Geopolitical tremor

I had the privilege of talking with Adam Kellett-Long when the Berlin Wall came down. It was Friday 10 November 1989, and I was in the Fleet Street newsroom when Graham Stewart asked me to call Adam for his reaction to the reopening of the Wall.

I told Adam I remembered as a child when it went up because my parents, who both fled Berlin because of the Nazis, were checking us into a hotel that day when the news broke from Adam’s story.

He recounted many of the same events noted in the obituary here on The Baron. He also noted a geopolitical tremor, that he felt there would be a similar tectonic shift in East-West relations as there was in 1961, perhaps even Einheit in Germany.

I heard almost the same thing the next morning from Ian Macdowall after Graham sent me to Berlin for two weeks to work in the bureau with Ian, Ralph Boulton, Martin Nesirky, Annette von Broecker, and others during that incredible moment of history. ■