This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.

They document Reston volunteering to approach fellow Times columnist Anthony Lewis to ask him to moderate his anti-Kissinger texts and offering to plant a question in a press conference for the secretary. C. Reston's work was required reading for top government officials with whom he sometimes cultivated a professional symbiosis; he would be their sounding board and they would be his news sources.

He was associated for many years with The New York Times.