"I became a handmaiden of Kissinger's drive for power,"
said Richard Allen. "I had my zipper wide open."

camp. After the meeting, he was unable to sleep, convinced of his own role in a certain disaster. At the time, he was supposed to be taking over a job as staff coordinator, and he went in to see Kissinger, to say that he would not accept the job. Kissinger's reply was memorable, reflecting his awareness that he had crossed his own private Rubicon. "Your view represents the cowardice of the Eastern Establishment," Kissinger cried. Watts was enraged and leapt out of his seat and tried to take a swing at Kissinger, who had retreated behind his desk. A little later, Al Haig asked Watts what he was doing. Watts said he was resigning and Haig said, "You can't do that. You have an order from our commander in chief." "Fuck you, Al," Watts said. "I'm going home."

When Tony Lake and Roger Morris decided to resign as well, the three men spoke at great length about whether or not to go public in a press conference on Cambodian policy. They now saw Kissinger as being an essential part of the Nixon policy on Vietnam, more hawkish than they had wanted to believe, a critical part of the darkness they saw around them. In the end, they decided not to go public; they decided that Kissinger, despite the Cambodian invasion, might still be the one redeeming force in the government. In Morris's words, "His intellectual quotient and potential for policy was still somehow greater than his megalomaniac. . . . If we had gone public with our description of the real Henry whom we knew, and of Nixon's drinking as we knew it and as it was reported to us by Henry, and of the horrendous tenor and tone of the White House in general . . . we knew he would be destroyed." They decided they needed to save him and they did not hold a press conference. Morris now regards the failure to go public as the single biggest mistake of his career. The invasion was, of course, a disaster. The COSVN headquarters was not found. (Watts had once asked a friend in the C.I.A. about COSVN, and the friend had laughed: "There's nothing to find. It's not a fixed place. It's a state of mind.") Watts and the others realized that the invasion brought Cambodia full force into the war with catastrophic consequences. "Because of what we did, we made Pol Pot, we

made him a hero in his own country," Watts said years later. A few days after the invasion had taken place, a meeting was held in Haldeman's office where the top staff people spoke of how to explain the essential failure of the invasion to the media. Kissinger wanted no part of it. "I do not deal with P.R. problems," he said as he strode out of the room.

Going along with the Nixon policy on Vietnam was probably not that hard a call for Kissinger. He was extremely conservative in a classic sense, much more so than most of his old Harvard contemporaries, who—if they were, in general, hard-liners on the Cold War—remained properly optimistic about the uses of American power and the inherent strengths of democratic life. Kissinger was always more pessimistic. He had watched one society collapse and it made him cautious and deeply suspicious of profound political change. His most natural voice was mournful/pessimistic. He was extremely wary of too much idealism in politics, particularly the idealism of the left, which he had seen transformed into totalitarianism. Still, he always feared the right more than the left. Once before in his life, the right had struck against everything he believed in. At one point during the tensions over Cambodia when he was arguing policy with his more dovish staff, he told them that he and Nixon were saving them from the right. "Henry, you are the right," Tony Lake countered, meaning that when you employ policies designed to head off the right, you become the right.

There was, I think, a certain cynicism to the Vietnam policy. When the peace settlement was finally agreed on, John Ehrlichman asked Kissinger how long he thought the South Vietnamese might hold out. Ehrlichman had expected some kind of benign reassurance. Instead, Kissinger told him the truth. "I think that if we're lucky they can hold out for a year and a half." Bringing an unwinnable war to its final end is not a pleasant task under any circumstances, and given the nature of the men in the Nixon administration, it was particularly unpleasant. It was longer and messier than it should have been. The war was extended for an unnecessary period of time, and instead of being able to rescue those Vietnamese who had been

loyal, we were left with a remarkable image: a shot of the people whom we had joined in battle, and whom we had intended to save, hanging on to the skids of departing helicopters.

As the Nixon White House came apart during Watergate, Kissinger's longtime courtship of the media proved invaluable. As a friend to the faithful in Georgetown, he was a Good Guy, "Our Henry" to their Nixon, their Haldeman, their Ehrlichman. He was—or so it appeared to some—the last vestige of legitimacy in a government near collapse, and there was an active and determined effort to protect and save him from the spreading stain of Watergate. A number of prominent media figures participated in this effort, either actively or by their silence. Very few reporters pursued the Kissinger angle. For a time, it appeared that he might eventually escape the larger morass unscathed.

Then, one day in 1973, Bill Sullivan, a high F.B.I. official, called Seymour Hersh of *The New York Times* and suggested lunch. They met at an F.B.I. hangout in Washington near the Justice Department. Sullivan said he had something for Hersh and pulled out a folder with 17 authorizations for wiretaps of N.S.C. staffers, other government staffers, and some journalists, many of them instigated by Henry Kissinger. Even Hersh, accustomed to probing the least savory corners of government, was stunned. The revelation of Kissinger's complicity in this went beyond his own darkest scenarios. He quickly returned to his office to call the F.B.I. men whose names were on the wiretapping orders to assure himself that they did indeed exist. With the documents verified, he phoned Kissinger. He recalls the events that followed very clearly. His first question to Kissinger was followed by an audible gasp at the other end of the line. Then Kissinger's attempted denials faded as Hersh provided chapter and verse of the evidence. "How can I run the government if material like this is printed?" Kissinger pleaded as the conversation ended.

All through the day, there were interruptions as Kissinger marshaled his connections in an attempt to stop the stories.

260

Rogers seemed unable to grasp the fact that Kissinger
intended to take him out as a player—using Vietnam.

First, Scotty Reston wandered by and asked what Hersh had. "Henry seems very upset," said Reston. Hersh showed him; Reston nodded his head. "Fine," he said. "No wonder he's upset." Then a call came from Clifton Daniel, Washington-bureau chief for the *Times*, who also checked out the story. Finally a call came from Abe Rosenthal, the managing editor in New York. No one tried to stop Hersh, in part because the *Times* was playing catch-up with *The Washington Post* on Watergate. Then, around five o'clock, a call came from General Alexander Haig, who had replaced Haldeman as White House chief of staff.

"Seymour," he began. (Since he had never been Seymour to Haig before, Hersh knew that something serious was coming.) At first, Haig tried to justify the wiretaps as legal and perfectly proper— not a news story. Then, as that argument began to evaporate, Haig toughened his defense. He said that this would end Kissinger's legitimacy, that he would be forced to resign, and that the government would unravel. Finally, as deadline approached, Haig rose to his ultimate ploy.

"You're Jewish, aren't you, Seymour?" he asked. Hersh said that he was. "Let me ask you one question, then. Do you honestly believe that Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Germany who lost 13 members of his family to the Nazis, could engage in such police-state tactics as wiretapping his own aides? If there's any doubt," Haig continued, "you owe it to yourself, your beliefs, and your nation to give us one day to prove that your story is wrong." Hersh believed that Kissinger, despite his background, was perfectly capable of employing wiretaps. And so the *Times* went with it.

In two ways, Kissinger was dramatically different from past Establishment figures. In an earlier age, when they had worked among Washington's leading journalists—columnists such as the Alsops, Scotty Reston, Roscoe Drummond, and Walter Lippmann—the Establishment figures had used their power on behalf of policy. But Dean Acheson never tried to sell himself directly to Reston, and he most certainly never attempted to separate himself from a policy that Truman ap-

proved of but that he sensed Reston would not approve of. Kissinger represented something new, a man who managed inside the White House to be utterly servile to the president while deftly separating himself from his policies when he was with people who disagreed with them. This was a new era, one which produced a different kind of person and offered a different set of rewards; it was defined by the vastly greater power of the media and the different nature of a less Calvinist, more media-conscious society which presented vastly different temptations. The members of the old class had hardly been without ego, but the codes they lived by demanded suppression of idiosyncrasy and the upholding of team values. It was not by chance that Kissinger became a star in the new era; he responded to the powerful orbital pull of the media. Dealing with the new celebrity journalists fulfilled not only a professional but also a psychic need for him. It was important to his vision of his larger career. ("Henry always knew there was going to be life after Nixon," John Ehrlichman said.) He was drawn first to print people, and particularly to columnists, who were more influential than they are today, and then to television reporters. As such, he was surely the harbinger of a wider change in America as it began to manifest itself in government, not so much of greater ego but of greater manifestations of ego. He did not come from the same class as the Old Establishment, and his psychological needs were different from those of the men who had once served in comparable positions.

By the spring of 1994, Henry Kissinger was still an important player in American foreign policy, although probably more influential overseas than in America. He had founded Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm worth an estimated $10 million, and had become extremely wealthy. For those hoping to do business in China, for example, his assistance in opening doors was considered extremely valuable. He remained what his Washington years had made him: a star, that most unlikely of things—a celebrity produced by the national-security complex. Even the darker

side of his history, which had come to the surface through various books and articles, had not diminished his glamour and in fact seemed to increase his panache among some new friends.

The break with many of his old academic and political colleagues, mainly over Cambodia and Vietnam, had been painful. Few of those relationships had ever been successfully patched up. His relations with Harvard remained bitter; when he found himself in the Boston area, he refused to attend any function conducted on Harvard ground.

In the 80s, when he stood for re-election to the board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Establishment's last great forum, he came in last. Though he joked about his defeat, friends considered it to have been deeply wounding. Some associates believed that it damaged his relationship with Winston Lord, the council head. Lord had been one of the young staffers who had stood by him during Cambodia. Kissinger was said to have blamed Lord for encouraging him to stand for the seat.

As always, he seemed ever ready to shift alliances. A former aide remarked that he still made his way through life "like Eliza moving across the ice floe." As he had once been a man of Cambridge and the Rockefellers, of Harvard and Georgetown, he was now close to the instant tycoons of the exurban Connecticut countryside, the semi-beAUTIFUL people: men such as Wall Street mogul Henry Kravis, men wealthy and grand enough to require their own secretaries of state. He enjoyed the privileges of their wealth, particularly their private jets. After one incident when Kissinger commandeered the Kravis jet for a trip to Japan, the amused millionaire was heard to tell friends that he hoped to go to China soon himself, "if I can get the use of Henry Kissinger's plane."

In his new world of celebrity, he courted the famous as assiduously as ever. Or almost as assiduously. My friend the novelist John Gregory Dunne once met him at a party in Los Angeles given by the late agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar. "I am a great admirer of your work," Kissinger politely told Dunne, who received the compliment with a degree of skepticism. Later in the evening, Kissinger spoke of a

262

trip to China "with Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta" which he was planning. He mentioned that he wanted to take one of Dunne's books. "Which one?" Dunne inquired.

*The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, Kissinger replied, referring to a novel by Dunne's brother Dominick. "You've got the wrong brother," Nancy Kissinger hissed into her husband's ear.*

As the Republican Party moved further right during the Reagan and Bush years, Kissinger became increasingly isolated from the center of the party. In 1980, during the Republican convention, there was a brief moment when it seemed he might return to power. At the last minute, just as Ronald Reagan was getting ready to accept his nomination, there were whispers of a dream ticket: Reagan and Jerry Ford, two presidents for the price of one. There was even, it seems, a discussion of what might have amounted to a sort of co-presidency. Ford, apparently reluctant to accept a vice-presidential slot, was said to have demanded that part of the price of his participation on such a ticket was the return of Henry Kissinger as secretary of state. Dick Allen, by then a top Reagan adviser, saw the drafting of Ford as something of an attempted coup by Kissinger and made it his personal mission to shoot it down.

Still, Kissinger remained a man who could always get himself on television, and the networks vied to sign him as a special commentator. Though he was sometimes capable of being truly visionary, his appearances were often strangely disappointing, his voice oddly muted. "A grumpy talking head," John Lewis Gadsdis, the diplomatic historian, called him. "My sense is that he is unconsciously ill at ease with so public and democratic an instrument."

To this day, he remains extremely sensitive to everything written about him. John Ehrlichman once wrote that Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, seemed to have become in his postgovernment years the joint keepers of the Henry Kissinger flame, alternating on four-hour shifts. Prolonged diligence was required last May, when *The Haldeman Diaries*, the personal journals of H. R. Haldeman's White House years, was published.

Bob Haldeman, it turns out, was a

careful diarist, recording everything that occurred during his years as Nixon's presidential assistant. He decided, late in his life, to turn it into a book. His motivations were complex, and because he died before the actual publication, we will never know exactly what propelled him. Money probably had something to do with it, as well as the desire to clear his own name. There was also the distinct possibility that the diaries were an attempt at some revenge on Richard Nixon, who had failed to pardon Haldeman, and on Henry Kissinger, who had never really been tainted by the crimes of the administration as all the others who had belonged to it had been.

When Jo Haldeman decided after the death of her husband to go ahead with the publication of his diaries, she was extremely sensitive to their potential impact on both Nixon and Kissinger. She called representatives of both men to let them know what she intended to do. She is now gently discreet about their reactions, but my sources tell me that neither Nixon nor Kissinger was greatly pleased about the planned publication of the diaries. Arguments were put forth that the publication of the book would serve no purpose and only open up old wounds. Nixon apparently suggested, at some point, that the book be published—if it had to be published—after his own book, which was then also scheduled for a spring publication. The former president apparently did not want to spend his publicity tour answering questions about Bob Haldeman's memories of the unfortunate past.

The Haldeman book did, indeed, bring back the past, and there was the darkness evoked once again. Here was what Roger Morris called "the constitutional squalor," the vengeful president once again raging at those around him. The diaries are, I think, particularly devastating to Kissinger. They are our record of the way he played to Nixon, of his systematic attempts to undercut Bill Rogers, of the fact that on several critical occasions—despite what he was saying in Georgetown—he was more hawkish than Nixon and the others on the subject of Vietnam. When some writers with memories took note in the papers of the diaries and the revelations about Kissinger, the man himself responded with angry letters to edi-

tors. When I asked Kissinger about the diaries during an informal talk for this piece, he was dismissive. (He agreed to see me, not so much to answer questions but—I believe—to find out what I was up to.) He had not bothered to read them, he said. He cautioned me to remember that Haldeman had not been involved in foreign policy, seeming to insinuate that in the Nixon administration there had indeed been a boundary separating politics and foreign policy.

The Establishment which Kissinger was once part of is now almost completely changed. During the 70s, it was transformed into a new professional class, and it has continued to change. It now includes the new generation of professionals, including not only Kissinger's lineal descendants but new groups—including human-rights organizations and others committed to the plight of refugees. What was once a small, exclusive club has now grown much larger and noisier. What is clear now is the power that television has played in the metamorphosis of the international political process. As it dramatized certain issues, the medium revealed that it could also affect the foreign-policy agenda of nations like the United States. Thanks to television, someone like Randal Robinson—the South Africa activist who went on a widely publicized hunger strike against U.S. policy in Haiti—can now be as influential as a man like Henry Kissinger. What is strange is that Kissinger, a man so skilled at manipulating the media, was so slow to see the changed dynamic of the contemporary world and even slower, perhaps, to fathom its consequences. He continues, quite ironically, to see himself as the standard-bearer of the old order rather than the harbinger of the new. At a recent dinner party, Henry Kissinger and a group of colleagues were discussing the malaise in contemporary America. Someone said that the problem with the country was the decline of its elite, the loss of the Establishment which Kissinger had once represented. Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, looked over at Kissinger and asked if he thought that this was true, that the elite was in decline.

"No," said Kissinger, pausing just long enough, "but it is true that I am getting very lonely." ☐

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

October 5, 1994

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. Of course, corrections never
quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of
several months. Moreover, in this case the small single
correction would deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an
article otherwise loaded with misrepresentations and errors of
fact. For example:

- I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for *any* trip, much less "commandeered" it for a trip to Japan. Therefore, Kravis could not possibly have said what was attributed to him by Halberstam.

- Neither Paul Volcker nor I remember the conversation with
which Halberstam concludes his article.

- I have never travelled, nor planned to travel, to China -
or anywhere else - with Bill Blass.

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior Harvard professor who was on the Government Department faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. According to them, nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other occasion. I surely recall only kindness from him.

TWENTY-SIXTH FLOOR • 350 PARK AVENUE • NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022 • (212) 759-7919

page two

In that connection, I would point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling me his "waterboy" - which also seems to me out of character for this fine Southern gentleman, at least in the context in which it is presented.

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office with which I was connected contained public statements and background material to support press conferences and substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign policy. Rockefeller's 1968 foreign policy pronouncements are publicly available and demonstrably contained no personal slurs. Al Marshall, Rockefeller's chief of staff during that period, supports these statements.

- The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert Humphrey by offering non-existent "shit files" for his 1968 campaign reflects the same recklessness. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that, in July 1969, after Rockefeller had been defeated for the nomination, Brzezinski seems to have interpreted a conversation in which I expressed my disappointment as an invitation to use the Rockefeller foreign policy research material. Recollections about the conversation differ, though not about my subsequent actions. For according to Brzezinski's own account, I refused to discuss his perception of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks later. I had no further contact with him during the campaign and no files of any character passed between us by his own admission.

- In reckless disregard of the truth, Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller, I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter and, more importantly, a close friend. In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon writes that, after Nixon's nomination, Rockefeller took the initiative in urging Nixon to establish contact with me. Rockefeller was fully informed of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage. Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several times in Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard for Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice

page three

Presidential nomination, Rockefeller became convinced that a
Nixon victory was in the national interest. For that reason,
both he and I supported Nixon without qualification.

- Halberstam alleges that I fed "vital," "privileged"
information on the Paris peace talks to the Nixon camp, which
relayed it back to Saigon and thereby sabotaged the Vietnam
negotiations. Halberstam neglects to mention that I was at no
time a part of the government and had no access to regular
cable traffic, much less to the sensitive negotiating record
which I am told was limited to five or six people. For two
months in the fall of 1967 I acted as emissary to the North
Vietnamese without having a formal government position.
Afterwards, I had social contact with some of the key figures
on Vietnam policy during those rare occasions on which I was
in Washington. I thereby gained a general knowledge of some
attitudes but knew next to nothing of day-to-day events.

During the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess
while the political conventions were taking place. My only
contact with the negotiating delegation was around September
18, before negotiations resumed and while the delegation was
still waiting for new instructions. The negotiations were in
fact not to become active until nearly three weeks later.
After the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever
with the negotiators and no knowledge whatsoever - even in
general terms - of the progress of the negotiations.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp.
323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time
around September 12 - more than two weeks before the
negotiations took a serious turn - the second time around
October 23. At the first conversation, Mitchell insisted that
all discussions about Vietnam be with him or Haldeman, rather
than with Allen (so that Allen's assertions reflect a decades-
old grievance rather than reality). Had Mr. Halberstam
bothered to read Nixon's memoirs, he would have found that I
urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements
critical of the negotiations because I thought the
negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on
inside information which at that point would have indicated
the existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that
Hanoi would try to commit *both* candidates to a bombing halt
before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office
with some progress on Vietnam. All this is far more consistent
with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to
sabotage what, in fact, I had been urging for two years and

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24

LUCIUS

MAJOR BARBRA

Simmons on Streisand

I just got finished embracing every word in your article about Ms. Barbra Streisand ["A Star Is Reborn," by Michael Shnayerson, November]. What can I say? It was like buddah! I loved the cover so much that I commissioned the renowned artist Lisa Lichtenfels to create a one-of-a-kind doll inspired by the lovely photos taken by Annie Leibovitz. Thank you for such an honest, beautiful, and accurate profile of such an incredible woman.

RICHARD SIMMONS

Beverly Hills, California

Regarding Henry

The article "The New Establishment: The Decline and Fall of the Eastern Empire," by David Halberstam [October], is filled with misrepresentations. For example:

"I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less "commandered" it for a trip to Japan. Therefore, Kravis could not possibly have said what was attributed to him by Halberstam.

—Neither Paul Volcker nor I remember the conversation with which Halberstam concludes his article.

—Despite our friendship I have never traveled, nor planned to travel, to China or anywhere else—with Bill Blass.

—The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party, is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the event and of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked it with Sam Huntington, a senior professor of the Government faculty. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom have I had any contact for two decades. According to them, nothing like that transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything in

VANITY FAIR / JANUARY 1995

—The concept of “shit files” was unknown in the Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description—or any variation of it—would be appropriate. The research material I was familiar with consisted of newsclips and articles to support Nelson Rockefeller’s statements on foreign policy. Rockefeller had the quaint notion that a nomination had to be earned by substantive pronouncements, not negative advertisements, and campaigned in 1968 by advertisements laying out his program, which are available from the public record.

—The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert Humphrey by offering nonexistent “shit files” for his 1968 campaign reflects the same recklessness. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that in July 1968, after Rockefeller had been defeated for the nomination, Zbigiew Brzezinski seems to have interpreted a conversation in which I expressed my disappointment as an invitation to use the Rockefeller foreign-policy research material. Recollections about the

conversation differ, though not about my subsequent actions. For according to Brzezinski's account, I refused to discuss his perception of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks later. I had no further contact with him during the campaign and by his own admission no files of any character passed between us.

—Halberstam alleges that “unbeknownst” to Rockefeller I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter and, more important, a close friend. In his memoirs *RN* (page 323), Nixon writes that, after Nixon’s nomination, Rockefeller urged Nixon to establish contact with me. It was the Nixon camp which took the initiative in contacting me through Bill Buckley. Rockefeller was fully informed of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage. As for Humphrey, I had met him several times in Rockefeller’s company prior to 1968. Despite his personal regard for Humphrey, Rockefeller became convinced that a Nixon victory was in the national interest. For

—Halberstam alleges that I fed “vital.” “privileged” information on the Paris peace talks to the Nixon camp, which relayed it back to Saigon and thereby sabotaged the Vietnam negotiations.

Amid all this portentous innuendo, Halberstam never explains what the alleged sabotage consisted of. A chronology of events makes clear that Halberstam's determination to smear blinds his judgment. During the summer of 1968, negotiations were suspended. They were resumed at the end of September; a breakthrough occurred around October 15; an agreement was reached around October 30. Saigon had no role in any of this until the middle of October. After October 30 Nguyen Van Thieu dragged his feet on the procedural issue of how the guerrillas could participate in the negotiations—an issue which has always proved difficult to solve, as shown in the Israel-P.L.O. contacts over the years and the British attitude toward the I.R.A. The Johnson administration was quite unrealistic in believing that this could be settled in a week between the agreement and the election—which is what the charge of sabotage amounts to. Thieu reacted to the published agreement, not to information received from Nixon, of whose contacts with Saigon I was, in any event, unaware. Far from sabotaging the agreement, Nixon endorsed it after the election and helped break the procedural deadlock even before his inauguration. So what exactly is Halberstam charging? During the period of the alleged sabotage, a substantive agreement was reached in the record time of 30 days and the procedural issues were settled with Nixon's help before the inauguration.

As for my role in all this, I had two meetings with John Mitchell, on September 12 and October 23, both at Mitchell's initiative via Buckley. At the time of the first session, there could have been no inside information to pass on, even if I had had any, because the negotiations were in recess and were not to resume for two weeks. At the second, on October 23, Nixon needed no outsider's information because he had been briefed in detail by President Johnson on October 16 regarding the breakthrough and on October 30 regarding the Communist agreement.

My advice to the Nixon camp depended in any event on analysis, not inside knowledge. I was at the time not in the government and had no access to regular cable traffic, much less to the sensitive

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negotiating record, which was limited to five or six people. For two months in the fall of 1967 I had acted as emissary to the North Vietnamese without having a formal government position. I had gained a general knowledge of attitudes but knew next to nothing of day-to-day events in 1968. As Nixon describes in his memoirs, I urged Mitchell to avoid statements critical of the negotiations and indicated that I thought the negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside information, which at that point would have indicated a stalemate. Rather, it reflected a judgment that Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the elec-

tion and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some progress on Vietnam. Not surprisingly, my advice was consistent with my public position in support of negotiations for two years and with a major article for *Foreign Affairs* being printed at that very moment and which appeared a few weeks later.

There are many more misrepresentations in the article.

John Ehrlichman's alleged recollection of my view regarding the duration of the Vietnam peace agreement is demonstrably false; many memorandums exist in which my actual views are spelled out in detail. The account of my childhood is as preposterous as it is unsupported. But to deal with these and other falsifications in detail would oblige me to write a piece as long as Halberstam's.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

New York, New York

**DAVID HALBERSTAM REPLIES:** As far as I can tell, the single most important factual disagreement that Henry Kissinger has with me is whether or not he once pressured Henry Kravis for the use of his jet plane. Mr. Kravis recounted this story to my source with great amusement—and seemed almost charmed by the imperial quality of Kissinger's request: Kravis told my friend that he did indeed intend to fly to China himself. "if I can have the use of Henry Kissinger's plane," Mr. Kissinger now denies ever being on the Kravis plane (although his enthusiasm for corporate jets and corporate helicopters is widely known and is considered by his wealthier friends to be almost childlike).

I do not want to do him an injustice on this point. It is quite possible that I am in error here

and that someone who is extremely careless with the truth about the secret bombing of a small country is, in fact, scrupulously honest about the use of corporate airplanes; if so, I apologize to Mr. Kissinger for placing him on the wrong corporate jet, and I also hope that Mr. Kravis will soon reverse what surely must be a company policy and let Kissinger on his plane in the near future.

The rest of his letter is filled with halfhearted denials of my article. Let me say simply that I think Henry Kissinger is a brilliant man, and on occasion this country has been the genuine beneficiary of his extraordinary abilities. But it is his personal behavior which remains so troubling. His relentless manipulations and deceits, some petty, some not so petty, inflicted not so much on sworn adversaries as on friends, colleagues, and would-be allies alike, are

at the crux of my article. As his colleague Helmut Sonnenfeldt once said of him, Henry lies not because it is in his interest but rather because it is in his character. The unattractive, lesser side of that character, despite his relentless denials, is now well documented, most particularly his devious behavior during the 1968 campaign, when he used his access to the Democrats to serve the Nixon campaign, and, even more important, his fierce hawkishness on Vietnam (and Cambodia) while at the same

time he professed his dovishness in the more liberal environs of Georgetown, where he deftly signaled his alleged differences with the policies of the man he served, Richard Nixon.

If he is angry at my rather mild portrait of him, and if he is so obsessed with attaining an accurate portrait of events, I suggest that he do what he says he has yet to do and read The Haldeman Diaries and study Haldeman's portrait of him in those years, a depiction far more devastating than anything I could ever have imagined, let alone written.

**CORRECTION:** In David Halberstam's essay, a comment was wrongly attributed to historian John Lewis Gaddis. We quoted Professor Gaddis as saying that Henry Kissinger came across in television appearances as a "grumpy talking head... My sense is that he is unconsciously ill at ease with so public and democratic an instrument." Gaddis did describe Kissinger as "a grumbling television talking head." The rest of the comment is Halberstam's.

Letters to the editor should be sent with the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number to: The Editor, *Vanity Fair*, 350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. Address electronic mail to vmail@vf.com. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.

Henry Kissinger

28

VANITY FAIR/JANUARY 1995

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62

Letters

(Continued from page 58)

Regarding your article on the New Es-
tablishment: Just because these people
fly in their own Gulfstream jets 45,000
feet above the Grand Canyon does not
mean they are closer to God. It is a prin-
ciple of physics.

ANTHONY F. PROVENZANO, M.D.

Bronxville, New York

I took exception to all of the negativity
on Henry Kissinger. Our paths crossed
once, during a private tour of the White
House. I said, “Gosh, I’ve always ad-
mired you.” Kissinger’s response: “You
have good taste.” So he does, at least,
have a quick sense of humor!

VIRGINIA KATIMS

Seattle, Washington

Annie Leibovitz “catches the faces of change” in her “Portfolio of Power,” but unfortunately for women some things will never change. The serious expression on Barbra Streisand’s face is not in sync with her chosen attire. I wish someone would tell Barbra, “It’s not about your chest, it’s about your brains and talent.” Even if her office is at home, I doubt she works out deals in her slip.

LIZA COLEMAN

New York, New York

I find it completely disheartening but not
at all surprising that some 24 years after
the rebirth of feminism there are only
two women who wield power in the
New Establishment and only one non-
white person. Oh yeah, she's one of the
women. How about a no-boys network?

LISA ANN ROBERTSON

Columbus, Ohio

The most exciting event around here is
the day my *Vanity Fair* arrives.

I especially enjoyed your Special Re-
port, "The New Establishment." The
men in the photo on pages 212 and 213
must be doing something right: our fami-
ly ditched cable TV two years ago, in fa-
vor of books and classic videos, yet even
I recognized 13 of the 16 faces! Their
reach far exceeds the "information su-
perhighway."

PATRICIA M. ARNOLD

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

I see the members of the New Establish-
ment as certainly no more powerful than
the original Hearst or Luce was in his
day. The individuals V.F. singled out have
influence, but only indirectly in the areas
that really count: geopolitical/socioeco-
nomic-policy development. I think that

each is interested more in making money
than in anything else.

NED BROWN

New York, New York

Cruise Missiles

Your article on Tom Cruise ["Cruise Speed," by Kevin Sessums, October] tops all articles from the past about him. I have finally read something that goes beyond his acting career. He is genuine and uninhibited and I feel that makes him shine the way he does.

KELLI SCHWABE

Warrington, Pennsylvania

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

Pleasure Cruise: The normally enigmatic Tom Cruise opened up to Kevin Sessums in the October issue. This month he stars in the title role of Interview with the Vampire.

So Tom Cruise has a good head on his
shoulders—like any other good little
hypnotoid in Scientology. After my
brush with Scientology, I think I'd have
been better off with vampires.

KATHLEEN RAINE

Ithaca, New York

Many people just see Tom Cruise as
a pretty face with an outrageous body,
but Kevin Sessums's article brings out
the real Tom. He's a great guy and I
have always loved him. The pictures are
some of the best I've seen.

CHRISTIE ORDOYNE

Thibodaux, Louisiana

I have watched Tom Cruise grow up on
the silver screen and I've been a fan from
the beginning. Thanks to Kevin Ses-
sums's article I now know that I was
right all along; there's so much more to
this man than a beautiful face and sexy
body. Tom Cruise is a kid at heart with a

VANITY FAIR / DECEMBER 1994

CJ

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. As you know, corrections never
catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of several
months. Moreover, in this case the small single correction
will deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an article
otherwise loaded with malicious misrepresentations and errors
of fact. To wit:

- I have never travelled to China - or anywhere else - with
Bill Blass.

- The word "shit file" was not known in the Rockefeller
entourage. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller
organization for which such a description - or any variation
of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office
with which I was connected contained public statements and
background material to support press conferences and
substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign
policy. These are publicly available, dealt with foreign
policy, and contained no personal slurs. Al Marshall,
Rockefeller's chief of staff during that period, supports
these statements.

page two

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - was so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked with a senior Harvard professor from the Government Department. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. They confirmed that nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other occasion. I surely recall only kindness from him.

In that connection, I would point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling me his "waterboy" - which also seems to me out of character for this fine Southern gentleman.

- The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert Humphrey by offering non-existent "shit files" for his 1968 campaign reflects the same combination of recklessness and malice. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that, in July 1969 Brzezinski interpreted a conversation after Rockefeller was defeated for the nomination as an invitation to use the Rockefeller foreign policy research material. Recollections about the substance of the conversation differ, though not about my subsequent actions. For according to Brzezinski's own account, I refused to discuss his perception of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks later and I had no further contact with him during the campaign.

- In reckless disregard of the truth, Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller, I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter. In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon writes that, after his nomination, Rockefeller had been instrumental in establishing the campaign contacts with me. Rockefeller was therefore fully aware of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage (of which I recall only two).

page three

Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several times in Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard for Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice Presidential nomination, he had become convinced that a Nixon victory was in the national interest. From then on, both he and I supported Nixon without qualification and had no contact with the Humphrey campaign.

- Halberstam alleges that I fed "vital," "privileged" information on the Paris peace talks to the Nixon camp, which relayed it back to Saigon and thereby sabotaged the Vietnam negotiations. There is not a shred of evidence for this grave charge. Halberstam neglects to mention that I was at no time a part of the government and had no access to regular cable traffic, much less to the sensitive negotiating record which I am told was limited to five or six people. For two months in the fall of 1967 I acted as emissary to the North Vietnamese without being given a formal government position. Afterwards, I had social contact with some of the key figures on Vietnam policy during those rare occasions on which I was in Washington. I had gained a general knowledge of some trends but knew next to nothing of day-to-day events.

Had Mr. Halberstam done a minimum of research, he would have discovered that during the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess while the political conventions were taking place and that my last contact with the delegation was around September 15, when it had not yet received new instructions, nor had there been any private meetings with the North Vietnamese. The negotiations were in fact not to break open until more than three weeks later. After the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever with the negotiators and no knowledge whatsoever - even in general terms - of the process of negotiation.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp. 323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time around September 12, the second time around October 23. Had Mr. Halberstam bothered to read that record, he would have found that during the first conversation - more than three weeks before the negotiations took a serious turn - I urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements which could be undercut if the negotiations succeeded, and that I thought

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. As you know, corrections never
catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of several
months. Moreover, in this case the small single correction
would deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an article
otherwise loaded with malicious misrepresentations and errors
of fact. For example:

- The word "shit file" was not known in the Rockefeller entourage. Calling the Rockefeller campaign material "shit files" is a reflection on Halberstam's sources. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office with which I was connected contained public statements and background material to support press conferences and substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign policy. These are publicly available, dealt with foreign policy, and contained no

page two

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - was so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked with a senior Harvard professor from the Government Department. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who *had* been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. They confirmed that nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other occasion. I surely recall only kindness from him.

page three

had been instrumental in urging contacts with me. Rockefeller
was therefore fully informed of my every meeting with the
Nixon entourage (of which I recall only two).
Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several times in
Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard for
Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice
Presidential nomination, he had become convinced that a Nixon
victory was in the national interest. From then on, both he
and I supported Nixon without qualification and had no contact
with the Humphrey campaign.

- Halberstam alleges that I fed "vital," "privileged"
information on the Paris peace talks to the Nixon camp, which
relayed it back to Saigon and thereby sabotaged the Vietnam
negotiations. Halberstam neglects to mention that I was at no
time a part of the government and had no access to regular
cable traffic, much less to the sensitive negotiating record
which I am told was limited to five or six people. For two
months in the fall of 1967 I acted as emissary to the North
Vietnamese without having a formal government position.
Afterwards, I had social contact with some of the key figures
on Vietnam policy during those rare occasions on which I was
in Washington. I thereby gained a general knowledge of some
trends but knew next to nothing of day-to-day events.

During the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess
while the political conventions were taking place and my only
contact with the negotiating delegation was around September
18, before negotiations resumed and while the delegation was
still waiting for new instructions. The negotiations were in
fact not to break open until nearly three weeks later. After
the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever with the
negotiators and no knowledge whatsoever - even in general
terms - of the progress of the negotiations.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs
(pp. 323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time
around September 12, the second time around October 23. Had
Mr. Halberstam bothered to read that record, he would have
found that during the first conversation - more than two weeks
before the negotiations took a serious turn - I urged Mitchell
(I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements which could be
undercut if the negotiations succeeded, and that I thought

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. Of course, corrections never
quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of
several months. Moreover, in this case the small single
correction would deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an
article otherwise loaded with *malicious* misrepresentations and
errors of fact. For example:

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill
Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by
*Vanity Fair* - is so bizarrely inconsistent with my
recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I
checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior Harvard
professor who was on the Government Department faculty at the
time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of
the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really
happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors
who *had* been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I
have had any contact for two decades. According to them,
nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard

page two

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office with which I was connected contained public statements and background material to support press conferences and substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign policy. Rockefeller's 1968 foreign policy statements are publicly available and demonstrably contained no personal slurs. Al Marshall, Rockefeller's chief of staff during that period, supports these statements.

- The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert Humphrey by offering non-existent "shit files" for his 1968 campaign reflects the same combination of recklessness, malice. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that, in July 1969, after Rockefeller had been defeated for the nomination, Brzezinski interpreted a conversation in which I expressed my disappointment as an invitation to use the Rockefeller foreign policy research material. Recollections about the substance of the conversation differ, though not about my subsequent actions. For according to Brzezinski's own account, I refused to discuss his perception of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks later. I had no further contact with him during the campaign and no files of any character passed between us by his own admission.

page three

writes that, after Nixon's nomination, Rockefeller took the
initiative in urging Nixon to establish contact with me.
Rockefeller was fully informed of my every meeting with the
Nixon entourage. Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several
times in Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard
for Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice
Presidential nomination, Rockefeller became convinced that a
Nixon victory was in the national interest. For that reason,
both he and I supported Nixon without qualification, and had no
contact with the Humphrey campaign.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp.
323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time
around September 12, the second time around October 23. At the
first conversation, Mitchell insisted that all discussions
about Vietnam be with him or Haldeman, rather than with Allen
(so that Allen's assertions reflect a decades-old grievance
rather than reality). Had Mr. Halberstam bothered to read
Nixon's memoirs, he would have found that during the first
conversation - more than two weeks before the negotiations

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. Of course, corrections never
quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of
several months. Moreover, in this case the small single
correction would deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an
article otherwise loaded with malicious misrepresentations and
errors of fact. For example:

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked it with a senior Harvard professor from the Government Department who was on the faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. According to them, nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything

page two

- The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert
Humphrey by offering non-existent "shit files" for his 1968
campaign reflects the same combination of recklessness and
malice. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that, in
July 1969, Brzezinski interpreted a conversation after
Rockefeller was defeated for the nomination as an invitation
to use the Rockefeller foreign policy research material.
Recollections about the substance of the conversation differ,
though not about my subsequent actions. For according to
Brzezinski's own account, I refused to discuss his perception
of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks
later. I had no further contact with him during the campaign
and no files of any character passed between us by his own
admission.

page three

writes that, after his nomination, Rockefeller took the
initiative in urging Nixon to establish contact with me.
Rockefeller was fully informed of my every meeting with the
Nixon entourage. Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several
times in Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard
for Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice
Presidential nomination, Rockefeller became convinced that a
Nixon victory was in the national interest. For that reason,
both he and I supported Nixon without qualification and had no
contact with the Humphrey campaign.

- Halberstam alleges that I fed "vital," "privileged"
information on the Paris peace talks to the Nixon camp, which
relayed it back to Saigon and thereby sabotaged the Vietnam
negotiations. Halberstam neglects to mention that I was at no
time a part of the government and had no access to regular
cable traffic, much less to the sensitive negotiating record
which I am told was limited to five or six people. For two
months in the fall of 1967 I acted as emissary to the North
Vietnamese without having a formal government position.
Afterwards, I had social contact with some of the key figures
on Vietnam policy during those rare occasions on which I was
in Washington. I thereby gained a general knowledge of some
trends, but knew next to nothing of day-to-day events.

During the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess
while the political conventions were taking place, and my only
contact with the negotiating delegation was around September
18, before negotiations resumed and while the delegation was
still waiting for new instructions. The negotiations were in
fact not to break open until nearly three weeks later. After
the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever with the
negotiators and no knowledge whatsoever - even in general
terms - of the progress of the negotiations.

page four

took a serious turn - I urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements which could be undercut if the negotiations succeeded, and that I thought the negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside information which at that point would have indicated the existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some progress on Vietnam. According to Nixon's account, during the second conversation on October 23 - as the negotiations were concluding - I urged Mitchell to avoid attacks on the settlement. All this is far more consistent with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to sabotage what, in fact, I had been urging for two years and about which I had a major article for Foreign Affairs in print at that very moment.

Most importantly, President Johnson's memoirs show that he had fully briefed Nixon on October 16, regarding the progress of negotiations, so that my general observations were in fact irrelevant. Finally, I was not aware of any contacts the Nixon campaign might have had in Saigon. However, I believe that I was right.

The charge of passing sensitive information to a foreign government is not one which a major magazine like *Vanity Fair* should make without more serious evidence than Halberstam presents and without making any effort to verify it.

There are many more errors in the article, including the preposterous, totally unsupported account of my childhood. But to deal with them would oblige me to write a piece as long as Halberstam's.

Mr. George Hodgman
Senior Editor
VANITY FAIR
350 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Final

[Y]

The article ["The New Establishment: The Decline and Fall of the Eastern Empire" by David Halberstam, October] is filled with misrepresentations. For example:

- I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less "commandeered" it for a trip to Japan. Therefore, Kravis could not possibly have said what was attributed to him by Halberstam.

- Despite our friendship I have never travelled, nor planned to travel, to China - or anywhere else - with Bill Blass.

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by Vanity Fair - is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the event and of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior professor of the Government faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. According to them, nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other occasion. I surely recall only kindness from him.

8

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The research material I was familiar with consisted of newsclips and articles to support Rockefeller's statements on foreign policy. Rockefeller had the quaint notion that a nomination had to be earned by substantive pronouncements, not negative advertisements, and campaigned in 1968 by advertisements laying out his program, which are available from the public record.

2

- Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller,
I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-
covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this
insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as
having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a
Rockefeller supporter and, more importantly, a close friend.
In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon writes that, after Nixon's
nomination, Rockefeller urged Nixon to establish contact
with me. It was the Nixon camp which took the initiative in
contacting me through Bill Buckley. Rockefeller was fully
informed of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage. As
for Humphrey, I had met Humphrey several times in
Rockefeller's company prior to 1968. Despite his personal
regard for Humphrey, Rockefeller became convinced that a
Nixon victory was in the national interest. For that reason,
both he and I supported Nixon without qualification.

Amidst all this portentous innuendo, Halberstam never
explains what the alleged sabotage consisted of. A
chronology of events makes clear that Halberstam's
determination to smear blinds his judgment. During the

3

[Y]

summer of 1968, negotiations were suspended. They were
resumed at the end of September; a breakthrough occurred
around October 15; an agreement was reached around October
30. Saigon had no role in any of this until the middle of
October. After October 30 Thieu dragged his feet on the
procedural issue of how the guerrillas could participate in
the negotiations - an issue which has always proved
difficult to solve, as shown in the Israel-PLO contacts over
the years and the British attitude toward the IRA. The
Johnson administration was quite unrealistic in believing
that this could be settled in a week between the agreement
and the election - which is what the charge of sabotage
amounts to. Thieu reacted to the published agreement, not to
information received from Nixon, of whose contacts with
Saigon I was, in any event, unaware. Far from sabotaging the
agreement, Nixon endorsed it after the election and helped
break the procedural deadlock even before his inauguration.
So what exactly is Halberstam charging? During the period of
the alleged sabotage, a substantive agreement was reached in
the record time of thirty days and the procedural issues
were settled with Nixon's help before the inauguration.

As for my own role in all this, I had two meeting with
Mitchell, on September 12 and October 23, both at Mitchell's
initiative via Buckley. At the time of the first session,
there could have been no inside information to pass on, even
if I had had any, because the negotiations were in recess

8

4

[Y]

and were not to resume for two weeks. At the second on
October 23, Nixon needed no outsider's information because
he had been briefed in detail by President Johnson on
October 16 regarding the breakthrough and on October 30
regarding the communist agreement.

My own advice to the Nixon camp depended in any event
on analysis, not inside knowledge. I was at the time not in
the government and had no access to regular cable traffic,
much less to the sensitive negotiating record which was
limited to five or six people. For two months in the fall of
1967 I had acted as emissary to the North Vietnamese without
having a formal government position. I had gained a general
knowledge of attitudes but knew next to nothing of day-to-
day events in 1968. As Nixon describes in his memoirs, I
urged John Mitchell to avoid statements critical of the
negotiations and indicated that I thought the negotiations
would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside
information which at that point would have indicated a
stalemate. Rather, it reflected a judgment that Hanoi would
try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the
election and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some
progress on Vietnam. Not surprisingly, my advice was
consistent with my public position in support of
negotiations for two years and with a major article for
*Foreign Affairs* being printed at that very moment and which
appeared a few weeks later.

8

5

There are many more misrepresentations in the article. Erlichman's alleged recollection of my view regarding the duration of the Vietnam peace agreement is demonstrably false; many memoranda exist in which my actual views are spelled out in detail. The account of my childhood is as preposterous as it is unsupported. But to deal with these and other falsifications in detail would oblige me to write a piece as long as Halberstam's.

[Y]

6

[Y]

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The research material I was familiar with consisted of newsclips and articles to support Rockefeller's statements on foreign policy. Rockefeller had the quaint notion that a nomination had to be earned by substantive pronouncements, and campaigned in 1968 by advertisements laying out his program, which are available from the public record.

2

[y]

- Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller, I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter and, more importantly, a close friend. In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon writes that, after Nixon's nomination, Rockefeller urged Nixon to establish contact with me. It was the Nixon camp which took the initiative in contacting me through Bill Buckley. Rockefeller was fully informed of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage. As for Humphrey, I had met Humphrey several times in Rockefeller's company prior to 1968. Despite his personal regard for Humphrey, Rockefeller became convinced that a Nixon victory was in the national interest. For that reason, both he and I supported Nixon without qualification.

Amidst all this portentous innuendo, Halberstam never explains what the alleged sabotage consisted of. A chronology of events makes clear that Halberstam's [inaugurated] determination to smear blinds his judgment. During the summer of 1968, negotiations were suspended. They were resumed at the end of September; a breakthrough occurred

3

around October 15; an agreement was reached around October 30. Saigon had no role in any of this until the middle of October. After October 30 Thieu dragged his feet on the procedural issue of how the guerrillas could participate in the negotiations - an issue which has always proved difficult to solve, as shown in the Israel-PLO contacts over the years and the British attitude toward the IRA. The Johnson administration was quite unrealistic in believing that this could be settled in a week between the agreement and the election - which is what the charge of sabotage amounts to. Thieu reacted to the published agreement, not to received from Nixon, of whose contacts with Saigon is alleged information, of which, in any event, I was unaware. Far from sabotaging the agreement, Nixon endorsed it after the election and helped break the procedural deadlock even before his inauguration. So what exactly is Halberstam charging? During the period of the alleged sabotage, a substantive agreement was reached in the record time of thirty days and the procedural issues were settled with Nixon's help before the inauguration.

As for my own role in all this, I had two meeting with Mitchell, on September 12 and October 23, both at Mitchell's initiative via Buckley. At the time of the first session, there could have been no inside information to pass on, even if I had had any, because the negotiations were in recess and were not to resume for two weeks. At the second on October 23, Nixon needed no outsider's information because

100

[Y]

5

KISSINGER ASSOCIATES
350 PARK AVENUE
NEW YORK NY 10022-6022
(212) 759-7919
FACSIMILE: (212) 759-0042

FACSIMILE COVER SHEET

NO. OF PAGES:
(Including this one)

7

DATE:

November 14, 1994

RECIPIENT:

NAME: Mr. Jerry Glazebrook

LOCATION: (accompanying Dr. Henry Kissinger)

FAX NO.:

SENDER:

NAME: Suzanne S. McFarlane

MESSAGE:

URGENT - please deliver immediately upon arrival

NOTE: VF says tomorrow is too late. It must "leave the building" today in order to make the issue!

Everything is arranged for your mother tomorrow as you instructed.

- I have never travelled, nor planned to travel, to China -or anywhere else - with Bill Blass.

[Y]

Moreover, the quote is quite inconsistent with another
quote ascribed to Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling me
his "waterboy" - which also seems to me out of character for
this fine Southern gentleman, at least in the context in
which it is presented.

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the
Rockefeller campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the
Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no
files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a
description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate.
The research material consisted of newsclips and articles to
support Rockefeller's pronouncements on foreign policy. In 1968,
These contained no "negative" emphasis or personal slurs as
can be confirmed from the public record. At Marshall,
Rockefeller's chief of staff during that period, confirms
these statements.

[Y]

3

[Y]

The charge is as absurd as it is malicious. It is quite reasonable for a presidential candidate to inform himself on a major current issue. Nixon's main concern with the negotiations was not to be blindsided. As the weeks went by, this fear, it now appears, was eliminated because Johnson himself briefed Nixon twice on October 16 regarding the breakthrough in the negotiations that had occurred around October 12, and on October 30, regarding the imminent completion of the agreement.

As for my contacts with the Nixon camp, there were two as documented in Nixon's memoirs. I met with Mitchell twice, on September 12 and on October 23, 1968. During the first session there could have been no tactical information to pass on - even if I had had any because the negotiations were in recess and were not to resume for two weeks. At the second on October 23, Nixon needed no outsider's information because he had been briefed in detail by President Johnson on October 16 regarding the breakthrough in October 30.

The chronology also makes it clear that Nixon could not have had any major impact on the pace of negotiation. Negotiations were resumed at the end of September, the breakthrough occurred on October 12, the agreement was completed on October 30. Thieu did not enter the game until the breakthrough. That Thieu would drag his feet did not require Nixon's intervention of which in any event I was unaware and about whose nature I still lack firsthand information. Thieu pursued exactly the same course of

regarding the accord.

[y]

procrastination four years later, this time aimed at the
Nixon administration. And in any event, we are talking of
days, not weeks.

My own advice to the Nixon camp depended on analysis,
not inside knowledge. I was at no time a part of the
government and had no access to regular cable traffic, much
less to the sensitive negotiating record which was limited
to five or six people. For two months in the fall of 1967 I
had acted as emissary to the North Vietnamese without having
a formal government position. I thereby gained a general
knowledge of some attitudes based on social contacts but
knew next to nothing of day-to-day events. I urged John
Mitchell to avoid statements critical of the negotiations
and that I thought the negotiations would succeed. This
conclusion was not based on inside information which at that
point would have indicated the existence of a stalemate.
Rather, it reflected a judgment that Hanoi would try to
commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the election
and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some progress
on Vietnam. This is consistent with my public position in
support of negotiations for two years and with a major
article for Foreign Affairs being printed at that very
moment.

There are many more errors in the article. Erlichman's
alleged recollection of my view regarding the duration of
the Vietnam peace agreement is demonstrably false; many

## Inserts 4 and 4a

Amidst all this portentious innuendo, Halberstam never explains what the alleged sabotage consisted of. A chronology of events makes clear that Halberstam's [his?] determination to smear blinds his judgment. During the summer of 1968, negotiations were suspended. They were resumed at the end of September; a break-through occurred around October 15; an agreement was reached around October 30. Saigon had no role in any of this until the middle of October. After October 30 Thieu dragged his feet on the procedural issue of how the communists guerillas could participate in the negotiations - an issue which has always proved difficult to solve, as shown in the Israel-PLO contacts over the years and the British attitude towards the IRA. The Johnson administration was quite unrealistic in believing that this could be settled in a week between the agreement and the election - which is what the charge of sabotage amounts to. Thieu reacted to the published agreement, not to Nixon's alleged information of which, in any event, I was unaware. Far from sabotaging the agreement, Nixon endorsed it after the election and helped break the procedural deadlock even before his inauguration. So what exactly is Halberstam charging? During the period of the alleged sabotage, a substantive agreement was reached in the record time of thirty days and the procedural issues were settled with Nixon's help before inauguration.

As for my own role in all this, I had two meetings with Mitchell on September 12 and October 23, both at Mitchell's initiative via Buckley. At the time of the first session there could have been no inside information to pass on, even if I had had any, because the ...

11/08/94 17:38

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002

File: HENRY Z. J. Printed: November 8, 1994

at 4:21 PM Page: 4

OF A TOTAL OF NINE PAGES

Corrections never quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of several months, but I wanted to point out some microrepresentations in an article [The New Establishment: "The Decline of the Fall of the Eastern Empire" by David Halberstam, October] .

For example:—
led with effort or fact.

-- I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less "commandeered" it for a trip to Japan. Therefore, Kravis could not possibly have said what was attributed to him by Halberstam.

-- Neither Paul Volcker nor I remember the conversation with which Halberstam concludes his article.

-- I have never travelled, nor planned to travel, to China—or anywhere else—with Bill Blass.

-- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his re

The

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tirement party is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I **L checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior Harvard professor who **L was on the Government Department **L faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the **L incident, which would be unlikely if it **L

Jump To Next Box

Jump To Page

had really happened. On his own, he **L consulted two other senior professors **L who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any **L contact for two decades. According to **L them, nothing like that had transpired, **L nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other **L occasion. I surely recall only kindness **L from him. Moreover, I would **L point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to **L Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling **L me his "waterboy"--which also seems to

NOV-08-1994 16:39

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[Y]

FILE: HENRY Z. H. Intended: November 5, 1994

AT 4:42 p.m. Page 1

me out of character for this fine South-
ern gentleman, at least in the context in
which it is presented.

-- The concept of ***L
"shit files" was un-
known in the Rock-
efeller campaign. ***L
Neither I nor any-
one I knew in the ***L
Rockefeller group ***L
ever heard that ***L
phrase. I am aware ***L
of no files in the ***L
Rockefeller organi-
zation for which ***L
such a description--***L
or any variation of ***L
it--would be appro-
priate. →

-- The charge ***L
that I tried to ingra-
tiate myself with ***L
Hubert Humphrey ***L

The research material consisted of
newsclips and articles to support
Rockefeller's pronouncements on foreign
policy. These contained no "negative"
emphasis or personal slurs, as can be
confirmed from the public record. Al
by offering non-existent "shit files" for ***L Marshall, Rockefeller's chief of
his 1968 campaign reflects the same ***L staff during that period, confirms
these statements.

NOV-08-1994 16:36

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FILE: HENRY2, 1. Printed: November 8, 1994

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Page: 4-

recklessness. The only smidgen of fact it
represents is that, in July 1969, after ***L
Rockefeller had been defeated for the ***L
nomination, Zbigniew Brzezinski seems ***L
to have interpreted a conversation in ***L
which I expressed my disappointment as
an invitation to use the Rockefeller for-
eign policy research material. Recollec-
tions about the conversation differ, ***L
though not about my subsequent ac-
tions. For according to Brzezinski's own
account, I refused to discuss his percep-
tion of the conversation when he tried ***L
to follow up a few weeks later. I had no
further contact with him during the ***L
campaign and no files of any character ***L
passed between us by his own admis-
sion.-

-- In reckless disregard of the
truth, ***L

Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" ***L
to Rockefeller, I had established rela-
tions with Richard Nixon and had been
a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. ***L

Halberstam achieves this insinuation of ***L

Jump To: Next, Boy

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FILE: HENRY2, 1
Printed: November 8, 1994
at 4:22 PM
Page: 5

duplicity by presenting consecutive **L**
events as having been contemporaneous.

I was first and last a Rockefeller sup-
porter and, more importantly, a close **L**
friend. In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon **L**
writes that, after Nixon's nomination, **L**
**Rockefeller took the initiative in pursuing**

Nixon to establish contact with me. **L**
Rockefeller was fully informed of my **L**
every meeting with the Nixon en-
tourage. Prior to 1968) I had met **L**

Humphrey several times in Rockefeller's
company. Despite his personal regard **L**
for Humphrey, and the fact that **L**

Humphrey offered him the Vice Presi-
dential nomination, Rockefeller became
convinced that a Nixon victory was in **L**
the national interest.

For that reason, **L**
both he and I sup-
ported Nixon with-
out qualification.->

-- Halber-
stam alleges that I **L**
fed "vital," "privi-

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006

PALE HENRY 2-1 Printed: November 8, 1994

at 4:22 PM Pages: 6-

leged" information **L**
on the Paris peace **L**
talks to the Nixon **L**
camp, which relayed
it back to Saigon **L**
and thereby sabo-
taged the Vietnam **L**
negotiations. Hal-
borstam neglects to **L**
mention that I was **L**
at no time a part of **L**
the government and **L**
had no access to regular cable traffic, **L**
much less to the sensitive negotiating **L**
record which I am told was limited to **L**
five or six people. For two months in **L**
the fall of 1967 I had
the North Vietnamese without having a **L**
formal government position. After
wards, I had social contact with some of
the key figures on Vietnam policy dur-
ing those rare occasions on which I was
in Washington. I thereby gained a gener-
al knowledge of some attitudes but **L**
knew next to nothing of day-to-day **L**
[A insert attached]

[A based on social contacts]

[Y]

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Insert to p. 6

The charge is as absurd as it
is malicious. It is quite
reasonable for a presidential
candidate to inform himself on a
major current issue. I did not have
the slightest impression that
Mitchell wanted to sabotage the
negotiations. His main concern was
not to be blindsided. As the
weeks went by, this fear, it now
appears, was eliminated because
Johnson himself briefed Nixon twice
on October 16 regarding the
breakthrough in the negotiations
that had occurred around October
12, and on October 30, regarding
the imminent completion of the
agreement.

met with Mitchell twice, on
September 12 and on October 23,
1968. During the first session
there could have been no tactical
information to pass on - even if I
had had any - because the
negotiations were in recess and
were not to resume for two weeks.
At the second on October 23, Nixon
needed no outsider's information
because he had been briefed in
detail by President Johnson himself
regarding the progress in the
negotiations

The chronology also makes it
clear that Nixon could not have had
any major impact on the pace of
negotiation. Negotiations were
resumed at the end of September,
the breakthrough occurred on
October 12, the agreement was
completed on October 30 and the

conclusion of the agreement was
thus less than three weeks. Thieu
did not enter the game until the
breakthrough. That Thieu would drag
his feet did not require Nixon's
intervention of which in any event
I was unaware and about whose
nature I still lack firsthand
information. Thieu pursued exactly
the same course of procrastination
four years later, this time aimed
at the Nixon administration. And in
any event, we are talking of days,
not weeks. My own advice to the
Nixon camp depended on analysis,
not inside knowledge.

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[Y]

FILE: HENRY2.txt Printed: November 8, 1994

at 1:22 PM Page 9-

may have had with Saigon--of which I was totally unaware--were based on much more specific and concrete information. The public record shows that President Johnson briefed Nixon on October 16 in some detail regarding the course of negotiations.

The charge of passing sensitive diplomatic information to a political campaign which then used it to sabotage American policy via a foreign government is not one which a major magazine like *Vanity Fair* should make without more serious evidence than Halberstam presents and without making any effort to verify it.

**L**

article, including the preposterous, totally unsupported account of my childhood. But to deal with them would **L** oblige me to write a piece as long as **L** Halberstam's.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

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Page 1 of 9
Printed: November 5, 1994
Date: 4-21-94

Corrections never quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove or several months, but I wanted to point out some misrepresentations in an article [The New Establishment: "The Decline of the Fall of the Eastern Empire" by David Halberstam, October] is killed instead of being loaded with errors of fact. For example: ->

Please
edit

I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less "commandeered" it for a trip to Japan. Therefore, Kravis could not possibly have said what was attributed to him by Halberstam.

I have never travelled, nor planned to travel, to China--or anywhere else--with Bill Blass.

The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his re-

NOV-08-1994 16:36

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had really happened. On his own, he **L consulted two other senior professors **L who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any **L contact for two decades. According to **L them, nothing like that had transpired, **L nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other **L occasion. I surely recall only kindness **L from him. In that connection, I would **L point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to **L Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling **L me his "waterboy"--which also seems to

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[Y]

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[Y]

File: HENRY L. Printed: November 8, 1994
at 4:01 PM Page: 4-

recklessness. The only smidgen of fact it
represents is that, in July 1969, after **L
Rockefeller had been defeated for the **L
nomination, Zbigniew Brzezinski seems **L
to have interpreted a conversation in **L
which I expressed my disappointment as
an invitation to use the Rockefeller for-
eign policy research material. Recollec-
tions about the conversation differ, **L
though not about my subsequent ac-
tions. For according to Brzezinski's own
account, I refused to discuss his percep-
tion of the conversation when he tried **L
to follow up a few weeks later. I had no
further contact with him during the **L
campaign and no files of any character **L
passed between us by his own admis-
sion.-

-- In reckless disregard of the
truth, **L
Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" **L
to Rockefeller, I had established rela-
tions with Richard Nixon and had been
a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. **L
Halberstam achieves this insinuation of **L
jump to Next Box

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The charge is as absurd as it
is malicious. It is quite
reasonable for a presidential
candidate to inform himself on a
major current issue. ~~I did not have~~
~~the slightest impression that~~
~~Mitchell wanted to sabotage the~~
~~negotiations.~~ His main concern was
not to be blindsided. As the
weeks went by, this fear, it now
appears, was eliminated because
Johnson himself briefed Nixon twice
on October 16 regarding the
breakthrough in the negotiations
that had occurred around October
12, and on October 30, regarding
the imminent completion of the
agreement.

met with Mitchell twice, on
September 12 and on October 23,
1968. During the first session
there could have been no tactical
information to pass on - even if I
had had any - because the
negotiations were in recess and
were not to resume for two weeks.
At the second on October 23, Nixon
needed no outsider's information
because he had been briefed in
detail by President Johnson himself
regarding the progress in the
negotiations.

The chronology also makes it
clear that Nixon could not have had
any major impact on the pace of
negotiation. Negotiations were
resumed at the end of September,
the breakthrough occurred on
October 12, the agreement was
completed on October 30, and the

11/08/94 17:40

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F11102 HENRY2.doc Printed: November 8, 1994

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may have had with Saigon--of which I **L
was totally unaware--were based on **L
much more specific and concrete infor-
mation. The public record shows that **L
President Johnson briefed Nixon on Oc-
tober 16 in some detail regarding the **L
course of negotiations.→

The charge of passing sensitive
dipl-
matic information to a political cam-
paign which then used it to sabotage **L
American policy via a foreign govern-
ment is not one which a major maga-
zine like *Vanity Fair* should make with-
out more serious evidence than Halber-
stam presents and without making any **L
effort to verify it.→

There are many more errors in the
***
article, including the preposterous, total-
ly unsupported account of my child-
hood, The Preposterous. But to deal with them would ***L
oblige me to write a piece as long as ***L
Halberstam's.←

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Erlichman's alleged recollection
of my view regarding the dura-
tion of the Vietnam Peace agree-
ment is demonstrably false; many
memoranda exist in which my views
are spelled out in detail.

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File: HENRY Z. J. Printed: November 3, 1994
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OF A TOTAL OF NINE PAGES

Corrections never quite catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of several months, but I wanted to point out some misrepresentations in an article [The New Establishment: "The Decline of the Fall of the Eastern Empire" by David Halberstam, October] [The Fact that Misrepresentations are loaded with errors of fact. For example:]

---
I have never been on Henry Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less "commandeered" it for a trip to Japan.

---

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tirement party is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I **L checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior Harvard professor who was on the Government Department faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the **L incident, which would be unlikely if it **L

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SECTION I: Page 4-

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events.

During the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess while the political conventions were taking place. My **L only contact with the negotiating delegation was around September 18, before **L negotiations resumed and while the delegation was still waiting for new instructions. The negotiations were in fact not **L to become active until nearly three **L weeks later. After the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever with **L the negotiators and no knowledge what-

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soever--even in general terms--of the **L progress of the negotiations.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp. 323-34), I **L talked to John Mitchell twice, the first **L time around September 12--more than **L two weeks before the negotiations took **L a serious turn--the second time around **L October 23. At the first conversation, **L Mitchell insisted that all discussions **L

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Title: HENRY? I
Printed: November 8, 1994

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about Vietnam be with him or Halde-
man, rather than with Allen (so that **L
Allen's assertions reflect a decades-old **L
grivalence rather than reality). Had Mr. **L
Halberstam bothered to read Nixon's **L
memoirs, he would have found that I **L
urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to **L
avoid statements critical of the negotia-
tions because I thought the negotiations
would succeed. This conclusion was not
based on inside information which at **L
that point would have indicated the exis-
tence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my **L
judgment that Hanoi would try to com-
mit both candidates to a bombing halt **L
before the election and that Johnson **L
wanted to leave office with some **L
progress on Vietnam. All this is far **L
more consistent with trying to support **L
the negotiations than with trying to sab-
otage what, in fact, I had been urging **L
for two years and about which I had a **L
major article for Foreign Affairs in print
at that very moment.

In any event, Nixon's tactical deci-
sions, including whatever contacts he **L

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Title: HENRY F. Printed: November 8, 1994

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may have had with Saigon--of which I **L
was totally unaware--were based on **L
much more specific and concrete infor-
mation. The public record shows that **L
President Johnson briefed Nixon on Oc-
tober 16 in some detail regarding the **L
course of negotiations.+

The charge of passing sensitive
diplo-
matic information to a political cam-
paign which then used it to sabotage **L
American policy via a foreign govern-
ment is not one which a major maga-
zine like <u>Vanity Fair</u> should make with-
out more serious evidence than Halber-
stam presents and without making any **L
effort to verify it.+

There are many more errors in the
***L
article, including the preposterous, total-
ly unsupported account of my child-
hood, The
is preposterous.
But to deal with them would ***L
oblige me to write a piece as long as ***L
Halberstam's.+

HENRY A. KISSINGER

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The charge is as absurd as it is malicious. It is quite
reasonable for a presidential candidate to inform himself on a
major current issue. I did not have the slightest impression
that Mitchell wanted to sabotage the negotiations. His main
concern was not to be blindsighted. As the weeks went by, this
fear, it now appears, was eliminated because Johnson himself
briefed Nixon twice on October 16 regarding the breakthrough
in the negotiations that had occurred around October 12, and
on October 30, regarding the imminent completion of the
agreement.

As for my contacts with the Nixon camp, there were two as
documented in Nixon's memoirs. I met with Mitchell twice, on
September 12 and on October 23, 1968. During the first session
there could have been no tactical information to pass on -
even if I had had any - because the negotiations were in
recess and were not to resume for two weeks. At the second on
October 23, Nixon needed no outsider's information because he
had been briefed in detail by President Johnson himself
regarding the progress in the negotiations.

The chronology also makes it clear that Nixon could not
have had any major impact on the pace of negotiation.
Negotiations were resumed at the end of September, the
breakthrough occurred on October 12, the agreement was
completed on October 30 and the conclusion of the agreement
was thus less than three weeks. Thieu did not enter the game
until the breakthrough. That Thieu would drag his feet did not
require Nixon's intervention of which in any event I was
unaware and about whose nature I still lack firsthand
information. Thieu pursued exactly the same course of
procrastination four years later, this time aimed at the Nixon
administration. And in any event, we are talking of days, not
weeks. My own advice to the Nixon camp depended on analysis,
not inside knowledge.

11/08/94 17:38

VANITY FAIR

002

FILE: HENRY 2.1
Printed: November 3, 1994
at 4:21 PM
Page: 1

OF A TOTAL OF NINE PAGES

Corrections never quite catch up with **L
the injury, especially at a remove of sev-
eral months, but I wanted to point out **L
some misrepresentations in an article **L
[The New Establishment: "The Decline **L
jump to next hex-

and Fall of the Eastern Empire" by **L
David Halberstam, October] **L

loaded with errors of fact. For example:→

-- I have never been on Henry **L
Kravis's airplane for any trip, much less
"commandeered" it for a trip to Japan. **L
Therefore, Kravis could not possibly **L
have said what was attributed to him by
Halberstam.→

-- Neither Paul Volcker nor I remem-
ber the conversation with which Halber-
stam concludes his article.→

-- I have never travelled, nor
planned
to travel, to China--or anywhere else--**L
with Bill Blass.→

-- The quote regarding my alleged ar-
rogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his re-

Please
edit

1st version-
no edits

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files: HENRY:1 printed: November 8, 1994

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tirement party is so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I ***L checked it with Professor Sam Huntington, a senior Harvard professor who ***L was on the Government Department ***L faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the ***L incident, which would be unlikely if it ***L

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had really happened. On his own, he ***L consulted two other senior professors ***L who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any ***L contact for two decades. According to ***L them, nothing like that had transpired, ***L nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other ***L occasion. I surely recall only kindness ***L from him. In that connection, I would ***L point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to ***L Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling ***L me his "waterboy"--which also seems to

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FILE: HENRY2.3 Printed: November 3, 1994

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-- The charge **L
that I tried to ingra-
tiate myself with **L
Hubert Humphrey **L
by offering non-existent "shit files" for **L
his 1968 campaign reflects the same **L

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File: HENRY2.1 Printed: November 6, 1994

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-- In reckless disregard of the
truth, **L
Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" **L
to Rockefeller, I had established rela-
tions with Richard Nixon and had been
a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. **L
Halberstam achieves this insinuation of **L
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[LC]

Printed: November 18, 1994

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leged" information **L**
on the Paris peace **L**
talks to the Nixon **L**
camp, which relayed
it back to Saigon **L**
and thereby sabo-
taged the Vietnam **L**
negotiations. Hal-
berstam neglects to **L**
mention that I was **L**
at no time a part of **L**
the government and **L**
had no access to regular cable traffic, **L**
much less to the sensitive negotiating **L**
record which I am told was limited to **L**
five or six people. For two months in **L**
the fall of 1967 I acted as emissary to **L**
the North Vietnamese without having a **L**
formal government position. After-
wards, I had social contact with some of
the key figures on Vietnam policy dur-
ing those rare occasions on which I was
in Washington. I thereby gained a gener-
al knowledge of some attitudes but **L**
knew next to nothing of day-to-day **L**

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File: HENRY2.1---Printed: November 3, 1994
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events.

During the summer of 1968 the negotiations were in recess while the political conventions were taking place. My only contact with the negotiating delegation was around September 18, before negotiations resumed and while the delegation was still waiting for new instructions. The negotiations were in fact not to become active until nearly three weeks later. After the middle of September, I had no contact whatsoever with the negotiators and no knowledge whatsoever--even in general terms--of the progress of the negotiations.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp. 323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time around September 12--more than two weeks before the negotiations took a serious turn--the second time around October 23. At the first conversation, Mitchell insisted that all discussions

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[LC]

FILE: HENRY J. Printed: November 6, 1994
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about Vietnam be with him or Halde-
man, rather than with Allen (so that **L
Allen's assertions reflect a decades-old **L
grievance rather than reality). Had Mr. **L
Halberstam bothered to read Nixon's **L
memoirs, he would have found that I **L
urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to **L
avoid statements critical of the negotia-
tions because I thought the negotiations
would succeed. This conclusion was not
based on inside information which at **L
that point would have indicated the exis-
tence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my **L
judgment that Hanoi would try to com-
mit both candidates to a bombing halt **L
before the election and that Johnson **L
wanted to leave office with some **L
progress on Vietnam. All this is far **L
more consistent with trying to support **L
the negotiations than with trying to sab-
otage what, in fact, I had been urging **L
for two years and about which I had a **L
major article for Foreign Affairs in print
at that very moment.

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009

FILE: HENRY2.1 - Printed: November 8, 1994

at 4:22 PM Page 9

The charge of passing sensitive
diplo-
matic information to a political cam-
paign which then used it to sabotage **L
American policy via a foreign govern-
ment is not one which a major maga-
zine like **Vanity Fair** should make with-
out more serious evidence than Halber-
stam presents and without making any **L
effort to verify it.→

There are many more errors in the
**L
article, including the preposterous, total-
ly unsupported account of my child-
hood. But to deal with them would **L
oblige me to write a piece as long as **L
Halberstam's.→

HENRY A. KISSINGER

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[L.C.]

HENRY A. KISSINGER

October 5, 1994

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

CYJ

page two

8

CJ

page three

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp.
323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time
around September 12 - more than two weeks before the
negotiations took a serious turn - the second time around
October 23. At the first conversation, Mitchell insisted that
all discussions about Vietnam be with him or Haldeman, rather
than with Allen (so that Allen's assertions reflect a decades-
old grievance rather than reality). Had Mr. Halberstam
bothered to read Nixon's memoirs, he would have found that I
urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements
critical of the negotiations because I thought the
negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on
inside information which at that point would have indicated
the existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that
Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt
before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office
with some progress on Vietnam. All this is far more consistent
with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to
sabotage what, in fact, I had been urging for two years and

page four

about which I had a major article for *Foreign Affairs* in print
at that very moment.

In any event, Nixon's tactical decisions, including whatever
contacts he may have had with Saigon - of which I was totally
unaware - were based on much more specific and concrete
information. The public record shows that President Johnson
briefed Nixon on October 16 in some detail regarding the
course of negotiations.

10-04-1994 04:40PM

FROM wc&p

TO

912127590042 P.02

October 4, 1994

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue - 26th Floor
New York, New York 10022

Dear Henry:

I have a few minor editing suggestions for your draft letter
to Mr. Hodgman of *Vanity Fair*.

1. On page 1 in the paragraph dealing with Bill Blass, I suggest you say "I have never traveled <u>or planned to travel</u> to China" etc. Halberstam refers to such a trip "which he (HAK) was planning."

2. On page 2 in the paragraph about the dinner for Bill Elliott, it would be helpful to name the two senior professors who were there, or at least the senior professor who was not at the dinner but told you the story.

3. In the paragraph on page 3 about Hubert Humphrey, the first sentence about Brzezinski needs clarification as to when the conversation was held and who took part.

4. On page 3, in the carry-over paragraph from page 2, I would add at the end of the first complete sentence the following: ", and these meetings occurred after Governor Rockefeller's own bid for the nomination was over."

OCT-04-1994 17:46

202 663 6758

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FROM wc&p

10

912127590042 P.03

Page 2
October 4, 1994

5. In the paragraph on page 3 beginning "During the summer," the phrase "break open" in the middle of the paragraph is obscure. Was this the beginning of progress or the breaking off of the discussions?

6. In the same paragraph, I would add the following sentence about what Bill Bundy told you: "Moreover, I understand from William Bundy that on October 16 President Johnson himself briefed candidate Nixon on the status of the negotiations."

I think the letter shows admirable restraint and that it will help to preserve the historical record.

OCT-04-1994 17:46

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Dear Mr. Hodgman:

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - was so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked it with a senior Harvard professor from the Government Department who was on the faculty at the time. He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. According to them, nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard Elliott say anything

page two

- The concept of "shit files" was unknown in the Rockefeller
campaign. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group
ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the
Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any
variation of it - would be appropriate. The files of the
research office with which I was connected contained public
statements and background material to support press
conferences and substantive statements which Rockefeller made
on foreign policy. The materials in those files were, publicly
available. They dealt with foreign policy, and contained no
personal slurs. Al Marshall, Rockefeller's chief of staff
during that period, supports these statements.

- In reckless disregard of the truth, Halberstam alleges
that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller, I had established relations
with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot.
Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by
presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous.
I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter, In his memoirs
(p. 323), Nixon writes that, after his nomination, Rockefeller

page three

took the initiative in urging Nixon to establish contact with me. Rockefeller was therefore fully informed of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage. Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several times in Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard for Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice Presidential nomination, Rockefeller had become convinced that a Nixon victory was in the national interest. From then on, both he and I supported Nixon without qualification and had no contact with the Humphrey campaign.

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp. 323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time around September 12, the second time around October 23. At the first conversation, Mitchell insisted that all discussions about Vietnam be with him or Haldeman, rather than with Allen (so that his assertions reflect a decades-old grievance rather than reality). Had Mr. Halberstam bothered to read Nixon's memoirs, he would have found that during the first conversation - more than two weeks before the negotiations

page four

took a serious turn - I urged Mitchell (I never saw Nixon) to avoid statements which could be undercut if the negotiations succeeded, and that I thought the negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside information which at that point would have indicated the existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some progress on Vietnam. According to Nixon's account, during the second conversation on October 23 - as the negotiations were concluding - I urged Mitchell to avoid attacks on the settlement. All this is far more consistent with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to sabotage what I had been urging for two years and about which I had a major article for *Foreign Affairs* in print at that very moment. Most importantly, President Johnson's memoirs show that he had fully briefed Nixon on October 16 regarding the progress of negotiations so that my already limited input was even more marginal. Finally, I was not aware of any contacts the Nixon campaign might have had in Saigon.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

- Calling the Rockefeller campaign material "shit files" as a reflection on Halberstam's sources. Neither I nor anyone I knew in the Rockefeller group ever heard that phrase. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller organization for which such a description - or any variation of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office with which I was connected contained public statements and background material to support press conferences and substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign policy. These are publicly available, dealt with foreign policy, and contained no materials in close files were

page two

- The quote regarding my alleged arrogance, ascribed to Bill Elliott at his retirement party - and featured as an insert by *Vanity Fair* - was so bizarrely inconsistent with my recollection of the relationship with my Harvard mentor that I checked, with a senior Harvard professor from the Government Department, He had not attended the dinner but had never heard of the incident, which would be unlikely if it had really happened. On his own, he consulted two other senior professors who had been present at the dinner and with neither of whom I have had any contact for two decades. They confirmed that nothing like that had transpired, nor had they ever heard of Elliott say anything invidious about me on any other occasion. I surely recall only kindness from him.

- The charge that I tried to ingratiate myself with Hubert Humphrey by offering non-existent "shit files" for his 1968 campaign reflects the same combination of recklessness and malice. The only smidgen of fact it represents is that, in July 1969 Brzezinski interpreted a conversation after Rockefeller was defeated for the nomination as an invitation to use the Rockefeller foreign policy research material. Recollections about the substance of the conversation differ, though not about my subsequent actions. For according to Brzezinski's own account, I refused to discuss his perception of the conversation when he tried to follow up a few weeks later, and I had no further contact with him during the campaign and the files of any character passed between us by his own admission.

page three

Take the initiative

Nixon &WHITBROOK

had been instrumental in urging contacts with me. Rockefeller
was therefore fully informed of my every meeting with the
Nixon entourage, (of which I recall only two).
Prior to 1968, I had met Humphrey several times in
Rockefeller's company. Despite his personal regard for
Humphrey and the fact that Humphrey offered him the Vice
Presidential nomination, Rockefeller had become convinced that
a Nixon victory was in the national interest. From then on,
both he and I supported Nixon without qualification and had no
contact with the Humphrey campaign.

page four

the negotiations would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside information which at that point would have indicated the existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office with some progress on Vietnam. According to Nixon's account, during the second conversation - as the negotiations were concluding - I urged Mitchell to avoid attacks on the settlement. All this is far more consistent with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to sabotage what at that point I had been urging for two years and about which I had a major article for *Foreign Affairs* in print at that very moment. Finally, I was not aware of any contacts the Nixon campaign might have had in Saigon.

page three

During this period, as Nixon describes in his memoirs (pp.
323-24), I talked to John Mitchell twice, the first time
around September 12, the second time around October 23. At the
first conversation, Mitchell insisted that all discussions
about Vietnam be with him or Haldeman, rather than with Allen
(so that Allen's assertions reflect a decades-old grievance
rather than reality). Had Mr. Halberstam bothered to read
Nixon's memoirs, he would have found that during my first
conversation with Mitchell, more than two weeks before the
negotiations took a serious turn, I urged Mitchell (I never
saw Nixon) to avoid statements which could be undercut if the
negotiations succeeded, and that I thought the negotiations
would succeed. This conclusion was not based on inside
information which at that point would have indicated the
existence of a stalemate. Rather, it was my judgment that
Hanoi would try to commit both candidates to a bombing halt
before the election and that Johnson wanted to leave office
with some progress on Vietnam. According to Nixon's account,
during the second conversation on October 23 - as the

page four

negotiations were concluding - I urged Mitchell to avoid attacks on the settlement. All this is far more consistent with trying to support the negotiations than with trying to sabotage what, in fact, I had been urging for two years and about which I had a major article for *Foreign Affairs* in print at that very moment.

Most importantly, the public record shows that President Johnson briefed Nixon on October 16 in some detail regarding the course of negotiations. Whatever contact Nixon had with Saigon - of which I was totally unaware - was thus based on quite a different set of information than my brief general atmospheric discussions with Mitchell.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Dear Mr. Hodgman:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 informing me of
the comment wrongly attributed to the diplomatic historian,
John Lewis Gaddis, and offering to print a correction in the
December issue of *Vanity Fair*. As you know, corrections never
catch up with the injury, especially at a remove of several
months. Moreover, in this case the small single correction
would deal with only the tip of the iceberg in an article
otherwise loaded with malicious misrepresentations and errors
of fact. To wit: for example

- The word "shit file" was not known in the Rockefeller
entourage. I am aware of no files in the Rockefeller
organization for which such a description - or any variation
of it - would be appropriate. The files of the research office
with which I was connected contained public statements and
background material to support press conferences and
substantive statements which Rockefeller made on foreign
policy. These are publicly available, dealt with foreign
policy, and contained no personal slurs. Al Marshall,
Rockefeller's chief of staff during that period, supports
these statements.
(Weiler 1 nor anyone I know of in the Rockefeller group)

page two

In that connection, I would point out that the quote is quite inconsistent with another quote ascribed to Elliott by Halberstam allegedly calling me his "waterboy" - which also seems to me out of character, for this fine Southern gentleman

- In reckless disregard of the truth, Halberstam alleges that "unbeknownst" to Rockefeller, I had established relations with Nixon and had been a semi-covert Humphrey man to boot. Halberstam achieves this insinuation of duplicity by presenting consecutive events as having been contemporaneous. I was first and last a Rockefeller supporter. In his memoirs (p. 323), Nixon writes that, after his nomination, Rockefeller had been instrumental in urging *Nixon campaign* contacts with me. Rockefeller was therefore fully aware of my every meeting with the Nixon entourage (of which I recall only two).