The speech drew controversy within the Reagan administration, with several senior staffers and aides advising against the phrase, saying anything that might cause further East-West tensions or potential embarrassment to Gorbachev, with whom President Reagan had built a good relationship, should be omitted. About those demonstrators, Reagan said at the end of his speech: 'I wonder if they ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they are doing again'. The district of Kreuzberg, in particular, was targeted in this respect, with movement throughout this portion of the city in effect restrained completely (for instance the U1 U-Bahn line was shut down). During the visit itself, wide swaths of Berlin were closed off to prevent further anti-Reagan protests. The city saw the largest police deployment in its history after World War II. On the day before Reagan's 1987 visit, 50,000 people had demonstrated against the presence of the American president in West Berlin. In 1986, 25 years after the construction of the wall, in response to West German newspaper Bild-Zeitung asking when he thought the wall could be removed, Reagan said, 'I call upon those responsible to dismantle it '. In a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, he stated, 'I'd like to ask the Soviet leaders one question Why is the wall there?'. The 'tear down this wall' speech was not the first time Reagan had addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall.

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