By Leslie H. Gelb | The New York Times Magazine
April 20, 1986

ON THE CORNER OF PARK Avenue and 52d street in New York City sits an office building whose lobby contains the First American Bank of New York, Chase Private Banking International and, embedded in a marble post, a computerized building directory. Punch ''U'' and such names as Peter Ueberroth, the commissioner of major-league baseball, come up. But punch ''K'' and you will not find Kissinger Associates, for Henry A. Kissinger still receives threats, so, for security reasons, you have to be invited to learn what floor his firm is on.

I had been invited, and the elevator sped to its destination. The doors opened onto a reception room and a receptionist, but no identification of the firm. Only when the receptionist answered the phone and said ''Kissinger Associates'' was I sure I was in the right place. ''Governor Cuomo's office?'' the woman said. ''Yes, I'll put you through.''

I was ushered into a windowless inner waiting room, nothing particularly elegant. On a coffee table were The New Republic, American Heritage and Fortune. Words drifted across the hallway from Alan Stoga, the firm's one and only economist, who was on the telephone talking about Saudi Arabian oil strategy. He was apparently sharing with a client the insight that the Saudis were seeking to maximize their profits.

Mr. Kissinger walked out of his office, reading a sheet of paper. He greeted me and said he would see me shortly. The former national security adviser and Secretary of State is chairman and sole owner of Kissinger Associates, which, he said in the interview a little later, dispenses ''geopolitical-economic advice'' and helps clients ''with their international planning.''

The clients of Kissinger Associates include Shearson Lehman Brothers and the American Express Company, which retain the services of the firm for a fee of $420,000 annually. For this, Mr. Kissinger speaks about four times a year at luncheons and dinners for Shearson Lehman and makes himself and his associates available for periodic contacts with the top leadership of the investment banking firm's parent, American Express. A more typical fee - for far less service - runs about $150,000 annually, and the chief executive officers and presidents of the various business institutions that have signed on seem glad to pay it.

The Kissinger firm provides no written analyses, but it seems clear from talking to clients that in addition to oral analyses they are buying Mr. Kissinger's instantly recognizable face and his famous German-tinged basso voice - his stardom and the status that goes with it, if you will.

The two other top members of the firm are Lieut. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, President Ford's national security adviser, and Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was an Under Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration.

Mr. Kissinger, of course, is not by any means the only former Government official to have gone into business for himself. Others in recent years include Alexander M. Haig Jr., who was chief of staff for Richard M. Nixon and Secretary of State for President Reagan. Two former Directors of Central Intelligence, Richard M. Helms and William E. Colby, also went into business for themselves. Donald F. McHenry, chief delegate to the United Nations under President Carter, and Richard V. Allen, President Reagan's first national security adviser, made the same decision, as have a host of others.

By all indications, these prime international consultants are doing quite well, as corporations move away from having in-house staffs to do political-risk analysis - predicting the political fate of a country or region or issue. It is this function that is the lifeblood of the international consultants. These consultants are not lobbyists in the strict sense of the word, spending their time persuading American officials to help their clients. And yet, some of them are involved in selling their influence at home and almost all do so abroad.

Mr. Kissinger and his associates are by all accounts the most successful of this new breed of former senior Government officials who have decided to advise big businesses rather than join them. Their predecessors, many of whom found the doors of their banking and law firms still open when they left Government service, beat a path back. Robert A. Lovett, for instance, went from being President Truman's Secretary of Defense back to Brown Brothers Harriman & Company, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson returned to Covington & Burling after serving Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

Although David A. Stockman left the Office of Management and Budget for Salomon Brothers, big business is too small for many of the new generation of Government superstars. Defense Secretaries in recent times have been responsible for millions of people and budgets in billions. Secretaries of State not only run American foreign policies but also are news media stars. Not even the most Gargantuan multinational company can compete in scale with these Government operations. At the same time, most big businesses do not want these former officials, at least not as chief executive officers, and the officials want nothing less. ''What do they know about our businesses?'' one senior oil executive asked rhetorically.

So, many of these former Government leaders asked themselves, why not capitalize on our stardom, international contacts and inside knowledge to make large incomes on our own? At the same time, they sought something more. ''I wanted to preserve freedom for myself and do lots of different things,'' said James R. Schlesinger, who held senior Cabinet posts in the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations and who now spends some time on the payroll of Shearson Lehman, some with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, and some freelancing.

No one does more different things with the freedom afforded by his consulting business than the 62-year-old Mr. Kissinger. He lets his name be floated as a candidate for the Governorship of New York. (The day of my visit and of the call from Governor Cuomo's office was, in fact, the day Mr. Kissinger issued his statement saying he would not seek the nomination for Governor of New York.) He writes a column for The Los Angeles Times syndicate and presents analyses for ABC television. He gives free speeches at Republican fund-raising events for such people as Representative Jack F. Kemp of Buffalo and Vice President Bush. He is greeted by the French President at Elysee Palace and by the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in his inner office. He gets involved in behind-the-scenes battles at the very establishment New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. And there seems to be plenty of time left over for socializing with the beautiful people, including the designer Oscar de la Renta. The television appearances, the socializing, the politicking, the international consulting - all reinforce each other.

But it is very difficult to pin down what Mr. Kissinger and the others are really doing in the business end of their lives. None will say for attribution who their clients are or discuss the specifics of what they do, although they do talk about their work with the understanding that they not be identified, and their accounts of their business activities are suprisingly similar. Kissinger Associates requires a clause in its contracts stating that neither the firm nor its clients will divulge a business connection, although in practice some clients do acknowledge the relationship.

It is known that Kissinger Associates' client list includes H.J. Heinz, Arco and American Express and Shearson Lehman. It is said that the roster also extends to Fiat, Volvo, the Fluor Corporation, the International Energy Corporation, ASEA and L.M. Ericsson of Sweden, Midland Bank of Britain and Montedison of Italy. With very few exceptions, however, those who agreed to talk about their business offered little detail. Almost none had a bad word to say about Kissinger Associates.

AS I STOOD PEERING out of the Kissinger Associates waiting room, Mr. Eagleburger walked in. The 55-year-old president of the firm had served as an Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He said that the freedom and the money involved in being a consultant were wonderful, and he hastened to add, ''It's not like going from the State Department to selling toothpaste. I'm still dealing with subjects I think I know something about.''

The firm, he said, was started in 1982 with loans from places like E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company, the investment bankers. All the firm's personnel, save Mr. Kissinger as sole owner, are salaried. (None will say what those salaries are.) The New York staff totals 11, including Mr. Eagleburger, Mr. Stoga (formerly of the First National Bank of Chicago) and two other consultants. The Washington office is run by General Scowcroft and has three researchers and four clerks. Including Mr. Kissinger's bodyguards, this brings Kissinger Associates to about 25 people. In addition, Mr. Kissinger has a separate Washington office from which he runs his ''private'' affairs, such as speechmaking. He speaks for a fee about 20 times a year - his charge is usually $20,000 - and makes another 20 or so free appearances for various causes and political fund raising.

The firm's board of trustees reads like an international ''Who's Who.'' It includes William D. Rogers, a former Under Secretary of State and now a Washington lawyer; Saburo Okita, former Japanese Foreign Minister; Pehr Gyllenhammar, chief executive officer of Volvo; William E. Simon, former Treasury Secretary; Sir Y.K. Kan, former chairman of the Bank of East Asia; Robert O. Anderson, former chairman of Atlantic Richfield; Lord Roll, chairman of S.G. Warburg & Company, and Edward L. Palmer, former chairman of the executive committee of Citibank. Many of the trustees help the firm obtain clients.

According to various members of the firm, it has 25 to 30 clients, each paying slightly more than $150,000 yearly for varying services. Gross income thus apparently approaches $5 million a year.

The maximum amount of service seems to be four planning meetings a year between Kissinger Associates and the top management of a client, plus telephone calls. That is the case with the H.J. Heinz Company, according to sources there. The minimum appears to be $150,000 for a few telephone calls plus a visit by a chief executive officer of a client to Mr. Kissinger's office. Such is the case with the International Energy Corporation of Stamford, Conn., according to a source close to that company. The extent of the service sometimes seems to depend on how much the client demands.

''You have to remember that the fee is not compulsory,'' Mr. Kissinger says, ''so you have to assume that if it isn't worth their while, they wouldn't pay it.''

HENRY KISSINGER'S L-shaped office is decorated with plants, photographs and paintings, with a desk at one end and a sitting area at the other. The interview, most of which Mr. Eagleburger sat in on, ranged over Mr. Kissinger's activities.

Mr. Kissinger said the firm began by doing only general analysis of international affairs. Then, with the addition of Messrs, Scowcroft, Eagleburger and Stoga, it got into ''much more detailed analysis of international politics and economic problems in relation to business activities.'' As they got to know their clients better, ''we could bring our analyses to bear on more specific issues and give them our opinion on how to handle it.'' He declined to discuss any specific advice given to any client, save to say that he told some that, contrary to the judgment of many banks, the international debt crisis was going to get worse, not better. Several executives of his client firms stated that Mr. Kissinger had advised them against investing in South Africa, yet he has taken a public position against economic sanctions there. Asked about this, Mr. Kissinger said only, ''I don't think I should comment.'' Then, sitting back and reflecting on the work he does, he added, ''You have to remember that many of these businesses have no experience whatever in dealing abroad.''

That lack of knowledge and its attendant vulnerability came crashing down on American businessmen with the double blows of the Arab oil boycott of 1973 and the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. This is when the international consulting business took hold, when corporations started searching for people who might be able to give them some forewarning of catastrophe and some way to take advantage of all of those petrodollars in the hands of oil-producing states.

It was then that political-risk analysis became fashionable in a big way, with the use of inside staffs and outside experts. After the Iranian upheaval, many of these experts formed a group called the Association of Political Risk Analysts. According to Joan Walsh Cassedy, executive director of the group, it swelled to about 400 members, essentially staff-level people, from major corporations and consulting firms. However, with so much money to be made, people with far more formidable credentials were needed. Who better than former senior Government officials - even though many of them had been responsible for failing to foresee catastrophes in the first place. (Many of the major multinational oil companies had been much more on top of events than Government experts.) There were a number of risk-analysis publications, but corporate leaders wanted more, especially ''inside information.'' Reflecting on this, a senior executive in a multinational company, who once served in Government, said, ''The bosses simply did not understand that being in Government and even having access to the most highly classified intelligence and the cables from embassies does not provide any advantages over a careful reading of the best newspapers, and maybe less than that, because the solid newspaper articles are built on inside information plus talking to foreign officials who might be more frank with a reporter than a Government official.'' As this executive saw it, ''The C.E.O.'s needed someone to look in the eye and put questions to.''

This need has been far greater on the part of American businessmen than their Western European and Asian counterparts, according to a number of international consultants. ''American businessmen don't know as much about how our Government works or how foreign governments work compared to their foreign competitors,'' said one senior international consultant. ''It's a cultural thing. They see the Government as the enemy. European and Japanese businessmen work in environments where there is a more intimate relationship between government and business.''

Besides inside information, the executives, according to Robert D. Hormats, a vice president of Goldman, Sachs & Company and a former high-level bureaucrat, have been looking for such things as ''a second opinion about a country or an issue from someone with a general sense of the environment.'' Hiring an authoritative outside consultant, he said, establishes ''due diligence,'' to show that steps have been taken to secure reasonable judgment about a situation before making an investment. ''If anything went wrong, the executives were protected,'' he said.

And, of course, these international consultants do have contacts. Mr. Helms, as a former Ambassador to Iran, certainly knew who to talk to there. Richard V. Allen, fresh out of the Nixon White House, where he worked on trade issues among other matters, knew the people here and in Japan to talk to about trade matters. The superstar international consultants were certainly people who would get their telephone calls returned from high American Government officials and who would also be able to get executives in to see foreign leaders.

THOSE WHO HIRE Henry Kissinger give him rave reviews. ''He's terrific, direct, enthusiastic, has unique insight and judgment and participates actively and constructively in meetings,'' says James D. Robinson 3d, chief executive officer of American Express. ''Having him as a speaker at a luncheon or dinner is an effective way to gather in clients.''

This view is seconded by Peter M. Dawkins, a managing director at Shearson Lehman, who added that the people at these affairs love it when ''Henry reveals some aspects and facets of the things which are not normally part of the public domain.''

Peter J. Solomon, vice chairman of Shearson Lehman, says, ''Henry is helpful to us not in specific transactions, which he may be, but because part of the reason one uses an investment banker like Shearson Lehman is the company they keep.'' Having him speak is a way of saying ''I'm affiliated with these guys.''

Moreover, Mr. Solomon continues, ''Henry adds a little perspective'' to people who ''are driven by microexperiences. And we can afford to have people who make us think about the world.''

Stephen J. Giovanisci, vice president of public affairs for Atlantic Richfield, acknowledged that Arco was a Kissinger client and said that ''it is awfully difficult to measure value'' when it comes to consultants, especially in ''public affairs, and I put Kissinger in that category.'' Like all others interviewed, he noted that Mr. Kissinger dealt only with the president or chairman of the corporation.

The fullest picture of what Kissinger Associates does for a client was painted by Anthony J.F. O'Reilly, chief executive officer of Heinz. ''Kissinger and his associates make a real contribution, and we think they are particularly helpful in countries with more centrally planned economies, where the principal players and the dynamics among the principal players are of critical importance,'' he said. ''This is particularly true in China, where he is a popular figure and is viewed with particular respect.

''On China, basically, we were well on our way to establishing the baby-food presence there before Henry got involved. But once we decided to move, he had practical points to offer, such as on the relationship between Taiwan and Peking. He was helpful in seeing that we did not take steps that would not have been helpful in Peking.

''His relevance obviously varies from market to market, but he's probably at his best in helping with contacts in that shadowy world where that counts.'' In this category he included Africa, and cited a recent meeting he had held with President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, who ''was well aware of Henry's intervention and support.''

Asked if he would like Mr. Kissinger to participate in negotiating an actual transaction, he answered, ''Not at all.'' This was much the same response given by Mr. Robinson. ''It would be an unnecessary distraction,'' Mr. O'Reilly added.

''Henry is not a man who's lived his life in commerce,'' Mr. O'Reilly said. ''His strength is analyzing people and their power base. He has a durable and great inventory of contacts. To say that he is a door opener sounds mildly disparaging, but it is helpful in countries with rusty hinges.''

Mr. O'Reilly also made clear that he did not use Mr. Kissinger for help in Washington, where he employs the William Timmons lobbying firm. This was a typical response from Kissinger clients, who apparently have concluded that his clout is far greater abroad than in Washington - particularly in the Reagan Administration's Washington. Their general view is that Mr. Eagleburger and General Scowcroft have greater standing there than their boss. In Washington, Mr. Kissinger still has many enemies among strong conservatives and liberals alike.

Echoing a sentiment of other Kissinger clients, Mr. O'Reilly commented that ''Henry's contacts are durable, but by their very nature they are a diminishing asset.'' Mr. O'Reilly feels that Mr. Kissinger ''must see that substantial sums of money come from contacts and business deals in which he is not a participant,'' so maybe ''Henry is thinking of merchant banking'' and making deals.

Mr. Kissinger, when told others think his contacts may be of waning value, says, ''Well, they may be right'' He goes on to say that when he has been approached and asked to make business connections, ''We pass it on to somebody who is qualified to do it, but we are not promoting deals and our income doesn't come from deals.''

According to sources at Shearson Lehman and American Express, however, Kissinger Associates has been trying to negotiate deals. One persistent report is that Mr. Kissinger is trying to get American Express together with a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, the Ever Bright Industrial Company, run by Wang Guangying, a businessman sent by Peking to the island to arrange for high-technology imports to China.

In response to a question, Mr. Kissinger said that he ''absolutely'' did not see himself as a ''door opener,'' using his Government service to arrange meetings for clients with governmental leaders.

I pointed out that ''There are people at H.J. Heinz who say you opened some doors for them in Africa and elsewhere.'' ''Maybe one case,'' he said. ''Didn't you also arrange meetings for the C.E.O. of Heinz to meet several African leaders such as Robert Mugabe and Houphouet-Boigny?'' (Robert Mugabe is Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.) ''Mugabe he knew before I did, and maybe Houphouet-Boigny indirectly,'' Mr. Kissinger said. Mr. Eagleburger added, ''Even in the case of Houphouet, you said 'I'm not going to do it, but I'll put you in touch with someone who can.' ''

Mr. Eagleburger interrupted again: ''If you're going to take specific cases like this, Henry, you have to be protected and not say Kissinger says so-and-so is a client.'' Mr. Kissinger said, ''Of course.''

''But,'' I said, ''according to O'Reilly, you also arranged a meeting for him with Ozal.'' (Turgut Ozal is Prime Minister of Turkey.) ''I don't believe in fact we did this,'' Mr. Kissinger replied.

''Let me explain our policy,'' Mr. Kissinger went on. ''We will not take on someone as a client who says, 'Will you introduce us to somebody for a fee?' I don't say we will never do it. What I resist is the proposition that if somebody wants to go to Turkey, for example, we will introduce them to Ozal. Only as part of an ongoing relationship, when we have a continuing interest in a company, do we do this, growing out of that continuing relationship. But it is not the major part of our effort.

''I literally could have made millions when I left Government with my name alone. There was one where somebody offered me a million dollars for meeting the finance minister of Iran, who at that time was a close friend of mine. I waited six years out of office before I set up this business. We are hired on the basis of our knowledge of geofinancial international affairs, our planning abilities, and in nine cases out of 10 the issue of introductions does not arise.''

The question of possible conflicts of interest arises because of such activities as Mr. Kissinger's chairmanship of President Reagan's Commission on Central America; Kissinger Associates is known to have banking clients with interests in that part of the world. Mr. Kissinger simply asserted that there was no conflict, that he kept his policy recommendations separate from his business interests. He is also a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of private citizens who review intelligence. Mr. Kissinger said the meetings of this group covered only intelligence personnel and procedures, and ''what our clients are interested in, the conditions in countries, is for all practical purposes never discussed.'' He went on: ''There may be one or two exceptions occasionally, but literally none come to mind.''

General Scowcroft bridles at the conflict-of-interest issue. He was chairman of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces, which made recommendations on new nuclear weapons and arms control. ''People aren't asked to work on a commission unless they know what they're talking about,'' he said. ''It takes a tremendous amount of time and it is done gratis for the national interest.'' He says that he has only one client that is a major defense contractor, and he talks to that corporation not about arms but about ''the future of arms control and Soviet-American relations.''

Mr. Kissinger says that he does not have to be on commissions to get inside information, that he could at any time telephone the national security adviser or use his wide range of contacts.

Reminded of his well-known disdain for matters economic, he noted that this began to change at the end of his tenure at the State Department. Now, he says, ''I think that in the modern world, if you don't understand the relationship between economics and politics, you cannot be a great statesman. You cannot do it with foreign policy and security knowledge alone.''