On Saturday, Leslie Gelb died at the age of 82.

And what a life he had.

A Senate aide in his 20s, a New York Times correspondent in his 30s,

Assistant Secretary of State as he neared 40,

and then back to the Times as national security correspondent,

editor, columnist, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team, and rounding out his career as head

of the Council on Foreign Relations. The son of Hungarian immigrants, storekeepers,

always strapped for cash. Gell was described by George Packer and his recent book

about Richard Holbrook as so poor that his bride Judy's parents refused to bless the marriage

and so smart that he got into Harvard's graduate school in government and so badly educated

that he had no idea what his teachers were talking about.

Gelb, of course, was to go far beyond those teachers in his own experience, his own writing.

But there remained something open and curious, something that resisted calcification about

Gelb, even as his body failed.

There are a few things more exhilarating than when someone who has seen and heard and

participated in it all still considers your questions with respect, still counters your

arguments with gusto, or even concedes a point or two because it matters.

I had those experiences more than once with Gelb and a handful of conversations over the years,

some for the radio, some not, and I feel a real sense of loss that there won't be anymore. So, to commemorate the late

and great Les Gelb, we'll replay the interview we had after the Ken Burns-Linn-Novic series,

The Vietnam War, premiered. And the Spielberg film, The Post, came out about the Washington Post and the Pentagon Papers.

Ben, how are we supposed to comb through 4,000 pages of the two?

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