Peter Mark Robinson in Tear Down This Wall

Basic Information

Name: Peter Robinson

Nickname: Pete (go figure)

Born: April 18, 1957

Died: N/A

Nationality: American

Hometown: Vestal, New York

WORK & EDUCATION

Occupation: Author, TV host, former presidential speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and then-Veep George HW Bush, currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution

Education: 1979: English degree from Dartmouth College; 1982: BA in philosophy, politics, and economics; 1990: MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business

FAMILY & FRIENDS

Spouse: Edita

Children: He has five children

Friends: Ronald Reagan, fellow conservatives, childhood buds Steven and Josh, peeps from his MBA program

Foes: Quantitative studies


Analysis

Peter became a White House speechwriter pretty quickly after his college graduation. He started out just writing speeches for VP Bush, but was quickly drafted to help out President Reagan as well.

He's the guy who actually wrote the Berlin Wall speech for President Reagan—so that's pretty awesome.

This speech could have been a lot less awesome, though; Robinson was initially told to keep references to the Berlin Wall out of the speech. But after talking to some Berliners at a dinner party, he went ahead and ignored that advice, as did Reagan, who ultimately decided to leave in the now-infamous line: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (63).