Twenty years ago, on November 9, 1989, the most visible symbol
of totalitarian evil, the Berlin Wall, tumbled down. Two years
later, the Soviet Union officially dissolved on Christmas Day
1991. The fall of the Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet
Union transpired in relative calm, but they followed decades of
repression, cruelty, and murder by the Soviet regime. The
trumpet blasts that finally destroyed the Berlin Wall in a
peaceful revolution and brought freedom to millions in Eastern
Europe were political, economic, diplomatic, and military in
character. But it became evident to us in working on our new
documentary, Nine Days that Changed the World, that spiritual
factors were decisive, as Pope John Paul II and President Ronald
Reagan rallied the West to a defense of freedom and human
dignity. Everyone recalls that President Reagan, in front of
Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, famously called upon Soviet General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." But rarely
does the media take note of the mos