Martin Peretz: Kissinger and Nixon

[Martin Peretz is the editor-in-chief of The New Republic.]

Richard Nixon was a psychopath for whom Henry Kissinger worked, first as national security adviser and then concurrently in that position and also as secretary of state....

Every so often as the secret tape recordings President Nixon made in the Oval Office are released we assume that some scarlet blush will come to Kissinger's face. No doubt Kissinger is very much embarrassed today.

Here is the shameful exchange put out yesterday between the late president and his secretary of state:

Kissinger:"The emigration of Jews from the the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

Nixon:"I know. We won't blow up the world because of it."...