Many years ago, I started a second career in the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm K&L Gates. One of the first people who wandered into my office to welcome me to the firm was Dick Thornburgh. I had gone to college in Pennsylvania and knew people who worked with him in government, but this was the first time we had met.
Over the next few years, I came to appreciate why so many loved and respected him. He was not only a fine lawyer, but also a man of many interests. Those interests included not only politics and political theory, but literature and film. In 2010, he wrote a fine essay for the National Law Journal to mark the 50th anniversary of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” titled “What would Atticus Finch do?” And he was known to be able to produce his updated list of the top films of all time on a moment’s notice and to be able to debate why certain films belonged and others did not. (The University of Pittsburgh’s Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy has a version of this list, “Thornburgh family ‘All Time Classic’ top 25 movies worth watching, at thornburghforum.pitt.edu/about-gov-thornburgh/biography.)
Thornburgh brought enthusiasm and a keen understanding to everything that interested him. He exuded decency and integrity and a love for his family, colleagues and friends that made him a special human being. He is an example of what a politician — or anyone aspiring to be a good person — should strive to be.
Eric Stone
North Potomac, Md.