Robert Mueller’s Undergraduate Thesis Adviser Has a Great Memory. But He Doesn’t Remember Mueller.

Before Robert Mueller became a war hero, headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and led the inquiry into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, he had another feat to accomplish.

The year was 1966, and he had his senior thesis to complete at Princeton University. The senior thesis is a big deal, and has been described as the defining Princeton academic experience for undergraduate seniors.

Mueller’s 117-page thesis was titled “Acceptance of Jurisdiction in the South West Africa Cases.” It dealt with a court case at The Hague about the extension of apartheid to a South African territory, Namibia.

In the acknowledgments section, Mueller acknowledged just one person, Richard A. Falk, “for his stimulating guidance in the preparation of this Thesis.”

The Chronicle tracked down Falk, who is 87, in Turkey, where he has a home along the coast. He also lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he is a research fellow in the University of California’s Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies.

Falk has a razor-sharp memory, and 53 years later, can recall details of the case he argued at The Hague, like the final vote count and the name of the judge who cast the tie-breaking vote. But he has no memory of Mueller.

However, after The Chronicle alerted him about his star student, he reread Mueller’s thesis. Falk spoke to us about Princeton in the 1960s, and what he thinks about the quality of the thesis after all these years. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Can you tell me how you were involved with the case Mueller wrote his thesis on?

A. It was a very important case that had complicated political ramifications. It ended up being decided in favor of South Africa. The judges were split, 7 to 7, and the president of the International Court of Justice, an Australian and colonialist named Percy Spender, had a second vote, and decided in favor of apartheid, South Africa’s position. The whole case involved whether South Africa was living up to its mandate from the international community by extending apartheid to Namibia.

Q. So a key question was whether apartheid would be allowed in Namibia?

A. Yes, whether South Africa was living up to its obligations [to govern Namibia] by extending apartheid to Namibia. And the South African argument was “It’s the best solution. After all, it’s what we do for our own people.” It was at the height of apartheid. And it made the international community very angry. The court’s decision actually accelerated Namibia’s process of independence, because people were so angry at the decision. It also led to the restructuring of the personnel of the court. It was an extremely controversial decision. It was a big breakthrough for the anti-apartheid campaign. That’s why the jurisdictional issue was politically interesting. That’s what Robert Mueller was obviously preoccupied with at the time. When I first got your message, it didn’t even occur to me that you were referring to this Robert Mueller, who has become a celebrity.

Q. You don’t have any memory of Robert Mueller?

A. Unfortunately, no. None. And I remember many of my senior-thesis students. I taught at Princeton for 40 years. You do have a quite close relationship with your senior-thesis students. It’s the big thing your last year at Princeton. You can probably text me the names of 10 others, and I would remember at least eight of them.

Q. That’s fascinating to me because you have an impressive ability to recall half-century-old details.

A. I could talk about the case for hours. I spent a year working on it.

Q. Robert Mueller does strike me as sort of an unmemorable and unflashy person.

A. He must have been fairly low profile. I had some very right-wing students, like, for instance, Richard Perle, who became one of the lead intellectuals of the neoconservative movement. I remember him extremely well. He was there around the same period as Mueller.

Q. The chair of the department of politics at Princeton was surprised that Mueller would thank you in his thesis, calling it an “odd pairing.” Mueller ended up serving in Vietnam. You questioned the legality of the war. Mueller would become a Republican. You were a controversial leftist. But yet there he was, working with you.

A. It’s an irony. I’m glad you brought this to my attention. I would have never known about this.

Q. What do you remember about Richard Perle?

A. I remember lots of things. Despite the political gap between our views, we were quite friendly. The seminars were small at the time, so you knew students very well. He’s one of the few people who eventually left Princeton as a graduate student, because it was too liberal for him. There are many arguments about what goes wrong at Princeton, but very few have ever claimed that it was too liberal an institution.

Q. It was more on the conservative side, as far as universities go, during this time?

A. Definitely. It prided itself on being conservative. And its alumni were extremely conservative. I had a lot of trouble over the years with the alumni, especially the older alumni. Princeton changed a lot in my 40 years there, and I was associated with some of the changes, like bringing women into the university. And some of the more progressive political initiatives that occurred during the Vietnam period particularly.

Q. So having someone like Robert Mueller, who would end up serving in Vietnam and becoming a Republican, wouldn’t be out of character at Princeton in the 1960s?

A. Not at all. He would be a mainstream Princeton student — in the early 1960s, at least. Princeton changed during the 1960s. and he’s just about at that point where it did become briefly — I wouldn’t say radicalized — but I would say the student body became quite progressive. That’s what alarmed the alumni at the time.

Q. Would it be fair to say you were more of an anomaly than Robert Mueller at the Princeton of the sixties?

A. Oh, much more. Mueller would not be seen as an anomaly at all in that Princeton atmosphere. It was a year when there was growing tension among students about the Vietnam War. The draft was present. A lot of students began to think, “Why should we risk our lives for a war that had no meaning for us?” Because I don’t remember Mueller at all, I don’t know if he expressed any views about this. But it was a key moment in the evolution of the political atmosphere at Princeton. It must have affected him deeply, because there was enough tension by 1966 in the university community, and I was the most visible critic of the Vietnam War among the faculty.

Q. How does it feel knowing that one of the most talked about people in the United States thought so highly of you and acknowledged you in his senior thesis?

A. On one level, it’s amusing. I do wish my memory extended to the experience of knowing and working with him at that time. It’s one of those things that you don’t appreciate at the time but later acquires a new significance.

Q. Robert Mueller throughout his career seems to have earned a lot of bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans found him to be someone they could work with. And it’s interesting to me that his productive relationship with you more than half a century ago — someone with presumably wildly different views — alludes to the kind of person he would become.

A. I think that’s a good insight. From what little I know about him as a public personality, he is somebody that comes across and impresses people with his professionalism. He doesn’t flaunt his ideological views the way someone like Richard Perle would have, or some of the well-known people on the right or left for that matter.

Q. Any general thoughts on his thesis?

A. I was extremely impressed with the maturity and sophistication of the analysis, which was quite unusual for someone who had not attended law school. Even though, from my perspective, it sided too strongly with the conservative interpretation of these complex issues, he did it in a judicious way and was very fair in his assessment of the opposing view. That’s exactly the kind of qualities you would look for in someone given this nationally sensitive role of looking into potential wrongdoing by the president of the United States.

Vimal Patel covers graduate education. Follow him on Twitter @vimalpatel232, or write to him at vimal.patel@chronicle.com.