A Powerful Story between Chief Justice Burger and President Reagan

Seeing the movie "Reagan," I was driven to this history.

I was appointed by President Reagan to a
top level position at the United States Information Agency, running the FulbrIght Program.  I worked for Reagan from the spring of l981 to the end of l985, then became chief of staff to Chief Justice Warren
Burger and Staff Director of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the
U.S. Constitution.  My unique story derives from the connection
between the President and the Chief Justice and the letter I wrote to
the President and his response:

January 3, 1990

Dear President Reagan:
I wish to share with you a conversation I had yesterday with my boss,
Chief Justice Burger.  He stated that were the decision his, he would
have selected you as Time's Man of the Decade.   This followed my
question to him of who's responsible for all the incredible movements
away from Communism in Eastern Europe?  The Chief argues that you are
the individual initially and principally responsible for these events,
for the following reason:  your actions in Grenada, Libya, and the
Persian Gulf preempted Soviet involvement in these areas. The Soviets,
asserts the Chief, would surely have moved into the vacuum of the
Persian Gulf had you not intervened first.

Your actions in Grenada, Libya. and the Persian Gulf joined with
other "combined pressures" on the Soviet Union, resulting in the
Soviet's withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent decisions not to
intervene in Poland, then Hungary, then East Berlin . . . on down the
line to Romania.  In sum, actions initiated by you later joined with
other pressures to bring down the Berlin Wall and to end not only the
cold war but institutionalized Communism in virtually all of Eastern
Europe.

President Reagan sent me the following handwritten note:

Jan. 17 - 1990
Dear Ron Trowbridge

Thank you very much for your letter and for telling me about the
"Chief's" generous words. I will treasure your letter and his answer
to your question.  You were more than kind to write as you did and I'm
deeply grateful.

Give my regards to Pam and again my thanks.
Sincerely - Ron Reagan

Running the Fulbright program around the world took me to Berlin,
where I was compelled to see the Berlin Wall.  The West Germans built
elevated platforms along the wall so that spectators might see what's
beyond the wall--barbed wire, field mines, concrete barriers, and East
German guards with gigantic guns and field glasses surveying the area.

What was traumatic to me were the black crosses placed on the west
side of the wall where fleers were shot in the back trying to flee to
freedom.  I don't think anything ever outraged me more in life than
seeing black crosses where innocent people were slaughtered for
seeking freedom.  I stared at the East German guard; he stared at
me.

After the wall came down, I bought a small piece of the actual wall
that the Reagan Library made available.  I still have the piece of the
wall and will continue to cherish it to the end of my days. 

It was Reagan's demand to Gorbachev that brought down the East Berlin
wall: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"  When Reagan wrote this
speech, the words tear-down-this-wall were in it. But his clearance staff
deleted them, for whatever reason. So Reagan put them back in the
speech, and again the staff deleted them.  So when the President
actually read his speech, he put them back in!  These words, more than
any other, brought down the wall.  The President had the moral
courage to do the right thing.  C. S. Lewis once observed that
"Courage is the most difficult virtue, because it is all virtues at
the testing point."

President Reagan had the courage to do and say the right thing; his clearance staff did not.