The Best Minds of Kissinger's Generation, Starving Hysterical Naked

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Loop Fan alert! Some of the following material may be shocking. We'll warn you at the appropriate point.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University, after protracted legal and bureaucratic wrangling, has released 15,502 documents and more than 30,000 pages of transcripts of telephone conversations between Henry A. Kissinger, who served as national security adviser and secretary of state, and other notables, including Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, other senior U.S. and foreign officials, and media and show-business figures.

The material sheds light on some of the more important diplomatic events from 1969, when Kissinger was in the White House, until early 1977, when Kissinger left the State Department.

In one conversation in November 1975, after White House Chief of Staff Donald H. Rumsfeld allegedly engineered the Cabinet shake-up known as the "Halloween Massacre" so he would become defense secretary and his pal Dick Cheney would move up to be chief of staff, Kissinger chats with Treasury Secretary William Simon.

Simon tells Kissinger that he'd insisted to reporters that Kissinger had not been behind the moves and that he thought the move would be a net minus for Kissinger.

"The guy that cut me up inside this building isn't going to cut me up any less in Defense," Kissinger told Simon, referring to Rumsfeld.

"It is going to be worse, Henry," Simon said.

"Huh?"

"It's going to be worse," Simon repeated.

"That's right," Kissinger said.

This next excerpt is not for the squeamish.

On April 23, 1971, just before the "May Day" antiwar demonstrations in Washington, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg telephoned Kissinger, saying he was "calling at the request partly of Senator [Eugene] McCarthy."

Ginsberg said he wanted "to arrange a conversation" or meeting involving Kissinger, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), "maybe even Nixon," Ginsberg, McCarthy and various anti-Vietnam War leaders.

Kissinger said he'd met with peace groups before, and he complained that they just rushed out afterward and blabbed to the press. He told Ginsberg he "would be prepared to meet in principle," but "on a private basis." Ginsberg said it was "difficult to set limits" on such an unruly group but added: "We can try to come to some kind of understanding."

"You can set limits to what you say publicly," Kissinger observed -- perhaps a bit irrationally, given the crowd involved.

"It would be even more funny to do it on television," Ginsberg said.

"What?" Kissinger responded.

"It would be even more useful if we could do it naked on television," Ginsberg offered.

"K: (Laughter)," the transcript says.

We warned you.

Brennan's 'Blogocide'

Meanwhile, the incoming administration is still looking hard for someone to be CIA director. Everyone's apparent first choice, John Brennan, a former deputy director, ran into a firestorm of Internet criticism when word circulated of his near-pending nomination. Liberal bloggers argued that Brennan had tolerated aggressive interrogation techniques or even torture while at the agency. Brennan withdrew.

"No one went to bat for him," a source said. Insiders call this the first example of a "blogocide."

The episode bothered a lot of Brennan fans in the Obama operation, where he still heads the CIA transition team. "If we're afraid of bloggers," one transition observer quipped, "how can we take on al-Qaeda?" Various names have popped up since for the job, including Washington lawyer and former agency general counsel Jeff Smith.

More Names Named

Present-elect Barack Obama continued to fill in his White House staff yesterday, moving down to the deputy level. Cassandra Butts, a longtime friend since Harvard Law School days and now general counsel at the transition office, will move in to be deputy White House counsel, focusing on domestic policy and ethics.

Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emanuel's congressional chief of staff, Elizabeth Sears Smith, who was at the Commerce Department in the Clinton administration, was tapped to be deputy Cabinet secretary.

Shawn Maher, longtime aide to Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Dodd's staff director and general counsel on the Senate banking committee, got the nod to be deputy director for legislative affairs, working the Senate side. His counterpart on the House side will be Dan Turton, a longtime aide to former majority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and more recently staff director of the House Rules Committee.

Camille Johnston, who had been director of communications for Tipper Gore and more recently senior vice president for communications for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been picked to be director of communications for incoming first lady Michelle Obama. Katie McCormick Lelyveld, who had been Michelle Obama's director of communications during the campaign, was tapped to be her press secretary. Semonti Mustaphi, who's worked communications for various Democratic senators and was deputy communications director for Michelle Obama during the campaign, is to move in as her deputy press secretary.

A New Obama-Clinton Divide?

At the State Department, Secretary-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton, as long expected, picked James B. Steinberg, who served as deputy national security adviser in Bill Clinton's administration, to be a deputy secretary for policy. She also picked Jacob Lew, who had been head of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, as a deputy secretary for budget and resources -- a position never before filled. Looks as if career Foreign Service officer Bill Burns, now in the No. 3 spot as undersecretary for political affairs, will be staying on.

Seems the Hillary folks are tending to settle at Foggy Bottom, while the Obama folks appear to be settling at the National Security Council. For example, there's chatter that Kurt Campbell, who had been at the Pentagon in the Clinton administration as deputy assistant secretary for Asia-Pacific matters, was the choice to be assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs.

That would probably mean that former ambassador to Namibia Jeffrey A. Bader, formerly a senior official for Asia on the Clinton National Security Council and more recently the Obama campaign's top Asia hand, would return to the National Security Council to handle Asia matters.

Another former top Clinton State Department official, Wendy R. Sherman, is rumored to be returning to Foggy Bottom in a senior post, probably in another stint as counselor to the secretary.

Meanwhile, lawyer and former State Department chief of staff Thomas E. Donilon is to be deputy to National Security Adviser James L. Jones, while Tony Blinken, a longtime top foreign policy aide to Vice President-elect Joe Biden, will serve as Biden's national security adviser.

A Fine Choice

The Justice Department's internal watchdog won the National Law Journal's top honor Monday for targeting Bush administration actions that cast doubt on the department's political independence. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine was named "Lawyer of the Year." The newspaper said Fine's investigations into White House political meddling and mismanagement by former Justice officials has helped restore the fierce independence that was once the department's trademark.