I love that excerpt since it was classic Pournelle: included a nice extra bit of detail that showed he was "in the know" yet was not actually true (RMS was never a grad student). He used to boast he was part of Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet" of space advisors, and talked about their EOB meetings -- but i knew folks on the NSC technical advisory committee and it was nothing like he described.

I never let on that the person he "knew" online and the person he knew offline were the same me.