In the early 1960s, when I was working for Nalco Chemical Company as a chemical sales engineer out of Indiana, being something of a perennial autodidact, I learned that the Broadripple Public Library in North Central Indianapolis had a GREAT BOOKS CLUB.
The librarian on the phone said that they met on the first Thursday of every month. I explained that I traveled a lot and couldn’t always make the meetings. She assured me that would be all right.
I was late for my first meeting with the group already in a discussion of Plato’s REPUBLIC, and the merits of a “philosopher king” to run the state.
The chair person was a full faced young man with glasses, well-dressed in a three piece business suite with a melodious voice and open demeanor. I noticed that all the other men were formerly attired as well as the women. I came to the GREAT BOOKS session in jeans, sneakers, a sweatshirt and a sports jacket, my common attire when not working. I imagined they came directly from work.
Given my compulsive nature to assess a group, I had the feeling of accidentally interrupting a meeting of attorneys going over their billing hours.
It was clear they were comfortable with each other if not also of a common cloth. Their diction and choice of words were distinct suggesting an Ivy League education.
I am a listener by nature and found the comments on the “Philosopher King” interesting if uninspiring.
Then suddenly, well into the session, the chair person looked at the roster of attendees, then at me with a smile, and said, “Mr. Fisher is a chemical engineer with Nalco Chemical Company, and this is his first meeting with us.”
I was about to correct him by saying, “I am in sales,” when he said, “Now, you have been listening to us for the better part of an hour, do you share our consensus of the wisdom of Plato’s “Philosopher King”?
In an unfamiliar setting, one that is particularly intimidating, with a feeling of having entered the “high rent district” of the intellectual elite, I did what I tend to do when nervous, I stuttered. “Not exactly.”
This created a spontaneous uproar of laughter.
Unperturbed, the chair person put his hands together under his chin, looked at me pensively, then lifted his hand to restore quiet. “Obviously, our newest member has some other thoughts. We would like to hear them, yes?" Heads nodded.
What often happens once I break through my self-consciousness, thoughts roll out of my head as if they had been previously rehearsed as a soliloquy.
I told the group I was an Irish Roman Catholic and had witnessed the “infallible philosopher king” in action with Pope Pius XII; that I had been part of a private military audience in Rome with the pope in 1957 as a US Navy white hat, only months before the pontiff's death.
Pope Pius XII was known as an intellectual and, indeed, a philosopher, I said, but I had my reservations about him since he was Nuncio to Germany when Adolf Hitler came to power, showing an ambivalent attitude towards the Jews and the “Jewish Question” . . . I wanted to say more about the Holocaust, but stopped practically in mid-sentence.
Sensing I had finished, the chair person beamed. “When we next meet, we will continue this discussion on Plato’s REPUBLIC. Perhaps Mr. Fisher has some thoughts on the current occupant in Rome, Pope John XXIII. He then excused the group, came over to me, and shook my hand, “You have a definite point of view. I like that.”
Later, I learned William Doyle Ruckelshaus was a devout Catholic, a member of one of the most prominent families in Indianapolis, and currently a member of the family’s law firm.
He was a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and would become the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), subsequent to that acting Director of the FBI, then Deputy Attorney General of the United States. It was in that latter role that he and his boss, Elliot Richardson, during the Watergate scandal, refused to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox at President Richard Nixon's request, choosing instead to resign.
The event, October 20, 1973, was known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” with William Ruckelshaus coming out of the affair, now famous.
In November 2015, President Barak Obama awarded Mr. Ruckelshaus with the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” at the White House for his lifelong service to the nation.
By the accident of circumstances, I met William Ruckelshaus as a young man. I experienced his kindness and comfortable intelligence. May his soul forever rest in peace.
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