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I discovered Thomas Schelling's writings as undergrad and then was fortunate enough to take a class with him at the Kennedy School in the 1980s. Later, it was one of the highlights of my career when I was ridiculously fortunate to appear on the same stage with him. I will offer my recollections of the only time I ever got to chat with him one-on-one. It was in about 2007 when we both spoke at the same small conference at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He complained about the consequences of having recently won the "damned Nobel Prize." He said that as a Nobel Laureate, he received invitations to numerous events and he had found that most of these invitations were from groups who simply wanted a Nobel Prize winner, any Nobel Prize winner to appear at their event. As a result, he said, he turned down pretty much all of them.  However, he added that the next day (as I recall it), he was getting on a plane to fly to Moscow. Apparently his book, The Strategy of Conflict had been translated into Russian long ago but had in a classified edition. He was now going to appear at a book launch for the first unclassified edition of his most famous work. He felt that step by Russia into the normal world was worth honoring with his presence.His love of thinking and his playful inquisitive mind were beautiful things and I felt intellectually invigorated whenever I read his work and I felt honored every time I was in a room with him.
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