Back to Gideon RachmanFrom the editors: Gideon is on leave to write a book, but can’t stay away from his blog…
This morning’s papers are full of memoirs by journalists who were lucky enough to be in Berlin when the wall was breached. I am jealous. I have delivered an unfortunate knack of being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, when history is made. So on 9/11, I was living in Belgium. And on 11/9 - the day the wall fell - I was living in Washington.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was definitely one of those “Kennedy assasination moments”; an event so dramatic that most people can still remember where they were, when they heard. There are strikingly few of those moments. I can think of just a few that are frozen in time for me: the moon landings, the murder of John Lennon, the explosion of the space-shuttle Challenger, Tiananmen, the fall of the Berlin wall, 9/11.
So where exactly was I when the wall fell? Perched on the end of my bed in a shared student house on Euclid Street in Washingron, DC. I was watching events live on the NBC Nightly News, presented by Tom Brokaw from the wall. Reading the history books now, it seems that Brokaw played a rather crucial role. According to Victor Sebestyen’s highly readable, “Revolution 1989″, it was he was who, at a press conference, asked Gunter Schabowski, “when will this new regulation come into effect?”, after the East German official had announced that East German citizens would henceforth be allowed to leave the country using GDR crossing points. It was Schabowski’s confused, unplanned, reply -”Immediately” - that provoked the crowds to descend on the Berlin Wall. And the rest is history.
So I watched the wall fall in Washington. Where were you?
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.
Geoff Dyer is the FT's China bureau chief. He has been a correspondent in Shanghai and in Brazil and has also covered the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries from London.
Roula Khalaf is the FT's Middle East editor. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York. 
James Blitz is the FT's defence and diplomatic editor. He has been the FT's political editor, based in London, and Rome bureau chief. James is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Sunday Times.
Alan Beattie is the FT's world trade editor. He has previously been economics leader writer and spent two years in Washington DC as chief US economics correspondent. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England. 
Victor Mallet is the FT's Madrid correspondent. He is a former Asia editor of the FT, and, in more than 20 years at the organisation, has also worked in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In 1990 he escaped from Kuwait after being one of the few foreign correspondents there when Iraq invaded. 
Stefan Wagstyl is the FT's eastern Europe editor, co-ordinating coverage of the region. He has also been the FT's bureau chief in Tokyo and New Delhi.
