"Douglas and Brennan conversed at length on December 29, 1971, and on the following day Brennan memorialized their conversation in an eleven-page letter to Douglas in which Brennan laid out his views on the right of privacy and his conviction that they could use the cases to decisively set forth “the existence and nature of a right to an abortion.” Brennan’s biographers, Stern and Wermiel, highlight Brennan’s strategy: Even more so than in other cases, Brennan worked quietly behind the scenes in Roe v. Wade, reluctant to push Blackmun too hard and perhaps a bit reluctant to come out front and center on the issue of abortion. In fact, he worked so quietly that for some time it remained difficult to determine exactly how influential a role he played."