英语演讲稿Tear Down This Wall.docx

1、英语演讲稿Tear Down This Wall英语演讲稿Tear Down This Wall 里根总统最著名的演讲之一：摧毁柏林墙 Tear Down This WallBy Ronald ReaganChancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the City Hall.

2、Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to Berlin. And today I, myself, make my second visit to your city.We come to Berlin, we American presidents, because its our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom. But I must confess, were drawn here by other things as well: by th

3、e feeling of history in this city, more than 500 years older than our own nation; by the beauty of the Grunewald and the Tiergarten; most of all, by your courage and determination. Perhaps the composer Paul Lincke understood something about American presidents. You see, like so many presidents befor

4、e me, I come here today because wherever I go, whatever I do: Ich hab noch einen Koffer in Berlin. Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East. To those listening throughout Eastern Europe, a spe

5、cial word: Although I cannot be with you, I address my remarks to you just as surely as to those standing here before me. For I join you, as I join your fellow countrymen in the West, in this firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin. Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free secto

6、rs of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed gu

7、ards and checkpoints all the same still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the televis

8、ion screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.President von Weizsacker has said, “The German question is open as

9、 long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed.” Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a mes

10、sage of hope, even in the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph.In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged from their air-raid shelters to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the people of the United States reached out to help. And in 1947 Secretary of State as youve b

11、een told George Marshall announced the creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40 years ago this month, he said: “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.”In the Reichstag a few moments ago,

12、I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign r

13、ead simply: “The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen the free world.” A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real.Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the European Co

14、mmunity was founded.In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so pros

15、perity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin

16、there is the greatest industrial output of any city in Germany busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. Where a citys culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters,

17、and museums. Where there was want, today theres abundance food, clothing, automobiles the wonderful goods of the Kudamm. From devastation, from utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But

18、my friends, there were a few things the Soviets didnt count on Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: “We will bury you.” But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all huma

19、n history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and in

20、escapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy

21、of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are t

22、hey token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one si

23、gn the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open t

24、his gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent and I pledge to you my countrys efforts to help overcome these burdens. To be sure, we in the West must resist Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses of unassailable

25、 strength. Yet we seek peace; so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides.Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the Western alliance with a grave new threat, hundreds of new and more deadly SS-20 nuclear missiles, capable of striking every capital in Europe. The Western alliance responde

26、d by committing itself to a counter-deployment unless the Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution; namely, the elimination of such weapons on both sides. For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain in earnestness. As the alliance, in turn, prepared to go forward with its counter-deployment

27、, there were difficult days days of protests like those during my 1982 visit to this city and the Soviets later walked away from the table.But through it all, the alliance held firm. And I invite those who protested then I invite those who protest today to mark this fact: Because we remained strong,

28、 the Soviets came back to the table. And because we remained strong, today we have within reach the possibility, not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time, an entire class of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.As I speak, NATO ministers are meeting in

29、Iceland to review the progress of our proposals for eliminating these weapons. At the talks in Geneva, we have also proposed deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons. And the Western allies have likewise made far-reaching proposals to reduce the danger of conventional war and to place a total ban on

30、 chemical weapons.While we pursue these arms reductions, I pledge to you that we will maintain the capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur.And in cooperation with many of our allies, the United States is pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative research to base dete

31、rrence not on the threat of offensive retaliation, but on defenses that truly defend; on systems, in short, that will not target populations, but shield them. By these means we seek to increase the safety of Europe and all the world. But we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust

32、 each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty. When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this

33、city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.In the Philippines, in South and Central America, democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the Pacific, free markets are working miracle after miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized nations, a tec