has another office in zurich, switzerland, down the hall from mebo office. it's like, "ok, we're on the right track." here, this office is, well, it's mebo. and then on this side was the office from abdelbaset. interviewer: megrahi had an office across the hall from edwin bollier! it just seems so extraordinary to be a mere coincidence. it's not, it's absolutely not a coincidence.

president reagan: the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause. they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat. the russians are gearing up for war. frank reynolds: the senate today approved a record $136.5 billion defense budget. [ crowd chanting ] stahl: the largest anti-nuclear protest in u.s. history. brokaw: president reagan is now much more eager to meet with the new leader of the soviet union. reporter: do you have an agreement, mr. president? mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. ♪

[ gunfire ] frank reynolds: in afghanistan today, soviet troops are reported on the move in several areas. but it is also clear the russians are meeting resistance from muslim tribesmen and units of afghanistan's army. buchanan: in 1980, the soviet union had moved into afghanistan. it was in nicaragua. it was in the caribbean. there was a feeling that the united states -- and i felt it -- the united states could lose the cold war. powell: there was a model of behavior during the cold war,

and we have often described it as it was the red side of the map and the blue side of the map separated by the iron curtain. and the rest of the world, we competed for. that fundamental clash between communism and capitalism, between dictatorship and freedom, was the dividing line in the world that people assumed would last forever. but there's a revolution starting to stir. frank reynolds: there has been an unexpected development abroad. polish workers in the baltic area are standing firm in their strike against the government. bierbauer: the demands of the striking polish workers in gdansk included a free press, release of political prisoners, and the right to strike, even though these workers had assumed the risk of striking illegally. service: along comes solidarity, but it's not a union run by communists. it's a union run by polish patriots. so it's a tremendous threat to the ussr because of the possible contagion. it would just wipe out communism if it were allowed to spread.

randall: one of the principal players in this country's season of worker discontent, lech walesa spent part of the weekend reinforcing the link between poland's workers and the catholic church. it's impossible to understand solidarity without understanding the impact of pope john paul ii. the soviets are very nervous about john paul ii. he is an anti-communist, and he's beloved by the poles. these pressures are forcing the polish government to figure out how to keep control. the strike by polish shipyard workers is over. for the polish strikers, it was a day worthy of hyperbole, lech walesa telling his followers, "we are now co-masters of this land." lech walesa and solidarity are showing that you could have an independent union in a communist country. and the question was, how independent were they going to be allowed to be?

how the u.s. deals with poland, with the eastern bloc, and, of course, with russia will be early challenges for the foreign policy of the president-elect, ronald reagan. zelizer: reagan had spent much of his career blasting the soviet union and attacking any republican or democrat who had said we can negotiate. he had been the leading opponent of détente during the 1970s, the policy of trying to ease relations with the soviets. brinkley: what he disliked about détente was that they were hitting the negotiating team as equals. reagan thought, "there are two superpowers, but we have moral superiority because democracy's inherently good and sovietism is inherently bad." the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat. i think when you do business with them, even at a détente,

you keep that in mind. and everybody went, "oh, this cowboy-shoot-from-the-hip-actor, doesn't he understand that's not diplomatic?" and, boy, did he get the soviets' attention. but there was a lot of tsh-tshing about whether this was appropriate for the president to say. brands: ronald reagan had a more radical view of american goals in the cold war than any president before him. as he put it, "my policy toward the communists is very simple -- we win, they lose." it shocked people. it sounds as if, sir, you're saying that there isn't going to be any summit meeting with the -- no, i don't know, but i do believe this -- that it is rather foolish to have unilaterally disarmed by letting our margin of safety deteriorate and then you sit with a fellow who's got all the arms. what do you have to negotiate with? the senate today approved a record $136.5 billion defense budget for fiscal 1982. the vote was overwhelming -- 92-1.

reagan was trying to spend the ussr into oblivion. he said, "what we spend on our armed forces is a much smaller proportion of our economy, than is the case with you. now see if you can compete." naftali: ronald reagan's clear anti-communism made many people worry that though he didn't want war, the effect of his thinking would be the coming up of unwanted war. reporter: in poland, the state counsel has decreed the introduction of martial law beginning today. lech walesa, the leader in solidarity, is said to be in a government guest house, not under arrest. but dozens of polish activists and dissidents have been locked up, along with some former leaders of the communist government. naftali: there was concern that the soviets were going to invade and that the poles, in their drive for self-determination,

were gonna go beyond whatever mental threshold the soviet leadership had. at the vatican today, pope john paul ii expressed concern for the worsening situation in his native poland. pope john paul told some 200 polish pilgrims he knew were in the crowd that they and all fellow poles should pray for peace. service: the cold war became as cold as it had ever been before. it got so cold, it was capable of becoming hot. [ indistinct shouting ] rather: there had been rumors -- today, confirmation. deaths and injuries among the enforcers and resistors to the military rule imposed since sunday. [ indistinct shouting ]

president reagan: tragic events now occurring in poland, almost two years to the day after the soviet invasion of afghanistan, have been precipitated by public and secret pressure from the soviet union. the united states is taking immediate action to suspend major elements of our economic relationships with the polish government. mann: the first crisis in poland provides a vehicle for reagan to begin to think that maybe the communist system in eastern europe is not as stable as people imagined. moyers: this is the pershing missile. a new version of it will soon be deployed in europe. this is the cruise missile, also to join nato's arsenal,

based on european soil and pointed toward the soviet union and the communist bloc. reagan started pushing to have pershing missiles in europe and say, "we're going t o really start ratcheting up the cold war even further." many of the demonstrators you'll see in the next two days will be protesting the deployment of the new missiles. they fear that, in the event of war, this would make europe a battlefield and leave america unscathed. [ crowd chanting ] kalb: they are, for the most part, nonviolent, trapped by geography on the front line of the east/west struggle. the fears in the cold war period in the early 1980s was that if things went wrong, they would go totally wrong, that we might be at the cusp of total nuclear war. stahl: the largest anti-nuclear protest in u.s. history today engulfed manhattan. morton: police say up to 700,000 -- comparable to the largest of the anti-vietnam rallies of a decade ago.

clayburgh: this is life. this isn't political. this is about the future of life. adelman: ronald reagan thought that the freeze movement was ridiculous, that the number of nuclear weapons -- some 40,000 in the world -- were way too high, that to freeze them would lock in soviet superiority in certain numbers that he wanted to eliminate. in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, i urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of declaring both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding, and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. adelman: reagan delegitimized the soviet union. now, the trouble is, you're both poised with these weapons at each other, which is a terrible way to live -- mutually assured destruction. so reagan said, "why don't we do something and put a protective shield between us so that i can have some other option." and that was the birth of the strategic defense initiative,

called sdi -- or, unkindly, called "star wars." president reagan: what if free people could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? valeriani: the united states is already spending about a billion dollars a year on research into laser and directed energy, or particle beam weapons -- the kind of buck rogers technology the president talked about. powell: president reagan didn't understand all the technologies. what he understood was, "wow. if we have a defensive system that stops their offensive missiles, then their offensive missiles have no value and we're safe." naftali: the soviets were very nervous and very afraid. there is a stasis, almost a paralysis at the top of the leadership. they were fearful that the reagan administration would take advantage of their weakness. as a result of this, the soviets are very reactive. if you were watching this broadcast last night, you probably went to sleep with the same impression we did --

there had been some kind of a hassle between soviet fighter jets and a korean air lines 747, and we led you to believe that the plane had landed safely on soviet territory. sadly, that was not true. shultz: at approximately 1600 hours, the aircraft strayed into soviet airspace. the korean aircraft was reported by the soviet pilot at 10,000 meters. at 1826 hours, the soviet pilot reported that he fired a missile, and the target was destroyed. they went on a peaceful trip. they weren't any spies or anything like that. i think the russians are gearing up for war and doing everything that they can to prepare for it. hoffman: it was not an intentional hostile act against korean air lines. it was a mistake of a system that was falling apart. president reagan: this crime against humanity must never be forgotten -- here or throughout the world. it was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights

and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations. the timing was particularly bad because the united states and the soviets were not talking at all. two great powers are afraid of each other, and kl007 happens almost at the climax of this period of fear, and that makes 1983 one of the most dangerous years of the cold war. service: because of the suspicions about ronald reagan, the soviet intelligence agencies thought that under the cover of a military exercise called abel archer, a first nuclear strike on moscow could be launched. brands: when reagan discovered that the soviets actually did think that the united states might launch a preemptive strike, it was kind of one of these moments -- "my gosh. i'm gonna look upon them in a different light."

an estimated 100 million americans watched last night as some of the horror of a nuclear bomb attack on the united states was portrayed in a tv movie. [ people screaming ] brinkley: reagan processed a lot of history through movies, and the fact that this fear of nuclear annihilation was very real, he started feeling that maybe he was put on earth here to avoid nuclear war. just suppose with me for a moment that an ivan and an anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room with a jim and sally and there was no language barrier. would they then debate the differences between their respective governments, or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children, what each other did for a living? they would have proven that people don't make wars. reagan comes to understand he's made a mistake by not trying to meet with the soviets, and his desire to do this gets much stronger

after it becomes clear to him that there's such a level of misunderstanding between the two adversaries that an inadvertent war is possible. this is a cbs news special report. gorbachev takes control. when the death of constantine chernenko was announced today, the world waited to see who would win the struggle for control of the kremlin. it was a short wait -- just 4 hours and 15 minutes. winning that power is 54-year-old mikhail gorbachev. now the world is watching -- watching what the new kremlin leader will do. gustafson: the politburo has reached for the youngest man among the four members and the one who comes advertised, anyhow, as the one most likely to rock the boat.

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phillips: at 54, gorbachev is the youngest man to lead the soviet union since stalin. unlike his predecessors, gorbachev might feel less tied down by the burden of soviet history. gorbachev is really a revolution in himself. he is talking about a new soviet union, allowing some freedom of speech, allowing a more open society. hoffman: gorbachev had seen how the gap between how the soviet people live and what the party said

was growing wider and wider. but he is a child of the system. he did not want to destroy it. he had in his mind, "i have to save it." [ laughter ] i want him to fight for peace and for better life. i think that he will be a good leader, and i like him. naftali: those first couple of years of the reagan first term, reagan didn't meet any soviet leaders. and when asked about it, reagan said, "well, they keep dying on me." well that was true, but he wasn't really making much of an effort. and there was a fear that "if you don't reach out to the soviets, they are so afraid of us, they will do something stupid." president reagan has had a change of heart. he is now much more eager to meet with the new leader of the soviet union, and he has sent mikhail gorbachev a letter

suggesting a summit. [ indistinct talking ] hayward: all previous summits had had a communiqué worked out ahead of time by the two foreign ministries -- "here's what we're gonna say at the end," and there'd be some gaps in it that'd be filled in during the meetings. reagan said, "nope, we're not doing any communiqués" -- says, "whatever comes out of the summit will be what we develop while we're there." plante: after 70 minutes with their advisors, mr. reagan invited gorbachev to stroll through the garden to the pool house, where they sat alone before a fire. mr. reagan talked without notes -- not about arms control, but of his personal feelings about reducing the level of fear and misunderstanding between the two nations. the main thing was that they met each other as human beings. reagan, in particular, had concentrated his attention on gorbachev as a person. he spent more time studying gorbachev than he did the esoteric things having to do with arms control.

wallace: it is understood the president tried to dispel gorbachev's negative image of the u.s. gorbachev wouldn't budge. but he was not nearly as combative as he's been with other american officials recently. reporter: is this a good sign? [ speaking russian ] [ speaking russian ] i would think so. adelman: i was at lunch when ronald reagan came out of this first meeting with mikhail gorbachev, and he said, "this is a new type of soviet leader." wallace: the president announced gorbachev will visit the u.s. next year and that they agreed to accelerate the arms talks. but the soviet leader was more negative. interpreter: the solving of the most important problems concerning the arms race and increasing hopes of peace, we didn't succeed in reaching at this meeting. so, of course, there are important disagreements on matters of principle that remain between us. kur: the general feeling here is that president reagan deserves credit for starting a dialogue with soviet leader gorbachev --

that, in the nuclear age, any lessening of tension must be applauded. but many here pronounced the summit only a modest success because it failed to achieve significant progress on arms control. [ device clicking ] dean reynolds: the first word that something was seriously wrong came from this power plant in eastern sweden, where workers coming on the job registered abnormally high levels of radiation on their bodies. [ device clicking ] and as tests were conducted, similar, puzzling reports of high radiation came in from all over scandinavia. but still, no accidents were reported. hager: finally, a surprise -- the radiation was coming from 750 miles away, at chernobyl in the soviet union. a terse announcement picked up from radio moscow. reporter: the soviet government reports an accident at the chernobyl nuclear power plant in the ukraine. the instinctive reaction of the soviet bureaucracy was to deny that anything had really happened,

as a result of which, people died. not only were ordinary soviets not getting the truth about chernobyl, the top leaders were not getting the truth. gorbachev discovered that he was also in the dark, as the soviet leader. rodgers: soviet newscasters deliberately played down the incident, reporting it after the latest five-year plan and crop reports. eight or nine minutes into the news, an announcer finally said only two people had been killed in the incident, contradicting one news report that the casualties numbered in the thousands. chernobyl was not a flash in the pan. every few weeks, there would be something like chernobyl, because of the structural defects of the soviet system. stahl: officials say that because this took place at the soviet's newest reactor, it's another indication of the inferiority of soviet technology. and they say the soviets brought on the accident by not taking the same kind of safety precautions taken in the united states. naftali: chernobyl reminded the soviets that they couldn't play

in the game of modern technology. they couldn't protect their own people, and they couldn't hide it anymore. dobbs: gorbachev's biggest challenge was how to get his country moving again, and in order to do that, he needed to end the arms race, he needed to spend more money on improving living standards of ordinary people, and for that, he needed a relaxation of tensions with the west. [ cameras shutters clicking ] reporter: iceland? iceland? yeah, that's what i was here to tell you about. [ laughter ] well, i am pleased to announce that general secretary gorbachev and i will meet october 11th and 12th in reykjavik, iceland. the meeting was proposed by general secretary gorbachev, and i've accepted. no agreements at the meeting next week? i don't know. all we've agreed upon is that we're gonna have a meeting. [ helicopter blades whirring ] andrews: gorbachev needs a show of progress overseas to boost his stature in moscow. the irony of reykjavik will be that when reagan,

the leader of the free world, meets gorbachev, the autocrat, it will be gorbachev who most needs the publicity back home.

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[ indistinct talking ] at reykjavik, the feeling was we didn't have to prepare all that much. according to everything we knew, it was gonna be a "howdy" and "hello," a handshake -- a photo op.

and it turned out to be anything else but that. after the first morning, when reagan and gorbachev met, we were called into the embassy, which is right nearby, reagan says, "gorbachev really wants to reduce nuclear weapons." so he hands a piece of paper to no one in particular. [ laughing ] all of us try to grab it. we looked it over, and it was a "holy cow" moment. "this guy really wants to reduce nuclear weapons." here was a soviet leader who was not going by the script. here was a guy who wanted to do business. the first indication that some progress may have been made at today's talks in reykjavik came at a white house briefing here a few minutes ago. there's no prediction yet on the outcome of these talks, but they do give rise to some optimism. stahl: i was up there as the clock was ticking down. they had worked and worked and worked and worked on an arms-control agreement, and at the last minute, it fell apart.

reporter: mr. president! reporter #2: do you have an agreement, mr. president? do we have an agreement, sir? will you meet again? buchanan: when i saw reagan come out of that room with gorbachev, his face was a mask of rage, and gorbachev was very stiff walking out, and the guy beside me said, "i don't like the body language." rather: president reagan and secretary gorbachev appeared to have reached tentative agreement on much of a historic breakthrough arms-reduction arrangement. but in the end, the soviets insisted that president reagan must drop his "star wars" program to get the deal. president reagan wouldn't do that. adelman: the soviets really feared that sdi was a lot more real than it was, that the strategic defense initiative could really protect the united states. so it wasn't mutually assured destruction at that point. it was assured destruction of the soviet union, but assured protection of the united states. so they went crazy about sdi. interpreter: the president insisted until the end

on retaining for the united states the right to test things relating to sdi. it would've taken a madman to accept that. after reykjavik, inside the united states, there is astonishment, and beyond that, fear of what reagan has talked about doing -- banning nuclear weapons. a reagan administration move to sign an arms deal with the soviets was criticized today by former president nixon and former secretary of state henry kissinger. the two men said it would be "a profound mistake" to eliminate all medium-range missiles in europe. many conservatives thought that reagan had been charmed by gorbachev, and reagan actually had more problem dealing with his hard right than he did the left. so reagan had to constantly let the right know,

"i know what i'm doing." reagan was being accused already of getting soft on communism, but he hadn't forgotten the problems we still had. europe is still divided, there was still a berlin wall. [ crowd cheering ] there is one sign the soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. mr. gorbachev, open this gate. [ crowd cheering ] mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. [ crowd cheering ] baker: it was perfect. it was beautiful. and he had to insist on keeping it in the speech. and he did it. don't let anybody tell you it was a staffer or anybody else that did that. [ crowd cheering ] zelizer: meanwhile, in the soviet union, gorbachev decides to do something bold, and he says, "let's separate sdi from reducing the nuclear stockpile."

once he does this, it opens up the possibility for a third summit. this week's summit may prove especially important -- even historic. for the first time since the onset of the nuclear age, the united states and the soviet union will sign a treaty actually reducing the number of nuclear missiles. the inf agreement involved the elimination of an entire class of weapons -- the intermediate-range ballistic missiles. and it changes the nature of arms control because you went from arms control to arms reduction. you are now getting rid of nuclear weapons. jennings: many american conservatives are afraid that mr. reagan is too anxious for an arms-control agreement to ensure his place in the history books as a peacemaker. well, i haven't changed from the time when i made a speech about an evil empire. and i think i could sum up my own position in this with the recitation of a very brief russian proverb. "doveryai, no proveryai."

it means "trust, but verify." [ fanfare ] the importance of this treaty transcends numbers. we have listened to the wisdom in an old russian maxim, "doveryai, no proveryai" -- "trust, but verify." [ laughter ] [ interpreter speaking russian ] [ speaking russian ] you repeat that at every meeting. [ laughter ] [ applause ] i like it. [ laughter ] hoffman: the improbability of either of them -- reagan, the cold war hawk, gorbachev, the party guy -- doing this kind of thing, it's just unheard of. and they did it. zelizer: reagan had been at a low in 1987 with iran contra, and many americans didn't like him, they didn't trust him.

the negotiations with the soviet union, in many ways, saved his presidency. jennings: well, mr. gorbachev may not have seen much of america, but he certainly made sure that a lot of americans saw him. motorcades don't very often turn a lot of heads in this city, but when they stop on a dime, so does everyone else. man: i would like to say hello to you. i want to say hello to you. woman: that was very special. he didn't have to do it, and he did it. i am very surprised and pleased. reporter: what do you think of gorbachev? the guy is a p.r. genius. i mean, jumping out of the car like that -- unbelievable. bierbauer: congressional leaders say they gave president reagan a round of applause at a morning after the summit meeting, but there was caution against euphoria. well, it was sort of a love feast this morning. everybody applauded when the president came in. reporter: the president has now said that gorbachev's a different leader, that he no longer wants world domination. do you agree? it's one thing to sign the inf agreement. it's something else to follow through on a number of areas. i still don't trust him.

brokaw: soviet leader mikhail gorbachev tonight is saying that the war in afghanistan is about to come to an end.

gilmour: today's announcement seems to be another indication of how anxious the soviets are to get themselves out of afghanistan, out of a war they have not been able to win, out of a war that has proven too costly to continue. because of afghanistan, communism was no longer affordable. the idea of promoting your ideology around the world, defending its interests became too expensive. white house officials are thrilled at the idea that when the president arrives in moscow for a summit with gorbachev in late may, it now appears that the soviets will have already begun their pullout from afghanistan. [ fanfare ] [ crowd cheering ] troy: ronald reagan built his career saying communism is evil. and the notion that five years after his "evil empire" speech, ronald reagan lands in moscow and is welcomed and is greeted

is mind-blowing. and just about like every other american tourist who comes to moscow, president reagan today toured red square, which is the historic center of this capital, of course. he had the best possible tour guide -- mikhail gorbachev. donaldson: so friendly was it all that at one point, president reagan threw his arm around gorbachev and, at another point, completely took back his "evil empire" pronouncement. reporter: do you still think you're in an evil empire, mr. president? no. why not? i was talking about another time and another era. the warmonger reagan is essentially saying the cold war looks as if it's coming to an end. president reagan: freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth. it is the right to put forth an idea scoffed at by the experts and watch it catch fire among the people.

petersen: in gorbachev's soviet union, food has become even harder to get. once, there was a selection -- maybe two or three cheeses. now there is only one. there is a dangerous undertone to the complaints. "we ate better," they say, "in the days of brezhnev." there was stress in the soviet system because they were trying to change it in a system that was unchangeable and unable to adapt to a modern world. gorbachev thought the united states is so far ahead of him, the soviet system is so far behind, "we need to accelerate the reforms." interpreter: today, i can report to you that the soviet union has taken a decision to reduce its armed forces. within the next two years, their numerical strength will be reduced by 500,000 men. the numbers of conventional armaments will also be substantially reduced.

service: gorbachev was relaxing the soviets' grip on eastern europe. they didn't really have much choice about this, because they couldn't bail out the east european economies. so what were they gonna do? mann: the impact in the united states is that finally, the critics of reagan -- and this is in the final month of his presidency -- acknowledge that things are fundamentally changing. [ applause ] jennings: in china today, change in the name of democracy was the issue. mon people defied the government and took to the streets, demanding democratic reform. mann: in beijing, the demonstrations grow and they grow and they grow to the point where they reach a couple million people. and in the middle of all this, in comes mikhail gorbachev. this was gonna be a visit in which the chinese communist party hoped to improve its relations with the soviets. as the sun rose here, it was clear

that the chinese students' protest for democracy is still gaining strength and urgency. students are dropping from exhaustion, some now are vowing to die if necessary. naftali: the chinese leadership didn't know what to do but recognized that they couldn't reform the way that they were being pushed to reform. they couldn't allow this challenge to their authority. thompson: the soviet leader largely ducked questions on china's student issue. "i cannot be the judge," he said. forrest sawyer: in china tonight, the government declared martial law in central beijing. ominously, foreign journalists face severe new restrictions that amount to a news blackout. chinoy: there is chaos in tiananmen square. there are bodies and injured and dead all over the place, and there is no way to ascertain for sure how many people have been killed or wounded. mann: china is now restored into a deeply repressive leninist regime.

it's a question both in moscow and throughout eastern europe -- "what's gorbachev's attitude going to be towards people who want to change the communist system?"

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powering five years of savings. powering possibilities. comcast business. brokaw: while china's communist rulers were brutally cracking down on democracy,

poland's communist leaders today were accepting a form of democracy -- the results of parliamentary elections -- and admitting that solidarity was the big winner. ensor: for solidarity supporters, the taste of victory is sweet. the numbers are overwhelming. in a dramatic announcement, the government conceded defeat in the election and promised continued reforms. stupendous! first time it had ever happened in east european communist history. and this was contagious. one of our producers from "prime time live" went into east germany posing as a tourist. our producer took a home video camera, went to leipzig, and found an incredible scene there. [ people screaming ] mann: in east germany, you see a series of demonstrations for change, and the question becomes, are these demonstrations gonna be repressed and wiped out?

what is gorbachev gonna do? petersen: this was the show of mikhail gorbachev's show-and-tell day, the guest of east german leader erich honecker at a military parade through the heart of east berlin. he preached reform, and he offered a gorbachev proverb. "those being late," he said, "will be punished by life itself." baker: gorbachev felt like he could put a happy face on socialism, that he could modify it. but the freedom genie got out of the bottle, and he couldn't put it back in. overseas, time has finally run out for erich honecker, the 77-year-old leader of east germany. honecker resigned today. the official reason given was poor health, but growing political unrest made today's change inevitable. jennings: the people have their government on the run. today, in a bid to convince people that he's serious about reform, the east german leader, egon krenz, who's had the job for less than a month, managed to convince all the members of the government he inherited they should resign.

the question is this -- what next? sebestyen: the pressure on the east german government was getting enormous. and as part of the kind of package to present themselves as human, there'd been a resolution passed which was gonna introduce new rules about immigration. gunter schabowski went to this press conference. he hadn't been at the meeting, so he didn't really know what was in it, but he said, "oh, here's something i can tell you." it was the biggest administrative error in history. naftali: when the east german government just opened the window a little bit and said, "well, if you want to move from east germany into west germany, you may,"

that's all people needed to hear. [ indistinct talking ] [ crowd chanting ] history turns on these magnificent little pivots. there are border guards who could've fired at these first people. but they didn't. instead of firing on those who were coming close to the wall, instead of firing on them, they just let them do it. [ crowd cheering ]

diane sawyer: it is the sort of news that defies the possibility of a headline. what we know is that we are standing in attendance at a moment in history, as you look now at the berlin wall. baker: we didn't really anticipate that the wall would come down like that. but there was so much pent-up emotion and so much of a desire for freedom that it just overwhelmed them. but it wasn't anticipated. it was a surprise. powell: our joy was just watching the germans roll through that wall and knock it down, and start making souvenir slices in it, and it was just a truly exciting night, because we had wanted this for 40 years, and now it had happened. the longtime communist party leader of bulgaria, todor zhivkov, suddenly and surprisingly today announced his resignation. it turns out that these regimes are more brittle than gorbachev understood. and it also turned out that these regimes couldn't find mini gorbachevs.

he tried to encourage people like him to rise to the fore in these countries. they weren't successful. baker: had gorbachev decided to use force, this whole scenario would've been totally different. and furthermore, the cold war might have ended in a far different way. it might have ended with a bang and not with a whimper. utley: and finally this evening, how can one sum up the dramatic human events we've lived through these last months? perhaps in music. at a concert tonight in berlin -- the conductor was leonard bernstein -- they performed beethoven's 9th symphony, climaxing in "the ode to joy." except tonight, one word was changed. it became an "ode to freedom." [ "ode to joy" plays ] reporter: the playwright and human-rights activist

is czechoslovakia's first non-communist president in 41 years. john cochran: the new rulers of romania said tonight that the deposed despot nicolae ceausescu and his wife were executed after a military court found them guilty of genocide, stealing state funds, and trying to escape prosecution. from our point of view, there is simply no argument about the most remarkable story of the decade -- freedom. in some cases, freedom which had been unthinkable as the decade began. [ "ode to joy" concludes ] [ cheers and applause ]