From Furth to the White House Basement

In the German city of Fuerth, in Middle Franconia, few people remember the Kissingers. Before World War II, Henry Kissinger's father Louis, now 82 and living in Manhattan with his wife Paula, was a respected Studienrat, or high school teacher. The family enjoyed a middle-class life: a five-room flat, many books, a servant and a piano, which young Heinz avoided practicing whenever possible. He preferred soccer.

When the Nazis gained power, life became difficult and dangerous. "The other children would beat us up," Henry recalls now. His father was forced to retire, but thought that the madness would pass and tried to wait it out. Finally the pressure became too much. Concerned that Heinz and a younger brother, Walter, would not get a proper education, Louis Kissinger took his family to America in 1938.

The father did not have an easy time in New York. Unable to get a teaching post, he wound up working in an office. To this day, his heart is in Fuerth. He has been back to visit twice, and two weeks ago wrote to the local newspaper to ask for clippings of stories about his son. Heinz, who soon became Henry, adapted much more easily. In Germany, he had been an average student. In Manhattan's George Washington High School, he became a straight-A pupil.

After going on active duty in the Army in 1943, Kissinger soon found himself an interrogator in counterintelligence. At one point, though only a sergeant, he was put in charge of administering a small German town, then a county with a population of 140,000. Later he was assigned to the faculty of an Army intelligence school in Oberammergau, teaching modern German history to officers ranking as high as lieutenant colonel. The disparity in military status became embarrassing. In 1946, he was made a civilian employee of the Army,'with a salary of $10,000 and a captain's rank in the Army Reserve. But by the next year he was restless. "I know nothing," he told a friend. He won a Government scholarship that began his long association with Harvard.

As a student, he was brilliant. He won his B.A. in government in three years, summa cum laude. His doctorate came in 1954. By then he was serving as a consultant to a number of Government agencies, teaching at Harvard and running a group called the Harvard International Seminar, which sponsored student exchange programs. It was partially subsidized by CIA funds secretly channeled through foundations. Kissinger now says that he was unaware of the subsidy until the story of CIA funding came out two years ago.

Kissinger was married in 1949 to the former Ann Fleischer; they were divorced in 1964, and their two children, Elizabeth, 9, and David, 7, live with her in Belmont, Mass. Those who have known him for many years say that he has mellowed since the divorce. One Harvard colleague observes: "Until the divorce, he had had a string of victories. The breakup was something new." He lost 30 lbs. His students found him more approachable, his classes more congenial. He was able to spend more time reading novels and history.

After 1954, his interest in strategic studies became paramount. He published Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, and Kissinger became a full member in that segment of the intellectual community--the new technocracy of academic experts in public affairs--that is now never far from Government.

Kissinger was already consultant to the director of the NSC's Psychological Strategy Board. Nelson Rockefeller took him on in 1956 as director of special Rockefeller Brothers Fund studies. Though Nixon read Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy and sent Kissinger an admiring note, the two met only a year ago at a Christmas party. "We both hate cocktail parties," Kissinger recalls, "and we were both trying to avoid making small talk." When Nixon moved into the Oval Office, Kissinger found himself close by in the White House basement. They have had no difficulty avoiding small talk.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.