The suitcase was large; its weighty contents a mystery. A young Strobe Talbott, who had lugged the thing up to his friend Steven Weisman’s apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, was clearly nervous leaving it behind while they went to dinner.

“He kept asking, ‘Is my suitcase going to be safe in your apartment?’ I said, ‘What’s in the suitcase?’ and he said, ‘I can’t say,’ ” recalled Weisman, who had befriended Talbott at Yale in the ’60s when both were absorbed in reading poetry and writing for the student newspaper.

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