I'm Alan Alder and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

One day when I was in the middle of my internship, I got a phone call from a someone who would

ultimately be my mentor from Bethesda Maryland who was in the public health service and said,

congratulations, we're offering you a position at the NIH, you will be a commissioned officer

in the United States Public Health Service starting in July of 1968. Do you accept? And I said,

absolutely. And that would do.

That's of course Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's describing how his extraordinary 50 plus year career

at the National Institutes of Health began. In a conversation I had with him in a program arranged

by the 92nd Street Y in New York, we explored how that job offer came about and how it became

part of a revolution in American medicine. Hello, my pal. Hey, Alan, great to see you.

I'm so glad to see you again. You and I are like a double act now. I think we've had these

conversations five or six times so far. Indeed, I always like to say the date when you and I talk

in public because times change so rapidly that it's good to know when we said this. This is December

18, 2020 and it's a day that's filled with some sadness, the illness and the deaths have never been

at such a pace. But it's also a day of hope because in a few days probably we'll have two vaccines

that will be available to us. And also because of what we're talking about tonight mostly,

which is that program that you were part of decades ago during the Vietnam War at the NIH,

which was called the Associates Program, I think, right? The Associates Program.

Right. Exactly. In our podcast that's published today by Audible,

it's the title of the podcast is Soldiers of Science. And one of the things that I think is valuable

for all of us out there is that I think we get to know you a little more in a personal way

on the podcast, which is really helpful. The image of you as a kid on your Schwinn bike,

...