Mikhail Gorbachev at UN, 1988
Mikhail Gorbachev, 1988. In this address, the Soviet Secretary General made key concessions that signaled the end of the Cold War. He announced that he would drastically reduce the number of Soviet troops in Eastern Europe, "By agreement with our allies in the Warsaw Pact, we have made the decision to withdraw six tank divisions from the GDR, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and to disband them by 1991," he said, a statement that paved the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall one year later.
