I just learned the terrible news about the loss of Dr. Burton Yale Pines. My recent e-mails to him went unanswered. I checked online and my worst fears were confirmed: A great friend and greater American left us at age 78.
I was very fortunate to have met Burt in the mid-1980s, in the full heat of the Reagan years. He was a senior executive at the Heritage Foundation, having survived his previous life as a Time correspondent in Vietnam, and Cold War Bonn, West Germany. He also served as one of that magazine’s top editors.
We worked on a few projects together, including a speech I was honored to deliver at a fall 1985 Heritage Foundation tribute to the late, great Senator Barry Goldwater. Burt patiently helped me with my draft, suggested appropriate phrases, and offered much-needed encouragement to a then-college student who was more than a bit nervous about such a daunting assignment. We stayed in touch, and periodically enjoyed fine dinners in New York City, where we both found ourselves by the end of that decade and remained thereafter.
Burt was invariably fun, fascinating, and erudite company. A widely traveled and deeply read man, Burt could converse on virtually any topic. He added historical perspectives, philosophical insights, and hilarious details to our chats, usually over fine French or Italian food, with exquisite bottles of red wine easily within reach. He had an endearing weakness for Pomerols.
Burt loved his wife, Helene Brenner, very much and always spoke warmly of her. I enjoyed spending time with her as well and liked to hear about her life as a psychologist who fills her days ministering to Manhattan’s vast population of neurotics. I have lost a great friend, and she has lost a devoted husband.
Due to the relentless distractions of modern life and my extensive travel at the time he passed away of a sudden illness, I only got the bad news about Burt’s early February departure now, in late August. I was about to e-mail Burt to invite him to see 1917, a forthcoming epic on World War I. That was one of his favorite topics and was the subject of America’s Greatest Blunder, an excellent and provocative volume on what he saw as the disastrous unintended consequences of U.S. involvement in The Great War. I bet Burt would have liked this film, or at least found it worthy of thought and discussion — two things that he did damn well. I will think fondly of him when I see this picture.
According to his online obituary, “When asked what made him most proud, Pines always answered: ‘Being a foot-soldier in the Reagan Revolution.'”
Rest in peace, Dr. Burton Yale Pines, Ph.D.