The Kissinger Presidency (Vanity Fair)

[Eugene]

Source: Vanity Fair

THE WHITE HOUSE

The Kissinger Presidency

Battered by Watergate in 1973, President Nixon was losing his
epic power struggle with Henry Kissinger. Then the Middle East
exploded. In an excerpt from his new book, using freshly opened
archives, the author describes how the secretary of state took
control.

by Robert Dallek May 2007

Excerpted from Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek,
to be published this month by HarperCollins Publishers; © 2007 by the author.

Henry Kissinger never wanted the 20,000 pages of his telephone
transcripts made public—not while he was alive, at any rate. And for
good reason. It was Kissinger's practice while he served as Richard M.
Nixon's national-security adviser and, later, as his secretary of state
to have assistants listen in on dead-key extensions and make verbatim
transcripts. The result is a record of conversations and decision-making
rivaled only by the Nixon tapes—and a real-time rendering of events
often at variance with official portrayals. It is ironic: Nixon and
Kissinger presided over an administration that was unsurpassed (until
the current one) in its secrecy, and yet produced the richest trove of
presidential records in history, making the Nixon White House more
transparent in retrospect than any before or since.

-snip-

On the morning of October 6—Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish
calendar—Egypt attacked Israeli forces in the Sinai even as Syria struck
the Israelis in the Golan Heights. A combination of complete surprise and
effective preparation initially gave Egypt and Syria the advantage.

From the outset Kissinger, who was now secretary of state as well as
national-security adviser, centered control of the crisis in his own hands.
The Israelis had informed him of the attacks at six a.m. that Saturday, but
three and a half hours would pass before he felt the need to consult Nixon,
who had escaped Washington for his retreat in Key Biscayne, Florida.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/05/kissinger200705

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Related: New book says Kissinger kept Nixon in the dark - Reuters

[Demeter]

1. Fascinating!