Herman Cain asked Henry Kissinger to be his secretary of state

The Ticket

Herman Cain says he asked former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to join his administration but that he was rebuffed.

"Dr. Kissinger turned down my offer to be secretary of state," Cain told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview this week. "He said he's perfectly happy doing what he's doing."

(UPDATE: A Cain spokesman now tells the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza his boss did not actually ask Kissinger to be secretary of state. Cain's campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.)

Cain has cited Kissinger, who previously served as secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford, as one of his key foreign policy influences. Kissinger, who is 88, met with Cain last month to talk foreign policy and continues to occasionally consult with the GOP hopeful, according to Cain's campaign.

But Kissinger isn't the only person Cain would like to see in his potential administration. Asked about who else he would hire, Cain cited former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan—though he didn't specifically say what roles he'd like for them to fill.

You can watch a portion of Cain's interview here, courtesy the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Cain's comments came as part of a larger interview with the paper, in which he experienced his own "oops" moment on foreign policy. Asked about how his policy toward Libya would be different than President Obama's, Cain appeared to blank, offering an unclear response full of stops and starts.

J.D. Gordon, Cain's spokesman, has defended his boss's performance, telling the New York Times Cain was sleep-deprived during the interview. But the larger question was why Cain agreed to the interview at all.

According to the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, Mark Block, Cain's chief of staff, requested the sit-down, according to the paper, not the other way around.

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:

Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.