I'm one of the few people who could call Betty Friedan "just one of the fellows" and get away with it.
That's because we were both Fellows at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1982. It was shortly after "The Second Stage," the sequel to her epochal "Feminine Mystique," had been published, and after Ronald Reagan had kicked Jimmy Carter and my boss Walter Mondale out of the White House.
That the pioneering grandmother of the feminist revolution and I would become fast friends until her death on her 85th birthday on Feb. 4 was purely accidental. We first met in 1968 when I was a Washington correspondent for Minnesota newspapers covering Sen. Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, and again during the Carter presidency when she interviewed then-Vice President Mondale.
She liked both men but was especially fond of McCarthy -- it's ironic that they lived out their final years in the same retirement home in Georgetown and died only a month apart. In fact, the last time I saw McCarthy shortly before he died in December, I ran into Betty in the lobby and said a quick hello, promising her we'd have dinner soon at Nora's, her favorite Washington restaurant.
As usual, she inquired about my wife and our two daughters, who had met her when we lived on the Harvard campus -- one was in high school in Boston and the other at Brown University in nearby Providence, R.I. It was probably because of our daughters, who called her "Aunt Betty" and looked to her as a role model for their generation, that she erroneously assumed I was a feminist, a distinction my wife regularly disputed. (When our older daughter visited us late one evening, she discovered Betty sleeping on our couch after locking herself out of her own apartment.)
Whatever the reason, we seemed to hit it off and kept in touch through the years. We visited her at her home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and her apartment near Lincoln Center in New York City, and, after she moved to Washington, at her apartment near the Washington Hilton. She often invited us to parties and receptions where she introduced us to her wide circle of friends, many almost as famous as she was.
It was not always easy to be Betty's friend. She could be abrasive, argumentative and arrogant, often in a loud voice that turned heads in public places. But she was also one of most enthusiastic, warm-hearted and down-to-earth people I ever met. I saw her less frequently after she moved to the Georgetown retirement home several years ago, but when I did, she was as vibrant, enthusiastic and strongly opinionated as ever, always demanding an update on the political scene and the latest insider gossip, especially if it cast a bad light on Republicans.
Her profound influence on modern society, as documented in her obituaries and many other remembrances, was worldwide. I was reminded of this an email I received Monday from Andrei V. Korneyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences whom I had met in Moscow in the 1980's. When he came to Washington about ten years ago, I invited him to dinner with Betty.
"I just learned that Betty Friedan died on her 85th birthday," he wrote. "It is a great loss for all of us. ... She had such a wonderful smile and was so thankful for your invitation. ... At that time I knew almost nothing about her books and brave struggle for the issues that affected women's lives in your country. After coming back, I read a lot about [her] and began to understand better what was done by her efforts."
When I heard she had died, I took down her books from my bookcase, most of which she'd warmly inscribed, including "The Feminine Mystique" and "The Second Stage," as well as her 1993 book, "The Fountain of Age."
As I read her inscription in "The Second Stage," I felt a deep sadness at the realization that I'd never see her again, and a deep sense of gratitude for our friendship. Dated June, 1982, at the end of our time together at Harvard, the inscription read:
"To Moira and Al -
"My true dear friends for all stages - and fellow Fellows whose warmth and spirit made this great experience comfortable for me.
"Love and kisses - evolve and enjoy!
"Betty Friedan"