On the porch of the Key Biscayne Hotel, Kissinger learns of more leaks. “Outrageous! Outrageous!…We must crush these people! We must destroy them!” Kissinger referred to the secretaries of defense and state, whose offices he suspected had leaked Operation Menu to the Times. He rang up Melvin Laird, pulling him off the golf course at Burning Tree: “You son of a bitch!” (Laird hung up.) Or maybe the leak had come from the NSC office in the basement of the White House. The thought of a runaway staff was enraging to Kissinger—not just for diplomatic reasons, but for what it suggested to the security-obsessed bulldogs around Nixon about an NSC top-heavy with Harvard grads and Kennedy vets. This is when the White House starts going crazy about leaks