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Buy the Book
Master Diplomat and Statesman
In Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon found his foreign minister.
On
China, by Henry Kissinger
(Penguin Press, 586 pages, $36)
Henry Kissinger, Bill Buckley once observed, taught a course at Harvard in the 1950s “taken only by students who intended to become prime minister or emperor.”
But such students being in scarce supply, even at Harvard, Dr. Kissinger proceeded to look to the larger arena of American politics, where there are numerous men of semi-imperial ambition, in need of the wisdom and counsel of a wise, worldly, and pragmatic policy adviser of the old school, who knows where the levers are and how to pull them.
And Dr. Kissinger was just that—a man who found Bismarck “probably the greatest diplomat of the second half of the nineteenth century,” and whose doctoral dissertation at Harvard was a study of Castlereagh and Metternich. Nor, having seen combat in Germany in World War II as a U.S. Army sergeant in counter intelligence—a decorated NCO, and a damned good one—could he be seen as a sheltered effete academician.
The first political prince he undertook to tutor was Nelson Rockefeller, the last Ripon Society icon of the 20th century. But the times—and the candidate—were out of joint. Although he’d be brought back for various cameo roles—notably as vice president during the Ford administration—the man who would be emperor never recovered from being blown off the national stage by Nixon, Goldwater, then Nixon again. And so, in 1960, Kissinger joined the winning side, and found in Richard Nixon a leader with a fascination for statecraft and what at the time may have seemed an unlikely but often-stated ambition to construct what he called in speeches “a lasting structure of peace.” In Henry Kissinger, first as national security advisor, then as secretary of state, Richard Nixon found his foreign minister. And had it not been for Watergate, their accomplishments would easily have left the Nixon presidency as one of the most respected and effective in American history.
It’s hard to remember now what the country—or the world—looked like in the late 1960s, when Nixon and Kissinger took office: riots in Berkeley with the National Guard in the streets, riots in Chicago as the Democrats met, riots in Boston, San Francisco State, Columbia—the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy—and helping to fuel it all, the war in Vietnam and its escalation by the best and brightest of two preceding Democratic presidents. Across much of the world, with the U.S. increasingly perceived as a paper tiger, the expansion of the Soviet Empire continued apace.
There seemed to be no workable plan, no overarching strategy, no coherent long-range policy, no national direction. It was to remedy this situation that voters had turned to Richard Nixon. And he delivered. Despite the nearly total hostility of the liberal media and the liberal left that controlled our centers of learning, he ended the domestic turmoil. And abroad, he set out to bring the war in Vietnam to a close, to forge new relationship with the Soviet Union and China, and in the process to redress the imbalance in the world’s balance of power.
It would require high intelligence, a deep understanding of history, an acute sense of strategy, a clear vision for the future—and a willingness to roll the dice—to bring this transformation about. To set it all in motion, the first stop would be China, and the man in charge would be Henry Kissinger.
“FORTY YEARS AGO,” Kissinger writes, “President Nixon did me the honor of sending me to Beijing to reestablish contact with a country central to the history of Asia with which America had no high-level contact for over twenty years.” Our motive was to develop a long-term policy “transcending the travail of the Vietnam war and the ominous vistas of the Cold War.”
At the time, Kissinger reminds us,
both countries were in the midst of upheaval. China was nearly consumed by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution; America’s political consensus was strained by the growing protest movement against the Vietnam War.
China faced the prospect of war on all its frontiers— especially its northern border, where actual clashes between Soviet and Chinese forces were taking place. Nixon inherited a war in Vietnam and a domestic imperative to end it, and entered the White House at the end of a decade marked by assassinations and racial conflict.
The trip was in no way the result of an impulse based on the exigencies of the moment. As early as 1965, Kissinger notes, Mao had begun to alter his tone in remarks about America. And in 1967, a year before his election, Richard Nixon had published an article in Foreign Affairs, one thrust of which was “to invite China to reenter the community of nations.” In fact, writes Kissinger, the article “went beyond a call for a diplomatic adjustment to an appeal for a reconciliation.”*
[FOOTNOTE: *In his splendid tribute to his grandfather, Going Home To Glory, David Eisenhower writes that well before taking office, Richard Nixon was developing a plan for ending the war in Vietnam involving China, which he incorporated into that Foreign Affairs article and sent a draft to retired President Eisenhower, who read it carefully and made several suggestions, “none of which, to Nixon’s relief, disputed his foreign policy views. The general took no exception even to Nixon’s forward-thinking China views, which were unfurled for the first time in the article.”]
Thus, Nixon’s idea of an opening to China had been germinating for some time; and thanks to Kissinger’s intense preparation and brilliantly conducted diplomacy, the trip to China was on. That trip, beginning on February 21 and ending on February 28, 1972, has been described in great detail in articles and books, and even inspired a silly opera.
About the Author
John R. Coyne, Jr. a former White House speech-writer, is co-author with Linda Bridges of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Wiley).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
More Articles by John R. Coyne, Jr.
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Richard Baker| 10.31.11 @ 6:53AM
Kissinger. A half-priced Metternich.
Edward White| 10.31.11 @ 9:50AM
I'm a Nixon/Kissinger hater for good reason:
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.” — Henry Kissinger from Nixon Tapes
And here's what Christopher Hitchens has to say about Kissinger:
"Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded. No more dinners in his honour; no more respectful audiences for his absurdly overpriced public appearances; no more smirking photographs with hostesses and celebrities; no more soliciting of his worthless opinions by sycophantic editors and producers. One could have demanded this at almost any time during the years since his role as the only unindicted conspirator in the Nixon/Watergate gang, and since the exposure of his war crimes and crimes against humanity in Indochina, Chile, Argentina, Cyprus, East Timor and several other places. But the latest revelations from the Nixon Library might perhaps turn the scale at last."
You right wingers will champion anyone as long as they espouse your ideology. The trouble with the right wing is that you seem to have no morals.
You've got that old time religion down pat, but no morals to go along with it.
JP| 10.31.11 @ 2:17PM
Who said Kissenger was a right winger. He served under 2 Progressive Republicans (Nixon and Ford); but he could have just as easily served under JFK, RFK, or LBJ. Kissenger, a live long resident of Manhattan was a Progressive; he backed Progressive causes, and whole heartedly loved the kind of Progressive power-politics people like Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and FDR enjoyed playing.
Back in 1968 the New Left hated Kissenger because he was a) a Jew b)represented the WWII Generation, and c)served under the hated Tricky Dick.
But Reagan wanted nothing to do with or his ideas of realpolitk. Kissenger profited from the Cold War, and he had no desire to see it end.
Grouchy| 11.1.11 @ 1:53AM
Results of Nixon/Kissinger: VietNam is Communits, 55,000 American dead, millions of
Cambodian and Vietnamese dead, Red China eating our lunch.
sirbourbon| 11.2.11 @ 12:36AM
Pointing an accusatory finger at "right wingers" and blaming the entire conservative "right" for a foreign policy failure ;leaves out a whole bunch of "left wingers" that are as much to blame.
The Kissiger/Nixon team were merely continuing a decades long CFR run plan to build upon what liberals from the FDR and Truman era began when they aided the communists under Mao Tse-tung and betrayed the Nationalist pro-America forces under Chiang Kai-shek and pushed China into the hands of the Reds under Mao the mass murderer.
The author of this American Spectator article points to a key article that Richard Nixon wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations' monthly publication, Foreign Affairs magazine. It was an important piece for Nixon and he took it to liberal Republican party man Nelson Rockefeller to get his opinion on it.
Nixon's "opening up China" was a continuation of betrayal stretching back to the era of Roosevelt and a State department soviet spy named Alger Hiss that did as much as anyone to cause China to fall to communism.
James Perloff writes of the concerns of patriot and US Ambassador to China General Patrick Hurley on what the general saw as a pro-communist junta operation in Washington:
"What “cell” did Ambassador Hurley refer to? In China, he was surrounded by a State Department clique favoring a Chinese communist takeover. Dean Acheson, who as a young attorney had represented Soviet interests in America, became Assistant Secretary of State in 1941. As such, he ensured the State Department’s Far Eastern Division was dominated by communists and pro-communists, including Alger Hiss (subsequently proven a Soviet spy); John Carter Vincent, director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, later identified by Daily Worker editor Louis Budenz as a communist; John Stewart Service, Foreign Service Officer in China who turned State Department information over to the Chinese communists, and was arrested by the FBI in the Amerasia spy case (about which more later); Foreign Service Officer John P. Davies, who consistently lobbied for the communists; Owen Lattimore, appointed U.S. adviser to Chiang Kai-shek but identified as a communist by ex-communists Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley; and several others." http://thenewamerican.com/history/world/1464
These people were "left wingers" not "rightwingers," Mr. White. Nixon befriended Nelson Rockefeller who was the epitomy of "liberalism" in the GOP. Nixon's liberal connections were covered by his past conservative actions created at a time when he was trying to impress party leaders that he was anti-communist by going after communist spy Alger Hiss.
The friendship with Kissinger should clue in anyone that Nixon was anything but a tricky politician interested in only his own career.
Alan Brooks| 10.31.11 @ 4:27PM
Kissinger was a great deal better than Carter.
Richard Baker| 10.31.11 @ 6:56AM
By the way, I'd suggest reading Admiral Zumwalt's description of Kissinger in his book "On Watch." Most enlightening about his view of the United States.
benny havens| 10.31.11 @ 7:17AM
One of Richard Nixon’s basic goals, writes Kissinger, "was to free American policy from the oscillations between extremes of commitment and withdrawal and ground it in a concept of the national interest that could be sustained as administrations succeeded each other."
Is that why Nixon instituted wage and price controls on the American worker? Sorry Mr. Coyne, in my eyes Nixon and Kissinger were just a continuation of the progressive ideology that started with Wilson. $15 Trillion in dept and millions of jobs lost to China is no monument to success.
Rick Z| 10.31.11 @ 8:29AM
Richard Nixon mentioned to Golda Mier the fact that they both had Foreign Minister/Secretary of State who were Jewish --- Henry Kissinger / Abba Eban. .... ...
To which Golda Mier replied, "Yes, but mine can speak English".
Occam's Tool| 10.31.11 @ 11:24AM
Abba Eban was a much greater man than Kissinger.
RCV| 10.31.11 @ 11:38AM
They were both brilliant and wise men, but I agree with Occam: Abba Eban had few equals, as a diplomat, as a scholar, and as a decent human being.
W| 10.31.11 @ 7:17PM
Kissinger's book,"Diplomacy" is excellent. Krauthammer's review said reading the book would make you smarter. Don't know about that but it is a great read. I saw there's a bio or autobio on Eban, has anyone read it?
POST American| 10.31.11 @ 9:30AM
---David Rockefeller's hand picked, 'brought in'
architecht of the Globalist RED China set up,
sellout and TREASON OP.
-----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012----------
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.31.11 @ 10:20AM
Over a century ago, Britain was the dominant maritime power, and Germany was a rising land power. Germany's great folly was to attempt to challenge Britain at sea, thus turning it from a friendly neutral into a fierce adversary. Britain's great folly was to abandon its splendid isolation and embroil itself in the Eurasian mainland, first by tying itself down too much with India, and then compounding that with the commitment to France in the Entente Cordiale. Ruination was the consequence for both powers. Germany would have been better off contenting itself with being a land power and not provoking Britain, and Britain would have been better off contenting itself with being a maritime power holding only overseas territories that were easily defensible with the fleet plus small army garrisons.
As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. The US and the PRC now find themselves in positions that are somewhat similar to those of Britain and Germany a century ago. The US is naturally situated to be a dominant maritime power, as it has been since WWII. China is a big population (and thus potentially a big army) in a big country with long borders, almost entirely surrounded with potentially hostile neighbors. It does have a coastline, but with a single long-defunct exception has no real naval history to speak of.
It makes all the sense in the world for the US to maintain a maritime defense strategy, and to avoid getting bogged down in land wars on the Eurasian mainland. It has taken us not just one mistake, but several, and we still apparently have not yet learned out lesson. For a maritime power, we are neglecting our navy way too much, and we are pouring way too many resources into maintaining an oversized army and engaging it in unending meaningless wars in dusty backwaters of little real strategic significance. Folly squared, if not cubed.
There is no good reason why we should aspire to confront China or any other country on the Eurasian mainland, Any such confrontation would be fraught with danger and probably doomed to a bad (if not calamitous) ending for us.
On the other hand, it is equally folly on the part of the PRC to entertain ambitions of floating a substantial deepwater navy and to eventually confront the US for naval superiority in the W. Pacific. The US can and must win that race, even if it means that we must pull back from all of our overseas commitments not directly necessary to maintaining a successful maritime strategy.
TrueBlue| 10.31.11 @ 12:52PM
"Never get involved in a land war in Asia," huh? Can't say I disagree with that one, and I definitely agree we should be focusing on maritime defense over a large standing Army.
About the only thing I disagree with you on is that it isn't folly for the PRN to entertain a substantial deepwater navy given our current situation. If we were still advancing our naval forces and not in the process of significantly reducing them then I would agree with you, but since the opposite is true it only makes sense for them to try and fill in the power gap to expand their own international influence.
JP| 10.31.11 @ 2:21PM
Good post. Few people realize how utterly foolish the Kaiser was for listening to Admiral Trippitz. Bismarck for one would never have allowed this situation. But, the Kaiser was an avid yachtsman (and quite good in his own right) and coveted a Navy like the one the UK had. Not only did his actions push the UK into the Franco-Russo camp, but it nearly bankrupted the Second Reich.
JimH| 10.31.11 @ 2:20PM
Kissenger has lived in America since about the age of 15. Initially in Washington Heights. His Wikipedia bio claims that his still having an accent was a result of youthful shyness. I have heard other reports that it had been lost but retuned in later years; possibly in an attempt to appear more professorial than a kid from upper Manhattan might otherwise seem.
POST American| 10.31.11 @ 10:44PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
Putting to one side the Rockefeler-ROT-child
intrigue for an ILLEGAL, private,
foreign owned, USURY driven
FAKE 'Federal' Reserve
in 1913
----and the instigations around WWI
-------and the set up and MASSIVE empowerment
of Bolshevism, the Soviet 'experiment'
and STALIN ( at least 30 MILLION
exterminated)
---------and formenting the 'Great Depression'
----------and their involvement with Cold Springs
and the Kaiser Wilhelm EUGENICS
labs ----AND Soviet Behaviorists
such as IVAN PAVOLOV and VICKTOR
LYSENKO
-----------and they're KEY empowerments
of NAZI Germany
---------and the unprosecuted 'TRADING with the ENEMY' issues
--------------and the KEY betrayal of Chiang Kai
Shek, and China to the REDS and
4 decades of out n' out, unprecedented,
indeed, yet unfolding GENOCIDE (Tibet/ Mongolia/ Korea)
-------------------and our own 4 decades of systematic and deiberate
CFR-RIIA coordinated sellout, set up and TREASON
---AGAIN, in a nutshell---
INTER-national USURY is, by definition,
TREASONOUS
-----it ALWAYS leads to bankruptcy and
CON--solidation
------it begets EUGENICS and is upheld by
deviants and deviance
--------its FINAL act, down through time, is
cultural degeneration, and destruction, and
----------------------GENOCIDE-------------------------
"---And David counted the tribes"
And we're counting on --
----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012----------
---tick ---tick ---tick ---tick ---tick
Dan Mathewson| 11.1.11 @ 7:15PM
Wow! The longest rant by P. A. Heh, just remembered what the letters PA can stand for. Heh. Heh. hmm. Heh-heh.
POST American| 11.2.11 @ 4:45AM
----Tick ---Tick ---Tick ---Tick