Henry King: Erik M. Jensen.

• Author: Jensen, Erik M.
• Position: A Tribute to Henry King - Testimonial

Henry King and I both began at Case Western Reserve in 1983, memorialized in an issue of In Brief, the law school magazine, that has a cover photo showing total devastation. It looks like the aftermath of a faculty meeting, but the picture is really of bombed-out Nuremberg, of course.

CWRU Professor Morry Shanker has told me many times--Morry has a tendency to repeat himself that when he first met Henry King, he thought Henry was the worst name-dropper he had ever met.

Henry peppered sentence after sentence with the names of the world' s most prominent people--not only lawyers--in what seemed to be self-aggrandizement at its worst: Like "When Zsa Zsa Gabor and I were discussing U.S.-Hungarian relations, ..." But Morry soon came to realize that Henry not only knew the people whose names he dropped; he really was friends with them: statesmen, scholars, the Pope--well, not the Pope, I guess, but Father Drinan was pretty close, and not Zsa Zsa either, as far as I know. But it seemed that Henry knew just about everyone else important in the world. Henry really knew those folks, and they knew him, respected him, and loved him.

Henry walked on a world stage.

And he always aimed high. One of my favorite stories, told by Henry's wife Betty, illustrates the point. (This is a story I first heard at a faculty party held at the home of another person who joined the faculty in 1983, someone who has done pretty well for herself--here comes a name-drop---one Barbara Snyder.)

Betty was with Henry in Nuremberg for a while, the two of them dancing up a storm, but, with the birth of a child imminent, Henry insisted that Betty return to the United States. Henry wanted to make sure there was no question that the child would be eligible, under the

Constitution, to become president of the United States--you know, the requirement that the president be a "natural born Citizen." Betty had a tone of exasperation in her voice when she told the story, and that, coupled with the sheepish...