In his spare time, Isaacson is working on a biography of Albert Einstein

Walter Isaacson is a man of many titles: The former managing editor of Time magazine and chief executive officer of CNN is also the author of three best-selling books. (Did anyone not read Benjamin Franklin last year?) As president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, however, Isaacson has gone from fighting deadlines to fostering dialogue. He is determined to make Washington less partisan.

"As this city—and to some extent, the nation—becomes more polarized, we [at the Institute] have become fervent in our bipartisanship," he says. "We just got a $10 million gift from the Rodel Foundation to create, each year, a class of Rodel Fellows—elected politicians, 12 from each party—who are going to work together in projects and seminars to explore the nation's true values and put them in practice in a bipartisan way."

The 52-year-old Isaacson explains the Institute's goals: "There are three components: a policy, think-tank arm; an education-and-seminars program for the public; and a global program aimed at training young leaders. The need for common sense and common ground has exploded. We're one of the few places historically dedicated to that mission."

If some readers recall the Aspen Institute as a rather elitist group known for holding Very Serious Seminars for Very Important People in Idyllic Settings, Isaacson does not disagree. "Yes, it was elitist, in both the good and the bad sense of that word. I still want to keep it a place where people aspire to great values and great ideas, but we've opened it up so that any aspiring participant can become involved." Isaacson is referring to the new, D.C.-based seminar entitled, "The Sunday Seminar Series: Leaders and Leadership," to be held each fall and spring at the Institute's Dupont Circle headquarters beginning in February 2005. Washingtonians are just now signing up, but if the series is anything like its originating counterpart, its roster of participants should be impressive.

The Institute was started in Aspen, Colo., in 1950 but it now has, according to Isaacson, a much bigger Washington presence. "In the Sunday-afternoon version of the classic Aspen 'Great Values' seminar we're about to launch, we start with the Bible and Plato and go all the way to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., exploring civilization's great values and how to balance them." A moderator will lead and encourage lively discussions. The famous week-long retreat in Aspen for some 20 top leaders—everyone from the president and CEO of the American Red Cross to the executive vice president of the New York Stock Exchange has attended—will still be held every month, but its Washington equivalent will run on four Sundays each "semester."

You don't need to have a bunch of letters after your name to take part locally: "Anybody who feels the urge can sign up," says Isaacson. "The seminars that we do in Aspen, which are by invitation only, have a mix of business and religious leaders, CIA analysts and political types, and we juggle it to make sure the mix is right. We hope to get that same kind of diversity in the Sunday seminars [in Washington],which will be a taste of what people get, over four consecutive weeks, in the week-long, retreat-like study groups in Aspen or Wye."

People can sign up for the new in-town series on the Institute's Web site, www.aspeninstitute.org. The site also has information on seminars the Aspen Institute has been holding for years at its Wye River campus on the Eastern Shore, one of which involves an excursion on the Chesapeake Bay. Isaacson and company will also offer something called The Wilderness Seminar. "We [plan to] go out on Maryland's Eastern Shore and in the Colorado Rockies to study the values that come from an appreciation of nature." Like a session with Henry David Thoreau? "Precisely." This is code for "at least one night in a remote but comfortable mountain hut at over 11,000 feet in the Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness." One cautionary note: "Participants need to be reasonably fit, especially for the Aspen program, where altitudes of over 8,000 feet and mountain trail hiking will require moderate exertion."

Born and raised in New Orleans, Isaacson headed to Harvard as an undergraduate. There he was inspired by a speech given by Harry Evans, former editor of the Sunday Times of London, about the vital nexus between world affairs and their accurate reporting. Isaacson mailed samples of his work to Evans and in 1973 landed a summer job during that most newsworthy of summers (the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and the "end" of the Vietnam War). After graduating in 1974, he studied philosophy at Oxford and on his return to Louisiana went to work as a reporter for the New Orleans States-Item. That led to a writing position at Time, where he eventually rose to management.

Along the way, he became a celebrated author. As Marie Arana, editor of the Washington Post's "Book World," wrote in November 2003, "He has managed to juggle his career and write three critically acclaimed books: The Wise Men (with Evan Thomas, 1986), Kissinger (1992) and Benjamin Franklin (2003)." He doesn't take himself too seriously, though: "My 14-year-old daughter, with all the confidence of an aspiring novelist, tells me that I'm not a 'real writer' because I write only non-fiction," he says.

Isaacson said to the Post: "I am ever surprised by those times when I see myself referred to as a writer or a historian, for I still...think of myself as an amateur in those fields, one who must continue to have, and define myself by, a day job…As I embark on my next book [a biography of Albert Einstein], I have yet another day job, this one as president of the Aspen Institute."

Given that Walter Isaacson says he is "interested in how intelligence and wisdom are applied to being useful in this world," his choice of subjects is not surprising. Nor are his intentions for the Aspen Institute: "Whether it's our policy programs or our leadership seminars, the mission is to try to reduce partisanship and encourage leadership values."

It could hardly come at a more opportune time.