Chairman Otis Pike was piqued. His House Select Committee on Intelligence had subpoenaed an internal State Department memo, and Secretary Henry Kissinger had refused to hand it over. Convinced that the Secretary was covering up, Pike pressed his committee to cite Kissinger for contempt of Congress.
Then Robert McCloskey, the State Department's liaison man with Capitol Hill, swung into action. He persuaded House leaders that such a contempt citation would badly damage Kissinger's prestige abroad. Thereupon, these men mounted a quiet campaign of friendly persuasion among committee members. The result: Pike's colleagues overruled him and voted 8 to 5 merely...
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