Last week the Chicago Tribune published some excerpts from transcripts of telephone conversations that Henry Kissinger participated in while he was Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. They make for fascinating reading; very entertaining, sometimes comic.
The first excerpts are from late January 1973, just after the U.S. and Vietnam signed a peace accord. They provide some nice insight into the incestuous relationship between the Washington political elite and the press. I doubt that much has changed over the last thirty years.
chicagotribune.com.
Part 1 of 5: Power and the press
Smooth operator: In the give-and-take of political gamesmanship, nobody worked the phone like Henry Kissinger
By James Warren
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 17, 2005
Henry Kissinger was the most unlikely of political rock stars. A short, stocky German Jewish refugee, he became a respected Harvard University professor of government who ran the school's Center for International Affairs. Ambitious and politically flexible, Kissinger first allied himself politically with moderate Republican New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, then liberal U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and, finally, President Richard Nixon. He became Nixon's national security adviser, later his secretary of state.
Kissinger clearly rejected the traditional notion of presidential aides exhibiting a passion for keeping a low profile, especially in dealing with the media. He correctly perceived that celebrity would enhance his reputation and influence. He courted journalists and also dated well-known, beautiful women, including Gloria Steinem and actress Jill St. John.
That helped explain how, even as national security adviser, he outflanked Secretary of State William Rogers, whose job he took after Nixon was re-elected in 1972 and whom he frequently derided in private conversations with Nixon.
His service to Nixon was marked by dazzling, often secret, missions. The most notable were the treks to China he made while assistant to the president for national security, resulting in the historic reopening of relations between the two nations. In addition, there were covert talks to end the Vietnam War and under-the-radar-screen Middle East diplomacy. He shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with his counterpart at the Vietnam peace negotiations, Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam (who declined the prize).
Brilliant, charming and masterful at boosting the egos of others, Kissinger was cited in a 1973 Gallup Poll as the most admired man in America. He was reviled by liberals and some conservatives, especially in the foreign policy establishment, for he was seen by some as a man possessing little moral principle as he pursued a decidedly pragmatic agenda.
Unlike his biggest patron, Nixon, Kissinger did not secretly tape all telephone conversations. Some were recorded, immediately transcribed and the tapes were destroyed. For most calls, Kissinger had secretaries listen in on extensions and transcribe conversations in shorthand.
Kissinger ultimately gave the transcripts, which contain spelling and punctuation errors and some phonetic interpretations of words, to the Library of Congress with the general stipulation that most could be released five years after his death. Litigation later resulted under the Freedom of Information Act, and federal judges ruled that the documents were government records, leading to their release.
What follows, and in coming days, are excerpts of conversations revealing different sides of a complicated personality. In the first group, Kissinger demonstrates his expertise operating in an incestuous Washington culture whose essence has likely not changed. The excerpts, which contain the transcripts' spelling and other errors, underscore the ways in which the governmental and press elite tend to stroke one another in search of professional advantage.
What arguably makes the Kissinger transcripts notable, however, is that they prove a reality many suspect exists but of which one can rarely be sure, absent such documentation.
It's Jan. 23, 1973, and President Nixon has just announced that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho have signed the agreement in Paris to "end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." The Vietnam War is over, and CBS News diplomatic correspondent Marvin Kalb calls Kissinger at 11 p.m.
Kissinger: Hello.
Kalb: Henry!
Kissinger: Marvin, how are you.
Kalb: Fine. I did not want this night to go pass without extending my personal congratulations. I'm absolutely delighted.
Kissinger: Aren't you nice.
Kalb: I think it must have been an extraordinary effort, it obviously was, and I just wanted to tell on behalf of everyone I know, congratulations, it's just absolutely super.
Kissinger: Well, you're marvelous and you've been a good friend.
Kalb: No, I'm really thrilled, I really am, I'm just so pleased that the thing winded up I assume with the stuff you wanted in it and obviously we'll hear you tomorrow, but that's just on a personal level, it was great.
As effusive as was Kalb, he fell short of nationally syndicated columnist Joseph Alsop, who calls Kissinger the next evening and puts aside any vague notion of journalistic neutrality. Joseph and his brother, Stewart, were prominent Washington columnists and among a cadre of influential Cold War journalists.
Kissinger: Hello, Joe, how are you?
Alsop: Did you get my congratulations?
Kissinger: Yes, I did. And they were among the very few that meant anything to me.
Alsop: I thought it was a most marvelous diplomatic feat and furthermore I thought your presentation of it was perfectly marvelous, too. It meant a great, great deal to me. In fact, in memory of today, I'd like to as[k] you for a signed photograph.
Kissinger: Well, of course. That I should have spontaneously a long time ago because it was people like you really who made it morally and emotionally and intelletually possible.
Alsop: Is Nancy [Maginnes, Kissinger's future wife] coming down to celebrate?
Kissinger: She'll almost certainly be down this weekend.
Alsop: Why don't you have lunch with us on Sunday or supper?
Kissinger: Good, let's aim for that. . . .
Alsop [later in the conversation]: And, Henry, the other thing is if it's possible, I think now that it's all over -- or one hopes -- I think it would be very desirable to have a very quiet history of the thing. I thought, if you can find the time for it -- it will take a little while -- I thought if we could get together in the next day or so, I thought I would give the columns next week to it.
Kissinger: Let me talk to the President about that.
On Jan. 25, New York Times reporter Bernard Gwertzman calls for help on a Sunday story. As they talk, one finds typically sharp Kissinger insights drawn from history but also a par-for-the-course agreement about how certain information from the newsmaker will be attributed in a subsequent story.
Gwertzman: I see my newspaper's nominating you for all sorts of things. It's in the editorial page today.
Kissinger: After what I've said about it's editorial page I can't even accept that.
Gwertzman: It's a sort of peace agreement I guess. I wanted to add my personal feeling that you really did an incredible job of negotiating.
Kissinger: I appreciate it.
Gwertzman: Anyway you choose to describe it I supposed there'll be Ph.D theses written about this for years to come. Were there any long periods of negotiations like that that you can recall?
Kissinger: I can't think of a four-year negotiation.
Gwertzman: No, no. In the 19th Century the wars never lasted that long.
Kissinger: Well, the wars never lasted that long and the negotiations would usually last for weeks because of the difficulty of communications, but I don't recall a settlement in which you can say there was a continuous -- well, these negotiations weren't continuous but they always picked up where they had left off.
Gwertzman: Yeh. Yeh. It's incredible. The question I was just asked -- I'm supposed to do a wrapup piece for Sunday's paper -- and the question I'm interested in is not so much on the details of the Agreement but something you've alluded to continually which is the importance of the major powers in (1) bringing it about and (2) sort of seeing that it actually works. How much have Moscow and Peking helped in bringing this about?
Kissinger: You know this is in no sense for any attribution to anybody.
Gwertzman: Right.
Kissinger: This is just your own speculation.
Gwertzman: Right.
Kissinger: I think quite a bit. One, in producing a sense of isolation and secondly in some more concrete ways.
Gwertzman: In the last month or so were the Russians involved in -- Dobrynin was traveling back and forth like a yo-yo almost -- and the impression was that he was actively involved in this. Is that a fair speculation?
Kissinger: Well, not so much in the details of the negotiations, but in the general mood and context.
Gwertzman: Yeh.
On Jan. 25, 1973, Mike Wallace of CBS News chimed in with his Vietnam peace negotiations kudos for Kissinger.
Wallace: Need I say congratulations.
Kissinger: Thank you Mike.
Wallace: Oh, boy.
Kissinger: You've been a good friend.
Wallace: It was just wonderful. Henry, the whole business yesterday was supurb. And then to see you holding your own reception line with your father and mother at the -- it was so funny.
Kissinger: (Laughter) I didn't see you there.
Wallace: I know you didn't know it. But everybody just laid on you and laid on you and laid on you, and your dad was--
Kissinger: (Laughter) He can brag for the next four weeks.
Wallace: Yeah.
Kissinger: Well, Mike I use to remember our talk in Palm Springs and many other occasions, you were a good friend when things were very tough.
Wallace: I meant every word. And what's going to happen from -- I think the Times editorial today really said it, it's beautiful when they talk, I mean everybody who has any understanding or any sense of what went on. I'm almost ashamed to ask you this next question and please, but I'm asked to ask you, is it conceivable on Sunday.
Kissinger: No, I just won't do anything more on television.
Wallace: That's what I told them, I thought that you wouldn't. Nothing at all to do with politics, but purely stories about the kind of human -- side bar stories, and I mean really, purely side bar -- human interest stuff.
Kissinger: Oh, you mean on your program.
Wallace: Yeah.
Kissinger: Well, let me talk to [White House press secretary Ron] Ziegler about it, but I doubt it.
Wallace: If it could be only -- it would be ten minutes or so on the broadcast, and it would be pure and simple human and personal insights into whatever we could, you know, we'd set it up ahead of time so that there wouldn't be the least possibility of a misstep, just warm stuff.
Kissinger: Good. Well, let me -- I doubt it.
Wallace: I doubt it too, but I said that I doubted it but that I would make the call, and of course it would be supurb if we could and I would understand totally if we couldn't.
Kissinger: Well -- let me know when you come here Mike, we'll have breakfast or lunch or something.
Barbara Walters of NBC News, the country's most prominent female journalist, is a very unhappy camper on Jan. 31, 1973. She assumed she had an agreement for an exclusive interview following the Vietnam peace deal and now learns that CBS will beat her to the punch.
Walters: You gave me your word.
Kissinger: That is right. And the situation is as follows. Right now I'm disposed to cancel everything.
Walters: Well, I would prefer that.
Kissinger: Uh, the situation is that I told Ron [Ziegler] about our discussion and he pointed out that he -- and that is also true -- had given his word to Marvin Kalb and CBS last April, uh, at a time that we had agreed to do it, scheduled a time, and then cancelled it. Then he told me that he was going to get in touch with you and work something out that would be mutually satisfactory, that apparently hasn't been done.
Walters: Well, let me tell you what happened. NBC called me last night. Because after we talked last week, you and I, and I said do you want to do it this week and you said way, that you'd like to wait for this week or maybe even later. When we talked we were thinking about next week. And I was trying to do something so that we'd have not only the Today Show but to have the prime time as well since obviously if you were going to do it this week then you were doing this with me or for me, or whatever, it should be best for you as well. So they called me last night and said 10:30 to 11:00 either this Sunday or next Sunday, which is a good time. So this morning at 7:30 I called your house and you were just getting into your car.
Kissinger: That's right.
Walters: You know, this is what it is. But I was going to tell you incidentally about the interview yesterday with Orianno Vellachi [Oriana Fallaci, a well-known and flamboyant Italian journalist] which went very well and very well for you, which is at this point, you know, who cares. But I thought fine, we'll chat for two minutes. Then I got off the air at nine and Ron called and said, Barbera, uh, you were thinking of doing an interview with Henry. And I said no, I wasn't thinking of doing an interview, he's given me his word. We've told our people. And then he said well, we're committed to CBS. And I said, you can't do that to me. I said after we've worked in years of trust and you cannot. It isn't as if Henry said maybe I'll do an interview or we'll talk about an interview. He said, I will do it with you first, and if I don't do it with you I won't do it with anybody. And I said, we waited and we were waiting this week to suit his time. I said this is not only embarrassing to me, this is insulting. I've told our people. We have, you know . . .
Kissinger [later in the conversation]: But did Ron talk to you this morning?
Walters: This was this morning. He said that we are committed to CBS. And I said you can't do this to me. I said Henry gave me his work [word] and you cannot do this to me. We've told our people, we've cleared the time, we deliberated [deliberately]waited to suit you and . . .
Kissinger [later in the conversation]: And I will call Herb Schloesser [NBC executive Herb Schlosser]and explain to him exactly that it's my fault.
Walters: The only thing I would like to say to you is if you do do for both of us on Sunday, you are not prostituting yourself. I tell you this is exactly what we did with [former Secretary of State Dean] Rusk. Nobody thought that. What they did feel was that what he had to say was very important and he did feel that he should not favor any network, but that he should do it with a select group of people to very much state his case, and this was right after the Pentagon papers --
Kissinger: Well why don't you discuss it with Ziegler and then we'll --
Walters: But I think this is also something you can consider --
Kissinger: But you know, it would be one thing. I just have a hell of a time thinking of myself as such an enormous public figure.
Walters: But you are.
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Tuesday: A man of charm and calculation. |
