Kissinger noted that, “play acting aside,” the president was “crisp and decisive, his questions thoughtful and to the point.” At “moments of real crisis, Nixon would become coldly analytical,” Kissinger recalled. There would be endless meetings, more writing on yellow legal pads, sometimes contradictory orders that were actually invitations to argument. But then “nervous agitation would give way to calm decisiveness,” Kissinger wrote. Nixon would get to “the essence of the problem and take the courageous course, even if it seemed to risk his immediate political interest.”
