Hello, I'm Peter Robinson. On this special edition of Uncommon Knowledge, we mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall,

which took place in the autumn of 1989, November 9th, 1989 to be exact.

First you'll see a video in which we asked a number of Hoover Institution

scholars and Stanford historians several of the same questions including

where were you when you heard that the wall had fallen and why did it take us all by surprise.

After that video which we showed at a small dinner here at the Hoover Institution,

you'll see me interview former Secretary of State George Schultz.

It's a remarkable thing to interview a man

just a couple of weeks short of his 99th birthday

whose recall of events 30 years ago

in which he himself played a central role is total.

After my interview with George Schultz, you'll see a few questions and answers from the audience

at the Hoover Institution. You may recognize a couple of the people who

ask questions, including the last question or who, as you'll see, is hungry.

And now a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As the Soviets impose a communist regime on them, East Germans respond by fleeing to West Germany in the thousands.

1952, the East German regime seals the border between East Germany and West Germany, but not

between East and West Berlin. Berlin, of course, lies deep inside East Germany itself, and

about half of the city remains under the control of American, British, and French military forces.

Now East Germans who wanted to leave East Germany for the West had only one place in which they could do so, the city of Berlin.

And they began to do just that, simply taking the subway or underground from East Berlin to West Berlin or simply walking through the checkpoints

from East Berlin to West Berlin. Once in West Berlin they could climb aboard a train,

...