Travels with Henry

A colleague suggested (and loaned) this book to me because she thought I would find it interesting. She’s right. Travels with Henry is Richard Valeriani’s telling of his time as part of the traveling press while covering Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Not only was it frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but I found this book interesting on many different levels:

1) The travelogue. From Vatican City to Saudi Arabia to the Kremlin and the jungles of Africa, Valeriani documented many places that not only are off-limits to many travelers, but in some cases (the Soviet Union or 1970s China) will never again exist in the contexts in which he discovered them. The travails he and his colleagues experienced – with plumbing, communications, transportation, and the rest – add tremendous color and keep the book lively for the duration of its 400 pages.

2) The foreign policy perspective. Given his close proximity to Kissinger and other diplomats, elected officials, sovereigns, and even the occasional dictation, this book serves as a crash course in the hows and whys of foreign policy and diplomacy. This book also underscores the intractable nature of the problems in the Middle East and provides unique perspective on America’s identity crisis in the post-Vietnam, middle-of-Watergrate years.

3) The journalism as a profession perspective. However idyllic Charlie Gibson, Bob Schieffer, and Diane Sawyer may have made journalism – and television journalism, in particular – seem to me years ago, Valeriani has undone. Coming hard on the heels of Foreign Correspondence, I have a new appreciation for how incredibly hard the job of foreign correspondent is. That’s not to say it doesn’t sound fascinating or exciting (or come with plenty of perks, as when Valeriani visited an otherwise-closed Taj Mahal with Nancy Kissinger or toured Petra with the Jordanian Prime Minister), the sheer lack of sleep alone would be enough to do me in.

This is an obscure book that I never would have found on my own, but I’m glad to have had it recommended to me, as it was well worth the read.