Why did Marvin Kalb ask Henry Kissinger's help in finding a new publisher for his Kissinger book?

Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb's book Kissinger gathered disdainful reviews when it was published in the summer of 1974. Scholar Ronald Steel roughed it up in a lengthy Sept. 19, 1974, New York Review of Books essay, writing:

The enormous, but uncritical and often fawning, book which the brothers Kalb have produced is a Washington insider's account, redolent with gossip, detail, and self-serving quotations which could have come only from the subject himself and his most sycophantic aides.

Steel wasn't alone in his appraisal. Foreign Affairs Managing Editor James Chace called Kissinger "worshipful, gravely flawed" in his Aug. 25, 1974, New York Times review (subscription required), and Time magazine tagged it "a breezy, sometimes biting but largely admiring and affectionate portrait of the Secretary of State in action." Wrote Harvard's Stanley Hoffman in an Aug. 18, 1973, review, "The Kalbs' book, like Kissinger's diplomacy, has a certain breathless air."

That Marvin Kalb, a CBS News diplomatic correspondent in those years, had a professional crush on Kissinger, can be easily documented. Kissinger assigned staffers to secretly transcribe the contents of his telephone conversations during his stints as national security adviser and secretary of state. After a long legal struggle by the National Security Archive, thousands of Kissinger "telcons"—as they're known—were declassified and made public in 2004. The telcons capture several reporters sucking up, with Kalb leading the pack, as this Press Box column illustrates.

The archive has continued its work, producing a new haul of declassified Kissinger telcons that were published in December 2008 on the library database ProQuest, and once again the telcons reveal Marvin sucking up to Henry.

On May 13, 1973, at 11:08 a.m., Kalb reached Kissinger by phone with an urgent request.

Kalb: Henry, I've got a serious personal thing that I've got—I must talk to you about. It will take about five minutes.

Kissinger: You mean face-to-face?

Kalb: Yes, if that is possible.

Kissinger agreed to Kalb's request for an immediate meeting. Although we don't know precisely what they discussed, we can easily infer from Kissinger's May 13-15 telephone conversations that the topic was Kalb's book.

At 1 p.m., on May 13, Kissinger spoke to Phyllis Cerf, the widow of Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf. After an exchange of telephone air-kisses—"Hello, darling Henry." "Phyllis, how are you?"—Kissinger asked Cerf for help in reaching Random House executives.

Kissinger: It doesn't concern anything that I'm myself interested in but there is a newspaper man here who has written a book about me.

Cerf: Oh, really.

Kissinger: And which Norton was going to publish. And Norton in an excess of zeal is trying to get him to cut out all references that might be critical of me and he thinks that this will destroy the symmetry of his book.

It's hard to imagine that Norton wanted Kalb to cut critical passages. It's even harder to imagine an author reaching out to his subject for assistance in placing a more critical book. But there you are.

Kissinger told Cerf that the contents of the book were a mystery to him. "I want to make clear I haven't seen the book and for all I know it may take [sic] me over the coals," he said. This is the whitest of white lie. In an April 6, 1973, telephone conversation with Kissinger, Kalb told him the book was nearly complete and described its thrust.

Kissinger: Are you satisfied [with the book] so far?

Kalb: We've only had four readers. And as I say I still haven't done the Peace is at Hand chapter, the end. But that I'm starting next week and I just finished the Moscow summit. And four people have read it and they are fascinated by the book.

Kalb also told Kissinger that the book has "been a labor [of] love, commitment and devotion."

Kalb: I have a feeling that you're going to read this—as I told you before, I'm not sure that you're going to accept everything we say—but the overriding burden of the book by any fair standards would be one of two guys who are very much admiring of the performance of a third human being.

At 9:37 a.m. on May 14, 1973—the day after Kalb's emergency visit to Kissinger's office—Random House co-founder Donald Klopfer and Kissinger spoke. Klopfer said he had contacted Kalb at Kissinger's suggestion, and Kissinger explained why Kalb was unhappy with Norton and wanted to meet with Random House.

Kissinger: Apparently what they wanted him to do was to compress the Vietnam chapter and to take out all references to the President.

Klopfer: Oh.

Kissinger: On the theory that the less they tie me with Vietnam, the better off I am. If I understand it correctly.

Minutes later (9:42 a.m.), Kalb reconnected with Kissinger, and Kalb confirmed that Random House had spoken to him. "God bless you," Kalb said to Kissinger, not once but twice.