Alastair Stewart: The day I saw the Berlin Wall fall

On the evening of November 8, 1989, I was dining with my Royal Air Force father's former boss, Marshall of the RAF Sir David, now Lord, Craig - the then Chief of the Defence Staff; also there, Archie Hamilton MP, a junior defence minister.

This is a video of the original report, filed on November 9, 1989:

As Machiavelli wrote 'Fortune is the arbiter of half our affairs'. A grand gathering, steeped in opportunity and dripping with intelligence.

The car-phone rang as we arrived.

ITN - "could I be at Gatwick at 0500 the next morning?".

There had been stirrings for days but the moment, it seemed, was at hand.

I explained who my dinner party colleagues were and we agreed I'd go to the dinner and pick their brains; our nanny would pack an overnight bag and have it dispatched to the London hotel I'd stay in; I'd head for a divided Berlin the next morning.

In 1982, Poland's Lech Walensa had founded the illegal trade union "Solidarity" in his Gdansk ship-yard.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev had become General Secretary of the USSR and embarked upon his revolutionary policies of Glasnost, "openness", and Perestroika, "restructuring".

The die was cast.

It was now 1989 and in seven electrifying years, communism in eastern Europe was about to crumble.

That ghastly edifice, the Berlin Wall, which marked the divide in Berlin and symbolised the “Iron Curtain” Churchill said had "descended across Europe" would fall; democracy and open markets would wend their slow, but inevitable, way across the east of our continent, which had been locked in the grip of totalitarian police states since 1945.

I was to witness the denouement.

The Brandenburg Gate was the proscenium arch for the drama which played out at a pace few could have predicted.

Thousands from the west had gathered, egging on a similar number in the east who were demonstrating at the Wall.

Soldiers, in soup-plate hard-hats, peered across the Wall. Young men who, in years gone by, had stood guard, poised to shoot, fatally if they could, any who dared make the dash for freedom. More than 200 had suffered that fate since 1962.

Small white crosses and plaques marked many of the spots.

The hammers could be heard, hacking at the reinforced concrete slabs, held in place by "H" frames. It wasn't easy, politically or physically.

But breached it was. Great pieces fell; gaps appeared; faces looked frightened; the few risked the gambit for liberty. The soldiers didn't shoot. They followed.

The game was up.

The Wall was breached.

In moments, post-war history was re-written in a surge of people, coloured flares and smiling, laughing faces.

We presented ITN's "Lunchtime News", "News at 5:45" and "News at Ten" from the gate. Over the next 24 hours, more bulletins, and a special programme.

The BBC's John Simpson was there; from the US, Tom Brokaw for NBC and ABC's Peter Jennings held sway.

"Where's Dan?", went up the cry.

The successor to Walter Cronkite and doyen of the US “nets”, Dan Rather, descended upon the scene in a "cherry-picker" telling it like it was. Nice move; cool dude.

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We recorded scenes of human passion, moments of political turmoil, acts of bravery, feats of sheer physicality as the barrier was rent asunder; the people flowed to freedom.

On that day, the world changed. The breaching and destruction of the Wall marked the end of the symbol of a continent's division. It had divided the once proud capitol of a mighty, united nation that had, itself, been divided. A Europe, carved up at Yalta and Potsdam as the defeat of Hitler's fascism inched closer, could dream once more of unity.

A political system, embraced by the Russians in 1914 and then so brutally imposed upon its dissenters was finished. It had effectively, yet inefficiently, been foisted upon satellite states across the east of the continent but had now had its day.

It had divided Germany; it had divided Berlin.

But folk no longer wanted it, had they ever wanted it. They had dared to say "no" and , unlike Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, no Russian tanks appeared on the horizon to blast a "no" back at the people.

They had dared and they had won. The rest is history but only 25 tumultuous years of it, so far, and the story is not yet over as even a cursory glance at Ukraine, Crimea and Russia demonstrates.

For me, there was a deeply moving dimension to this chapter in my life.

I have always said it was the defining moment of my career - for its importance and its impact on the world I lived in and reported upon.

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But there was something else.

My father had been a career officer in the RAF, in bomber command. I had grown up with "V Bombers" at the bottom of my garden, readied to fly, at four minutes notice, to drop their armageddon pay-loads on Russia and her allies.

As an undergraduate, I had been a supporter of CND - “Ban the Bomb” our simple, alliterative mantra.

My father humoured my youthful idealism but explained his stance thus:

"If we both have the bomb, neither side will use it. 'MAD' – mutually assured destruction - will see to that. But better times will come, peacefully and inevitably. We'll win because we're right. Democracy and freedom are right."

As I stood in Berlin , 25 years ago this weekend, I saw that he, too, was right.