Henry Kissinger, at 50, was at the height of his powers: secretary of state and national security advisor, hero of the negotiations that led to America's withdrawal from Vietnam, master of the mediation between Israel and Egypt and Syria. Golda Meir, a woman of 75, was Israel's prime minister. When the two met, they were usually accompanied by colleagues, aides and transcribers.
Nguyen Van Thieu was a military man and a politician, the president of South Vietnam and Kissinger's contemporary. Like the prime minister of Israel, he was a cranky and ungrateful client of the United States government. On November 29, 1973, about a month after the end of the Yom Kippur War, in a meeting of the crisis management team he headed in Washington, Kissinger confessed: 'I've always had this secret desire to get Golda [Meir] into negotiations with [President] Thieu. What a scene that would be! They both deserve each other.'"
