‘Framed ’ the Soviet Union at

anniversary of the founding of Berlin, and in it, President Reagan praised the city and the people of Berlin, while at the same time decrying the government of East Berlin and the Soviet system. Reagan’s rhetorical performance that day is considered one of the one hundred greatest of the twentieth century. The question is what made Reagan’s speech so compelling? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining how Reagan framed the situation at Brandenburg gate. All speeches place information into specific ‘frames ’ that tell the listener what he should think about and how he should think about it. There are cultural metaframes that encompass many smaller frames, and there are these smaller frames. Taking place when and where it did, this speech fits into the “Cold War frame ” that most foreign policy speeches of the time used (Norris, 1995). Within the speech, however, I argue President Reagan utilized several smaller frames that were part of this larger Cold War frame. President Reagan uses the frames of good versus evil, freedom versus totalitarianism, and nuclea