The first time I ever met Saul Mendelson was when I was a college freshman (1938/39) and he got a ride from Newark to New Brunswick along with me and a few other commuters in the car. Although I considered myself a socialist (on the basis of reading Norman Thomas's books), Saul was the first living radical I had ever met. I thought he was an incarnation of what an anarchist must look like -wrinkled and not-too-clean white shirt, in need of a shave, in general, unkempt. (At least that is my memory. He only rode with us a few times.) I assumed - or perhaps he told us - that he was going to Rutgers to organize students.

A friend tells me that in the 40's he worked on the lower East side, was an active member of the restaurant union, and gave discounts to impoverished comrades. Also, when he protested against a Stalinist candidate for office in the union, people booed and tried to shout him down, but when he documented his charges in great detail, stating when and for what this guy had been jailed, they listened and were impressed.

The next time I saw Saul was when he and Jenny came back from their trip to Paris in 1949 and mutual friends brought them to our house in Newark for a brief visit. She had obviously transformed his appearance, which was no longer unkempt.

Then when we moved to the South side of Chicago (1951? I'm bad at dates), we all became good friends. I remember how attentive Saul was about the twins when they were babies, worrying about their milk intake like a Jewish mother. But of course, the main thing about Saul was how brilliant he was, how impressive was his photographic memory, and how, when you asked him a question, he would answer in such detail and so thoroughly that it was … sometimes too much. Not only was he an expert on politics, French politics in particular, but on a great variety of topics. Geography - ye gods, he could call up maps from memory. One friend told me that once in the 70s, he and Saul were both delegates to a DSOC [Democratic Socialists] convention in Baltimore, and when they took a walk around the city, Saul cold identify the year various buildings were erected by their style of architecture.

Now abut his recruiting me: I too had been a Trotskyite ever since my visit to Mexico in 1940, but a majorityite, not a Schachtmanite, but once I had babies and was busy with a family, I was no longer active and had dropped out. Somewhere around the late 50's, the Schachtmanites left the Fourth International and joined the Socialist Party and Saul persuaded me to join the Socialists also. But shortly after convincing me to join that party, a party about which I was not very enthusiastic, Saul left it! Why I can't recall. Perhaps for IVI?

For better or worse, that's about it. Except to say that like all his close friends, I loved and admired Saul. He had a wonderful sense of humor, he enjoyed foreign food as much as I did, he was most generous about meeting me at the airport when I visited, etc. etc. He was a truly wonderful human being and his loss will be greatly felt. Also, he and Jenny (who is my dearest friend) had a wonderful marriage - a rare thing.

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