Meeting President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office of the White House in 1989 was one of the highlights of my career.  He invited Arthur Eisenkraft and me to bring the U.S. team in the International Physics Olympiad to be congratulated.  When we founded the team to compete, the conventional wisdom was the US high school age students could not compete with similar students from countries that had much stronger high school science programs.  That included most of Europe, Asia, and the (then) eastern block countries.  We did not accept that analysis and this team won so many medals that it silenced the critics.

Below you will find an excerpt from the Jack M. Wilson Autobiography that is taken from Chapter 7 and beginning on page 105  [(c) Jack M Wilson].  This auto-biography is not yet published since later chapters include rather revealing stories about interactions with political leaders who are still active -thus requiring careful legal review.

Excerpt:

I have had the opportunity to meet several Presidents -each was under different circumstances.  The first was Ronald Reagan, who hosted the first set of Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.  These kinds of events often yield some funny stories.  My favorite occurred when one of the Awardees decided that he wanted to communicate some of his own opinions to President Reagan.  First, he showed up at the White House  for the award ceremony carrying a bed of nails!  He said that he wanted to "show the president how being a science teacher was like lying on a bed of nails."  Ok.  Of course, he was prevented from taking that inside the grounds.  However, once inside, shortly after the President made his welcoming and congratulatory speech, the eccentric teacher stepped forward toward the microphone and the Secret Service began to move firmly toward him when he began by saying "I have been asked to render thanks to the President for this honor."   At that point the Secret Service relaxed back to their places, and then the teacher launched into a pungent critique of President Reagan!  Ouch.  Now that was in the mid 80s.  In today's post 9/11 world, I doubt that they would have relaxed.

 The meeting with President George Herbert Walker Bush was far more intimate and interesting.  I had created the first U.S. Team in the International Physics Olympiad and had recruited Arthur Eisenkraft, an outstanding high school physics teacher from New York as my co-leader.   In 1989 we won two gold medals and President Bush invited us to bring the team to the White House to receive his thanks and congratulations. 

It was an unusual feeling to show up at the White House expecting to be received as a guest.   Arthur and I walked up toward the main gate and encountered a very long line of people waiting to enter.  I was not sure exactly what to do about that, but took my place at the back of the line.  The people ahead of us turned to us and shared their disappointment that "the White House is going to be closed a little longer this morning since they are receiving some VIPs."   At that point Arthur and I decided to work our way up to the front just to ask the question.  We got lots of dirty looks from folks as we pushed our way forward.  Once in front of the gate, we asked the Marine guard on duty what we should do, since we had an appointment to see the President.  He stepped forward and asked our names.  He then immediately saluted us and swung the big iron gate open and invited us inside.  Just inside the gate, we were properly identified and then motioned toward the door of the White House.  Standing next to that door was another Marine guard at attention.  I expected him to challenge us again before entry, but he saluted smartly and swung the door open.  Just inside a presidential aide was waiting and she swiftly ushered us right into the Oval Office.

 We were received in the White House Oval Office in recognition of our work in founding the U.S. Team for the International Physics Olympiad.  Our personal meeting with President Bush lasted for nearly an hour, during which he confessed to having dropped Physics in favor of Biology. He apologized for failing to finish his physics course.  In fact, that was almost the very first thing he did!   When we walked into the room he greeted us with: "Jack, Arthur, so good to finally meet you.  I am so proud of what you have accomplished for this country, but I must confess, that I never finished my Physics course at Yale."

 I laughed, because it seems that everyone who meets a physicist wants to apologize for either not taking it or not understanding it.  If not that, then they look at us with a mixture of fear and curiosity and say something like "you must be so smart."  Actually, when I was younger, I had often heard that from a young woman at a social event when we were just getting acquainted.  Eventually she would ask what I was studying (or had studied) and I would reply "physics"  She would then reply "you must be so smart" as she backed away to disappear in the crowd.  (I later learned to say something that sounded more like Phys Ed, but which could be plausibly denied later.  They liked Phys Ed majors better.)

 So now I found myself at the White House in the Oval Office speaking to the President of the United States, and he reacted just like the rest of the world!  I laughed and then looked back at the President�s Science Advisor, Allan Bromley, who was standing behind us.  Allen had come to that job from Yale where he had served in the Physics Department and as an administrator.  I turned to Allan and suggested that he should go back and revoke Bush's Yale degree:  "It is not too late Allan.  Go back to Yale and ask them to rescind the degree!"  We all laughed.

 President Bush was a very warm, articulate, and well informed host.  We commiserated over the lack of press interest in the fact that the United States had just won its first ever gold medals in the student physics competition, and discussed at length the unfair balance between interest in athletic prowess and academic prowess.  He asked us quite a bit about the competition itself and about the state of science teaching in the United States.  He was very well briefed and very engaged in the discussion which went on for about four times as long as we had expected based upon the instructions of his staff.  He presented Arthur and me with Gold Presidential Tie clips with his autograph engraved on the reverse side of the Presidential Seal and complimented us at length.  We posed for pictures all around and then took our leave.

 I was always a fan of Bush.   I had had to do battle with Reagan when he zeroed the NSF's Science Education budget, and I brought scientists in from all over the United States in various contrived events to pressure the Reagan administration to back off their doctrinaire approach and restore some budget to science education.  We did make some significant progress on that front, but Bush was like a breath of fresh air.  There was no hostility to science education at all, and instead a encouraging air of support.   Arthur on the other hand, was in a very different place.  Although he was delighted and honored to meet the President of the United States, he was not at all a fan of ANY Republican.  His wife, Kaila, was a very liberal militant ACLU Democrat who could not even understand why Arthur wanted to meet him.   When Arthur returned home with an 8 X 10 photo of him and George H.W. Bush shaking hands, Kaila observed acidly "How nice Arthur, now when you start your restaurant, you can hang that picture next to the cash register."

 (Chapter 7, page 105-106, Jack M. Wilson Autobiography (c) Jack M. Wilson)