HE did not talk much at high school, but was a skilled guitar player, singing Beatles’ songs with his school band. “He just smiled, but he was very smart,” says a close friend, dean of a private university in Yogyakarta. “From algebra and finance to trade law and tunes, he could do it all.”

Boediono, a student at Blitar High School, East Java, and now a vice-presidential candidate, does not actually like being organized, but throughout