Unforgettable Encounter With Kissinger in Summer of ’73

I was hoping he’d show up so I could see if the old magic was still there.

But Henry Kissinger didn’t make it to the Nixon Library ground-breaking in Yorba Linda, and by the time he appeared at the fund-raising dinner afterward I was back in the newsroom, pounding out a story about the crowd at the ceremony honoring his old boss.

Although I have no delusions that Kissinger remembers our last--and only--meeting, it was unforgettable for me. Not exactly the stuff of great journalism but the fodder of great memories.

It was the summer of 1973. Richard Nixon was president and I, on summer break from the University of Missouri, was one of two interns at the Orange Coast Daily Pilot. In those days, the Pilot had a bureau in San Clemente, just a mile or so from what then was called the Western White House. Nixon was heading to town for a brief vacation, and my editor decided to give a couple of college kids a thrill. He sent us down to help out the San Clemente bureau chief .

And what a thrill it was. My colleagues today would tease me for getting so excited about getting a presidential press pass, but this was heady stuff for a college student. And the times were especially exciting.

While Nixon was holing up in his West Coast home, John Dean was testifying back in Washington at the Watergate hearings. I’m not sure he had spoken of the “cancer growing on the presidency” then, but it seemed that everything Dean said cried out for response from the President.

Nixon wasn’t talking, though. Instead, every day journalists listened to press secretary Ron Ziegler speak and doublespeak, declaring previous statements “inoperative” and refusing to comment on Dean’s sizzling testimony.

There were just a few opportunities to get a glimpse of the President--and of his famous secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.

Mine came on the day Nixon swore in a new secretary of defense, James R. Schlesinger, on the grounds of Casa Pacifica. The press corps was informed that this was a “photo opportunity” only--there would be no chance to ask questions of the President or the other dignitaries present. I hung a camera around my neck and boarded the press bus that took us inside the presidential compound.

We were quickly guided to a section of the back yard of the Western White House, where we snapped our pictures and then were brusquely ushered out. Actually, herded would be a better word. The tension between Nixon’s staff and the press was evident, and the security forces pushed us along the narrow grassy passageway that led back to the bus.

And that’s when I saw that I was about to have, as David Letterman would put it, my brush with greatness. Kissinger was walking with an aide along the same passageway. At the speed we were being herded, I knew I would pass him. And I wanted a closer look.

Remember, this was in the days when Kissinger was known as a swinging bachelor. With his deep, gravelly, thickly accented voice, he was considered quite a charmer and was often seen in the company of beautiful women. There was a mystique about him--a mystique that I did not understand. I mean, here was a short, round, middle-aged man with a funny voice. What was so special about him?

So as I walked by him, I gave him the once-over. I slowed my pace some more. I gave him the twice-over. And then I got caught, not by the security forces, but by the Deep-Voiced One himself.

“I didn’t know they had female photographers these days,” Kissinger intoned to his aide, while returning my stare. (OK, I know it was a sexist thing to say, but I was too scared to protest, and, frankly, I was hanging on his every word.)

Of course, I don’t remember what his aide replied. But Kissinger’s next words are burned into my memory:

“Yes, and that one is a ringer.”

A ringer? What the heck was a ringer? Red-faced and terrified that I had done something wrong, I blindly found my way back onto the press bus. Fearing “ringer” might be German for something--horrors, not “bimbo”? I asked my bureau chief, who laughed and said he didn’t know.

So now, 15 years and countless secretaries of state later, as I tramped along the Yorba Linda hillside and watched a bulldozer scrape up dirt for a library, I thought maybe my path and Kissinger’s would cross again. No such luck.

I did hear from another reporter who was at the Nixon Library fund-raising dinner later that night, though, that even after 14 years of marriage Kissinger was remembered for his amorous ways. Julie Nixon Eisenhower, speaking to the dinner crowd, recalled that during the Nixon years the question of who would be Kissinger’s dinner date “was the one constant source of intrigue.”

Kissinger, during his remarks, did not mention our earlier encounter. Oh well.

A few days later, I received roses from my husband. I guess that’s even better than a wink from Hank.