President Ronald Reagan and Suzanne Massie | Photo Credit: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
God has a way of teaching us that the world is smaller than we think. Trust is central to all meaningful human relationships, yet trust is in short supply. Trust in government is vital.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in Maine, where I grew up. In my youth, trust in elected officials, with rare exceptions, was reposed with confidence. The trust vested was honored. Names like US Senator Margaret Chase Smith – and her “Declaration of Conscience” – were rightly revered.
In that same era, a woman named Suzanne Massie lived in a place called Blue Hill, Maine. Once, married to Robert Massie, they were great scholars of Russia. Their books are still legendary.
My life never intersected with Suzanne or Robert Massie, but it did intersect with Senator Smith, who allowed me a quiet interview. After regaling me, she confided politics was “meaner,” trust fading.
While I never met Suzanne Massiem, my younger self worked for Ronald Reagan. Mrs. Massie was his advisor on Russia. Unlike some, she did not hate the Russian people. She knew their history. What she disdained was the Soviet government’s untruthfulness, inability to be trusted.
Life is funny. In Maine, we studied the Constitution, felt proud of it. We went to Boy Scouts and church school. We learned free speech, freedom of worship, owned guns, and knew our government was ours. It was not a power unto itself. We were not the Soviet Union.
Time passed. Margaret Chase Smith retired, and others filled in. Suzanne Massie of Maine began to guide President Reagan – meeting him more than a dozen times. She gradually taught him about the Russian culture, how freedom was universally oppressed, and about Russian proverbs.
Reagan was a quick learner, experienced in memorizing lines and remembering stories, many of which he retold. One day, Mrs. Massie taught him a Russian proverb tied to trust. It boiled down to “trust, but verify.” She suggested he use this proverb with Gorbachev. Reagan did, and to good effect.
So often did Reagan use the proverb, including to justify procedures assuring Soviet compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, that Gorbachev remarked to Reagan, “You repeat that every time we meet,” to which Reagan responded simply, “I like it.”
Before long, Gorbachev was taking a page from Reagan. He began reciting Ralph Waldo Emerson, another New Englander, to Reagan. He famously observed, “The reward of a thing well done, is to have it done.” Reagan seemed to like all this. Surely Suzanne Massie must have.
In that time, an understanding existed that trust mattered between governments and people. With it – subject to verification – things worked. Without it, cooperation disintegrated, and fear and anger grew.
Fast forward. Across the US, a majority felt Biden violated public trust. Money was wasted, one-party rule allowed, the president’s family sold influence to China, indulged in drug abuse, lied, overspent, overtaxed, inflated, had no accountability, and villainized political opponents. It was a disgrace.
If the Soviet Union – ended by Reagan and Gorbachev – was the low water mark for one-party rule, oppression of rights, lack of accountability, and betrayal of public trust decades ago, Biden was a long step in that direction – reversed by a Republican sweep in 2024.
Ironically, nowhere is the risk of abuse now than in one-party Maine, where Democrats ritually oppress rights, avoid accountability, cover up fraud, waste money, endanger children, overspend, overtax, and are desperately clinging to power. The state government is a disgrace.
One only wonders: What would Maine’s paragon of conscience, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, or Suzanne Massie, or Ronald Reagan make of such manifestly abusive, unrepentant, fraud-fanning, one-party rule in Norman Rockwell’s Maine? Resurgent, belligerent, and defiant – abuse of trust.
One can only imagine. But God has a way of teaching us that the world is smaller than we think. What goes around comes around, always does. Trust is central to human relationships. In Maine, Democrats have boldly betrayed it. Everyone knows. The time has come to end one-party rule here. Margaret Chase Smith, Emerson, Massie, and Reagan would agree – Trust in government is vital.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
