Benghazi attacks, wrote an essay for the Huffington Post website in which he defended Stevens for reaching out to Libyans in ways that were unconventional for U.S. envoys who more often are cloistered in heavily guarded compounds.

"He was not careless. He was not cavalier. He was realistic, but he made some very pragmatic decisions," Anderson said. "We will always have people who take risks on behalf of our country because they think it's worth it."

It was easy to feel welcome in Libya, Anderson recalled, despite signs of declining security. Just a week before his arrival in June, a disgruntled militia seized control of the Tripoli airport. But Anderson decided to stick with his plans, and he felt vindicated when the passenger next to him on the plane intoTripoli thanked him for U.S. support in the NATO intervention that was vital to the rebel victory over former leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Remarkable story

The gratitude was even more remarkable, Anderson said, because of the man's story: The fellow passenger was an oil worker whose brother, a physician in Colorado, had flown back to Libya to fight with the rebels and was killed by NATO forces who'd mistaken his unit for regime loyalists because they'd just captured a government tank.

"He'd lost his own brother, and he said, 'Our country is grateful because so many other people would've died if you hadn't intervened,' " Anderson recalled.

The American Bar Association had a representative meet the judge at the airport and take him to the U.S. embassy, which Anderson entered after driving down