He commanded the world's most powerful military, negotiated with foreign leaders and led a nation.
Today, he lands in Greencastle.
Former President Bill Clinton, among the highest-caliber speakers in the Ubben lecture series' 25-year run, will arrive on campus today just before his 3 p.m. talk, the marquee event on campus this semester.
Students like Sophomore Jacob Weiner have been eagerly awaiting to hear Clinton speak — and brag about the experience.
"This is the first really big name, after Yo-Yo Ma, that has come to campus, and I think that the campus is really excited," Weiner said. "Even people who aren't very politically active are excited about it, and I think it's a great opportunity for DePauw and Greencastle to have a former president here. It's a huge deal."
But Weiner suspects his questions may not get through Clinton's screening process, which some worry may keep the former president from tackling tough questions.
"Obviously, as a student I would love to have all of my questions answered, but I understand because of his position and because he is really holding all of the power in this situation that he would not want to answer some of the questions," he said. "And he has that luxury being a former president of the United States."
Ken Owen, executive director of media relations, said the questions had to be submitted to student government, forwarded to him and then forwarded on to Clinton's assistants to select the best questions.
"I know in a perfect world people would like for there to be mics in the aisles and for people to ask their questions to Bill Clinton, but the problem with that is invariably one out of four questions are statements and one out of four people will get up there and use the opportunity to have their little moment," Owen said.
Student government spokesman Brian Alkire, a sophomore, said he had received 34 questions as of Wednesday at midnight.
"It's kind of a sketchy process [by which] everything goes through Clinton's team and obviously there's probably reasons for that, but we're just looking strictly at the number of questions that we can give him," Alkire said.
Bruce Stinebrickner, professor of political science at DePauw and former college classmate of Clinton's at Georgetown University, said screening questions makes sense given the time constraints.
After all, Clinton would surely be able to answer unscreened questions, Stinebrickner said.
"That doesn't surprise me and it doesn't particularly bother me, but Bill Clinton knows how to handle questions from folks like us and knows how to handle these controversial questions so the idea to me that some DePauw person or Greencastle person was going to get up and sort of stump him is, I think, you're dreaming," Stinebrickner said.
He described Clinton as an engaging and likable man who can easily captivate the attention of a room. Stinebrickner said he looks forward to the speech and to seeing Clinton again.
"It's a nice chance to see an old friend give a speech," Stinebrickner said.
Vernon Jordan '57 will introduce Clinton and moderate the Q-and-A session.
Jordan, who was a student when then-Vice President Richard Nixon visited campus, said he looks forward to hearing Clinton, one of his close friends, speak at his alma mater.
Jordan said he had little role in bringing Clinton to campus other than mentioning his fond memories for the university.
"I just told him it was my alma mater, it's a great institution that I love very much and that if he could clear his schedule and find the time that he ought to come, so I encouraged him and he must have listened a little bit," Jordan said.
Tim Ubben, who along with his wife Sharon funds the lecture series, said Jordan had a greater role in bringing Clinton to campus than Jordan let on.
"We have a bunch of people who graduated from DePauw who know Clinton well, and I think they helped persuade Clinton that it would be fun to come here and that was Vernon Jordan and Tim Collins," Tim Ubben said. "We used them to try to convince Clinton to come and he did."
Ubben declined to reveal how much Clinton is being paid for the lecture. But the former president has commanded between $125,000 and $350,000 for university speaking fees, according to The Washington Post.
The Ubbens said they hoped to bring an especially influential figure to campus for the 25th anniversary as well as an individual who is a timely figure that maintains a permanent importance. The couple joked that they had originally sought performing artist Bono to speak.
In working with Clinton, Tim Ubben said there has been less freedom than with past speakers.
"He's controlled us much more so than we want to be. We would like this guy to filter through campus, visiting students, maybe going to a student forum, maybe teaching a class, doing those things that we've had other major speakers do," Tim Ubben said. "It's a little disappointing, but we're excited to have the former president of the United States to speak at our 25th anniversary. We're very pleased to do that even though it's not the perfect experience from our perspective."
Though there is greater control over Clinton, they are both eager to hear his lecture and to have him on campus.
Tim Ubben said he and his wife Sharon began the lecture series in 1986 in order to bring a global perspective to DePauw and Greencastle.
"There was this perception that there is this bubble encasing this small liberal arts school, isolated somewhat by its location, and so we've always said our purpose is to break this bubble and to bring the world to DePauw, and we've done that," Tim Ubben said. "We have literally done that."