Apparently Kissinger Will Answer Questions In Some Circumstances

In response to this story—about Peter Jennings asking Henry Kissinger "What's it like to be a war criminal?"—DM writes in with this:

I attended one of those fancy schmancy New England prep schools. Every year we'd honor some alumni or other. One year while I was a student it was a guy Strobe Talbot. He was some foriegn service guy with lots of interesting things and accomplishments on his resume (think Joe Wilson before the events of the last few years). For much of his career Henry Kissinger was his boss. And so Kissinger gave his introduction speech at the school's (attendence required) ceremony.

After, and in a departure from normal practice given the guest, Kissinger took audience questions for about an hour.

Before I relate the interesting bit, keep in mind we were between 14and 18 years old. Anyway, one girl stood to ask the following question phrased pretty much this way: "I was barely born during the end of the Nixon administration and so my knowledge of those events is thin and dominated by the Nixon-as-criminal storyline. Since you were a key member of the administration I was wondering if you could explain what you think happened, what is right and wrong about the popular history of the fall of Nixon and your take on the crimes committed. Thank you."

Seems simple not to mention obvious - how often does a normal person much less a high school student get to ask such a big historical figure such a question? And given that this was coming from a high school junior, I was stunned even then by how delicately and politely the question was asked.

Kissinger's response stunned the room into silence (there were very few questions after). He TORE into this poor girl yelling at her, calling her ignorant and stupid, calling her rude and disrespectful and on and on. It lasted for about 10 minutes. Midway through the poor girl ran from the auditorium in tears but Kissinger kept going after and even helped chase her from the room by screaming some version of "That's right, get the hell out of here!!"

I guess he's only willing to answer those questions when it's a little girl.