The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, unveiled a new bronze statue of former President Ronald Reagan on Friday in Berlin. It stands at the site where Reagan called on the Soviet Union to “tear down” the Berlin Wall.
Mike Pompeo unveiled the 7-foot statue on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Secretary of State hailed it as a “monumental moment.”
“President Reagan was an indispensable leader of the…American mission to defend unalienable rights,” Mike Pompeo said. “Because of his courageous leadership and his commitment to that freedom, he courageously denounced the greatest threat to them of this day to that freedom – the Soviet Empire, the evil empire. He knew that instead of protecting a citizen’s right, they brutalized citizens or executed them.”
Chas Fagan is the artist who designed Reagan’s statue in the Capitol Rotunda and he created the new monument in Berlin.
The statue is accompanied by a sign that displays Reagan’s famous quote from his 1987 speech, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
The statue sits permanently on the U.S. Embassy’s terrace despite a years-long debate over placing an American statue on German soil. German politicians have protested the placement, noting that the former president is already a designated citizen of the city.
“The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is thrilled to be able to unveil a statue of President Reagan at the US Embassy in Berlin, within view of where President Reagan so boldly demanded that the wall come down in 1987,” Melissa Giller, a foundation spokesperson, said in a statement to the press.
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