ABC asks my help with Bill Clinton's obituary

A producer at ABC recently asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed for a documentary they're making about Bill Clinton. I agreed. Then I asked when they're planning to show it.

- Robert Reich

"After he dies," they said.

"What!? Is he dying?" I asked, shocked.

"Oh, no," they said. "It's for the archive."

"You mean, it's for whenever he dies, even if that's twenty years from now?"

 "Exactly."

"Even if you and I are long gone by then?"

"Yup."

I was relieved, but flummoxed. Was I supposed to talk about Clinton in the past tense? Should I give only the sort of glowing tribute accorded former presidents when they pass? Would it be inappropriate to say anything, even slightly critical of him or his presidency?

I just did the interview from my office at Berkeley.

At first it all seemed weirdly morbid, but after five minutes or so, I forgot the weirdness and just talked.

I met Bill Clinton in September 1968 on the USS United States, sailing from New York City to Southampton, England. We were 22 years old.

He and I, along with thirty other young American men had won Rhodes Scholarships to study at Oxford. (Had women been allowed to compete then, I doubt either he or I would have won.)

We were heading to England by ship because that had been the tradition for newly-selected Rhodes Scholars. Six days at sea was supposed to give Scholars time to get to know one another.

But on this voyage, the crossing was so stormy that most of us spent a good part of the time alone in our cabins, seasick. I stayed in my bunk and tried not to think about food.

Then a loud knock on my cabin door.

I staggered over to open it. There was a tall, curly-haired fellow with a big grin holding a bowl chicken soup.