Angered by Questions on Consulting Firm : Journalists’ Probing Outrages Kissinger

Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is outraged by “smart-alecky” journalists investigating activities of his international consulting firm.

He said Wednesday night that he resents insinuations of impropriety in work done by Kissinger Associates Inc., a New York firm he founded four years after leaving government service in 1982.

“Every smart-alecky newsman is asking my clients what I did for them, and I think it’s an outrage,” Kissinger said at a news conference before addressing an audience at a Jewish temple forum.

“When we do not represent foreign governments, when we do not lobby in Washington, when we do not represent anybody in the United States government, what is the problem?” he asked.

Newsweek magazine reported this week that Kissinger’s firm sells access to powerful world figures to about 30 big-business clients and estimated it grosses more than $6 million a year.

Two of Kissinger’s former associates in the firm, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence S. Eagleburger, are now serving in the Bush Administration, Scowcroft as national security adviser and Eagleburger as deputy secretary of state.

At his Senate confirmation hearings last week, Eagleburger declined to reveal publicly his clients or say what advice he had given. Eagleburger was president of Kissinger Associates.