BLYTHEVILLE -- For decades, the Berlin Wall marked the dividing line between Communist oppression and freedom.
Now, three dozen segments of the infamous barrier belong to the National Cold War Center in Blytheville.
At a gala dinner Saturday evening, the gray, concrete behemoths went on display for the first time.
It's "the largest collection of the Berlin Wall in the United States," said Christian Ostermann, the center's executive director.
More than 600 people, including former Polish President Lech Walesa, attended the event, which was held inside Hangar 207 at the old Eaker Air Force Base.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner and Solidarity trade union co-founder, Walesa was the face of resistance in his country for nearly a decade.
Frequently fired and often jailed, the Gdansk shipyard worker helped usher in free and democratic elections in his homeland. In 1990, he became Poland's first popularly elected president.
His rise to political power came months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Speaking in downtown Blytheville Friday evening as part of the center's Cold War Week events, Walesa heaped praise on former President Bill Clinton.
"Thanks to him, we are in NATO and that is the real end of the Cold War," he said, a remark that drew applause.
Before leaving, he endorsed the center's efforts.
"I'm very happy that you're building your museum, and I certainly hope that you'll hurry up because I certainly want to be there when you open," Walesa, 83, said through a translator. "So I'll support you and help you every which way I can so that I can be at your opening."
In an interview, Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, who served as Clinton's first White House chief of staff, said the two heads of state "clearly were kindred spirits."
"He and President Clinton were kind of soulmates, in some ways," McLarty said. "Walesa was visionary. He was bold. He had really serious, deep ideas about democracy and about involving people in leadership and security issues. I mean, he was a serious thinker and clearly still is."
Saturday's crowd was in a festive mood, posing for photos in front of Berlin Wall segments and examining a Soviet-era Russian fighter jet.
The center revealed that Lockheed Martin, a U.S. defense contractor with facilities in Camden and Fort Smith, has committed to making a $2 million donation.
As Walesa headed toward the exits, he paused to take pictures with the women who had checked guests in, smiling broadly and greeting them all.
"He's the president of Poland? Like, the country?" one of them asked.
Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who serves on the National Cold War Center's national advisory board, gave Walesa's introduction.
"He was a hero of mine as I was a young United States attorney under Ronald Reagan," Hutchinson said in an interview beforehand. "He changed history."
The new museum is needed, Hutchinson said.
"This is just critically important from a history standpoint and also from an economic standpoint for Arkansas, so I'm engaged in it," he said.
Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO Wesley Clark, who is also on the center's advisory board, delivered the keynote address, describing himself as "a victim and a survivor of the Cold War."
He recalled witnessing the beginnings of the space race as an eighth grader living in Little Rock, living through the Cuban missile crisis while studying at West Point and being wounded while serving in Vietnam.
During the Cold War, "we had strength -- economic strength and military strength. But today, as a result of the peace dividend that we took in the early 1990s, we find ourselves under-strength to provide the protection to our friends and the extended deterrence abroad that our friends are looking for," he said.
"Instead of a single threatening adversary like the Soviet Union, we're now facing a convergence of adversaries: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, three nuclear armed, the fourth seeking nuclear weapons. So we need to remember we won this Cold War with strength," he said.
These days, our allies are asking, "Where is the American leadership," he said.
Though thousands of miles from Moscow, Eaker (formerly Blytheville) Air Force Base, played an important role during the Cold War.
The site of a Strategic Air Command Center, it had nuclear weapons at the ready and planes on hand, prepared to fly if Armageddon came.
The base closed in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since 2018, the Blytheville Air Force Base Strategic Air Command Alert and Weapons Storage Areas have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 2023, Congress designated the museum in Blytheville as the official National Cold War Center.
It has a collection of items related to the East-West conflict, including an old Soviet fighter jet and a towering statue of Vladimir Lenin.
Now, it also has remnants of the conflict from the front lines.
The concrete Cold War relics now in Blytheville had resided in recent years in a warehouse roughly two hours north of Berlin.
Working with Berlin Wall Foundation Project Leader Cornelia Thiele, Ostermann and Barry Harrison, vice chairman of the center's board of directors, traveled to Germany earlier this year and selected some of the most colorful ones. A film crew accompanied them.
A documentary about the adventure is being shot and will air on Arkansas TV, National Cold War Center officials announced Saturday evening.
They're also working to raise $75 million to pay for construction and create an endowment.
This was the seventh annual gala. Last year's event raised about $450,000, center officials said.
Since then, momentum has been building, center officials said.
"I really think this is the weekend that this thing (takes off) -- the snowball's going to start rolling down the hill. We're excited," Harrison said.
The wall segments are evidence of the progress that has already been made.
Moving the graffiti-scarred pieces was complicated.
"We had help on both sides of the ocean," Harrison said.
"They came through Savannah and then by train up here," Ostermann said.
Each segment is about 12 feet high, 4 feet wide and weighs as much as a small elephant.
"They're really heavy -- 2.6 tons each," Thiele said.
Construction on an early version of the wall began in 1961.
The segments in Blytheville are a later model, Ostermann said.
"This is called Wall '75," he said. "There was a wall 2000 in the plans, in the works. Of course the wall didn't make it to 2000, fortunately."
Some of the segments are pockmarked, the damage caused by what Ostermann and Thiele referred to as "wall peckers."
"After the wall came down in 1989, people wanted to have souvenirs," Ostermann said. "You had hundreds of people chiseling away."
Other people were eager to remove any reminders of the life under the East German regime.
"At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall trying to escape the country," Thiele said.
Today, few pieces of the wall remain standing.
The segments in Blytheville are in unusually good shape.
Since the end of the Cold War, these segments had been shielded from the elements, Ostermann said.
Farmers had used them to make towering concrete squares, filling the space in between with grain.
Eventually, visitors will be able to see them on a regular basis.
"We're working on an outdoor campus display, hopefully breaking ground sometime early next year," Ostermann said.
Two years ago, center officials said the museum was scheduled for completion in late 2027.
These days, they say the timeline will depend on their fundraising efforts.
An update on the amount raised was not provided during Cold War Week.
For now, visitors are able to visit Building 202 on Idaho Street. When the base was still open, the 340th Bombardment Squadron had its headquarters there.
Now, the 6,000-square foot facility houses the National Cold War Center's BAFB Exhibition.
In addition to displaying artifacts, it tells the base's story, describ