Books: War of Words

• Share

(2 of 2)

In his book, Moynihan settles some scores with the man who more or less dumped him. While professing to admire Kissinger's energy, ambition and daring, Moynihan portrays him as a Machiavellian who never says what he means. He claims that Kissinger's former aide, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, once told him: "Henry does not lie because it is in his interest. He lies because it is in his nature." (Denying he made such a remark, Sonnenfeldt says that it "sounds so much like a Moynihan aphorism.")

Still, the break between these two gifted public servants was baffling be cause they have much the same approach to world affairs. Unsentimental to the point of acidity, both appreciate the imperatives of power and have no illusions about their Communist opponents. Perhaps it was style as much as anything that separated them: the difference between a man whose words were always guarded and one whose words never were, between a man who practiced quiet diplomacy and one who sought public confrontation.

Their dialogue is likely to continue. Moynihan, apparently, wants to run for President. Failing that, he will remain in the Senate. Kissinger, meanwhile, has said that he, too, might like to run for the Senate in New York in 1980. If he were elected as New York's "junior" member, would the Senate be big enough to contain two such irrepressible and combustible personalities?