Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.

Who is Reagan's intended audience for this part of his speech?

Western leaders searching for a long-term strategy to defend our civilization from fundamentalist Islam ought to reread the speech President Reagan delivered at the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this month.

It was neither democracy nor capitalism Mr. Reagan foresaw bringing down the wall. It was Christianity.

Mr. Reagan's demand that Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the wall was the defining sound-bite of that speech, but it was another passage that defined the core meaning of the Cold War.