High life
Old porker
Taki
New York New York hen George Marshall, architect of the five plan that saved post-war Europe, ve-star General of the Army, and Secretary of State, retired, he walked out of the State Department literally taking with him only his hat. Soon after, he was ap- proached by various publishers and offered an important sum of money for his memoirs. Marshall sent them all packing. ``I've been Paid for my services,' he said; anything I make on the side would be inap- propriate.' Marshall was not a rich man in his own right He had his army and govern-
ment pension and that was all. (Although Marshall did eventually write a book about the war the profits, I believe, were given to an army charity.) Compare this with the departure of yet another brilliant, if far less scrupulous Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. If there was anything our Henry didn't take with him it was because it was structurally im- movable. Furthermore, Kissinger has con- sistently resisted efforts by journalists, historians, and other peeping toms to have a look into his public papers, documents that don't belong to him.
Now before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me make my position clear. The only thing I respect Kissinger for is the fact that when he and President Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia, he was smart enough to know that it was necessary in order to disrupt Hanoi's sanctuaries there, so American troops could be extracted more painlessly from South Vietnam. I also believe that Kissinger was absolutely right to try and fight the war in South-East Asia with knuckle-dusters, instead of the way the Fourth Estate and other communist apologists would have preferred, with both of Uncle Sam's hands tied behind his back.
After that, however, we part company, a fact that I am sure will not keep Henry from sleeping at night in view of my rapidly dwindling shipping millions.
Which brings me to the point of this week's morality lesson. Henry Kissinger could have been a Socrates, in view of the brain the Almighty gave him, but chose in- stead to become the highest-class whore the world has ever seen. And that includes Greek politicians and journalists! Kissin- ger has been under fire recently because of a new book by a hack who is not unlike Henry himself in his devotion to scruples, one Seymour Hersh. Hersh's main theme is that Kissinger rarely acted in the national interest but rather in his own, and that the pursuit of his ambition seriously flawed his policies and his legacy. Hersh also alle- ges that Kissinger was selling secrets to the Democrats and vice-versa, concerning the Paris peace talks, when jockeying for a po- sition of power before the 1968 election.
Although I don't know Kissinger, it doesn't surprise me at all. One either has principles or one doesn't. It is like being a
virgin or not being one. There are no two ways about it. What does surprise me is that Hersh writes about such topics as ethos, principles, and honour. Hersh forgot this time to cover his intent — a monomaniacal
urge to smear — and thus has left the old porker Kissinger off the hook. History, however, will not. Neither will the great Greek historian. Together we shall show
that Kissinger blew it for the free world by his excessive love of money and his ex- cessive trust in people who have large amounts of it.
But let bygones by bygones, I say. A cou- ple of weeks ago a very rich man threw a party for Henry, and his best friends were all there, including Swifty Lazare, the Rohatyns, Diane Furstenberg, David Rockefeller and the Gutfreunds. Mrs Gut- freund is quite a number. Last week she flew up from Texas some chilli, and some chicken, in a private jet. It was for Ungaro, one of those people who make the kind of clothes that women with new faces and old hands wear. The type of people who went to Henry's party. Thank God George Mar- shall ain't around.
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