ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY. You’d never recognize Ted Lambros

June 6, 1983

You’d never recognize Ted Lambros. He’s preppier than I am. And boy, has he got self-assurance when he speaks. But he’s got every reason to be confident. After all, he’s really made it in the world.

His new wife, Abbie, is a terrific gal. I ought to know, since she’s a distant relative. In fact, she was working with me on the Harvard Fund Drive when Ted met her.

Since she was, to put it politely, in the suburbs of forty, our family had kind of given up on Ab’s chances of settling down. But Lambros really swept her off her feet. Now they’re living in a big house on Brattle Street.

And I think they’ll be good for each other. I mean, Ab’s a great hostess. They have everybody who’s anybody in Boston at their parties.

Pretty reliable sources have informed me that Ted recently rejected an offer to become the president of Princeton. This leads me to suspect that Harvard’s given him some heavy hints that he might ultimately move into our own presidential mansion. The thought of it excites me almost as much as I expect it does Ted.

And it’s amazing how obsequious some of the reunion guys were to this man who, in our college days, they scarcely knew was in The Class.

I’ve got to make this claim for myself, and my diaries bear me out.

I always knew that Lambros was a winner.

***

George Keller’s lecture on foreign policy filled the amphitheater to overflowing.

In the space of less than forty-five minutes, he made pithy observations on all the troubled areas of international relations. From nuclear disarmament to whom the White House backed in Central America and why. From the labyrinthine mysteries of Middle Eastern governments’ behavior to a brief character analysis of the new Kremlin leaders.

It was a masterful, pointillistic painting of the whole world’s politics.

During the question period, one of the alumni asked George what he thought of Tom Leighton’s new book, The Prince of Darkness , which makes allegations about Henry Kissinger’s ruthlessness in matters like the Cambodia invasion, Nixon’s pardon, and even the wiretapping of his own staff.

George looked visibly outraged at the mention of this attack on the man to whom he owed so much. And he rose to the occasion with an eloquent defense of his old mentor.

As The Class began to applaud, someone in the back shouted, “What about the Vietnam war, Dr. Keller?”

“What about it, sir?” George answered quietly.

“How can you and Kissinger justify the fact that you strung out those negotiations at the cost of so many lives on both sides?”

He responded calmly, “That isn’t true. Our aim in Paris was to bring the conflict to the speediest possible conclusion — to save lives.”

But the man was not satisfied.

“What about the Christmas saturation bombing when you destroyed targets like the Bach Mai hospital?”

The audience began to grow distinctly uncomfortable. George remained unruffled.

“Sir, that bombing was necessary and, I think, justified because it proved to North Vietnam that we meant business. Hitting that hospital was just a tragic mistake.”

“But don’t you think the whole damn war was a mistake?”

George seemed more puzzled than provoked. “I don’t understand why you pose your questions with such urgency when we’re talking of events that are now history.”

Then the man asked, “Do you have children, Dr. Keller?”

“No,” George replied.

“Well, maybe if you did, like me, and if your only son was killed in Southeast Asia — for reasons that you still can’t understand — even ten years later you’d ask these sorts of questions too.”

There was a collective gasp in the auditorium.

George was silent for a moment and then answered softly.

“I’m truly sorry for engaging in dialectic on a subject that’s so real a tragedy for you. I think I speak for our whole class in saying that we in some small way share your loss.”

“What about the guilt, Dr. Keller? Can you really sleep at night with all that on your conscience?”

George remained poised. Then, after a few minutes of silence, said impassively, “I think we should end the seminar here.”

There was no applause. People were too upset.

The man who’d asked the questions simply walked away, his arm around his wife.