Quote of the day–Henry Kissinger via Paul Smith

THE STORY that amused me most in 1998 came out of the Christopher Hitchens’ column in The Nation: “At a glamorous book launch given by Vogue for Katharine Graham, a Nation colleague of mine was introduced to Henry Kissinger. On hearing the name of the magazine, the doctor drew back. “The Nation? So I suppose you think I am a war criminal?”  Yielding to that fatal instinct that sometimes urges people to be laid-back and unpredictable, my comrade attempted a pleasantry and observed that in these post-Cold War days, the old mag was just as likely to describe – who knows? – Bill Clinton as a war criminal. Kissinger stared into his cocktail and said slowly and distinctly, `Mr. Clinton does not have the strength of character to be a war criminal.'”

From Paul Smith
January 13, 1999

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