In 1966 Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California in a stunning victory over the long-standing incumbent Pat Brown (Jerry’s dad). He had won in some part because he had campaigned loudly on the need to restore order at UC Berkeley, where “beatniks, radicals and “filthy speech advocates” were proof of what he called the “morality and decency gap in Sacramento.” In January 1967 he called two senior FBI agents to the governor’s mansion in Sacramento. To learn more about the contentious relationship between Ronald Reagan, Clark Kerr and the Students at UC Berkeley check out the links below:
Ronald Reagan launched political career using the Berkeley campus as a target
The FBI’s Vendetta Against UC Berkeley
Student “Subversives” and the FBI’s Dirty Tricks
Reagan’s Personal Spying Machine
Parallel Narratives 