Editor-at-large Philip Yancey has for some time wanted to write a profile of C. Everett Koop. Koop is, Philip persuaded us, along with Billy Graham and Jimmy Carter, one of the best-known, most influential evangelicals on the public scene. But once Philip got the editorial green light, his previous contacts with Koop failed. Calling the Department of Health and Human Services, the inveterate journalist got stonewalled. “We won’t be passing any messages to him for about six weeks,” he was told. Later that week, Koop’s surprise resignation was announced.
At that point, Philip became even more determined. He contacted his friend and coauthor Paul Brand, the renowned hand surgeon. Brand, who had once worked for HHS, had contacts there who helped him locate Koop: in Switzerland.
Koop, says Philip, was not only cordial, but eager to do an “exit interview” with the evangelical church—the constituency he felt had most misunderstood him on key issues.
Koop is not so stern in person as on television, Philip remarks. Koop truly listened to his questions and often asked the interviewer follow-up questions himself in order to understand Philip’s viewpoint better.
Philip Yancey is known among editors as a writer of long articles. But even though CT’s editors have given him space for an article in this issue and a follow-up interview in the next, Philip found himself working with extremely tight space constraints. As he began to write, Philip printed out his computerized notes and found he had 67 single-spaced pages—more than four times the combined length of his finished articles.
DAVID NEFF, Senior Associate Editor
