Midnight tryst with Henry Kissinger

I have seen the controversial Henry Kissinger almost die— right before my very eyes— at the Deccan Herald office in 1974. And to think he survived and lived on and on for half a century more!

Nearly 50 years ago, I was standing before the rat-a-tat-tat of a noisy teleprinter, well beyond midnight, as it spouted out the news: Henry Kissinger, the biggest, most contentious politician of the 70’s, was in a plane found loaded with a terrorist bomb. I stood riveted—staring at the world- headline making news; a rookie intern at DH on my very first day, or rather night, at work.

“Oh my god, a bomb in Kissinger’s plane!” I exclaimed aloud. The sub editor on duty was already springing into action ordering a halt to the printing of the first edition. The teleprinter hammered out updates: in the nick of time, Kissinger had been off-loaded from the potential death-trap.

My dream had come true. Not visions of assassination attempts on Henry Kissinger, a man as reviled as much as he was celebrated; but a wish that something so dramatic should happen at my very first night-shift in a newspaper office, causing an entire front page layout to change in minutes.

I watched fascinated as the existing lead story, already set up in solid metallic blocks, was quickly removed, even as the writer on duty constantly updated his story on his Remington typewriter, based on bureau reports. A file picture of Kissinger was sourced from the archives; later to be replaced by one of him actually disembarking from the plane. 

Within a couple of days of course, this news was practically forgotten. President Nixon’s  Secretary of State continued his secret plane rides to China, to meet premier Zhou En Lai, trying to end over two decades of hostility. And Kissinger’s highly controversial Nobel Peace Prize of 1973, which he shared with Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, continued to stir angry hate and debate around the world.

When my exciting three month internship came to an end, I decided to make a career in advertising. I sat down for my interview with my potential future boss, Peter Colaco at MC&A, with samples of my writings, amongst which was the front page of a newspaper. “Did you do this story?”asked Peter, looking at the ‘Bomb found in Kissinger’s plane’, 72 point extra bold type. “No. But I was right there watching, when it was written” I replied proudly. 

I hoped it conveyed my readiness and respect for headlines and deadlines. (I did get the job, but perhaps for other reasons).

Hearing the news of Henry Kissinger’s death now at the age of 100,  I feel compelled to share my tryst with Heinz Alfred— as that indeed was Kissinger’s original German-Jewish name, before his family immigrated to the US. My journalistic nose-for-detail, trained all those years ago in Deccan Herald, made me jot down this fact in a diary I still have, on that unforgettable first-day-first-job at work.