TheFoggBlogg: Is this the best you can do?

The Honorable Winston Lord (and isn't that a name of destiny <smile>), served as the president of the "Council on Foreign Relations" between 1977 and 1985, Ambassador to China (1985–1989) and Assistant Secretary of State (1993–1997). He worked for Henery Kissinger in the early 1970s.

Here, the true story from an interview about a classic incident with Dr. Kissinger.

WL: I also had to do some speech-writing for Kissinger and Nixon, which I wouldn't recommend to anybody, in terms of the agony outweighing the ecstasy.

INT: Why not?

WL: Because he was very demanding. Kissinger was a speechwriter. He thought speeches made policy, and he took great care on them. I did more of this later when he was in the State Department, so you'd have to go through about 20 drafts and many insults before you got to the final speech.

INT: Yeah, biographies of Kissinger have him jumping up and down on speeches. Isn't there an anecdote where... you'd written a speech and he kept having you re-write it and saying, "Can't you do any better?" and clearly he hadn't read them?

WL: Well, basically it was, I went in with a draft, and it was actually of a presidential foreign policy report. This is slightly apocryphal and not directly on your subject here, but I would go in with a draft of the speech. He called me in the next day and said, "Is this the best you can do?" I said, "Henry, I thought so, but I'll try again."

So I go back in a few days, another draft. He called me in the next day and he said, "Are you sure this is the best you can do?" I said, "Well, I really thought so. I'll try one more time."

Anyway, this went on eight times, eight drafts; each time he said, "Is this the best you can do?" So I went in there with a ninth draft, and when he called me in the next day and asked me that same question, I really got exasperated and I said, "Henry, I've beaten my brains out - this is the ninth draft. I know it's the best I can do: I can't possibly improve one more word."

He then looked at me and said, "In that case, now I'll read it."

Doing a thing over and over nine times IS a bit much and... there's clearly something to be gained from asking, "Is this the best you can do?"

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Setting my ego as far aside as I'm allowed, I'd been thinking about all of the negative thoughts I have about wealthy people & successful people that get in the way of my own wealth & success in preparation for our call, so Randy got the full monty right away. AND, that's not to excuse that I have had and still have these exhibits of libel & slander in the case of prosperous me against mini-minded me.

As always, more work to do. <smile>

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