DR. SUSSER: Perhaps you could comment on the difference in the way the bureaucracy functioned and in the way the White House functioned with the cabinet agencies when the changeover came from Nixon to Ford.
DR. KISSINGER: Ford had never run for the presidency. He was as close to a normal human being as we'll ever get in that office. (Laughter.) He was not driven by public relations. And Nixon had had a very complicated life, and Nixon did not like to face disagreement face-to-face. So if one wanted to have an impact on Nixon, it was much better to do it with memoranda than in a cabinet meeting or in a--or through a--Ford had no such problems. So the interdepartmental process was calmer under Ford than it was under Nixon, and there wasn't that dual system anymore of a Security Advisor and a Secretary of State so that had a quality of calming it down.
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