Following is an excerpt from the diary of Carmelita Rosario, caregiver of the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger:

I am a professional caregiver, and for the past 5 years I have been charged with the care of the now 99-year-old Henry Kissinger. He is a very difficult patient: stubborn, heavy, and always babbling incoherently about his past. I know he is a man of historical importance and hope my words can help shine a light on his last few years.

One of his favorite topics is his Peking duck dinner with Mao Zedong. I’ve heard about this so many times that I feel I was there. He tells me about how delicious the duck was, and how he and Mao had a long and fruitful conversation about detente. He then asks me to order Peking Duck but when it arrives he just rubs it on his chest and yells out Mao was smarter than Nixon. Guess who has to clean up the mess?

He also likes to babble on about Vietnam, and how he was right to bomb Cambodia in spite of what his anti-war enemies advised. 

The thing that really makes Kissinger difficult to care for is his weight and overall thickness. He is very heavy, and it is difficult to turn him over to change his bedpan. Every time I try to lift him, he angrily asks me if I am with Israel or Syria.

One day, Kissinger was babbling about how he was looking forward to meeting his old pal Richard Nixon in hell. I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re going to hell?” I asked. “But you’re a Nobel Peace Prize winner!” 

Kissinger just smiled. “I know,” he said. “But I’ve done some questionable things in my life. I deserve to go to hell.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had never met anyone who was so honest about their own sins.

Then he just started laughing and told me that he’d make a deal with the devil to get transferred to heaven. “ If I could make a deal between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, the devil is going to be a piece of cake.” 

“Remember, I am always ze smartest man in the room,” he reminds me daily. 

From my perspective, I just wish he was the lightest man in the room and get over his Peking Duck fetish.

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