American Notes PRESIDENTS

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The demand was made by Ronald Reagan as the then President addressed West Germans at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987. With Gorbachev's acquiescence, if not encouragement, the deed was done. Last week Reagan stood beside a three-ton chunk of the Berlin Wall, 9 1/2 ft. tall and 3 1/2 ft. wide, and called it "an unnatural, ugly, unwelcome, undeniable symbol of the oppression of communism."

But this time the former President was standing on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean in California's Ventura County. And he seemed pleased to accept the gift of the graffiti-splotched memento from East Germany's Berlin Wall Commemorative Group. The concrete block will greet visitors to the Reagan presidential library at the pleasant site 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The facility is scheduled for completion early in 1991.