My Personal Encounters with Famous Men in My Lifetime

By Y62 Communications Team member Bill Weber

Like many of my classmates, I’ve done some happy wandering over the course of my life, including living in Corning, New York, New Haven, Connecticut, parts of California, and Oxford, England, with travels all over Europe and much of the United States. During my sojourns here and there, I was fortunate enough to meet famous individuals who broadened my outlook. What follows below is a listing of some of the most well-known of them.

In My Childhood

Meeting President Eisenhower

Back in 1950, General Dwight Eisenhower came to Corning, NY, to dedicate the new war memorial stadium. My father took me along to a reception at Amory Houghton’s house, and that’s where I met the man who would later become President. At the time, I didn’t realize how historic that moment was. Interestingly, Amory Houghton himself went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to France during Eisenhower’s administration.

Amory Houghton, Sr.

Mr. Houghton was the Chairman of Corning Glass Works (later to become Corning, Inc.) and was one of the “dollar-a-year men” in England during WWII. He returned to the USA and then, by virtue of his relationship with General Eisenhower, was named to be Ambassador to France under then-President Eisenhower. I saw him on many occasions and even sold him a car by taking his Bentley in trade for a Jaguar. He was actually a family friend, as his youngest son, James, was a few years older than I was, but I was able to tag along with him and his older pals. He lived very near me and later in life I did some car business with him, after I left Corning, Inc.

At Yale

Lee de Forest

One day in our electrical engineering lab, our professor, Jim Clarke, gathered us together with a big announcement: we were about to meet a Yale graduate we’d never forget. That man was Lee de Forest, the inventor of the vacuum tube, which really kicked off the modern electronics industry. He gave us a talk and shared stories about his journey since his Yale days.

John Fenn

In 2000, Yale’s Engineering Department held a big celebration for its 150th anniversary. I was there as a graduate (I got my MEME in 1963), and one of the speakers was John Fenn, who would later win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He gave a fascinating lecture on his work with spectroscopic methods for analyzing complex organic compounds. I was lucky enough to have lunch with him afterward. Despite all his brilliance and contributions, it was sad to see that he later lost a painful legal battle with Yale over patent rights—something many of us alumni found disappointing.

Adolph Busemann

While I was studying for my master’s degree, we had a special lecture from Adolph Busemann, a German aerodynamicist who helped push forward supersonic flight. He was visiting his son-in-law, Alan Kistler, one of my professors at Mason Lab. Fun fact: Alan later ended up teaching my own son at Northwestern!

A. Whitney Griswold

One day, after a trip back from New York City with my friend Tony Giamei, I dozed off driving and hit the guard rails on the turnpike. Later, I was standing outside, staring at the damage to my car, when Yale’s president at the time, A. Whitney Griswold, walked by and asked what I was up to. His office was nearby. I don’t even remember what I told him — I was probably too embarrassed!

J. Robert Oppenheimer

During the spring of 1962, I went with my family to Puerto Rico and then St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to stay for a week in a resort. One day I took the ferry to St. John’s to visit with one of my Yale engineering classmates. His family had a villa on the coast next to one owned by J. Robert Oppenheimer. I was introduced to this great man who was working in his garden wearing his signature wide brim hat. We simply had a brief conversation and afterwards my classmate asked me if I knew who I was talking to. Upon reflection, I realized I had an encounter with one of the greats of the 20th century.

In California / Stanford

Dan Bershader

At Stanford, I had Professor Dan Bershader for aeronautics. I ran into him a few times over the years, including when I was at Oxford and he visited our low-density wind tunnel lab. I eventually learned something incredible: Bershader had once been a student of Albert Einstein at Princeton!

Robert Noyce

After finishing at Yale, I moved to California and planned to pursue a PhD in aeronautics at Stanford. But I needed work, so a family friend connected me with Robert Noyce, who was then running Fairchild Semiconductor. He pointed me toward a job at a United Aircraft division, which I took while doing co-op work at Stanford. Noyce and Andy Grove, of course, later went on to found Intel and change the world of computing. Grove’s story was equally remarkable—he was a 1956 Hungarian refugee who worked his way through CCNY and then Berkeley.

As for me, I realized that the facilities at Stanford weren’t ideal for my aerodynamics research, and a PhD there might stretch to five years. Oxford, on the other hand, had one of the only three low-density wind tunnels in the world. A Rhodes Scholar friend of mine, David Boren, encouraged me to apply there. So in 1965, I left for England, supported by a research grant from the Ministry of Aviation.

David Boren

Speaking of David Boren, he went on to have an amazing career himself: U.S. Senator, Governor of Oklahoma, and later president of the University of Oklahoma. While serving as president, he even taught freshman history classes. Years later, I reconnected with him when he helped me navigate some challenges with hydro-fracking issues back home in New York.

In England / Oxford

Alan Bullock

When I arrived at Oxford, I enrolled at St. Catherine’s College. The Master of the college at the time was Alan Bullock, later knighted as Sir Alan Bullock. He was a renowned historian of Hitler and the Third Reich. Even as graduate students, we had to meet with the Master of the college for guidance, so I had the chance to sit down with him early on.

Bill Clinton

In 1966, I crossed paths with another future president—Bill Clinton. At the time, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and we both attended a meeting of American students who were protesting the Vietnam War. I didn’t share their views and said so, which didn’t exactly win Clinton over. He had plenty to say back! Not long after, he left Oxford to start the political career we all know about.

Kingman Brewster

During my Oxford years, I was invited to a formal black-tie event in London with other American students. To my surprise, one of my Yale classmates, from the class of ’59, showed up in black tie as well. My wife had always found him intimidating — he seemed so worldly and sophisticated. But that night, seeing him in the same black tie as everyone else, she realized he wasn’t as lofty as he liked to appear!

 

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