the dirt from schlesinger

some great quotes from Arthur Schlesinger's Journals:

In 1977, Kissinger told Schlesinger that "Donald Rumsfeld was the rottenest person he had known in government -- that it was Rumsfeld who, in pursuit of his own ambitions, had set Kissinger and [Secretary of Defense James R.] Schlesinger against each other, and had persuaded Ford to make George Bush head of the CIA so he would be extinguished as the vice presidential candidate in 1976 (and thereby, Henry added, probably lost Ford the election)."

(Man, how bad do you have to be for Kissinger to think you're rotten? And who was more ambitious than Kissinger???)

After Anwar Sadat's funeral in 1981--at President Reagan's request, Nixon, Ford and Carter went together--Kissinger told Schlesinger, "As soon as we got into the plane, Nixon was his old self again, trying to manipulate everybody and everything, dropping poisonous remarks, doing his best to set people against each other. Later, when we were in car by ourselves, Ford said to me, 'Sometimes I wish I had never pardoned that son of a bitch.'"

Schlesinger reported Henry Kissinger's view of VP Dan Quayle. "Henry...said he couldn't understand why Quayle had such bad press; he found him well-informed and intelligent. (I take this to mean two things: that Quayle listens reverently to Henry and that Henry thinks Quayle may President some day.)"