http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901771.htmlOne Step Was Plenty
First Man to Walk on the Moon Stoically Backpedals on Earth
By Paul Farhi
Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the most famous man on the planet by taking a short walk off of it. Since then he's tried to live with that fact, and also live it down. Only rarely -- on major anniversary dates, like today -- does he show up on television, and then only fleetingly. He hasn't leveraged his fame for higher office or some grand cause, nor has he sold it willy-nilly...
He told planners at the Smithsonian and NASA that he would speak at their events, but not as the keynoter, not at length and only in conjunction with other Apollo alumni. A book-signing at the Air and Space Museum featuring his Apollo 11 crew mates, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, was out of the question (Armstrong stopped signing anything some years ago when brokers began peddling bogus signatures on the Internet). Media interviews? Not a chance. "He's always been this way," says one person involved in planning the events.
Carol Armstrong says her husband averages about 10 interview requests per month. He turns them all down, usually without reply (he did not respond to a request for this article). "I think he thinks it's all been said before," Carol says from their home near Cincinnati. A decade ago, when The Post sought an interview, Armstrong e-mailed his regrets, adding with Garbo-like brevity: "I am comfortable with my level of public discourse."
Those who know Armstrong say his behavior has been consistent over the arc of his 78 years. Even before the world insisted on lionizing him, he was his own man, faithful to his standards: Reject personal glory. Avoid focusing on the self. Keep what's private private. Until Hansen revealed it, some of Armstrong's closest working associates never knew that Armstrong and his first wife, Janet, had a 2-year-old daughter who died of a brain tumor a few years before Armstrong went into space...
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