Description: During the Cold War, tensions developed between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies and led to the construction of the Berlin Wall, which isolated West Berlin from the Soviet-occupied sector of East Berlin. This U.S. State Department collection from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration contains records from the series Records on Political Affairs and Relations, 1945 – 1990. The documents, created by the U.S. Department of State’s U.S. Mission in Berlin, cover the year 1987, which is the year U.S. President Ronald Reagan made a speech at the Berlin Wall, calling for Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, to “tear down this wall!” President Reagan’s visit touched off protests by tens of thousands of demonstrators in Berlin. Documents in this collection – Soviet Protests 57 – consist of textual materials covering political affairs and relations as they relate to and were handled by the Allied Kommandatura Legal Committee.