Given the range and depth of his concerns, I suppose I should not have been surprised to discover that Jeffrey has repeatedly been able to arrange, sometimes on the spot, very productive meetings with leading figures in the sciences and mathematics, and global politics, people whose work and activities I had looked into though I had never expected to meet them. Once, when we were discussing the Oslo agreements, Jeffrey picked up the phone and called the Norwegian diplomat who supervised them, leading to a lively interchange. On another occasion, Jeffrey arranged a meeting with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, whose record I had studied carefully and written about. We have our disagreements, but had a very fruitful discussion about a number of controversial matters, including one that was of particular interest to me: the Taba negotiations of January 2001, in the framework of President Clinton's "parameters," events that remain obscure and controversial because the diplomatic record is still mostly secret. Barak's discussion of the background was illuminating, also surprising in some ways. In very different areas, much the same was true in meetings Jeffrey arranged with evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, mathematicians and computer scientists, several of them engaged in exciting work at the limits of understanding in their fields, sometimes with perspectives quite different from mine. More lively interchanges, in which Jeffrey was once again an active participant, often an effective gadfly.
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