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In return for such orchestration, however, Kissinger is more available to journalists than any other major figure in the Nixon Administration and more open than any other Secretary of State in recent years. On long flights aboard Air Force Two he will wander into the press section to trade news or simply chat. At such moments he is unprofessionally informal and often brutally candid in his assessment of the leaders he has just talked to. Shirt open, stomach bulging, he will complain: "When I negotiate I get nervous, and when I get nervous I eat. When I get rid of this Arab-Israeli thing, I am going to weigh 350 Ibs." Newsmen enjoy the proximity to Kissinger and the thoroughness of his briefings, but they also complain that he can occasionally be devious. Despite promises to the contrary, he has yet to reveal the reasons that he says required a worldwide U.S. alert during the latest Middle East war.
These days, Kissinger does much of his socializing aloft. Since becoming Secretary of State, he has cut down on his after-hours activities in Washington. He studiously avoids cocktail parties; if forced to attend a reception, the abstemious Kissinger (who does not smoke) will sip unconvincingly at a glass of wine or champagne. When he does relax, it is within a small circle of friends. They include the writing Alsop brothers (Stewart and Joseph), Humorist Art Buchwald (a regular chess partner) and Columnist Tom Braden and his wife Joan. A pleasant evening for the capital's most sought-after guest may include nothing more than dinner at the Bradens' with "favorite date" Nancy Maginnes, a Nelson Rockefeller aide, followed by the home screening of a movie.
The Secretary's two children, Elizabeth, 15, and David, 12—he was divorced in 1964—live with their mother in Belmont, Mass. This week while they are on spring vacation, they will get a treat that any school child would envy.
Kissinger is taking them to Moscow.
Lately, most of the Secretary's meals have been either on the road or in his private State Department dining room, where he has played host to such official guests as Israel's Eban or Jordan's King Hussein. At least once a week he will have breakfast with Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. Both men insist that they have a healthy working relationship based on mutual respect. "Schlesinger and I are closer together on strategic policy than any other Secretaries of State and Defense since Dean Acheson and Robert Lovett," Kissinger insists. "We have no basic differences on strategic policy, although we may have some tactical differences."
Kissinger's grueling workday begins shortly before 8 o'clock, when he leaves his town house overlooking Rock Creek Park for the White House. Normally, he spends the morning there and the rest of the day, which often does not end until midnight, at his State Department office. When he is not traveling, Saturdays and many Sundays are workdays, not only for Kissinger, but for much of his staff as well. "It takes a hyperthyroid condition, an iron will and, somewhere down the list, intelligence," says one assistant. "Fortunately, Henry has all three." His aides are not quite so well endowed with stamina. They can hardly wait until early April, when the boss plans a ten-day vacation in Acapulco.