Notes & asides.( William Sloane Coffin)

* William Sloane Coffin, RIP A Personal Obituary

It was the routine, when Charles Seymour was the president of Yale, that the chairman (as we were then designated) of the Yale Daily News should visit with President Seymour for a half hour every week, mutual conduits for information in both directions. We became friends, and he told me one time with some enthusiasm that the student speaker at the annual Alumni Day lunch at the Freshman Commons the day before had given "the single most eloquent talk I have ever heard from an undergraduate." I thought hard about that comment one year later when I was selected to give the annual talk to the alumni, which speech moved nobody at all because the day before, the text having been examined by public-relations director Richard Lee, I was asked to be so kind as to withdraw; and I did. (What I did with the speech was stick it into the appendix of God and Man at Yale).

I didn't meet William Sloane Coffin until some while later, when of course I congratulated him on electing the correct political extremity in the controversies of the day. He was never slow to catch an irony, and his wink brought on a transideological friendship which induced great pleasure. The friendship was publicly confirmed by Coffin with an extraordinary gesture. Garry Trudeau was lining up speakers for an event celebrating the 30th reunion of his class. His reunion coincided with the 50th reunion of my own class, and he came to me and asked if I would consent to debate with Bill Coffin as I had done during Trudeau's freshman year, 1966.

Well, I said, okay, though I was sure that Charles Seymour's estimate of successful speakers would prevail yet again. But there was a remarkable feature of that afternoon. I climbed the steps at the Yale Law School Auditorium to extend a hand to Bill Coffin--who brushed it aside and embraced me with both arms. This was a dramatic act. It was testimony not only to Coffin's wide Christian gateway to the unfaithful, but also to his extraordinary histrionic skills. I'd have lost the argument anyway. I have defended my political faith as ...