People say that if you take one slab out of a dam it can never be put back and eventually the whole structure will collapse. So it certainly was with the Berlin Wall.
I have often been asked, 'Was there ever a time before the wall came down that the demise of communism seemed certain to you?', to which the answer is yes: I had predicted this more than once in public.
So when did I first know that communism could not survive? By the time of the election of Pope John Paul II in October 1978 or the aftermath of his first visit back to Poland the next year I was certain, but already had strong doubts before then.
