History and Henry Kissinger

Bibliographic Data

ID16529359
AuthorsRobert L Beisner (University of Chicago, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume14
Issue4
Pages511-528
Publication date1990-10-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiplomatic History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0145-2096 • E-ISSN: 1467-7709
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-7709.1990.tb00105.x
OpenAlexW2060331012
LanguageEN
Citations received5

In the fall of 1969, after Chinese and Soviet armies had clashed along their Ussuri River border, Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin bluntly asked National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger whether he expected the Russians to launch an all-out attack against China. President Nixon's aide answered “that as a historian, he had to allow for the possibility.”1 Seven years later, in a kind of valedictory of his years in Washington, Kissinger remarked: “As a historian one has to be conscious of the possibility of tragedy. However, as a statesman, one has the duty to act as if one's country is immortal. I have acted on the assumption that our problems are soluble.”2 Kissinger's historical consciousness went well beyond that of the average politician's concern about how the historians' textbooks would rank him. More than any chief foreign affairs policymaker in U.S. history, he decided on his actions and measured his accomplishments with his eye on the fit between history's long stream and his own brief moment. “The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office,” he has written, “are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.”3 His own words supply standards that can be used to judge his record. And by those high standards it must be found wanting

Ancient history · Capital (architecture · China · Duty · Political science · History · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy

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