In his speech Reagan also called on Gorbachev and the Soviet Union to end the arms race, which the USSR and the United States have been in a deadlock with since the end of World War II and the Potsdam conference. President Reagan mentioned the Soviets’ SS-20 nuclear weapons and state that, “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. " The Soviet reaction to the speech was once thought as giving an "openly provocative, war-mongering speech. " The tearing down of the Berlin Wall was one of the last few things that eventually brought the fall of the Soviet Union. The completion of the removal of the wall finished up in November of 1991. The fall of the wall an as well as the fall of the Soviet Union took the world by surprise, and the spread of democracy was in full effect. President Reagan said it best in his speech,
"As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner, 'This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.' Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.