The record
Presented to Gerald Ford in 1991 with Helmut Schmidt and James Callaghan present, for the Helsinki accords he counted as his greatest achievement in office.
On 1 August 1975 the heads of state of thirty-five countries signed the Helsinki Final Act. Four weeks of negotiation between the United States and Canada, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states had produced an agreement on cooperation across the blocs and on human rights. For the GDR it was a diplomatic success that amounted to international recognition; with his signature Erich Honecker also undertook to respect freedom of opinion, of the press and of religion and to ease travel to the west. Little changed in practice — escape attempts were still met with shots and prison — but East German citizens invoked the Helsinki provisions again and again, and the act became a foundation for the civil rights movements across the eastern bloc that helped bring the dictatorships down.
For Gerald Ford, Helsinki was the greatest foreign policy achievement of his presidency. Henry Kissinger, speaking at the Ford Presidential Library in 1990, said the Helsinki agreement had laid the ground for the change then under way in eastern Europe. On 6 September 1991, at the library's tenth anniversary, Ford was accordingly presented with a segment of the Wall. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who had sat beside Honecker in Helsinki signing the same document, was there, as was James Callaghan, British foreign secretary in 1975.
How the segment was acquired is told two ways. The Federal Foundation records that the museum's curators bought it for 35,000 dollars from the Berlin Wall Commemorative Group, the company handling the American sales for the GDR government. The Foundation's own entry for the Van Andel Museum, and the earlier research behind this record, instead have the grocer Fred Meijer buying three segments from the same company and giving one each to this library, to Grand Valley State University and to the public museum. Both accounts put the segment in the same hands at the same source, and they are not necessarily incompatible — a donor paying and an institution recording a purchase price look alike from a distance — but nothing here resolves which is right, so both are kept.
The segment still shows the remains of coloured graffiti.
How did it get here?
From the Berlin Wall Commemorative Group, which handled the GDR government's American sales, and presented on 6 September 1991. Sources differ on whether the museum's curators bought it for 35,000 dollars or whether it was one of three bought and given by Fred Meijer.
Sources & verification
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Source accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 151
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
Grand Rapids, MI – Gerald Ford Library and Museum — The Wall Net ↗
One segment at the Ford museum, given by Frederik H. C. Meijer, who also donated to the Van Andel Museum Center and Grand Valley State University; the Helsinki Final Act framing.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975 and its consequences for the GDR, Kissinger's 1990 remark at the library, the presentation of the segment to Gerald Ford on 6 September 1991 at the library's tenth anniversary with Helmut Schmidt and James Callaghan present, and the curators' purchase of the segment for 35,000 dollars from the Berlin Wall Commemorative Group.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
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