cent record bears out such hopes and a
great deal contradicts them.

Much of the debate over what the
United States should or should not do in
Central America will center around the
notion that the US will lose its "cred-
ibility" as a superpower if it cannot hold
control there. The credibility argument,
as former Assistant Secretary of State for
Inter-American Affairs Viron P. Vaky
shows in his fine essay in the Carnegie
study, easily leads to a conclusion "that
the mere *existence* of a Marxist regime in
Central America damages U.S.'s 'credibil-
ity' whether or not it is linked to Soviet
power." If this is so, then of course it is
hard to see how we can negotiate security
guarantees with the Sandinistas, in which
case there will be no choice except to
overthrow the Sandinista regime. If we
can't do it with our proxies, the contras,
and it does not appear that we can, then
we may have to use every form of pres-
sure we can devise, from economic star-
vation to military intimidation. And if
these don't work, the logic of the position

leads to US intervention. If we cannot get
support at home for such a foreign
adventure, then, so goes the argument,
our "credibility" suffers.

So, too, with El Salvador. If the army
does not reform itself, the process of
political democratization will most likely
go nowhere. We can exhort the military to
change; but what if we do not have the
means to do so unless we send in our own
troops, a not very likely prospect under
present political conditions? So far,
warnings by the present American am-
bassador in San Salvador have had little
effect on the behavior of the armed
forces. Despite the Kissinger commis-
sion's view that military aid must be con-
tingent on significant improvement in
human rights, the Salvadoran armed
forces may continue to believe they can
ignore Washington's pleas because the
administration believes US "credibility"
will be gravely affected if a Marxist state
comes into being in El Salvador. In these
circumstances, the prospects are, as Vaky
puts it, that

the situation will continue along its
present course—with continued con-
flict and bloodshed; increasing
American involvement in El Salva-
dor's national life, and growing temp-
tation to become more deeply in-
volved in the military conflict, either
directly with advisers and special per-
sonnel or through... proxies."

So far, the administration appears un-
willing to contemplate negotiation seri-
ously as a way of accommodating itself
to situations that may prove beyond its
control. It does not believe it can live
with a Marxist-Leninist regime in Nic-
aragua. But it may have to. It does not
believe it can tolerate a takeover by in-
surgents in El Salvador. But it may have
to. Not so long ago an American admin-
istration was accused by another admin-
istration of having "lost" China to the
communists. A couple of decades later
Washington established relations with
China and even saw it as a putative ally in
its struggle against the Soviet Union. The

opening to China was considered wise by
American allies. By abandoning a mis-
taken policy in Vietnam, the Nixon ad-
ministration was perceived as pursuing a
mature and productive foreign policy.

Today America's "credibility" is indeed
in question because of the obtuseness of its
foreign policy. By continuing a long his-
tory of relying on repressive local military
forces to effect change in Central Amer-
ica, the Reagan administration does not
appear to be planning for a future that
will allow countries with fragile democra-
cies to grow stronger and hardy democ-
racies to flourish. If it were to do so, if it
were to concentrate on negotiating secur-
ity guarantees for the region, then it might
find that its credibility was indeed im-
proved because countries both friendly and
unfriendly would recognize that America
was acting with good sense. The exercise of
American power should derive from an un-
blinkered assessment of American inter-
ests. To the extent that America is found
wanting in this respect, then its alliances
will suffer, and its enemies rejoice. ☐

News from the Los Angeles Times

Public Relations Department/Times Mirror Square/Los Angeles, California 90053/Telephone (213) 972-5782

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 2, 1984

Contact: Willard Colston
(213) 972-7984

Telex: 194-308

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has agreed to write a series of in-depth articles on international political affairs for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, it was announced today in a joint statement by Tom Johnson, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington Post.

Kissinger's articles are scheduled to begin in both newspapers in June.

While Kissinger will write the articles for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, they will then be offered to newspapers in the United States and Canada through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and to newspapers and magazines abroad by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Henry Kissinger served as a consultant in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and as Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. During his political career, Dr. Kissinger was responsible for arranging President Nixon's visit to China and successfully negotiating two disengagement agreements between the Egyptians and the Israelis over the Sinai peninsula and a disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights. His book *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*, published in 1957, established him as a leading authority on international and U.S. national-defense

- more -

Page 2

policy. Dr. Kissinger's two volumes of memoirs were national best-
sellers in 1980 and 1982.

In the statement, Tom Johnson said "Henry Kissinger is one of the
most important leaders in U.S. diplomatic history. We feel his unique
insights into major news events and knowledge of world leaders will
make a major contribution to increased understanding of international
affairs. We are pleased that Dr. Kissinger has decided on the Los Angeles
Times and the Washington Post as the forum for his views and on the
Los Angeles Times Syndicate as the agency to distribute them."

###

Kissinger allegedly withheld
Soviet plan to violate SALT I

By Walter Andrews
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Soviets dismiss Reagan's proposal to ban chemical weapons. Page 6A.

Former White House national security adviser Henry Kissinger suppressed and kept secret from other officials U.S. intelligence intercepts showing that the Soviet Union intended to violate the 1972 nuclear arms agreements, informed sources said yesterday.

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and Congress probably would not have supported the agreements if the electronic intercepts of radio-phone conversations between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and a Russian weapons expert had been known, the sources said.

The May 1972 intercept of a Brezhnev limousine telephone con-

versation showed that the Soviets planned the development of a new giant SS-19 nuclear missile, then unknown to U.S. negotiators, and placed a loophole in the agreements that allowed for its deployment, the sources said.

The missile resulted in a sixfold increase in the number of ballistic nuclear warheads aimed at the United States, according to the Pentagon.

The existence of the intelligence intercept has been reported, but the claim that Mr. Kissinger knew of the intercept beforehand had not.

Sources said he kept it secret in apparent fear that it would jeopardize congressional approval of the Salt I accord, of which he was the chief architect.

A spokesman for Mr. Kissinger said the charge was "a malicious untruth."

Mr. Kissinger said he does not comment on intelligence intercept information, but added, "It is a disgrace that such accusations can even be made 12 years after the event."

Last week, Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, told Congress secret intelligence had shown

see SOVIET, page 12A

SOVIET

From page one

the Soviets deliberately intended to violate Salt I.

He did not elaborate on what the secret intelligence was, or when it became known.

Retired Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, former chief of naval operations and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee this information had been kept secret from the JCS and Congress.

"I believe there was information available to the government at the time, but unknown to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that confirmed that a violation was going to be made," the admiral said.

The deployment of the SS-19 "di-

rectly violates Salt I as Salt I was reported and explained to Congress ... during its ratification process," Adm. Zumwalt said. He declined further comment during open sub-committee session.

Yesterday, the admiral told The Washington Times he had not become aware of the information until after he retired from the Navy in July 1974.

Asked who had withheld the information, Adm. Zumwalt would only say "it was withheld at the White House level." He declined to comment further, either about the nature of the information or who had withheld it.

(Other informed sources said Mr. Kissinger knew beforehand and was the one who withheld the information from America's highest military officers.)

Asked what effect this had, Adm. Zumwalt replied: "In my judgment, if the information had been known, it would have significantly worsened the chance of approval by Congress of Salt I."

The admiral noted that the SS-19 was specifically prohibited by a unilateral statement by the United States accompanying the Salt I agreement.

"The JCS was assured that it [the unilateral statement] would be treated as part of a single entity, and it wasn't. And the White House knew it wasn't," Adm. Zumwalt said.

Dr. Kissinger has previously been reported as having been surprised by the SS-19, and as considering it evidence of Soviet "sharp practice" as far as keeping to the terms of the agreements.

FROM THE FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1984, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

["Kissinger Corners the Market as an International Affairs Adviser", "JAN 7 1984", "Second of two articles\nBy Murray Marten", "Henry A. Kissinger's critics have a devilish time of it—what everything does is shrewly plotted for into the future for personal gain. He insists the reality is just the reverse, even now.", "\"I that any plan I set for myself is going to make me nervous, and tense, and disappointed,\" he said.", "In that event, the Kissinger establishment that exists today is a remarkable product of invention. Kissinger maintains that when he left office he said of state, \"I had no plans, I had no job, I had no fixed idea what I was going to do.\" He was offered many very high paying opportunities in investment banks, Kissinger said, \"and when people talk about the money, I'm making. I could have made multiples of what I am in fact making—much more easily—by working with an investment bank. I wouldn't do that, because I wouldn't do a job that consisted of using my contacts to introduce people.", "William D. Rogers, Kissinger's lawyer and business associate, recalls that after President Ford's election defeat in 1976, \"We spent every night at the White House, and I was the only one in the room, and running out of the office, from the secretary's office, and ruminating about the future.\"", "\"We wondered,\" said Rogers, then undersecretary of state for economic affairs, \"whether he should continue living in the White House, or should he be a foreign minister of former government employees very short . . . and that no one but his professional colleagues would know him after a few months' time.\" I have been astonished about how his reputation and recognition has increased since I started working with my contacts to get into the level of other secretaries of admin.", "Attacks by two succeeding admini- s trations have been the fore- ground of public consciousness through the end of the 1970s. Before that, Kissinger, who was in office from 1968 to 1972, was the first secretary of state, and particularly of inter- national affairs. \"The seizure of American hostages by Iran and the subsequent war with the Soviet Union brought about a complexation of inter- national security,\" Kissinger was lifted to the crest of another sudden boom in the business of providing outside ad- vices to the government, and the complexation of inter- national affairs brought about a complexation of inter- national security, and particularly of the visual me- dia, while maintaining \"contact with key people in the government and outside the government, and the foreign ion-makers as well as members of Congress.\"", "\"One part of this phenomenon,\" explained Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was in office from 1968 to 1972, \"when he was State Department secretary, was that television had acquired a number of attention grab- bles. It was the first time that the government had made a difference from five years ago.\"", "\"So they are in the market for talent, and Henry Kissinger is a star. The government has sped up other com- panies in the West. The British have a number of new television series, and everybody has for the same kind of people in this 'Intellectual Black Dragon Society.'\"", "\"The corporation of Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was in office from 1968 to 1972, was a consultant to several corporations, said, 'Every- one is having forums, and there is a lot of money, and everybody has for the same kind of people in this 'Intellectual Black Dragon Society.'\" The corporation of Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was in office from 1968 to 1972, was a consultant to several corporations, said, 'Every- one is having forums, and there is a lot of money, and everybody has for the same kind of people in this 'Intellectual Black Dragon Society.'\"", "\"So they are in the market for talent, and Henry Kissinger is a star. The government has sped up other com- panies in the West. The British have a number of new television series, and everybody has for the same kind of people in this 'Intellectual Black Dragon Society.'\" The corporation of Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was in office from 1968 to 1972, was a consultant to several corporations, said, 'Every- one is having forums, and there is a lot of money, and everybody has for the same kind of people in this 'Intellectual Black Dragon Society.'\"", "\"The forums,\" Sonnenfeldt said, \"existed previously, but not the media. The exultation of a lot of people was the exultation of a lot of people in other countries.", "\"Because Kissinger is over- extended, Sonnenfeldt said, 'the Balls (George W. Bush, undersec- retary of state in the Kennedy administration), the Lands (William G. Hyland, deputy national security adviser in the Ford administration), the Brazilians (Adm. Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter), Sonnenfeldt, et al., get the over- all picture.'\"", "Another explanation came from Joseph Polanco, undersecretary of state for political affairs under Kissinger, consultant in his office, who is a partner with his wife, Jean Head Kissinger, in his office. \"It is a unique phenomenon in two ways. He is still probably the leading conceptualizer of the field of foreign policy work, and, I think, he is the only one who is able to think and to express and to analyze strategically, and yet combine with it a how well to what a tacti-", "U.S. Department of State", "If there is a limit beyond which political activity becomes self-destructive, as some think, Henry A. Kissinger evidently has not reached it.", "\"Secondly, Kissinger is the med- ical diplomat, regardless of his Met- tchnician predilections. He has used the media more effectively than any other foreign minister, and particularly the visual me- dia, and particularly the oral me- dia. Sonnenfeldt Ford, had discussed combining their individual consulting work in a larger venture, finally launching it in July 1972.", "Rogers said the format chosen was discrete; it was private, it would be free to the public, and it would be open to the public. \"It would be a welcome and the public pretty fast.\"", "Scowcroft, who is as self-ef fecting as Kissinger is egocentric, said, \"I would like to be a consultant, an adviser, an advisor, an advisor, an

"ONCE YOU READ HOW EASILY YOU CAN OWN A RARE BERMUDA VACATION COTTAGE, YOU'LL BE SMILING TOO'"

Now there's a better way to vacation on the island of pink sand beaches, warm turquoise waters, and easy-going British charm.

WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW, IN PERSON. IN BERMUDA.

Now—for the cost of "renting" a few years' ordinary vacations—you can own a private Bermuda vacation cottage. For the next 25 years.

You'll be a member of our exclusive cottage colony and vacation club. With your own swim club, tennis club and beach clubhouse—plus a Robert Trent Jones golf course next door.

A York-Hannover Resort.

It's a rare opportunity. Because Bermuda vacation homes are so strictly regulated and hard to acquire, prices are prohibitively expensive almost anywhere else on the island.

Add to that the fact that St. George's Club is one of very few residential communities chartered by Parliament, subject to rigidly high standards, and you can see why openings for our club memberships are filled as quickly as they become available.

If you love our island, and have a sincere interest in joining the Club, we would be pleased to meet you. And invite you to be our guest for a get-acquainted visit in Bermuda.

All you have to do is call us, and you're on your way.

In New York City, 212-682-2640. In Boston, 617-861-7810. In Philadelphia, 215-527-1750. In Connecticut, 1-800-245-3535.

In New Jersey, 1-800-245-3535. In Washington, 202-293-6262. In Baltimore, 301-321-8833. In Bermuda, 809-297-1200.

This is not an offering which can be made only by formal prospectus available from sponsor.

Asked why no other doctor
has franchised, he says,
"Why was John D. Rockefeller
able to exploit the
circumstances of his time?"

entire branch of the medical
profession a shiny new image—
a *very* shiny image. Some cos-
metic surgeons now practicing
in New York suggest that there
are very good reasons why peo-
ple have not attempted to pack-
age and market their profession
with the sort of zeal that Dom-
broff has displayed. "You can't
be a McDonald's because this is
not a uniform product," says
one of Dombroff's competitors.
"Your nose job is not my nose
job. You can't regulate surgical
skills. One surgeon can do
something easily, one can do it with diffi-
culty, one can't do it at all."

Practitioners not only worry about Dombroff's future expansion plans but about his current aggressive marketing program. They seem to feel that there is something, well, sort of pell-mell about his rush for the bottom line. Is he dotting all of his i's, they wonder.

There is, of course, the especially vexing matter of the advertising. Although Dombroff is hardly the only doctor to advertise, no one else in New York has indulged in the costly blitzes upon which Personal Best's current business and expansion plans depend. And there are still many doctors in practice who believe that any advertising for cosmetic surgery—even small classifieds—may be asking for trouble. They are concerned that such ads may "sell" patients who have no need for cosmetic surgery. Patients seeking plastic surgery are often not just carrying around a lot of wrinkles and cellulite, but heavy psychological baggage as well, problems that sometimes cause the desire for the surgery in the first place. And while cosmetic surgery is hardly on the order of coronary bypasses and kidney transplants, it is nevertheless surgery. "A lot of people we see need to be evaluated very carefully, not just physically but emotionally," says Dr. Alan H. Gold, president-elect of the New York Regional Society of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery. "There are wrong people to operate on, people at emotional turning points in their lives, people in emotional crises who think this will do something for them that it cannot do."

Dr. Saul Hoffman, chief of plastic sur-
gery at Mount Sinai Hospital, under-
scores the need for caution. "Part of our
job is to diminish patients' expectations
to a reasonable level," he says. "That is
sometimes time-consuming. It requires a
lot of explanation and a certain amount of
careful screening."

To protect against operating on the
wrong people, many cosmetic surgeons
screen their own clients, even charging
nominal fees for the service. Dombroff
takes a quite different approach. One of
the many features that makes his opera-

tion unique is his offer of free consulta-
tions, advertised on television and per-
formed in his clinic by four consultants
who have no formal medical training.
Two worked in the hotel business, a third
as a cosmetologist, and the fourth as an
actress. These consultants take personal
histories, answer the inevitable ques-
tions (Will it hurt? How long will I take to
recover?) and even have discretion in
setting price. Working on the theory that
"half a pie is better than no pie," Dom-
broff does not object to charging bargain
rates to keep his clinic busy. Some pa-
tients are eliminated during the process,
for health or financial reasons. Those
remaining patients, Dombroff says, are
graduated to meet with the physician
who will do the surgery.

Dombroff insists that the use of lay
consultants fulfills the critical psycholog-
ical dimension of a close rapport between
surgeon and patient. He further believes
that the Personal Best consultants are
psychologically astute enough to put the
patients' well-being above all other con-
siderations. "They go over everything,"
says Dombroff. "The positives, the
negatives, the possible complications,
everything."

Perhaps. But it is not clear that his
consultants do not have an incentive to
sign up prospective patients. Dombroff
says that the "people handlers" who
work out of his New York clinic operate
on straight salaries, but his business plan
anticipates a system in which the salaries
of consultants are pegged to the volume
of the "sales" they bring in.

H

OWEVER THAT ISSUE IS
finally decided, the New
York Personal Best clinic
has had a good track record.
Dombroff claims that less
than 10% of his patients ex-
perience anything but total satisfaction,
and those patients receive further treat-
ment for free. For every 1,000 opera-
tions, Dombroff says he has only one
malpractice claim. The question is, can
such a system withstand the quality con-
trol problems of a franchise? Who has not
had a lukewarm Big Mac?

If there is one thing that
drives Dombroff's critics to dis-
traction more than any other, it
is the speed at which he says he
works. The very notion that he
himself was performing ten sur-
geries a day early in 1984 is
enough to make most doctors
reach for the smelling salts. "If I
do one face-lift, I'm tired," says
a chief of service at a major hos-
pital, in practice for 20 years.
"Two is a real chore. I won't let
them put more than two a day
into my schedule." Says an-
other cosmetic surgeon, in

practice for ten years: "I do three or four
major cases a day. You have to sacrifice
something to speed."

Not at all, says Dombroff. "A breast
reduction takes me about an hour," he
explains. "It takes most doctors about
two hours. It is just a question of different
levels of skill. It's just like Dave Winfield
will go year after year and consistently bat
.300 or .350 where most major leaguers
will never bat more than .240 or .250.
They're all major leaguers, there's just a
wide variation in talent."

Dombroff, needless to say, knows
much more about his profession than
about baseball (Dave Winfield's lifetime
batting average is only .289). And he
argues that in his profession, his relative
youth is another major plus. "It's very
similar to an airline pilot," he says. "In
the ads they may show a lot of gray hair,
but behind the stick of the 747 basically
we're talking about a fighter jock who
may be in his mid- to late thirties or early
forties. By the time they get to their
fifties the game is over. It's the same
thing with plastic surgery. It's a fast track.
Young people are the rule."

Speed, youth, brashness and a con-
cept. Dombroff seems to have it all, and
he is convinced that the combination will
take him to the top. After only three years
in private practice, he already has a $1
million home in Huntington, Long Is-
land, a 40-foot yacht and a Rolls-Royce.
Though not yet a "name" plastic surgeon
himself, he expects to leapfrog over all
his better known competitors. He be-
lieves that while there are several "star"
plastic surgeons scattered across the
country, they are, in the words of his
business plan, "relatively unknown to
the vast majority of prospective patients
in any given locale, and thus relatively
ineffective as competitors." In other
words, as Dr. Richard Dombroff puts the
matter in his characteristically bold style,
"The only name that the public will
know vis-à-vis plastic surgery will be Per-
sonal Best."

Daniel Kagan is the coauthor of Mute Evidence and Cocaine: Seduction and Solution.

NOVEMBER 1984 89

HENRY
KISSINGER,
INC.

By almost any economic standard, the former
secretary of state has done well for himself.

By L. J. Davis

AT THE AGE OF 61, DR. HENRY ALFRED KISSINGER has rarely looked better. Triple-bypass heart surgery in February 1982 failed utterly to slow him down. He is a bit grayer around the hairline, a little heavier perhaps, but he seems calmer now than in the days when he became, in the words of one wag (some say it was Kissinger himself), "the only secretary of state to have two presidents serve under him." There is a new spring to his step. Although he no longer walks the four miles each day that his doctors ordered, he still walks far more than most men of his age. Kissinger has said he feels wiser now that he has time to think, and time to enjoy his swimming, his music, his art and the museums that were never, to him, another wearisome obligatory stop on the busy statesman's rounds. He has caught up on his reading. And he has become rich.

Henry Kissinger has known power, of course, but he has never before known personal wealth, although his long association with the Rockefellers helped to familiarize him with the concept. His top salary in government service was $63,000 and by the time he left the State Department in 1976, he was reportedly in debt. Although he once told writer Marie Brenner he was too broke to purchase a new set of evening clothes, he was able to scrape together slightly more than $100,000 for a duplex in New York's River House.

During the next few years he earned his living as an author, orator, trustee, consultant and wit. In 1982, he founded a small

company called Kissinger Associates Inc., which peddles foreign policy advice to multinational businesses. By 1984, his investment in the River House apartment had appreciated to somewhere in the vicinity of $3 million, his speeches were fetching him several hundred thousand dollars annually and his tiny consulting outfit was pulling in more than $4 million a year. By almost any standard, Kissinger has done well for himself.

Once, retired secretaries of state—Madison, Monroe—went on to become president. Later, they seemed to fade away, their further services uncalled-for, their opinions unsolicited, their doings little chronicled. William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner, made a fool of himself by taking the Old Testament literally at the Scopes Monkey Trial, and few things in his life so ill-befitted him as his method of leaving it: He dropped dead after devouring a gargantuan meal on a broiling summer's day. True, Henry L. Stimson, who once halted an American intelligence operation with the declaration that gentlemen did not read other gentlemen's mail, continued to make himself useful for decades in one governmental capacity or another, but for all too many of the others, there was no life to speak of after the State Department. Dean Rusk, for example, one of the older and sadder victims of Vietnam, went home to Georgia and taught school. Henry Kissinger moved to Manhattan and incorporated himself.

New York is a far more hospitable place than Cambridge, where his former colleagues on Harvard's faculty, still upset by what they view as his sins in Vietnam and Cambodia, had made

90 MANHATTAN, INC.

pays them close to $300,000 a year out of his own pocket. But he
can afford it.

He has other expenses as well. His annual dues at the
Century Club are $810 plus 8.25% sales tax. At the River Club,
where he often conducts breakfast meetings, his dues are about
$1,600 and, in Washington, he is a member of the Federal City
Club and the Metropolitan Club, where similar fees are ex-
tracted each year.

FORYEARS, KISSINGER HAD GIVEN THE IMPRESSION THAT he was only sitting out an interregnum, marking time (with the appropriate disclaimers) until the stars were right for the summons that would bring him back from Elba. In the election year 1980, Kissinger gave what many regarded as a highly convincing imitation of a man maneuvering for a position in a probable Reagan Administration. There were rumors of a deal: Gerald Ford would become Reagan's vice president, Henry Kissinger would return. Nothing came of it. By 1982, it had become all too apparent that Kissinger would not be running the State Department for Ronald Reagan.

But with the Republicans back in power in Washington, he is again on call, even though in 1976 Ronald Reagan proffessed to believe that the Kissinger policy of détente with the Soviets “coincided precisely with the loss of U.S. military supremacy.” Kissinger has been scrupulous about not volunteering his advice, and his Monday-morning quarterbacking on television is not quite as much in evidence as it was during the Carter years. National Security Adviser William Clark was frequently on the phone to Kissinger before Clark snatched up the fallen mantle of James Watt at the Interior Department. Secretary Shultz, too, has availed himself of the Kissinger perspective, especially on the Middle East, and Kissinger was appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, an unpaid position that gives him at least limited access to the president. In July 1983, over the thunderous objections of Senator Jesse Helms, Reagan appointed Kissinger head of the blue-ribbon commission on Central America, another pro bono undertaking to which he devoted his time until the following January.

Perhaps it was the catharsis that sometimes accompanies
major surgery. Or perhaps the consultancy he held at Goldman,
Sachs suggested something.

In July 1982, with former Air Force General Brent Scowcroft, who had served as Gerald Ford's national security adviser, as vice chairman of the board, he founded Kissinger Associates.

The Kissinger name does not appear on the building direc-
tory of Park Avenue Plaza, at 55 East 52nd Street. He seems,
however, to be in good company; other occupants of the
building include Elizabeth Arden, the real estate operations of
First Boston, the U.S. headquarters of the Royal Bank of
Canada, Wells Fargo Corporate Services, the Banque de Pari-
bas and the Banco de Commercio e Industria de São Paulo.
Fisher Brothers, which operates the building, is so jealous of the
tenants' privacy that the rental information is blanked out on
the building manager's copy of the lease. Office space in that
neighborhood can fetch up to $70 per square foot.

The offices are located behind an unprepossessing, un-
marked door, at the end of a nondescript corridor; its windows
look out over the dome of St. Bartholomew's. There are seven
rooms in the suite now, two of them recently carved out of the
reception area; the business, clearly, is booming. Kissinger's
personal office is long and narrow, its walls decorated with a

Japanese screen and a backlit, colored map with the world's
time zones.

Kissinger's critics, as usual, are inclined to the view that if the
former secretary of state is up to something, he is probably up to
no good. "It's a high-priced dating service," said Jay Peterzell of
the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who
did research for Seymour Hirsch's distinctly unflattering 1983
book on Kissinger.

It is a charge that Scowcroft emphatically denies, and
Scowcroft, a Mormon born in Utah who, like his better-known
colleague, has never lost his regional accent, is not normally an
emphatic man. "We do not operate as a door-opening operation
at all," he says.

KISSINGER ASSOCIATES IS NOT A LARGE OPERATION. Stressing the “boutique” nature of the firm, Kissinger admits to about 25 clients, roughly one-third of them foreign. Scowcroft says that an annual fee of $200,000 for each is “a little high but not too far off.” Its stock, needless to say, is very closely held. There remains, of course,

the question of exactly what Kissinger Associates does do for an estimated $4.5 million a year, a topic on which its members are gratifyingly (from their clients' point of view, that is) vague. "We do country surveys, regional surveys, national and international trends and how those relate to the particular client and its business ventures," says Scowcroft. "We analyze what the client's problems and interests are and then tailor our projections as to the country and the region and identify global or other trends that are at work. Hopefully we can integrate what we find out with the client's strategic planning. We offer our judgments about what a client ought to do.

"For example, we might be asked, 'What's the likely evolution in Iran? Is it a reasonable area for investment? Ought one to retain an investment already there or liquidate it?' There might be a variety of questions like that."

Kissinger's position is doubly unique. He is not merely the
first former secretary of state to peddle his expertise and
undeniable eloquence to the private sector on a freelance basis,
but he is undoubtedly one of the few management consultants
in the world who can command substantial fees for commenting on problems some say he has caused, contributed to, or failed to stop when he was in office, a situation that in more than one way resembles an optical illusion of stunning complexity.

His company generally works on retainer and closely guards
the identities of its clients. "We don't drum up business," says
Scowcroft. "We're interested in clients, but we don't advertise,
we don't have brochures, none of that. When there are people
we think are interested, we talk with them. But it's all on a very
informal basis."

"You can't walk in off the street and hire us," says Steven Sydness, one of the six "active" (as distinct from clerical) employees of the firm. (Kissinger and Scowcroft are referred to as "substantive" members of the organization.) "And you can't hire us for a single job," Sydness adds. At present, the active employees handle the research end; Kissinger and Scowcroft add their "perspectives and judgments" to the completed reports and then present them in person to the client.

Board meetings are held roughly three times a year to bring
together the ten trustees: William D. Rogers, a former assistant
secretary of state and South America expert; T. Jefferson
Cunningham III, formerly with Chase Manhattan; Saburo
Okita, the former Japanese foreign minister, architect of his

Unlike most of
his predecessors,
Kissinger
knows how to
sing for
his supper.

94 MANHATTAN, INC.

AMERICAN EXPRESS®
FINDS A HIDDEN TREASURE
IN KEY BISCAYNE.

It's called the Sonesta Beach Hotel in Key Biscayne.

A tropical hideaway just 20 minutes from Miami International Airport. With its own private beach. And its own private tennis club (including ten laykold courts). Plus nine on-premise restaurants. Each of its 305 rooms has a private balcony. Each of its 20 villas has a private pool.

And, of course, the Sonesta welcomes the
American Express® Card. An ideal
way to pay for all the little treasures
you find in this secluded paradise.

Don't leave home without it.®

Sonesta Beach Hotel Key Biscayne

350 Ocean Drive, Key Biscayne, Florida 33149, (305) 361-2021.
Call Sonesta at (800) 343-7170.

©American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. 1983

country's postwar economic miracle, and author of (among other things) an autobiography entitled *Hurried Missions in Various Directions*; Pehr Gyllenhammar, the chief executive officer of Volvo; William Simon, the former secretary of the treasury; Sir Y.K. Kan, chairman of the Bank of East Asia; Robert O. Anderson, chairman of Atlantic Richfield and an Aspen Institute confrere; Eric, Lord Roll of Ipsden, chairman of S.G. Warburg & Co.; Edward L. Palmer of Citicorp; and Mario d'Urso, advisory director of Shearson Lehman/American Express, specializing in international investment, mergers and acquisition financing. Former British Foreign Minister Lord Carrington, who used to be on the board, left to become secretary general of NATO. Rogers is frequently called upon for advice in his specialty and Cunningham oversees the financial end of the enterprise, but the other members of the board are consulted only occasionally, when their particular insights are needed.

Former Under Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, a career diplomat who functioned as Kissinger's chief of staff during his tenure at State, joined as president last summer, becoming the third "substantive" member. And John Haley, a former executive vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank, became deputy chairman on October 1st. But until very recently, Kissinger Associates was largely Kissinger and Scowcroft and some hired hands; when Kissinger went off to Central America and the president tapped Scowcroft to persuade a reluctant Congress to swallow the MX missile last year, the business briefly went into hibernation.

Kissinger Associates is a unique undertaking; whether it is also a necessary one is a question only its anonymous clients can answer, and they aren't talking. It amounts, in effect, to an opportunity to hire Kissinger (with Scowcroft and, recently, Eagleburger and Haley), paying a pretty penny for the privilege. Kissinger's expertise had hitherto been available on a piecemeal basis, through his lectures, his consultantships or by the expediene of inviting him to join the corporate board. The lecture bureau, unfortunately, requires the customer to wait in line, and neither a consultation nor a directorship allows the chap who pays the bill to say that Kissinger works for him, a matter of some importance where the semantics of business are involved. Whatever else one might say about Kissinger's current venture, there is this: By hanging up his shingle and placing himself out for hire, Henry Kissinger has simplified the situation for everyone. ■

*Contributing editor* L.J. Davis is currently writing a book on the *Securities & Exchange Commission*.

96 MANHATTAN, INC.