180 --> 00:49:32,820 First, individuals hammered away at it. 823 00:49:37,020 --> 00:49:39,300 They were soon followed by construction teams 824 00:49:39,300 --> 00:49:41,020 that ripped out entire sections. 825 00:49:43,860 --> 00:49:44,980 Danke schon. 826 00:49:50,500 --> 00:49:55,500 As the days passed, the realisation that the Wall was gone forever 827 00:49:55,500 --> 00:49:57,100 began to hit home. 828 00:50:01,700 --> 00:50:04,220 28 years of a country's imprisonment 829 00:50:04,220 --> 00:50:07,340 were dumped unceremoniously in a battered old truck. 830 00:50:11,220 --> 00:50:14,260 But what did all this mean for the rest of Europe 831 00:50:14,260 --> 00:50:15,860 and indeed the world? 832 00:50:16,980 --> 00:50:23,140 When you see the ugliest and most menacing structure in the world 833 00:50:23,140 --> 00:50:27,460 knocked down in front of your eyes, anything seemed possible. 834 00:50:27,460 --> 00:50:32,460 MUSIC: Get Ready For This by 2 Unlimited 835 00:50:32,460 --> 00:50:36,740 At first, events appeared to prove my optimism was right. 836 00:50:37,900 --> 00:50:40,820 The fall of the Wall precipitated a domino effect 837 00:50:40,820 --> 00:50:42,540 throughout Eastern Europe. 838 00:50:42,540 --> 00:50:46,140 In Hungary, the old Communist Party has effectively disappeared. 839 00:50:46,140 --> 00:50:48,780 Free elections are now promised in East Germany 840 00:50:48,780 --> 00:50:51,700 and changes too in Bulgaria. 841 00:50:51,700 --> 00:50:55,380 The political map of Eastern Europe has altered beyond recognition. 842 00:50:57,740 --> 00:51:01,300 And within a year, the two Germanys would reunite. 843 00:51:10,940 --> 00:51:13,340 It wasn't yet the end of the Cold War 844 00:51:13,340 --> 00:51:15,780 and yet it was the end of the Cold War. 845 00:51:16,820 --> 00:51:19,940 It wasn't the end of communism 846 00:51:19,940 --> 00:51:23,620 and yet it was really the start of the end of communism. 847 00:51:26,460 --> 00:51:28,980 And for the first time in my life, 848 00:51:28,980 --> 00:51:32,060 it looked as though Russia was about to come in from the cold. 849 00:51:33,980 --> 00:51:37,140 Here was a golden opportunity for East and West 850 00:51:37,140 --> 00:51:38,900 to finally work together. 851 00:51:40,580 --> 00:51:44,860 I never thought that a couple of years later I'd be on hand 852 00:51:44,860 --> 00:51:49,500 to watch the end of Marxism, Leninism in Russia itself. 853 00:51:49,500 --> 00:51:52,660 That I thought was an impossibility. 854 00:51:52,660 --> 00:51:54,180 CHEERING 855 00:51:54,180 --> 00:51:58,780 Even given all the extraordinary changes here in the last few years, 856 00:51:58,780 --> 00:52:01,100 I don't think anybody expected to see scenes like this 857 00:52:01,100 --> 00:52:02,660 in the middle of Moscow. 858 00:52:02,660 --> 00:52:07,260 After the fall of Russian communism and with it the Soviet Union, 859 00:52:07,260 --> 00:52:12,140 I genuinely believed the world would now be a better place. 860 00:52:12,140 --> 00:52:16,860 The key thing was that anything seemed possible to happen, 861 00:52:16,860 --> 00:52:18,260 any good thing. 862 00:52:18,260 --> 00:52:22,660 I don't think anybody thought there's anything 863 00:52:22,660 --> 00:52:24,860 bad about this whatsoever. 864 00:52:24,860 --> 00:52:27,620 However, my idealism didn't last. 865 00:52:28,940 --> 00:52:31,460 Our foreign affairs editor John Simpson reports 866 00:52:31,460 --> 00:52:34,700 from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. 867 00:52:34,700 --> 00:52:37,340 HIGH SPEED AIRCRAFT PASS BY, EXPLOSIONS 868 00:52:37,340 --> 00:52:42,700 And then, you know, three years later, I found myself in Sarajevo, 869 00:52:42,700 --> 00:52:47,540 besieged by the Bosnian Serbs in a way that seemed like something 870 00:52:47,540 --> 00:52:49,180 out of the Middle Ages. 871 00:52:49,180 --> 00:52:51,700 EXPLOSIONS AND RAPID GUN FIRE 872 00:52:51,700 --> 00:52:54,460 If, on the other hand, the Muslims don't accept the notion 873 00:52:54,460 --> 00:52:58,180 of a confederation, then the Serbs will declare independence 874 00:52:58,180 --> 00:53:01,660 and anything could happen to Sarajevo. 875 00:53:01,660 --> 00:53:04,820 The rapid pace of change across Europe had left 876 00:53:04,820 --> 00:53:07,100 Yugoslavia politically unstable. 877 00:53:08,540 --> 00:53:12,740 The loosening of the hold of communism set free centuries-old 878 00:53:12,740 --> 00:53:17,580 ethnic divisions that ultimately descended into a barbaric genocide. 879 00:53:20,580 --> 00:53:23,540 This was far from the peaceful vision of Europe 880 00:53:23,540 --> 00:53:27,420 I'd so desperately hoped for on the night the Wall fell. 881 00:53:28,660 --> 00:53:33,020 There was a savagery about it, which was quite appalling 882 00:53:33,020 --> 00:53:35,380 and which made you feel ashamed, 883 00:53:35,380 --> 00:53:37,900 a bit ashamed to be human, actually. 884 00:53:39,780 --> 00:53:42,660 John Simpson, BBC News, Sarajevo. 885 00:53:42,660 --> 00:53:47,060 Before the fall of the Wall, we couldn't imagine that things 886 00:53:47,060 --> 00:53:49,060 would go so well. 887 00:53:49,060 --> 00:53:51,460 And after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was almost 888 00:53:51,460 --> 00:53:54,380 as if we couldn't imagine that things would go so badly 889 00:53:54,380 --> 00:53:57,540 as they did in Bosnia and former Yugoslavia. 890 00:53:57,540 --> 00:54:02,820 I think that the success of 1989, the most sort of magical 891 00:54:02,820 --> 00:54:08,020 and hope-inspiring experience of our lives, probably did give us 892 00:54:08,020 --> 00:54:10,660 a bit of sort of historical euphoria. 893 00:54:11,980 --> 00:54:14,580 But we were quite rapidly sobered up. 894 00:54:15,780 --> 00:54:19,860 And if Yugoslavia was a sobering experience, then the hangover 895 00:54:19,860 --> 00:54:22,340 from the break-up of the Soviet Union is something 896 00:54:22,340 --> 00:54:24,340 we're still suffering today. 897 00:54:28,420 --> 00:54:32,660 The West has always been wary of Russia, but in recent years, 898 00:54:32,660 --> 00:54:38,220 as Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB agent, has tightened his grip on power, 899 00:54:38,220 --> 00:54:40,700 there's been talk of a new Cold War developing. 900 00:54:42,820 --> 00:54:46,060 State sponsored murder, chemical weapons attacks 901 00:54:46,060 --> 00:54:49,060 and election interference means Russia feels 902 00:54:49,060 --> 00:54:51,500 as far away as it ever has been. 903 00:54:52,940 --> 00:54:58,820 I think we underestimated the role of corruption and money. 904 00:54:58,820 --> 00:55:03,020 And I think that when communism collapsed, there was a feeling 905 00:55:03,020 --> 00:55:05,940 in the West that now, yeah, we can just get on and make money 906 00:55:05,940 --> 00:55:07,220 and money's neutral. 907 00:55:07,220 --> 00:55:11,460 And I remember the first time I heard the Russian word offshorka, 908 00:55:11,460 --> 00:55:13,220 meaning an offshore bank account, 909 00:55:13,220 --> 00:55:15,780 and a kind of tingle went down my spine. 910 00:55:15,780 --> 00:55:17,780 And I thought, this is not good. 911 00:55:17,780 --> 00:55:21,700 Now we see the way in which this dirty money sloshes around the world 912 00:55:21,700 --> 00:55:24,900 and both finances dictatorships, but also corrodes our democracy. 913 00:55:24,900 --> 00:55:27,300 And I think that's the biggest thing that we missed, 914 00:55:27,300 --> 00:55:28,900 or at least that I missed. 915 00:55:32,980 --> 00:55:35,780 Back when I was reporting from the Soviet Union, 916 00:55:35,780 --> 00:55:38,340 I had my frustrations with the regime. 917 00:55:38,340 --> 00:55:42,380 Here in Moscow, Mr Ecevit has been playing it very carefully... 918 00:55:42,380 --> 00:55:46,580 VOICEOVER: But at least the rules of the game were clear. 919 00:55:46,580 --> 00:55:51,860 Nobody was going to come over to me and put a bullet through my skull. 920 00:55:51,860 --> 00:55:55,820 Nobody, in those days, was going to come and smear the door knob 921 00:55:55,820 --> 00:56:01,940 of my front door with some noxious substance. 922 00:56:01,940 --> 00:56:05,660 In those days, the rules were the rules. 923 00:56:05,660 --> 00:56:07,620 Now there are no rules. 924 00:56:10,940 --> 00:56:14,020 And when it comes to the technological subterfuge 925 00:56:14,020 --> 00:56:15,940 that brought the Wall down... 926 00:56:15,940 --> 00:56:18,020 MESSAGE ALERTS PINGING 927 00:56:18,020 --> 00:56:20,100 ..well, the tables have turned. 928 00:56:21,420 --> 00:56:25,140 One of the interesting things is how Russia's reinvented itself. 929 00:56:25,140 --> 00:56:27,740 And it's been extremely clever 930 00:56:27,740 --> 00:56:30,300 at getting into all sorts of cyber issues 931 00:56:30,300 --> 00:56:34,540 that you wouldn't I think have expected if you'd just looked at it 932 00:56:34,540 --> 00:56:37,620 from the perspective of, say, the 1980s. 933 00:56:39,260 --> 00:56:41,860 I think we've been quite slow off the mark, sort of recognising 934 00:56:41,860 --> 00:56:44,900 what's happening, working out how to stop Putin's information 935 00:56:44,900 --> 00:56:49,540 monopoly inside Russia, so you can run a global disinformation campaign 936 00:56:49,540 --> 00:56:51,180 from a phone. 937 00:56:51,180 --> 00:56:54,220 And the Russians have been very quick on that. 938 00:56:54,220 --> 00:56:58,220 They've also been able to get in through Facebook and social media 939 00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:00,700 and peer-to-peer encrypted messaging like WhatsApp. 940 00:57:00,700 --> 00:57:02,580 And they've had quite an impact, 941 00:57:02,580 --> 00:57:06,580 as we saw in America and maybe even here in the Brexit referendum. 942 00:57:08,420 --> 00:57:12,580 With the uncertainty that exists across the world today, 943 00:57:12,580 --> 00:57:16,060 I have to admit I've got a certain nostalgia for the way things 944 00:57:16,060 --> 00:57:18,580 used to be, when one wall in Berlin... 945 00:57:20,020 --> 00:57:21,540 ..divided the world. 946 00:57:23,220 --> 00:57:27,580 I don't want to irritate, you, but there are moments 947 00:57:27,580 --> 00:57:31,940 when I think the world was a lot easier to understand 948 00:57:31,940 --> 00:57:34,100 and get on with in the Cold War. 949 00:57:34,100 --> 00:57:37,060 Well, it was certainly simpler because it was a bipolar world. 950 00:57:37,060 --> 00:57:38,700 There were these two halves - 951 00:57:38,700 --> 00:57:42,180 divided Berlin, divided Germany divided Europe, divided world. 952 00:57:42,180 --> 00:57:44,020 But you don't want to get back to that? 953 00:57:44,020 --> 00:57:46,380 And I don't know many people in Eastern Europe who would 954 00:57:46,380 --> 00:57:47,740 like to go back to it. 955 00:57:51,100 --> 00:57:52,860 Tim's right, of course. 956 00:57:52,860 --> 00:57:57,420 Despite my perhaps misplaced nostalgia for a simpler world, 957 00:57:57,420 --> 00:58:02,420 I don't think anyone wants a return to life before the Wall came down. 958 00:58:04,300 --> 00:58:09,340 What happened on the 9th of November 1989 959 00:58:09,340 --> 00:58:13,100 changed the world for the better. 960 00:58:13,100 --> 00:58:18,620 We didn't know a month before it happened and we didn't know even 961 00:58:18,620 --> 00:58:21,140 a few hours before it happened 962 00:58:21,140 --> 00:58:24,220 that this was how the world was going to change. 963 00:58:24,220 --> 00:58:25,980 And forever after that, 964 00:58:25,980 --> 00:58:31,460 I realised that trying to predict the future is a mug's game. 965 00:58:31,460 --> 00:58:34,020 MUSIC: All Together Now by The Farm