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For nine years, at ballets, basketball games and fancy-dress balls, Nancy has been Henry's steadiest date—and the most discreet one. While he has splashed through the headlines, squiring Mario Thomas, Barbara Walters, Liv Ullman, Samantha Eggar (and being shunned by Gloria Steinem), Nancy stayed mum.
In the past year, her friends have noticed a change. Shedding her deb smartness, she has grown "tremendously glamorous," says one Nancy watcher. And she assumed a more prominent place in Henry's life, acting as hostess for his 50th birthday party last spring for 70 of his friends, including Happy and Nelson Rockefeller, Rosalind Russell and Senator Jacob Javits. Nonetheless she made sure that as little gossip as possible got around about her. She told staffers at the Rockefeller Fund last year never to speak to the press about her. Reporters who spotted her and Henry leaving a Washington hotel together last year said that she "ducked like Greta Garbo." Observing Nancy's reticence, Bette Lord, wife of a high Kissinger aide, says: "It's so nice for him to have someone to come home to."
Latent Extroversion. It is ten years since Kissinger divorced his first wife, Anne Fleischer, who, like him, was a refugee from Germany. The marriage became unstuck around the time Henry's academic star was rising at Harvard, and friends say he began to display a latent extroversion that conflicted with Anne's preference for a quiet, simple life.
Those who have watched Nancy survive Henry's career as America's improbable No. 1 sex symbol credit her success to her intelligence. But then Henry has never pretended that he was serious about anyone else, stating openly that should he get married again, it would be to Nancy. And it has been Nancy who has held off for two years. Says Barbara Walters, a friend of both: "She never capitalized on his position. When everyone was dying to be seen with Henry Kissinger, she was the one who held back." Barbara agreed with critics that Nancy presents a facade of aloofness but "if she trusts you, she is very warm." And helpful, as when Nancy went to some trouble to set up Barbara's Today show coverage of the Inauguration Day ceremonies—but refused to appear on camera herself. As Barbara puts it, "She'll be a lovely, quiet stream in the turmoil of his life."