By Robert N. Going
It's early June and yet another anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre passes with barely a notice. 
How blithely we forget those tens of thousands of brave Chinese people who in peaceful defiance of their autocratic state met in the Spring of 1989 to celebrate the concept of Freedom, raised a statue to the Goddess of Democracy (an homage to our own “Liberty Enlightening the World”) and were rewarded with tanks, and guns and death.
China has always fascinated me, but more so since meeting my brother’s father-in-law, Charlie Chow.
Charlie was a teenager when the Communist Revolution
swept over China.
One dark night men came for his father, a judge.
The family never heard from him again.
Charlie alone managed to make his way to Taiwan. Because of the Revolution he never graduated from high school, but managed to attend college in Taiwan, Republic of China (I use the title “Republic of China” not only to be historically accurate, but because I know it will annoy the despots in Beijing when they read this).
He married, had the first of five children, and was off to graduate school in the United States before he could attend his college graduation. He never attended graduation ceremonies for his Masters degree in Missouri either, since by then General Electric had hired him and the family moved to the Schenectady area. It was not until he received his Doctorate that he finally stood on a platform to receive his just accolades.
His mother and siblings remained behind in China, completely locked out of contact with their son and brother until the 1971 Nixon trip. Then, slowly, things loosened and Charlie was among the very first expatriates to be allowed to visit, with his wife.
It was an emotional time for them. China was a very closed society, just a few years removed from the “Cultural Revolution” that had ripped the nation apart. A government “translator” was assigned to the fluent Chows and accompanied them everywhere. The “Mao” clothes were still required and poverty ran deep.
To carry his papers, Charlie had brought along a briefcase, the kind used by millions of businessmen daily in this country. His relatives were enraptured by it. It was the finest thing they had ever seen. The Chows came back with hundreds of slides, and it seems that nearly half of them contained a shot of one relative or another beaming broadly, holding that briefcase.
Charlie offered to leave it behind. “Oh, no, you mustn’t,” he was told. “Not even the highest members of the Party in our district have anything as fine as this. We would be open to criticism and suspicion.”
So they took the briefcase and little else, walking out of China with only the clothes on their backs and bedroom slippers on their feet.
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In early June of 1989 I was glued to the television, watching joyfully as the people took to the streets and stopped the army with flowers and peaceful assembly. But when June 4 came and all hope dashed, I returned to more mundane matters.
On June 5, 1989 the Montgomery County Republican Committee planned to meet in the Courthouse in Fonda to endorse candidates for the coming election.
I was seeking re-election as City Court Judge of Amsterdam, and would be expected to say a few words. I really didn’t have any prepared, and knew it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference what I said.
I caught the first part of the network news 
before leaving for Fonda, and saw the most startling thing: in the middle of Tiananmen Square where thousands had only the day before been killed, arrested or dispersed, here stood ONE MAN, standing alone before a line of tanks, refusing to let them pass. Whichever way the lead tank zigged, he zagged.
He had no idea that he was being filmed as all cameras had been barred and the international press excluded from the area. Yet there he stood, nonetheless. In a nation of a billion people he stood up for his God-given right to be one.
The footage, taken from a distant window with a telephoto lens, was fuzzy, yet I could see that he was carrying something in his hand.
To me it looked like Charlie Chow’s briefcase.
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“We meet here once a year and do the same thing over and over,” I told my fellow Republicans. “It’s so trivial, what with everything else going on in the world.”
And I told them of the man with the briefcase stopping the tanks, and I reminded them of our little militia peacefully assembled on Lexington Green in 1775, standing with their weapons down as the Red Coats approached, because they were confidant that the British soldiers would never fire on their own people. And then I remembered that this was the eve of the 45th anniversary of D-Day, and mentioned the courage of men like Judge Malcolm Tomlinson who went ashore ahead of the troops to help guide the naval bombardment, and the courage of people of all time who were willing to risk even death for a noble idea that was bigger than all of us.
“So the fact that we meet here every year and decide for ourselves who
we want to hold public office is quite trivial.
“And so magnificent.
“And it is well that we pause and reflect every once in a while about
what a truly wonderful thing we are doing here.”
And I sat down.
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They took the man with the briefcase away.
They say he’s dead now.
And we never learned his name.