Here are some Henry Kissinger Quotes from the lukewarm and controversial world diplomat.
Henry Alfred Kissinger (Heinz Alfred Kissinger; May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat, political scientist, geopolitical consultant, and politician who served as United States secretary of state and national security advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Kissinger was a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938 and fought in World War II. In the United States, he excelled academically and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott. He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively.
Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977, pioneering the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrating an opening of relations with the People’s Republic of China, engaging in what became known as shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East to end the Yom Kippur War, and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords, which ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. After leaving government, he formed Kissinger Associates, an international geopolitical consulting firm. Kissinger wrote over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations.
Kissinger’s legacy is a polarizing subject in American politics. He has been widely considered by scholars to be an effective Secretary of State and condemned for ordering to use “anything that flies on anything that moves” in the bombing of Cambodia, as well as turning a blind eye to war crimes committed by American allies due to his support of a pragmatic approach to politics called Realpolitik. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances.
A 2014 poll of American international relations scholars conducted by the College of William & Mary ranked Kissinger as the most effective Secretary of State in the 50 years prior to 2015. In 1972, Time commented that “a streak of suspicion seems to underlie all that he does” and “His jokes about his paranoia have an uncomfortable edge of truth”.
He was so often seen escorting Hollywood starlets that the Village Voice charged he was “a secret square posing as a swinger”. The insight, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”, is widely attributed to him, although Kissinger was paraphrasing Napoleon Bonaparte. Critics on the right, such as Ray Takeyh, have faulted Kissinger for his role in the Nixon administration’s opening to China and secret negotiations with North Vietnam.
Takeyh writes that while rapprochement with China was a worthy goal, the Nixon administration failed to achieve any meaningful concessions from Chinese officials in return, as China continued to support North Vietnam and various “revolutionary forces throughout the Third World”, “nor does there appear to be even a remote, indirect connection between Nixon and Kissinger’s diplomacy and the communist leadership’s decision, after Mao’s bloody rule, to move away from a communist economy towards state capitalism.”
Historian Jeffrey Kimball developed the theory that Kissinger and the Nixon administration accepted a South Vietnamese collapse provided a face-saving decent interval passed between American withdrawal and defeat.
In his first meeting with Zhou Enlai in 1971, Kissinger “laid out in detail the settlement terms that would produce such a delayed defeat: total American withdrawal, return of all American POWs, and a ceasefire-in-place for ’18 months or some period'”, in the words of historian Ken Hughes. On October 6, 1972, Kissinger told Nixon twice that the terms of the Paris Peace Accords would probably destroy South Vietnam: “I also think that Thieu is right, that our terms will eventually destroy him.”
However, Kissinger denied using a “decent interval” strategy, writing “All of us who negotiated the agreement of October 12 were convinced that we had vindicated the anguish of a decade not by a ‘decent interval’ but by a decent settlement.” Johannes Kadura offers a positive assessment of Nixon and Kissinger’s strategy, arguing that the two men “simultaneously maintained a Plan A of further supporting Saigon and a Plan B of shielding Washington should their maneuvers prove futile.”
According to Kadura, the “decent interval” concept has been “largely misrepresented”, in that Nixon and Kissinger “sought to gain time, make the North turn inward, and create a perpetual equilibrium” rather than acquiescing in the collapse of South Vietnam.
Henry Kissinger Quotes
“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.”
“Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.”
“Power is the great aphrodisiac.”
“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
“If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.”
Henry Kissinger Quotes “There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”
