"I'm going to press him to teach," said a longtime associate.

"Bill is the kind of guy who reads everything he can get his hands on," said a longtime associate and close friend.

But longtime associates of both say they are increasingly estranged.

This was apparently a reference to his reluctance to break with longtime associates who did not serve the country well.

But his friends and longtime associates say he is a man of enormous self-confidence who should not be underestimated.

She and I have been friends for years, and she's recently lost her longtime associate.

"He's a French peasant at heart," says a longtime associate.

"Pierre is like an Italian mother in a restaurant," says a longtime associate.

The orphanage, now on a larger, more modern campus, is run by her longtime associates.

"He has made his career on appointed jobs," a longtime associate noted.