Controversi I Kissinger Aide Helmut Sonnenfeldt

NYTimeg IE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1973 OCT 1973 Controversi i Kissinger Aide Helmut Sonnenfeldt Special to The New York Times WASHINGTON, Oct. 30— Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee recently Respect, Hurt Feelings on his nomination as Under grees in political science in Secretary of the Treasury, At the State Department Sonnenfeldt had leaked clas- the 47-year-old Hal Sonnen- 1950-51. sified information to the Helmut Sonnenfeldt re- In Baltimore he met Mar- marked with a tinge of sar- feldt is remembered with a press and, on one occasion, mixture of feelings of respect jorie Hecht of the depart- to a foreign diplomat led to casm, "I may be one of the ment store family, and they more investigated persons in and memories of wounded surveillance and, in late 1960, egos. "He was a very de- were married in 1953, a year to sharp interrogation. He this town." manding taskmaster," a For- after he joined the State was eventually cleared, the He was allud- Department. They have three ing to wiretaps eign Service officer said, records indicate, by the State Man "and sometimes he ran rough- children. Department and the Federal and occasional Assigned to Soviet Affairs in the tailing by secur- shod. Like many brilliant peo- Bureau of Investigation, but ple he can't tolerate medioc- in the Office of Research and the taint remained and re- News ity agents during Analysis, he quickly won his 17 years as a rity. We all had fights with newed charges by Mr. Otep- him, but we would welcome recognition as an excellent ka caused Senate confirma- State Department employe political analyst and promo- tion to and, again, to the wiretap him back because we respect be held up for five him." tions followed. After an months. on his telephone from May, interlude in disarmament af- In 1969, to February, 1971. In- Although he is usually soft- January, 1969, Mr. Son- spoken, his direct manner is fairs he was appointed direc- nenfeldt was called to the vestigated, yes, but Mr. Son- tor for Soviet and Eastern National Security Council nenfeldt is also one of the also recalled. "He would tell as you, you look fat," a woman European research in 1966. one of its senior staff mem- least known men of influ- Mr. Sonfienfeldt, a regis- bers, becoming not only the ence in the Nixon Adminis- said. "He was not kind to peoples' sensitivities." tered Democrat with a pro- principal thinker conceiving tration and, depending on foundly conservative cast of Mr. Nixon's and Mr. Kissin- whom you listen to, one of Helmut Sonnenfeldt was born Sept 13, 1926 in Berlin, mind, was an object of in- ger's policy of detente with the most admired or least tense suspicion by several the Soviet Union and China loved officials in Washing- the son of Walter H. and Gertrude Liebenthal Sonnen- State Department security but also one of the main ton. officers, chiefly Otto F. Otep- operatives, albeit , in the But George P. Shultz, Sec- feldt, German physicians of Jewish origin. The family, in- ka, the chief security evalu- shadows. retary of the Treasury, badly ator until his removal in In the rare moments Mr. wanted the 47-year-old ca- cluding his brother, Richard, fled Hitler Germany in 1938. 1961. Allegations by Mr. Sonnenfeldt relaxes, he en- reer official to supervise Otepka and others that Mr. joys tennis and sailing. growing United States-Soviet The elder Sonnenfeldts de- trade and to provide the de- posited Helmut in an English partment with political ad- school and went on to the vice and a political link to United States. He followed the national security appara- in 1944 and, after a term at tus at the White House. Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Sonnenfeldt, who was joined the United States confirmed by the Senate Fi- Army. Seeking combat duty, nance Committee today, is he kept his knowledge of unknown partly because of German to himself to avoid his professional penchant an intelligence assignment in for secrecy, bordering on Europe and was sent to the the conspiratorial, and part- Pacific as an infantryman. ly because he made a habit In 1946 he was posted of avoiding the limelight briefly to his native Ger- while working for a man many, in the United States who has been exposed to occupation zone. There he extensive publicity — the met another returned native, President's national security Sgt. Henry KisSinger. adviser and Secretary of Mr. Sonnenfeldt, returning State, Henry A. Kissinger. to Johns Hopkins, earned A State Department ana- Bachelor's and Master's De- lyst who worked for Mr. Sonnenfeldt when he directed research on Soviet affairs dubbed him Papa Doc, using the nickname of the secretive Haitian dictator Dr. Francois Duvalier. But it was meant with cynical affection, for, the analyst went on, "I feel like a mother to him." .

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