I will remember when David Halberstam made time for a nobody.

Several years ago I was working on the Times' Metro Desk, and was reading Halberstam's "Firehouse." I had read "The Best and the Brightest" a short time before.

I was so inspired by Halberstam's work that one day I decided to call him. So I spent an hour or so trying to figure out how to get in touch with him, and eventually located a friend of his who gave me his home phone number.

I called Halberstam at home in the middle of the day at his New York City home. He answered, in his deep voice, and I said, "Mr. Halberstam, I'm a young reporter in Washington, D.C., and I love your work, and I wanted to ask you for any advice you could give me."

Halberstam paused, thinking. He may have asked me a question or two. And then he took several minutes, away from whatever he was doing, to give me counsel. He was unhurried. He seemed in no way annoyed or irritated by my interruption from out of the blue.

Halberstam said that one thing many reporters don't do is figure out what their weaknesses are and work on getting better at those things. He encouraged me to spend some time in self-analysis and work on improving my weaknesses. We talked for a moment longer, and then he hung up.

So apart from Halberstam's great career and inspiring work, I will remember him as one in a string of great persons whose greatness was amplified, and in some ways explained, by their lack of self-importance.

I asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino this morning to comment on Halberstam's death.

"He is a really important historian ... and the president and Mrs. Bush are always saddened when they hear of the deaths of our historians," Mrs. Perino said.

-- Jon Ward, White House correspondent, The Washington Times