Daniel Drezner is Quoted in The Hollywood Reporter – “Why Henry Kissinger Was “the Ultimate Starf-er”

Why Henry Kissinger Was “the Ultimate Starf—er”

The diplomat, dead at 100 and known for his coinage “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” leveraged his fame into reported liaisons with the likes of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Candice Bergen, Shirley MacLaine and more.

By Gary Baum, Seth Abramovitch

November 30, 2023 1:51pm

Revered and reviled U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger, whose death at 100 on Nov. 29 was met with the widespread view that his realpolitik was responsible for some of this country’s worst global war crimes, loved American celebrity — both his own, an expression of state power, as well as that of others, especially performers. He was “the ultimate starfucker,” noted Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, in an appraisal published earlier this year on the occasion of Kissinger’s centennial.

Prior to meeting President Richard Nixon in 1967, Kissinger made frequent trips to Santa Monica to consult with the Rand Corporation, a global policy think tank. But after being appointed as national security adviser by the newly elected president in 1969, his profile skyrocketed — and the glitz of Hollywood was within reach. Fascinated since childhood with American popular culture, Kissinger pursued the Tinseltown social scene and grew dizzy from the attentions of its starlets.

Kissinger was romantically linked to Shirley MacLaine, Marlo Thomas, Candice Bergen and Liv Ullmann. He also was photographed at the sides of Raquel Welch, Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli. There were countless more who did not have recognizable faces or names. “He had a weakness for young, beautiful lesser-known types,” writes Walter Isaacson in Kissinger: A Biography. “[They] offered, at least in the abstract, the aura of something more illicit.” They included Judith Brown, star of the X-rated 1970 Danish film Threesome, and Lada Edmund, a stuntwoman specializing in motorcycle and car crashes who worked on Smokey and the Bandit and with Evil Knievel.

But it was with Jill St. John, who as Tiffany Case in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever was the first American Bond girl, that Kissinger had the most lasting and significant relationship. The pair were “the center of attention” at a Hollywood fundraiser for Nixon’s 1972 campaign held at Nixon’s villa in San Clemente, The New York Times reported. The guest list included Charlton Heston (then leader of Democrats for Nixon), George Hamilton, Frank Sinatra and Jack Benny. St. John told reporters at the soiree: “Henry has been trying for three years and he’s finally gotten me to support the president.” Added Kissinger: “And you guys thought I’d been wasting my time out here in Hollywood.”

By then, U.S. casualties in Vietnam has surpassed 57,000 and opposition to the war — which Kissinger’s policies were responsible for prolonging — was at an all-time high. Somehow, that did little to diminish his somewhat counterintuitive reputation as a sex symbol and ladies’ man. According to Isaacson, a 1972 poll of Playboy Club bunnies ranked him No. 1 among “men I would most like to go on a date with.” His own famous words offer the most reasonable explanation: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

That same year, Kissinger did his close Hollywood pal, Paramount chief Robert Evans, a solid. The two had met and instantly hit it off at a dinner party given in Kissinger’s honor in the fall of 1970 at the home of Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Joyce Haber and her husband Doug Kramer, head of Paramount’s TV division. “He didn’t cut quite the same figure,” Evans wrote in his memoir The Kid Stays in the Picture, “but he was Cary Grant with a German accent.”

The following day, Evans invited Kissinger to the studio lot for lunch and a tour. That led to regular phone calls: “Henry would say, ‘The Israelis are really difficult to deal with, Robert.’ ‘It’s true, then. You’re having sex with Golda Meir.’ ‘Robert, I’m not that much of a patriot. Tell me, are Raquel’s breasts for real?’”

But back to that favor. In March 1972, The Godfather — Evans’ baby — was having its splashy New York premiere. Marlon Brando canceled on him at the last minute. Frantic for a replacement, Evans called Kissinger and asked him to attend. “It was not a good time: the North Vietnamese offensive had just begun, the Paris peace talks had been broken off, Kissinger was about to leave on a Secret mission to Moscow, and he was planning the mining of Haigphong,” Isaacson writes. But Evans begged, and Kissinger flew to New York that night. “The superstar was Henry Kissinger,” said Time of the premiere, which was attended by Welch, Jack Nicholson and Evans’ girlfriend Ali McGraw. “So many people wanted to be seen talking to the president’s national security adviser that the curtain was delayed about 15 minutes.”

Zsa Zsa Gabor recalled in her memoir that Nixon played matchmaker with his national security adviser during a state dinner to which she’d been invited. But after Kissinger took her out to dinner at Beverly Hills’ Bistro Garden, and the pair returned to her place, they were interrupted when the president buzzed his beeper. He had to leave right away. Later, Gabor invited him to a play she was appearing in, but he stood her up, explaining, by her account: “I can’t fly down because we’re invading Cambodia tomorrow.” The secret bombing of the country, which began in May 1969, reportedly caused at least 50,000 deaths.

Sally Kellerman, who shot to fame playing Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in 1970’s M*A*S*H, describes being horrified at being set up on a date with Kissinger in 1972 in her memoir Read My Lips. “Ewww!” she recalls saying. “I’d be embarrassed to be seen with him. Besides, I’m working for [Nixon’s democratic challenger for president George] McGovern.” But Kellerman did end up sitting next to Kissinger at a dinner party and reluctantly found herself pulled in by his aura. Before the dinner, Kellerman mentioned she’d be meeting Kissinger and her Republican mother mailed her a newspaper article about his historic visit to China with Nixon.

“After being introduced, I asked him, ‘So how was China?’” she writes. “‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Did your mother send you an article?’ Damn — that made me like him right away.”