Kissinger

  • T. G. Otte
Chapter
Part of the Studies in Diplomacy book series (STD)

Abstract

Henry Kissinger has had a chequered history, exalted and reviled in equal measure. To his many detractors he is a ruthless, unprincipled and self-advertising ‘Born-Again’ Bismarck from Bavaria, transplanted into the heart of America’s East Coast foreign policy establishment. To his admirers, of whom there are perhaps fewer, he ‘is of course a superstar’, a virtuoso of diplomacy who brought a much-needed dose of common sense and realism to the conduct of American diplomacy.2 Such differences undoubtedly reflect Kissinger’s position as an outsider. His academic provenance had set him apart already at Harvard. His gloomy Teutonic pessimism with its overtly Spenglerian overtones and his advocacy of political realism stood in contrast to much that was fashionable intellectually in the United States after 1945. At Harvard his colleagues were almost exclusively Kennedy Democrats; whereas he was a Rockefeller Republican — that in itself a minority position. In his academic writings and his policies he showed himself equally averse to the liberal Wilsonian idealism espoused by many Democrats and to the isolationist conservatism that has always prevailed in some circles of the Republican Party. Kissinger’s intellectual provenance, his politics and his biographical background set him apart from mainstream America, and so made the Kissinger phenomenon more difficult to assess. 3

Keywords

Foreign Policy Nuclear Weapon Foreign Affair International Politics International Order 
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Further reading

Works by Kissinger

  1. A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822 (Boston, 1957).Google Scholar
  2. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York, 1957).Google Scholar
  3. The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1961).Google Scholar
  4. The Troubled Partnership: a Re-appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance (New York, 1965).Google Scholar
  5. American Foreign Policy (New York, 1969), subsequently revised in 1974 and 1977.Google Scholar
  6. For the Record: Selected Statements 1977–1980 (London, 1981).Google Scholar
  7. Diplomacy (London, 1994).Google Scholar
  8. Memoirs: 1. The White House Years (Boston and London, 1979).Google Scholar
  9. Memoirs: 2. Years of Upheaval (London, 1982).Google Scholar
  10. Memoirs: 3. Years of Renewal (London, 1999).Google Scholar
  11. Force and diplomacy in the nuclear age’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 34, Apr. 1956, pp. 347–66.Google Scholar
  12. Reflections on American diplomacy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 35, Oct. 1956, pp. 37–56.Google Scholar
  13. Strategy and organization’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 35, Apr. 1957, pp. 379–94. ‘The search for stability’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 37, July 1959, pp. 537–60.Google Scholar
  14. Reflections on power and diplomacy’, in E. A. J. Johnson (ed.), The Dimensions ofGoogle Scholar
  15. Diplomacy (Baltimore, 1964), pp. 1–32.Google Scholar
  16. Classical diplomacy’, in J. G. Stoessinger and A. F. Westin (eds), Power and Order: Six Cases in World Politics (New York, 1964 ).Google Scholar
  17. Coalition diplomacy in the nuclear age’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 42, July 1964, pp. 525–45.Google Scholar
  18. The white revolutionary: reflections on Bismarck’, Daedalus vol. 97, no. 3 (1968), pp. 888–923.Google Scholar

Historical background

  1. Andrianopoulos, G. A., Western Europe in Kissinger’ Global Strategy (New York, 1988 ).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Beisner, R. L., ‘History and Henry Kissinger’, Diplomatic History, vol. 14, no. 4 (1990).Google Scholar
  3. Bell, C., The Diplomacy of Detente: the Kissinger Era (New York, 1977 ).Google Scholar
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  5. Bundy, W. P., A Tangled Web: the Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (London, 1998 ).Google Scholar
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  9. Quandt, W. B., Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967 (Washington and Berkeley, 1993), parts 2 and 3.Google Scholar
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Biography

  1. Caldwell, D. (ed.), Kissinger: His Personality and Policies ( Durham, NC, 1983 ).Google Scholar
  2. Hersh, S. M., Kissinger: The Price of Power — Henry Kissinger in the Nixon White House (London and Boston, 1983 ).Google Scholar
  3. Isaacson, W., Kissinger: a Biography (New York and London, 1992 ).Google Scholar
  4. Kalb, M. and B. Kalb, Kissinger (New York, 1975 ).Google Scholar
  5. Landau, D., Kissinger: the Uses of Power (London, 1974 ).Google Scholar
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  7. Morris, R., Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York and London, 1977 ).Google Scholar
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General

  1. Ball, G., Diplomacy for a Crowded World (London, 1976 ).Google Scholar
  2. Craig, G. A. and A. I.. George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, 2nd edn (New York and Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar
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  6. Joffe, J., ‘In defense of Henry Kissinger’, Commentary, vol. 94, no. 6 (1992).Google Scholar
  7. Morgenthau, H. J., ‘Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: an evaluation’, Encounter, vol. 43, no. 5 (Nov. 1974), pp. 57–61.Google Scholar
  8. Russell, G., ‘Kissinger’s philosophy of history and Kantian ethics’, Diplomacy Sr Statecraft, vol. 7, no. 1 (1996).Google Scholar
  9. Weitz, R., ‘Henry Kissinger’s philosophy of international relations’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, vol. 2, no. 1 (1991).Google Scholar
  10. Windsor, P., ‘Henry Kissinger’s scholarly contribution’, British Journal of International Studies, Apr. 1975.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© G. R. Berridge, Maurice Keens-Soper and T. G. Otte 2001

Authors and Affiliations

  • T. G. Otte

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