ABSTRACT
Hubert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Dillon Ripley worked in tandem to inspire Congress to create in 1968 the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a memorial to our twenty-eighth president. Humphrey was the first chair of the board of trustees. I was lucky to be a part of that nest of intellectuals. Ripley wanted me to help connect the visiting scholars and statesmen with our own Smithsonian faculties for mutual benefit. He held a grand vision of creating a community of scholars at the Smithsonian that would interact with the larger world of higher learning. Until a new and separate building was realized, the Wilson Center occupied several floors and towers of the Castle. For a time, I was a guest scholar writing on “science diplomacy.” I worked happily in those two symbiotic worlds. The Center served as a vital part of my tower office, becoming also a crossroads of the world.
