A Remembrance of Anne

Note to Readers: This is a
condensed version of the eulogy delivered by Patrick
Buchanan at St. Stephen Martyr in Washington, D.C., on
Aug. 18.

It was December of 1965 that I
first looked on the friendly Irish face of Anne Volz,
outside the law office of Richard M. Nixon.

Anne was Nixon`s receptionist, and
she ushered me into a small office behind her where one
encountered the formidable presence of Rose Mary Woods.

For 18 months, through that 1966
election, Anne, Rose and I worked in that tiny space
with a volunteer who answered the phone as
"Mrs. Ryan."

Mrs. Ryan was the future first lady
Pat Nixon.

Anne became my big sister. She
brought me cigarettes. She brought me my cheeseburger
and vanilla shake at lunch. She even tried to find me a
nice Catholic girl. Anne invited me to join her and her
boyfriend George at a dance at the New York Athletic
Club for Catholic bachelors and spinsters.

It was not a good fit. But, as
ever, Anne meant well.

In the spring of 1967, Nixon`s
receptionist from his days as vice president, a

Shelley Scarney, returned, and Anne was put in
charge of the rising volume of mail Nixon was receiving.
She had her life`s vocation. Anne would be in charge of
the correspondence for three U.S. presidents.

And Miss Scarney found her life`s
vocation, as my wife.

Anne, Shelley, Rose and I traveled
together during that campaign of 1968. And we went
together into the White House.

Anne and George were married, and
were as happy and devoted a couple as I have ever seen.
They lived in Columbia Plaza in Washington, D.C., but
had privileges at the Watergate. Every evening, they
would go to swim at the Watergate, where Shelley was
living. Many were the nights the four of us would go out
together.

Among Anne`s extraordinary
qualities was ferocious loyalty to those she loved,
especially George.

And George could be a contentious
man. He had quit the FBI, and one of his grievances with
this world, that he did not let you forget, was J. Edgar
Hoover. There was a problem here. My uncle, Tom Jenkins,
an FBI agent since the John Dillinger era, revered
Hoover, and had risen under Hoover to become assistant
director of the FBI.

At an Irish wake for my brother
Bill, at my father`s house, I found George in the
kitchen, with Tom Jenkins, explaining to this former FBI
assistant director what a loser J. Edgar Hoover was.

I thought I was going to have to
break up a fight.

Anne assured me George had been
right about Hoover.

When I returned to the White House
under President Reagan as director of communications,
Anne was chief of correspondence, and her office was in
my portfolio. And in the White House turf battles, I
protected Anne and she protected me.

Every Friday, at President Reagan`s
direction, Anne would select 30 letters that the
president would take to Camp David to read, respond to
and return to Anne on Monday.

And every Monday, senior staff had
lunch with President Reagan.

At these lunches, the president
would start off reading a letter. I recall one. It was
from a woman in her 80s whose husband had left her when
she was 40 and pregnant. She had thought of having an
abortion, but prayed and decided to give birth.

Now, that baby boy, 40 years later,
was taking care of her in her old age.

"Isn`t that a
beautiful story?" said Reagan.

As we walked out of the lunch, one
of the president`s senior advisers said to me in
exasperation,
"Where does he get these letters?"

He got those letters from Anne, who
saw to it the president`s reading file always contained
pro-life letters.

As my sister Kathleen, who was
working in Anne`s shop, said,
"Anne has turned
White House Correspondence into a chapter of Opus Dei."

When I think of Anne, I think of
three qualities.

First is loyalty. Loyalty to her
beloved George, loyalty to her Catholic faith, loyalty
to her friends. As I can testify.

In 1991, when I ran against
President George H.W. Bush for the Republican
presidential nomination, Anne did not hesitate to sign
on. Indeed, she became a Buchanan delegate in the
Washington, D.C., primary and called all my friends to
demand that they, too, become delegates for Pat Buchanan
in a campaign to dump a Republican president, even
though that meant social, political and economic
suicide. Those who didn`t sign on got an earful from
Anne.

The second quality is courage. Few
have suffered as Anne did for 30 years, from one form of
cancer after another. Nor can I think of any who bore so
much suffering with fewer complaints.

My late father used to have a
saying, "Offer it up." Offer up any pain for the souls in purgatory. That is
what Anne did for half of her life.

The third quality is compassion,
especially for these, the least of my children, the Lord
said, the unborn. From that awful day, Jan. 22, 1973,
when

Roe v. Wade
came down, Anne was a fighting champion of the unborn.
No hero of the movement did more.

The cause of life was the life
cause of Anne Higgins, for which God bless her, as I am
confident he has rewarded her — with eternal life.

Anne Higgins was a saint who walked
among us.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Patrick J. Buchanan
needs

no introduction to
VDARE.COM readers; his book State
of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and
Conquest of America, can
be ordered from Amazon.com. His latest book
is Churchill,
Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How
Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost
the World,
reviewed

here by

Paul Craig Roberts.