Remembering the Wire Cutters : Hungary's Gutsy Border Opening 10 Years Ago Was Crucial to Bringing Down the Iron Curtain

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Quick, rerun the images of Central Europe in 1989 in your mind and what do you see? Certainly the charismatic shipyard electrician Lech Walesa, the workers' hero who exploded the myth of the workers' state, leading the Solidarity delegation to the round-table negotiations with the embattled Polish communist leadership and then to a stunning victory at the polls. Or perhaps the joyous crowds on Prague's Wenceslas Square greeting Alexander Dubcek, back from his long political exile, and dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, soon to become Czechoslovakia's philosopher king. And, of course--from those pictures seared in everyone's memory--Germans celebrating atop the Berlin wall on the night of Nov. 9, when this ultimate symbol of a divided continent broke wide open.

But there's …