I remember sitting in Bob Redford’s kitchen at his home in Santa Fe a couple of years ago as we settled in for the kind of long, post-dinner conversation that was one of the great pleasures and privileges of being friends with him and his wife, Bylle.

Bob, who died Tuesday at the age of 89, was showing some signs of age by then. He had slowed down appreciably. But he was undimmed. He engaged with my wife Carla and I with great energy on one topic after another, from her latest trip to China to how I saw things in Washington; from Bylle’s latest art project to a discussion of the manifold projects he was working on despite his hard-to-believe protestations that he was retiring.

As he often did, he shared stories of his younger days and the beginning of his career. He’d spent some time goi

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