B000U5KFIC EBOK

Janet Lowe

ate in the summer of 1991, I appeared before a house subcommittee
_.J chaired by Congressman Ed Markey to answer questions about the
Salomon scandal. The hearing room was piled high with TV and print reporters, and I was more than a little nervous when Chairman Markey led
off with his first question. He wanted to know whether the reprehensible
behavior that had occurred at Salomon was characteristic of Wall Street
or rather, as he put it, "sui generis."

Normally I would have panicked at the introduction of such a
strange-sounding term: In high school, I barely made it through elementary Spanish and never came close to Latin. But, I had no trouble with sui
generis. After all, I knew a walking, talking example: Charlie Munger, my
long-time friend and partner.

Charlie truly is one of a kind. I recognized that in 1959, when I first
met him, and I have been discovering unique qualities in him ever since.
Anyone who has had even the briefest contact with Charlie would tell you
the same. But usually they would be thinking of his, shall we say, behavioral style. Miss Manners clearly would need to do a lot of work on
Charlie before she could grant him a diploma.

To me, however, what makes Charlie special is his character. It's true
that his mind is breathtaking: He's as bright as any person I've ever met
and, at 76, still has a memory I would kill for. He was born, though, with
these abilities. It's how he has elected to use them that makes me regard
him so highly.

In 41 years, I have never seen Charlie try to take advantage of anyone,
nor have I seen him claim the least bit of credit for anything that he didn't
do. In fact, I've witnessed exactly the opposite: He has knowingly let me
and others have the better end of a deal, and he has also always shouldered more than his share of the blame when things go wrong and accepted less than his share of credit when the reverse has been true. He is
generous in the deepest sense and never lets ego interfere with rationality. Unlike most individuals, who hunger for the world's approval, Charlie
judges himself entirely by an inner scorecard-and he is a tough grader.

On business matters, Charlie and I agree a very high percentage of
the time. On social issues, however, we sometimes see things differently.
But despite the fact that we both cherish our strong opinions, we have
never in our entire friendship had an argument nor found disagreement a
reason to be disagreeable. It's very difficult to imagine Charlie on a corner in a Salvation Army uniform-no, make that impossible to imaginebut he seems to have embraced the charity's creed of "hate the sin but
not the sinner."