“Well, I don’t think age was a relevant variable. He could’ve been 20, he could’ve been 80. Yes, I mean he was very controversial even then and that was before he was controversial in a political sense. But I think his teaching style, his methodology was threatening to his professional colleagues. The more, I’d say the wiser ones–James MacGregor Burns, later David Booth–I think understood that what he was doing was really valuable even if it was very far from where they would feel comfortable. And the other thing about him that made him provocative was that he had what other people would experience as acolytes. You know, he had followers. And that was very threatening because most of the faculty didn’t have people who believed in them the way people believed in Gaudino, because most faculty didn’t affect people between the neck and the navel. I mean, people would roll their eyes. He was famous in that sense, you know? There were a lot of great, great characters in the Political Science Department at that time, James MacGregor Burns and Fred Greene and Fred Schuman, I mean there was a very robust group of people, and he was more than a character. They were all bigger than life too, but he was provocative, he was threatening to people. The campus in the late ’50s and early ’60s was a pretty quiet place and there weren’t a lot of disturbances.
EARLY WILLIAMS YEARS
“Intellectual Man of Mystery”
“Intellectual Man of Mystery”
The “Small Genius” Generates Disciples . . . And Skeptics
–Marty Linsky '61