Nicholas Thompson: Did Henry Kissinger Really Plan ‘An Accident’ for Bud Zumwalt?
Tomorrow, I’ll publish a new book, “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War.” And on Saturday, the New York Times ran a very nice story about some of the most interesting scoops and pieces of news in the book. I’ve been getting questions about one passage that stuck out for readers:
"Mr. Thompson also turned up evidence that suggested that Henry A. Kissinger had an agent follow the daughter of a political rival, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., known as Bud, and had told the Soviet ambassador that he would like to see Zumwalt have 'an accident.' Mr. Kissinger described the accusations, Mr. Thompson writes, as paranoid bunk."
The story dates to a memo that I found in the papers of my grandfather, Paul Nitze. He was very close friends with Zumwalt when the latter man served as Chief of Naval Operations under Richard Nixon.
Zumwalt clashed with Kissinger from the very beginning of his tenure and, in November 1970, the two men had a long talk on a train during which Zumwalt noted down several statements that infuriated him. “K. feels that U.S. has passed its historic high point like so many earlier civilizations. He believes U.S. is on the downhill … the American people have only themselves to blame because they lack stamina to stay the course against the Russians who are ‘Sparta to our Athens.’”
Relations between the two men continued to deteriorate. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Zumwalt became convinced that Kissinger was withholding supplies from Israel because he believed that a little bleeding would soften it up for his planned post-war diplomacy. After leaving the Navy, Zumwalt decided to run for the Senate in Virginia on, essentially, a platform of more weapons and less Kissinger. In the spring of 1976, with the Senate race in full swing, he published memoirs that had his notes of Kissinger’s harangue about Athens and Sparta blaring on the back cover. Kissinger, in turn, denounced Zumwalt’s “contemptible falsehoods.”
Then in early December 1975, a few months before the book was published, the phone rang in Zumwalt’s home. An unfamiliar voice gave a brief, hurried message: Henry Kissinger was soon going to hold a press conference to attack him. A few days later, the secretary of state did indeed hold a blistering 90-minute session in which he lambasted Zumwalt’s recent accusations before Congress that Kissinger was allowing the Soviets to violate the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks....
Read entire article at Nicholas Thompson, in Wired
"Mr. Thompson also turned up evidence that suggested that Henry A. Kissinger had an agent follow the daughter of a political rival, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., known as Bud, and had told the Soviet ambassador that he would like to see Zumwalt have 'an accident.' Mr. Kissinger described the accusations, Mr. Thompson writes, as paranoid bunk."
The story dates to a memo that I found in the papers of my grandfather, Paul Nitze. He was very close friends with Zumwalt when the latter man served as Chief of Naval Operations under Richard Nixon.
Zumwalt clashed with Kissinger from the very beginning of his tenure and, in November 1970, the two men had a long talk on a train during which Zumwalt noted down several statements that infuriated him. “K. feels that U.S. has passed its historic high point like so many earlier civilizations. He believes U.S. is on the downhill … the American people have only themselves to blame because they lack stamina to stay the course against the Russians who are ‘Sparta to our Athens.’”
Relations between the two men continued to deteriorate. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Zumwalt became convinced that Kissinger was withholding supplies from Israel because he believed that a little bleeding would soften it up for his planned post-war diplomacy. After leaving the Navy, Zumwalt decided to run for the Senate in Virginia on, essentially, a platform of more weapons and less Kissinger. In the spring of 1976, with the Senate race in full swing, he published memoirs that had his notes of Kissinger’s harangue about Athens and Sparta blaring on the back cover. Kissinger, in turn, denounced Zumwalt’s “contemptible falsehoods.”
Then in early December 1975, a few months before the book was published, the phone rang in Zumwalt’s home. An unfamiliar voice gave a brief, hurried message: Henry Kissinger was soon going to hold a press conference to attack him. A few days later, the secretary of state did indeed hold a blistering 90-minute session in which he lambasted Zumwalt’s recent accusations before Congress that Kissinger was allowing the Soviets to violate the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks....