November 29, 2023 • 86 mins
Henry Kissinger, the child refugee who rose to become US Secretary of State and defined American foreign policy during the 1970s with his strategies to end the Vietnam War and contain communist countries, has died. He was 100.
Not long before his passing, Kissinger sat down with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait for an extended conversation. He talked about his life and career, what shaped his worldview, and his thoughts on the current state of global affairs. Listen here for that special conversation, in its entirety.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Henry Kissinger, the child refugee who rose to become US
Secretary of State, has died at the age of one hundred.
He was one of America's most distinguished diplomats. Kissinger passed
away at his home in Connecticut, according to his statement
from Kissinger associates. We get more on the life of
Henry Kissinger from Bloomberg's Nathan Hager.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Henry Albert Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three in
the German state of Bavaria, the oldest son of a
Jewish school teacher, Kissinger was known as Heintz until he
moved with his family to the United States in nineteen
thirty eight to escape Nazi persecution. At the age of nineteen,
while excelling at City College of New York, Kissinger was
drafted in the Army. He served as an interpreter in
(00:41):
the country of his birth during World War II, and
after the war he helped to round up Gestapo officers
as a member of the nine hundred seventieth Counterintelligence Corps.
In an interview with Bloomberg's editor in chief John Mickelthwade,
Kissinger said he saw the first hand impact of authoritarianism
and totalitarianism in his youth.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
It was an experience which it's so elemental then it
becomes part of you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Kissinger brought that experience back with him to the United States.
He resumed his studies at Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation
there focused on balances of power in nineteenth century Europe.
As a tenured professor at Harvard, Kissinger honed of the
conservative real politic worldview that would dominate his thinking on
foreign policy for more than a half century. Kissinger also
(01:29):
cultivated relationships with policymakers in Washington that led him to
the White House in nineteen sixty nine as National Security
Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Kissinger's secret trips to China
in nineteen seventy one paved the way for arguably the
greatest foreign policy achievement of the Nixon presidency. His own
visit the following year.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Knowing of President Nixon's express desire to visit the People's
Republic of China, Premier jo and lae On, behalf of
the government of the People's Republic of China, has extended
an invitation to President Nexon to visit China.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The opening of China and an anti ballistic missile treaty
hammered out with the Soviet Union achieved what would become
known as Kissinger's triangular diplomacy, but his penchate for secrecy
would lead to controversy. Kissinger was the first person to
serve as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
at the same time. That allowed Nixon to run foreign
policy more or less directly from the White House. The
(02:28):
president summed up his attitude in a taped conversation with
Kissinger about the Christmas Day bombing in Vietnam in nineteen
seventy two. Kissinger fed into that paranoia about enemies in
the press by ordering wiretaps of reporters and White House
aids looking for leaks. That expanded use of surveillance led
(02:49):
to Nixon's resignation under the weight of Watergate, but the
weight of one major foreign policy decision would cloud Kissinger's
legacy for the rest of his long life. The Secret
War in Cambodia. Kissinger orchestrated the operation that dropped more
than one hundred thousand tons of bombs on North Vietnamese
positions in the country. It helped lead to the rise
of a genocidal Khmer Rouge regime after the war, but
(03:12):
Kissinger would never stop defending his conduct in Vietnam, even
against critics who labeled him a war criminal.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Would say a better way At any one point, we
didn't think so. I still don't think so, but I'm
open to that argument. But what is meant by better?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
That pragmatic approach to the world as it is, rather
than how policymakers might like it to be would inform
Kissinger's view long after he left public office and sought
to wield influence as a private citizen. At the age
of eighty eight, Kissinger wrote the book on China, about
the country he helped to bring back to the world stage.
In a twenty twenty interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum,
(03:53):
Kissinger warned of the risks of confrontation between the world's
two biggest economies.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Let's say it's some pass for some cooperative action de
Willsbill fld HMDU A catastrophe comfortable du wil.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Dulw Henry Kissinger worked to head off that catastrophe. After
he reached his one hundredth birthday as President, Biden sent
cabinet secretaries to Beijing in twenty twenty three to stabilize relations.
The one US diplomat that Chinese President Shi Jinping would
meet face to face was the man he called an
old friend to China, former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
(04:32):
I'm Nathan Hager Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
We thank Bloomberg's Nathan Hager for that report. Kissinger sat
down with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite on June
seventh in New York City. They discussed his life and
career upon turning one hundred years old. The conversation ranged
from his concerns that China could end up in a
military conflict with the US over Taiwan all the way
(04:57):
to the future of President Vladimir Putin after Russher invasion
of Ukraine. He spoke about how his own worldview was
shaped by what he experienced as a Jewish teenager he
escaped Nazi Germany and what he saw in the concentration
camps as an American soldier. Here's their conversation in its entirety.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
There are few living people who have had as great
an impact on how the world stands today as Henry Kissinger.
He has advised American presidents since the nineteen sixties, stood
toe to toe with the likes of Chairman Mao Goldomeyir
and Vladimir Putin changed the fortunes of countries in ways
that are still admired, condemned, and debated. Seventy years ago,
(05:41):
as a young man at Harvard, Kissinger wrote that in
the life of every person, that comes a point when
he realizes that, out of all the seemingly limitless possibilities
of his youth, he has in fact become one actuality.
One's journey across the meadows as indeed followed a regular path.
(06:01):
Having just celebrated his one hundredth birthday, you might imagine
Henry Kissinger's path is now set. In fact, he is
plainly still involved in public life, still talking to leaders
around the world. His legacy can be felt from Cuba
to Caro. But we've broken this interview into three geographic parts.
(06:22):
Europe where he was born, the United States, where he
found power and fame, and Asia, which he transformed. And
then we have a more personal epilogue to do with
that legacy. Henry Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three
(06:45):
in the German town of Foth. Two years later, Adolf
Hitler came to the town to denounce its Jewish citizens.
I began by asking Henry Kissinger how his first fifteen
years of persecution and chaos ended when his family escaped
to America in nineteen thirty eight, has shaped his worldview.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I spent my youth within a disintegrating society. The German
society was collapsing into the Hitler period that gradually, in
(07:27):
each election the Nati period party gained, and then when
Hitler finally came to power, I, together with all my
family and all the people I knew well, became part
of a discriminated minority, living in a town in which
(07:49):
there were science at every public place that Jews are
not welcome here, and at the entrance to every town
venue that did drain or car or anywhere. So there
was my youth.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Do you think that your view of the world of
something that needed some degree of order if you look back.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I believe that for a tutality, or for a group
in which people lived, stability or to pre condition for creativity.
Now that's not a sord I had then so precisely,
(08:35):
but stability meant a great deal.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
The next time you came back to Germany was in
the war. You came back as a soldier. You fought
in the Battle of the Bulge, You saw the concentration camps,
you helped, you took part in this of the rounding
up of Nazis, all by the age of like twenty
four to twenty five. That is a hinterland that very
(09:00):
few people in modern politics have. If you look at
the people you dealt with, the gal Mau, all those
people that they had seen warfare well.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I came back to Germany as a rifleman in the
eighty fourth Infra Division of the US Army, and uh
so I saw war in its most immediate form, under
(09:29):
circumstances in which you have fellowship with your fellow soldiers,
it's your hope of survival hm and everything depends on it.
And I was lucky that my fellow soldiers of that
period were from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Uh It's
(09:57):
called the rail Splitter Division after Lincoln R. And so
that was the environment to then as the battle neared
the German border. After the bat during the Battle of
the Bolts, I was transferred to intelligence, which was still
(10:19):
at the front, but not right in it. For two
miles back at the in the civilian population. But so
I saw the impact of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in my
(10:41):
youth and of war in the next period. And so
it was an experience which it's so elemental that it
becomes part of you, because the child both see dangers
(11:13):
but also the sense of unity of a community when
when they believe in fundamental We know today that German
tanks were probably better than our tent, but you could
(11:42):
never convince American soldiers of it, because they were convinced
that if better tanks could be built, we'd be building.
And I've never forgotten that.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
For most of your life you were dealing with world
leaders who had had somewhat similar experiences. You could argue,
but they'd seen combat. But the last American president to
be in that state was the first President Bush. You
look around the leaders of the Western world. Now, they're
(12:20):
all people, some of them closer to my age than yours,
who've never seen those things. And I wonder whether you
think that makes a difference to world politics. Do you
worry about that with today's leaders.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I think that leaders who have not had any experience
of cadetrophy or at the edge of cadetrophe sometimes believe
they have more obsdence than they really do, and they
(12:53):
did characteristic of our It's fatterly in the its.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Because the one exception and possibly is Jijinping because he
went through the Cultural Revolution, didn't he so he would
have had some experience of the terror that you would
have seen.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Well. For t a crucial experience was living in a
cave with it. Further, after father Adami leader was purged
by Mao, and in his conversations before he became prejided,
(13:31):
he would refer to the fact that this experience made
him strong.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
As you said, you grew up in this period of
chaos and disintegration. You are seen to be somebody who
wants to does not want Russia, if it loses the
war in Ukraine, to be overly punished. Is that in
part because you saw what happened to Germany. The Germany
before the First World War was a very seemed, a
(14:00):
very proud, successful country. The best university is the best,
all these things, and then humiliation and disintegration follows. Do
you worry about that with Russia?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I worry about the fact that Russia has been an
integral part of European history for six hundred years, and
in a very special way because it is infinitely larger
(14:31):
than any European country and it has always been part
of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. That the unique
aspect of Russia in comparison to the European countries. So
it has been torn throughout its history between a desire
(14:57):
to become fully European and the fear of European technical
uh superiority or capacity. Europe will become more stable, the
world will become more stable when Ratia accepts the fact
(15:20):
that it cannot conquer Europe ah, but it has to
remain part of Europe by some sort of consensus as
other states do UH. But a do Mond Rasa is
so crushed that it sees its being a factor of
(15:41):
international politics in other regions and becomes a subject for
European competition among the various states. So it is important
for Ukraine to be preserved and for Ukraine to emerge
(16:06):
from the war as a autonomous, strong, in democratic country.
We have substantially achieved this objective h by now it
can still be improved in terms of the borders of
(16:28):
Ukraine in the what I hope will be the concluding
phases of the war. But I would prefer to preserve
Prussia because the dissolution of Russia or the reduction of
rassure to resentful impotence. What said of a new set
(16:55):
of tensions, do.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You think Vladimir Putin is somebody who could live with?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
You?
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Said? You want a Russia that doesn't that realizes where
its borders are.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's to remember two things about Vladimia Pudent. That he is,
on one level the inheritor of traditional Russia and therefore
has the tendencies towards as certain that I've described earlier.
(17:26):
But there's also uh a Vladimirir Pudent who grew up
in the seats of Leningrad in which a over half
of the population died of starvation. Uh and under under
constance read but he has translated that into never warning
(17:52):
European military power to be in easy leads of f
Saint Petersburg and made sor cities like Moscow. So when
the border of Europe at the end of the war,
which was the d military border of Europe, which was
(18:15):
in the center of Europe, moved to within three hundred
miles of Moscow, and maybe fifty miles of Saint Petersburg.
He reacted very strongly, and as it turns out, at
the edge of your rationality.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
You once said to me that Ladim v. Putin was
more Dostoyevsky than Hitler. Do you still think of him
in that way?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Well, I think he's a Dostoyevsky type figure, be set
by ambivalences and unfulfillable aspirations, but not devoted to power
in the abstract U, but very capable of HU using
(19:04):
UH power that it turned out he used it excessively
in relationship UH to UH to Ukraine. I would like
a Russia to RECOGNI that recognizes that its relations to
(19:28):
but to Europe have to be based on agreement and
the kind of consensus. And I believe that this war
will if it ended properly, may make it achievable.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
If it's ended on the terms you're describing. Do you
think Vladimir Putin can survive in power?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It's improbable.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
On the other side of the fence. With the moment
we have, the Ukrainian counter offensive seems to begun. Do
you see that as the last offensive before you have
to move to diplomacy and peace. Talks of some sort.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Well. I began to urge moving to its diplomat a
year ago when I urged that the various parties to
the conflict as themselves how they want to end it,
not that they would end it right at that point,
(20:36):
but that they would know what their political aims were.
I think that becomes increasingly important as time goes on.
Let'st we wound up at a point where the war
becomes its own objective, and were military operations and military
(21:00):
relations between powered dominate all of this geopolitical thinking. And
at that point, countries like China will have to become
from their point of view, increasingly active. That would spread
(21:22):
it into a world conflict.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Do you think that that is actually the real danger,
that the Dombas doesn't become Europe's frontier with Russia becomes
sort of Europe's frontier with China, that Russia gets driven
back into the arms of China.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Well, it could happen because Ratia gets driven back, or
because Rasia collapsed and disintegrates. It's a functioning major or
tenament state, and therefore it was so in its current faith,
(22:07):
which I support, I think we will correct and resistently
attack on Ukraine.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
We talked about China and Russia. One power that could
emerge much more powerfully from this particular episode is Germany.
Germany is probably the country that's going to rebuild Ukraine.
If it happens, it may be involved in rebuilding Russia.
And within Europe. If you visit Spain, if you visit Italy,
(22:37):
you can feel that the frontier of Europe has been
dragged to the east, so the center of Europe is
now closer to Berlin, so to speak, and that Germany,
by the fact it's been involved in supplying more arms
and everything like that, that it is it looks set
to become a bigger power in Europe. Do you agree
with that? Firstly and secondly do you think that Germany
(23:00):
is ready for that task?
Speaker 3 (23:03):
I agree that the which is the description of the
transformation of the gender of gravity in Europe. It's been
inherent since before World War One and was one of
(23:24):
the causes of World War One because of the refusal
of other countries to accept this reality, but also because
of the inability of Germany to understand the transformation of
(23:44):
its own possism. Because the leading country has to be
an example of moderation and wisdom in balancing the interests
(24:06):
of all the countries if there are to be participants
in the system. And historically h Germany wanted to exercise
its potential by domination, and its tragedy has been after
(24:32):
the retirement of Pittmarck, the failure to learn this lesson,
which tracted into two training wards, which also the entire
position of Europe in the world. So now it has
(25:00):
is again in this position, and it has no leaders
with an experience of either the Nazi period or of
the war MM, so they have to construct the system
by themselves, and they're new there in off, it's only
(25:25):
a year or so, and it is not a reflection
on their abilities, but a description of a new talent
for them that hasn't existed in that form before.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Do you think that also causes problems for the other
great powers? You know, you you wrote a lot of
history about containing you know, first containing France, then containing Germany,
and now that now there is an issue. I mean,
if you if you are France.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Well, if Germany was in conflict with France since the
Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century, because French policy
was explicitly based on maintaining the balance of power, within
(26:18):
Central Europe, which in practice meant maintaining a division of
Germany between MM competing states and friends. Partly to mid states.
The Germany made and Britain came to look at Germany
(26:40):
as a said to its sea power. So when the
ball fell, the neither the British nor the French leader
were enthusiastic about the unification of Germany. But the reality
(27:04):
is that British private it's in the eighties and seventies
when Germany was unified. It's the last major European country
to be unified in eighteen seventy one. Set set this
will have a greater impact than Diffrench Revolution. So we
(27:27):
are at this moment now when a new structure of
Europe has to be created HM based on this reality.
And I'm describing the challenge here, not the UH. I'm
(27:48):
not saying that the Germans have failed. It's new and
it's a new challenge for this generation.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Also a challenge for France and Britain. Very quickly, they've
followed very different paths, especially since Sewers. You know, frances
has very much defined itself, often in opposition to America,
and it's buried itself in the European Union. The British,
by contrast, have tended to stick with the Americans. And
now they are outside the European Union. And you and
(28:22):
I can argue about who's got things right over the
past fifty years, but we are where we are, and
I wonder you look at France and you look at Britain. Now,
who is better placed to go forward? Britain outside the
europe Union, France inside it.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Psychologically Britain it is fedow placed because in the structure
of the world that one can imagine appearing, whatever Europe
does to its own conception it r RelA cooperation with
(29:03):
America and pursuing parallel politics with America will have to
be an essential component on it because by itself opposing
all the other major power centers uh, Europe is in
a difficult position to do that, and it may be impossible.
(29:27):
So Britain historically is better placed uh uh to do it. Uh.
Britain's problem is its connection, how to connect with Europe,
not how to connect with the United States. It has
(29:49):
the history of the special partnership and an instinctive fear
in Britain. Th the danger comes from across the oceans
and comes from across the border, while in Europe the
(30:11):
instinctive ferience the danger comes from land invasions. So for
Britain to link to Europe has turned out to be
not possible organically, so it now has to be done
by policy. And I think.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
That you actually think Britain would. I might disagree with
you on this, but you think that Britain is sort
of psychologically happier outside the European Union.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yes, I think it is, and I think it's also
a great opportunity for it to act as a link
between a unifying Europe and America.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next. Henry Kissinger has died at the
age of one hundred. We're listening to a special conversation
he had with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite not
too long ago. He discusses his life and career. Let's
(31:21):
hear more of that conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Now, America has never been true to itself unless it
meant something beyond itself.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Henry Kissinger said those words about his adopted Homeland in
nineteen seventy three. He first arrived in the United States
in nineteen thirty eight as a fifteen year old refugee.
I began the second part of our conversation about the
United States by asking, if his life story was uniquely American,
could he have achieved what he has done anywhere else?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Absolutely uniquely American. I was at a dinner in Germany
when the German chancellor of the Democratic Germany was prison
and the American ambassador rather amazingly as the chancellor, what
(32:24):
would have happened to me in Germany if I had
survived due to this period? And he said, I would
be a junior professor in Munich at Munich University.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
That brings us very nice. That brings us very nicely
to the next phase of your life. You go to Harvard.
I think at different times of your life you had
taught about chemistry and being an accountant, which is a
wonderful image. But one of your mentors, Fritz Kramer, had
a phrase about you were you were musically tuned to history.
(33:11):
You go to Harvard, and the other kind of great
figure of your youth, Bill Elliott Oppressor at Harvard, directs
you towards the philosophy of history rather than just history itself,
and that's where you get all the cant or the spinosa.
Is that a really important difference. You know, you've always
been obsessed not as by history, but the ideas behind it.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Later on in life, my views, in those of many
of the academic community at Harvard can be teritibly described.
It's not veral. But in that period of my life,
(33:57):
which in a funny way was its second immigration into America, uh,
the first from Germany and the second from the army.
Mm Uh, I haven't played a very important role because
it gave me uh confident or inspiration, it's a better word,
(34:25):
into the direction I was sort of divided. I was
doing extremely well in chemistry, mostly based on memory, and
I went to see the head of the chemistry department.
His name was Professor Kisyakovsky, became a very well known
(34:48):
figure up and I asked him whether I should major
in chemistry, and he said, if you have to ask me, no,
and so this then, but I've I was on that
other codes already inwardly, it gave me the confidence to
(35:12):
do it. The philosophy. I was most interested at first
in philosophy, in theory of knowledge, in theory of values.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Mm.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
But history it's a way to combine the inherent uncertainties
of philosophy. Inherent because so far no absolute answers have
ever been found by any civilization. With the results of
(35:50):
what actually happened, and the ads I progressed, I progress
in development, I became very philosophical. History became my dominance then.
(36:14):
And I think if one reads my books that seem
run through all of.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Them, where in your life is that the idea of
the philosophy of history most most the ideas be most
challenged by reality. You know, you've said that history is
interesting because you get reality conflicting.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Life is torn between managing the presence and the evolution
of the presence, so that in individual lives and of
course magnified into society's lives, there's always the ambiguity that
(37:06):
emphasis on the presence leads to stagnation, and that therefore
everything else around you will outstrip that society. And so
how to strike that balance between ultimate values and what
(37:27):
reality imposes on you?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
And reality is never quite adequate. But ultimate values are
too absolute because they demand a degree of imposition on others. Ah,
how to strike that balance is maybe it's maybe given
(37:51):
to us. It's our insoluble problem to keep a motivation
at the appropriate level.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Isn't that quite interesting? Isn't that also the story of
American foreign policy? You have this, You've always argued that
there's a set of ideals that America wants to.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yes, it's best. The problem for America, Yeah, because we
have been ex closed as it is possible to be,
to be satisfied with where we are, and we've been
protected by two great oceans because whenever the society in
(38:33):
the almost every place else, every place else was tempted
to be excessively satisfied with itself, its neighbors intruded on them.
It was very difficult to do that in America because
of these oceans. But after World War two and now
(38:56):
increasingly so uh, and now it's artificial intelligence totally. So
we are part of an international global system, and it
goes beyond internationally, it goes beyond its universal system. And
(39:20):
we have simultaneously to adjust to that and conducted day
to day policy with countries that have the same situation
and with other countries that grow up to our level
of achievement. That never existed before in history.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
You've always said America should balance a sort of shining
city on a hill, complex with reality. And you look
at the last you look at the last Cold War,
and America won it by kind of singing a song
of liberty of those ideals, but also by doing really
basic things helping people, the Marshall Plan and things like that.
(40:06):
If you go to America's allies, they will say America
doesn't talk about those ideals any longer. It just talks
about America first. And in terms of trade deals and
things like that, America isn't you know, it's not even
doing trade deals with its allies in either Asia or Europe.
So that America, in a strange way, is more disconnected
(40:26):
from what it should be than it has been.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Well, actually, in fact, America it's not more disconnected. It's
probably more connected than it's been. In word, it's considered
the great period of American history, except that during the
Marshall Plan at the end of World War two, oh,
(40:51):
this was new, so it was in a new experience,
and it would therefore it became very significant in day
to day thinking of policy makers. Now policy makers are
torn between and at that time we had over fifty
(41:14):
percent of the world's gross national product. Now we are
down to about twenty four percent, which is still a
huge percentage, and it's still extremely influential percentage, but it
requires us to be more discriminating. So it looks as
(41:38):
if we are entrenching the problem that bothers me. It's
not right basically, the entrenching, but the we have not
yet found a concept that unified Americans, and so now
(42:01):
the advocacy of the realization that we need a new
idea for world order, it's dunk to a much smaller
group that existed at the end of World War Two.
Our talents is conceptual more than practical.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
When you came to power, America had had a long
period where it had been able to lecture the world.
America was going through great difficulties then, you know, it
was going through things at the gas price. You had
all these things going wrong, and America didn't. You had
to scramble, You had to try and find allies. You
had to try and make things work. You've had another period,
you know, from the Berlin Wall onwards, where where America
(42:51):
seemed very strong. Now again it's it's stuck having to
make allies having to find balances. Is there a comparison
there at all?
Speaker 3 (43:00):
We now are living in an in in a world
of uh unprecedented complexity. Uh the need for allies exists.
(43:23):
But what allies are supposed to do in given circumstances?
And now the alliances are supposed to operate when every
issue has a global component but not not every issue
has a comparable interest for every country, so that countries,
(43:47):
they all have a global interest in global h stability,
but they don't have the same interest in the immediate situation. Secondly,
there head now when I was given the opportunity to
participate in policy making, that was essentially the seventies and
(44:16):
and early eighties, all these issues were discussing, were beginning
in they were in their infancy and uh so that
their very existence was in dispute. And one of the
(44:36):
contributions of Nixon was that he was willing to face
these new uh, these n new realities. But now they're
upon us. Uh and in that sense, it's an evolution
(44:57):
of the problems as huge us in New ques.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
Do you think now America is a worse ally? I mean,
if you go to if I go to Paris, or
I go to Chakato. They will say all we hear
from America is we hear America first, and we hear
we don't want to do trade deals. We don't want
to do things with you. There is no there is
no sense of reaching out. And they would probably say
that Joe Biden is a little bit more polite than
(45:26):
they're more helpful.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
They'd invade with in America had shifted to the extens
So the difference between say, liberal Republicans and Democrats in
its evident ages was about the degree of a participation
(45:48):
in which they both say it. In the present period
did invade they had shifty two. It seems in which
days an extreme theory of America First, which is applied
on both sides, but in such a way that it
(46:11):
that it focuses too much on American interests and not
on global interests. That is a challenged, but anyone who
wants to conduct a series American foreign policy must balance
it two or America will become isolated.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Do you think the current administration is isk is doing
a serious job at that.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
I think the current administration is trying to do a
serious job of that, but it is so afraid of
attacks on itself, that it doesn't do itself justice.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
You were a Rockefeller Republican. Nowadays there are no Rockefeller Republicans.
There's there's there's Democrats on one extreme, there's Republicans on
the other. The center of American politics. The fact it's disappeared,
do you think that that has dramatic foreign policy locations?
Speaker 3 (47:16):
I think that sender still exists, but it doesn't have
fully it doesn't. I have an articulate expression here, would you.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Ever like to see an independent party in America?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Well, independent bodies in America. I have not had a
good faith, but I do well think it is important
to maintained an argument for the philosophy that I have maintained.
Not because I have maintained it, but because it reflects
(47:56):
the necessity of a period. And that becomes magnified if
you consider that we are now in the field of
artificial intelligence, at the very beginning of a colossal transformation
(48:21):
of human consciousness, which will have to be built into
this foreign policy.
Speaker 5 (48:30):
But we have a paradox, don't we. You have these issues,
you have artificial intelligence, you have climate change, you have
maybe the global economy where interconnectedness is incredibly important. But America, that.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Is in the current world. But the essence of what
I'm concerned about, it's that we have opened the door
to a dialogue with objects and with machines. That that
(49:05):
when when the printing press was invented, it transformed to
human consciousness and said, of what we call now the Enlightenment,
which has been going on for five hundred years. Now
we are a these machines. What is the esence of
(49:28):
these machines? We ask a question of these machines. These
machines are then capable of encumbaging all the knowledge that
we have taught them, but that we cannot contain in
one brain nor one machine. Look at it, give us
(49:52):
an answer, and we act on the basis of that.
That is a new reality that has that will be
studied for decades like the old new reality was when
the printing credits permitted exchanging information easily.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
But the pretty printing press was at the time of
nation states or nation states were coming to the fore
where you had an immediate need to interact with other ones.
It was part of what appeared AI is coming part
in it as you described in America, which is not
is not doesn't have more.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
But I think America will be driven by reality in
studying what i've and so below all other countries. It's
not an American thing, but it's become a high tech thing.
So therefore it will be a dialogue between Therefore, the
(50:58):
dialogue between America and China will become more important, or
even more crucial. But it will change the way we
interpreted reality because due to our achievement, we have found
(51:19):
the key to a new aspect of reality which we
didn't know existed.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
One last thing on America, Given the huge complexity of
what you've described, do you think that a presidential election
between Joe Biden and Donald Trump offers somebody who is
capable of dealing with that degree of complexity.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
It's gonna be very difficult. It's it's it's a painful question.
We have to live with what exists, and we mustn't
turn our disputes into civil wars.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
The third part of our conversation centered on Asia, perhaps
the place where Kissinger's had the most enduring impact for
most people now that impact is represented by China, which
Kissinger and Richard Nixon helped open up to the West.
But his first encounter with Asia, and the area of
his life is critics focus on, was into China. I
put it to Kissinger that although Nixon and he plainly
(52:40):
inherited a mess in Vietnam in nineteen sixty eight, by
nineteen seventy five, North Vietnam had taken control of Saigon
in Cambodia, which America had bombed, was a disaster. I
asked him whether from the perspective now of nearly fifty years,
there was anything he would have done differently.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Honestly, leave, We did the best we could. We inherited
the war in which five hundred and fifty thousand Americans
now five hundred thousand were in place, and fifty thousand
more had already been ordered to go there, and we're
(53:22):
on the way UH to go there. In America, public
opinion had turned in a significant way against the war
and in violent demonstrations UH in the seats, among out
the international public. Everybody was against the war, but they
(53:51):
also were for Americas defending them. So our gradibi around
the world depended accidents today on our ability to perform
the tasks we had assigned ourselves. We have comparable problems
(54:17):
today in issues in Taiwan and elsewhere Ukraine. So our
resistant was to try to end the war under condition
in which we a in which the control over their
(54:39):
own destiny became fell more and more into the hands
of the South Vietnamese. We gradually withdrew our troops, conducted negotiations,
but also conducted enough military operations so that our adversary
(55:03):
now quasi ally, but our then adversary did not become
convinced that he could take over. Uh. We did not
want in afghan what Lady was in Afghanistan style withdrawal,
which was for twenty five hundred people. We had five
(55:26):
hundred and fifty thousand people, bloss a million armed. We
in amazing place. So was it at every stage conducted
with the absolutely would say a better way at any
one point we didn't think so. I still don't think so.
(55:50):
But uh, I'm open to that argument. But but what
is meant by better? We reduced American casualties substantially, so
that by the last year of the war they were
in the thousands. UH. When the Nixon administration came in.
(56:13):
They were reduced to less than a hundred in the
last year of the war, and we withdrew from ground
combat within two years, at all times maintaining a negotiation.
(56:37):
The irreducible demand we had was an autonomous democratic government
in South Vietnam that was not granted until the last
three months of the war, which is why they were
the last three months of the war. At that point
(57:00):
we settled, But then the next question became could we
maintain the settlement. We believed that we could maintain the
settlement as we did in South Korea, against all but
(57:21):
an all out invasion from the North, at which point
alliance issues were a varis. But we believed against foreseeable infiltrations,
we could maintain the autonomy of the of the government
(57:43):
and we could maintain it against even significant attacks. But
then Watergate occurred within two months of the settlement, and
the Congress, reflecting public opinion, forbade any kind of military
(58:05):
action in over in Near Vietnam. At that point, uh
we d it w had become and had destroyed the basis.
It was painful. It was the saddest moment of my
(58:28):
public life when I had to sit in the Security
Advisor's office and recommend the final withdrawals, and I published
in my memoirs conversations with President Ford to show how
(58:53):
painful he found it to agree to these recommend I
think the time we gained enabled us. By the time
the war was ended, we had already opened to China,
(59:14):
and that in turn, or China had opened to us.
Either way, but that was the crucial turning point of
the Cold War, and also a created a structure from
which we could have maintained or at least given the
(59:42):
vietnamse a reasonable chance. During the debates and the pressures,
many things were said that can now be s used
to indicate different views. But this was our resential views,
and I'm sure that any later books that are written
(01:00:07):
on the subject that have access to material will see
that this was what we thought and acted on.
Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
It's pretty quick on that. You think the in the end,
the end, and the end justified all the collateral damage
of hanging on that.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
No, the energy for us, uh, the end we were
aiming for was an honorable piece. By honorable peace, we
meant a piece in which we did not turn over
the people who had relied on us to the domination
of those whom they had fought relying on our promises.
(01:00:48):
That was our definition of the end. We honestly believed
that we had achieved that, and in presenting his proposal,
the North Vietnam Meets negotiated, Lee Doctor. The crucial point
(01:01:12):
was in October nineteen seventy two when the North Vietnam
Meets negotiated turned over a proposal and then ready to
DS and said this is essentially what President Nixon has
proposed in January. At that point I asked for a recess.
(01:01:39):
And my closes associated that point was a man called
Vinceton Lot Hm went on to a distinguished career, and
he had sort of resigning at the time we uh
fought in Cambodia. And I told him, then you have
(01:02:00):
two choices. You can go outside and walk around with
a blacket, oh, you can help end it work. And
so at that moment I turned to Winston or such
Americans at that point, and I turned to him and
(01:02:22):
I said, we've done it. Turned out to be a
sad statement, because yeah, we hadn't, because we could not
maintain the domestic support that was needed to sustain it. Ah.
(01:02:42):
But the effort if the effort had not been made,
and if we had gone to either of the other
extreme solutions, one of it was to go all out
upon coming into office before the ground had been laid
(01:03:06):
with Russia and China, or to withdraw unconditionally and tried
to extricate hundreds of thousands of troops while the enemy
was still around them. In the foe mened local people
(01:03:27):
might have turned against us. Was uh was not U
was not acceptable, and there were no other terms that
could have been n uh n uh negotiated. That was
the reality ah that we faced, and so in retrospect
(01:03:57):
President Nixon came to believe and actually I thought already
at that time we should have considered a more all
out military solution at the beginning. But reflecting about it,
(01:04:19):
at the time we had had assassinations in America HM
and already violent demonstrations. That was probably more theoretical than practical.
So that was our thinking, of course, that it's all
below it's been debated.
Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
The other bit, which you you mentioned as being in
part a reason why staying there made sense was China.
From that point of view, you went there, you hope it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Was important for us to show we ended up it
convinced that a country of the magnitude of China and
the history of China could not be kept out of
the international system, and that we could not keep it
(01:05:10):
out of the international system, that it would find a
way to enter it, and so we began effort to
open relations. At that moment, China had withdrawn all its
(01:05:31):
ambassadors from every country in the world except to Poland
and Egypt. And Poland was maintained in the Geneva Agreement
(01:05:51):
of nineteen fifty four as a contact point between America
and China, and negotiations began on a regular patis, that is,
between the ambassadors. That there were one hundred and sixty
(01:06:15):
two meetings between nineteen fifty four and nineteen seventy one,
none less and more than a day, because each began
with the Chinese demanding the immediate return of Taiwan to
(01:06:36):
China and with the Americans demanding that the UH China
affirm its commitment to a commitment to a peaceful evolution
of the process. Neither demand was accepted, and so we
(01:07:00):
began from that basis and then went through many contortions
to establish contact and exploring many e ways of possibly
doing it, and finally found a way when President Nixon
(01:07:25):
told Yakub Khan in Pakistan that we wanted contact, that
to convey to the Chinese that we wanted a real dialogue,
and we emphasized it by sending an embarassador in Poland,
(01:07:50):
the impacted in Poland to approach the Chinese embassador at
any social function which all impacted and were invited, which
turned out to be a Yugoslav fashion show, and one
normally doesn't associate with Yugoslavia. But we uh approached him,
(01:08:20):
and it was at that moment we the embattlor a
few weeks later drove up to our office to our
empathy and said they were ready to begin negotiations. Those
other contortions through which things were conducted at the time,
(01:08:45):
but from there we worked together with China on the
specific problem of enabling in a dire which gave for
us something additional to think about, and then led to
(01:09:10):
the eating of the Cold War and the culmination of
the Vietnamese agreements and subsequent evolution of Journeese American relations.
Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
There's always a metaphor. Well, I think the first time
you said we were in the foothills of a new
Cold War and then we went up to the mountain passes.
Then the world was on a precipice looking over. But
each time we talk, the relationship between America and China
seems to be worse. Is that Is that true today?
Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
I say we are now at the top of the precipice,
and one of the big problems is both sides needed
to step back from it several days. If one of
them stepped ba back, it is falling. So both have
(01:10:04):
to decide to take the tension out of this situation.
But there's an inherent diff difficulty in that relationship. China
had been a great country for much of its story,
(01:10:25):
but in the period that prior to the assumption of
relations in the terms of measuring power uh China was
much weaker hm than the U than the United States.
(01:10:46):
Its capacity was to stir up difficulty all over the
world by using its diplomatic and potential commercial in influence.
As China grew in strengths, which was inherent in opening
(01:11:07):
the relationship uh it's it c gained the capacity of
threatening the United States. In the nature of modern technology
(01:11:28):
and the nuclear age from the beginning raised the issue
that countries developing nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver
them HM were able to inflict the amount of damage
(01:11:48):
that would normally require years of warfare, so that therefore
their capacity to influence actions by threats grew. That was
the dilemma of the nuclears to begin with, and it
was one reason why many of us thought negotiations for
(01:12:13):
the reduction of that that were important. So with respect
to Chinese American relations MM and China grew stronger, and
as the American debate became more complicated, as we've discussed
(01:12:35):
earlier mm UH, and as the Chinese governments changed over
the years, UH, the tension became harder and harder to manage,
(01:12:56):
and on the American side, it became him it's object,
which it had not been, of domestic politics, so that
candidates are now influenced by the degree of which their
opponents can accuse them of selling out of China HM.
(01:13:22):
So that it's the current problem, however, and it is
a unique situation in the sense that the biggest threat
of each country it's the other. That it's the biggest
(01:13:45):
threat to China, it's America in their perception, and the
same it's true here that the Chi that the biggest
threat on the other hand, ors have become either unwinnable
(01:14:09):
with the advanced weapons or venerable only at courts said
out of proportion and so out of port efforts to negotiate,
which China and I've been urging them.
Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
There's one interesting thing you said. You pointed out there
in America that politics has changed because successive yet leaders
and the elections people fight. In China, you've had one leader.
You've a jaging thing now for over ten years. So
the fact that it's got worse in China is that
his fault. What what is has he gone in the
(01:14:49):
wrong direction?
Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Well, what he has done is the so called wolves diplomacy,
en which China needs leader. Chinese diplomats were urged in
effect to throw around their weight the in re s
so in relations with say Australia, which of a dramatic
(01:15:20):
reduction of Chinese trait because of some political and other
statements that had been made. It's a problem with little
bit comparable to what we did cussed before about Germany
(01:15:41):
before nineteen fourteen, that Germany had suddenly became a great
power and after it t h pit Mark at first
had to h Ye did not know how to apply
(01:16:04):
it in a way that translated into diplomatic results.
Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
You described Deng Shaping, for instance, as a great man.
Do you think of Jijinping as a great man?
Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
Well, T is dung Chapin had finished his that had
finished its destiny or its role.
Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
H t.
Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
Came in after a cultural revolution which wiped out many
of these experienced leaders, and I don't describe him now
as a great man, but I think he's foul doing golds,
(01:17:02):
which might earn him the title and the American president
if they achieve a real balancing of relationship between the
two countries.
Speaker 5 (01:17:17):
What chances do you see of of an invasion of
Taiwan sometime in the next three four years on the
current trajectory of relations.
Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
Well, on the current trajectory of relations, I think some
military conflict it's probable, But I also think the current
prajectory of relations must be altered and full the beads
(01:17:50):
preceding our discussion, there have been signs on both sides
of trying to end them. They have not yet actually
engaged in the sort of dialogue that that I suggest it,
(01:18:14):
but I think they're moving towards it, and I leave
my mind open in relation to the outcome.
Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
The other thing which has happened is that China has
got more involved in things beyond its traditional region. You know,
you've seen China talking to Zelensky. You saw China brokering
a kind of truth between I Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
It should be an inevitable part of these discussions that
both sides explained to each other what their core interests
are and determine how do I handle situations in which
they are core into its clash and I would hope
(01:19:00):
to resolve into its in which CoInc it's class without conflict,
or managed to avoid situations of clerging coincines.
Speaker 5 (01:19:15):
At the moment, you have India, which seems to be
a non aligned country. It is not on one side
or the other. Would would it? Would a younger Kissinger
now focus from an American point of view of trying
to bring India, which will be the next great power,
onto the American side.
Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
I have no. I have not dealt with India for
in terms of years, even longer than I've dealt with China,
and at the early period of my dealing with India,
(01:19:54):
their non alignment or a suit of considerable irritation because
it took the form of lecturing arts on the virtues
of non alignment. That choice was open to them, but
not to us. When you are in a cold war,
you can retreat from it and say you're not going
(01:20:17):
to choose non alignment. But in the decades Wi which
I've dealt with India said, since I think their policy,
their current policy is extraordinarily thoughtful, and I have great
(01:20:42):
respect for their foreign minister, who is a very i
would say brilliant executor of that of that policy. India
is a great power, and over the decades ahead, it
(01:21:04):
will grow very comfortably to China, maybe not quite of
the same string, but it doesn't matter at that point
exactly it it will be of sufficient strength to uh
sud itself, and so it performs best when it defends
(01:21:32):
its own interests, which overlap many of ours. Our interests
as a great power are to prevent any country from
dominating the world or its regions in such a way
that we lose our influence. To achieve important objective.
Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next.
Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
The final part of our conversation focused on legacy and
the personal side. Henry Kissinger has remained a pretty private person.
In an age where leaders like to play on emotional narratives,
he has, as we shall shortly see, tended to suppress
his backstory even when it might win him sympathy. One
(01:22:31):
constant in the three decades that I've known him has
been football. His first question on seeing me was why
had Leicester City, my football team, just been relegated from
the Premier League. He has followed Firth, which itself got
relegated from the Bundesliga last year since he was a boy. Indeed,
he and his brother were beaten up by Nazi thugs
for trying to sneak into a game. You have lived
(01:22:55):
one hundred years and Firth is yet to win the Bundesliga.
How long would you have to live for that to happen?
Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Oh, it would come close to the definition to giving
us a definition of infinity.
Speaker 5 (01:23:10):
I've read a lot of things you've written, and nothing
quite as sort of powerful as this. And it's it's
in Neil Focuson's book. It was a private essay you
wrote when you visited our concentration camp. When you age,
I think just twenty two, and especially you meet this
inmate called Felxama, and you say, Felix Samer, your foot
(01:23:30):
has been crushed so that you can't run away. Your
face is forty, your body is ageless. Yet all your
certificate reads is sixteen. And I stand there with my
clean clothes and make a speech to you and your comrades, Felixamer.
Humanity stands accused in you, I, Joe Smith, human dignity.
Everybody has failed you. You should be preserved in cement
(01:23:51):
up here on the hillside for future generations to look
upon and take stock human dignity. Objective values have stopped
at this barbedoir. As long as conscience exists as a
conception in the world, you will personify it. Nothing done
for you will ever restore you. You are eternal in
this respect. Obviously had a very profound experience in you.
(01:24:12):
But if something you chose to keep so private for
a long time is that do you think that's a
different way of people seeing Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
It was a feeling that its concentration camp evoked in me.
I wrote that within a week of having seen the
level of dehumanization that we can imagine that people were
(01:24:44):
too weak to hurt the god that kept them and
be killed some people by mistake by giving them solid food.
A but it so I wrote that for myself. I
(01:25:07):
had no intention of publishing it, because feelings about humanity
can affect your own actions. A biographer discovered it mm
not among papers I gave him, but it ref It
(01:25:29):
reflects an underlying reality that we have to recognize its
lurking behind our technical capacities, and that we need to
(01:25:51):
contain and prevent from breaking and to you, to prevent
the bearing side from breaking out.
Speaker 5 (01:26:05):
When you look back at your life now from one
hundred year point of view, do you think that has
been the core of it? Is trying to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
It's been an important core of it. But I don't advertise.
Speaker 5 (01:26:22):
It on that thing. I know you're you're one hundred,
you're talking about writing two more books. But how if
not for that, how would you like to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
It's out of my control. I tried to do. They're
best I could within the frameburg that we.
Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
Have did good, Henry Quest, thank you very much for
talking to Bloomberg. A very delayed happy birthday, Thank you
very much,
Henry Kissinger, the child refugee who rose to become US
Secretary of State, has died at the age of one hundred.
He was one of America's most distinguished diplomats. Kissinger passed
away at his home in Connecticut, according to his statement
from Kissinger associates. We get more on the life of
Henry Kissinger from Bloomberg's Nathan Hager.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Henry Albert Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three in
the German state of Bavaria, the oldest son of a
Jewish school teacher, Kissinger was known as Heintz until he
moved with his family to the United States in nineteen
thirty eight to escape Nazi persecution. At the age of nineteen,
while excelling at City College of New York, Kissinger was
drafted in the Army. He served as an interpreter in
(00:41):
the country of his birth during World War II, and
after the war he helped to round up Gestapo officers
as a member of the nine hundred seventieth Counterintelligence Corps.
In an interview with Bloomberg's editor in chief John Mickelthwade,
Kissinger said he saw the first hand impact of authoritarianism
and totalitarianism in his youth.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
It was an experience which it's so elemental then it
becomes part of you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Kissinger brought that experience back with him to the United States.
He resumed his studies at Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation
there focused on balances of power in nineteenth century Europe.
As a tenured professor at Harvard, Kissinger honed of the
conservative real politic worldview that would dominate his thinking on
foreign policy for more than a half century. Kissinger also
(01:29):
cultivated relationships with policymakers in Washington that led him to
the White House in nineteen sixty nine as National Security
Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Kissinger's secret trips to China
in nineteen seventy one paved the way for arguably the
greatest foreign policy achievement of the Nixon presidency. His own
visit the following year.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Knowing of President Nixon's express desire to visit the People's
Republic of China, Premier jo and lae On, behalf of
the government of the People's Republic of China, has extended
an invitation to President Nexon to visit China.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The opening of China and an anti ballistic missile treaty
hammered out with the Soviet Union achieved what would become
known as Kissinger's triangular diplomacy, but his penchate for secrecy
would lead to controversy. Kissinger was the first person to
serve as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
at the same time. That allowed Nixon to run foreign
policy more or less directly from the White House. The
(02:28):
president summed up his attitude in a taped conversation with
Kissinger about the Christmas Day bombing in Vietnam in nineteen
seventy two. Kissinger fed into that paranoia about enemies in
the press by ordering wiretaps of reporters and White House
aids looking for leaks. That expanded use of surveillance led
(02:49):
to Nixon's resignation under the weight of Watergate, but the
weight of one major foreign policy decision would cloud Kissinger's
legacy for the rest of his long life. The Secret
War in Cambodia. Kissinger orchestrated the operation that dropped more
than one hundred thousand tons of bombs on North Vietnamese
positions in the country. It helped lead to the rise
of a genocidal Khmer Rouge regime after the war, but
(03:12):
Kissinger would never stop defending his conduct in Vietnam, even
against critics who labeled him a war criminal.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Would say a better way At any one point, we
didn't think so. I still don't think so, but I'm
open to that argument. But what is meant by better?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
That pragmatic approach to the world as it is, rather
than how policymakers might like it to be would inform
Kissinger's view long after he left public office and sought
to wield influence as a private citizen. At the age
of eighty eight, Kissinger wrote the book on China, about
the country he helped to bring back to the world stage.
In a twenty twenty interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum,
(03:53):
Kissinger warned of the risks of confrontation between the world's
two biggest economies.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Let's say it's some pass for some cooperative action de
Willsbill fld HMDU A catastrophe comfortable du wil.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Dulw Henry Kissinger worked to head off that catastrophe. After
he reached his one hundredth birthday as President, Biden sent
cabinet secretaries to Beijing in twenty twenty three to stabilize relations.
The one US diplomat that Chinese President Shi Jinping would
meet face to face was the man he called an
old friend to China, former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
(04:32):
I'm Nathan Hager Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
We thank Bloomberg's Nathan Hager for that report. Kissinger sat
down with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite on June
seventh in New York City. They discussed his life and
career upon turning one hundred years old. The conversation ranged
from his concerns that China could end up in a
military conflict with the US over Taiwan all the way
(04:57):
to the future of President Vladimir Putin after Russher invasion
of Ukraine. He spoke about how his own worldview was
shaped by what he experienced as a Jewish teenager he
escaped Nazi Germany and what he saw in the concentration
camps as an American soldier. Here's their conversation in its entirety.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
There are few living people who have had as great
an impact on how the world stands today as Henry Kissinger.
He has advised American presidents since the nineteen sixties, stood
toe to toe with the likes of Chairman Mao Goldomeyir
and Vladimir Putin changed the fortunes of countries in ways
that are still admired, condemned, and debated. Seventy years ago,
(05:41):
as a young man at Harvard, Kissinger wrote that in
the life of every person, that comes a point when
he realizes that, out of all the seemingly limitless possibilities
of his youth, he has in fact become one actuality.
One's journey across the meadows as indeed followed a regular path.
(06:01):
Having just celebrated his one hundredth birthday, you might imagine
Henry Kissinger's path is now set. In fact, he is
plainly still involved in public life, still talking to leaders
around the world. His legacy can be felt from Cuba
to Caro. But we've broken this interview into three geographic parts.
(06:22):
Europe where he was born, the United States, where he
found power and fame, and Asia, which he transformed. And
then we have a more personal epilogue to do with
that legacy. Henry Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three
(06:45):
in the German town of Foth. Two years later, Adolf
Hitler came to the town to denounce its Jewish citizens.
I began by asking Henry Kissinger how his first fifteen
years of persecution and chaos ended when his family escaped
to America in nineteen thirty eight, has shaped his worldview.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I spent my youth within a disintegrating society. The German
society was collapsing into the Hitler period that gradually, in
(07:27):
each election the Nati period party gained, and then when
Hitler finally came to power, I, together with all my
family and all the people I knew well, became part
of a discriminated minority, living in a town in which
(07:49):
there were science at every public place that Jews are
not welcome here, and at the entrance to every town
venue that did drain or car or anywhere. So there
was my youth.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Do you think that your view of the world of
something that needed some degree of order if you look back.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I believe that for a tutality, or for a group
in which people lived, stability or to pre condition for creativity.
Now that's not a sord I had then so precisely,
(08:35):
but stability meant a great deal.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
The next time you came back to Germany was in
the war. You came back as a soldier. You fought
in the Battle of the Bulge, You saw the concentration camps,
you helped, you took part in this of the rounding
up of Nazis, all by the age of like twenty
four to twenty five. That is a hinterland that very
(09:00):
few people in modern politics have. If you look at
the people you dealt with, the gal Mau, all those
people that they had seen warfare well.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I came back to Germany as a rifleman in the
eighty fourth Infra Division of the US Army, and uh
so I saw war in its most immediate form, under
(09:29):
circumstances in which you have fellowship with your fellow soldiers,
it's your hope of survival hm and everything depends on it.
And I was lucky that my fellow soldiers of that
period were from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Uh It's
(09:57):
called the rail Splitter Division after Lincoln R. And so
that was the environment to then as the battle neared
the German border. After the bat during the Battle of
the Bolts, I was transferred to intelligence, which was still
(10:19):
at the front, but not right in it. For two
miles back at the in the civilian population. But so
I saw the impact of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in my
(10:41):
youth and of war in the next period. And so
it was an experience which it's so elemental that it
becomes part of you, because the child both see dangers
(11:13):
but also the sense of unity of a community when
when they believe in fundamental We know today that German
tanks were probably better than our tent, but you could
(11:42):
never convince American soldiers of it, because they were convinced
that if better tanks could be built, we'd be building.
And I've never forgotten that.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
For most of your life you were dealing with world
leaders who had had somewhat similar experiences. You could argue,
but they'd seen combat. But the last American president to
be in that state was the first President Bush. You
look around the leaders of the Western world. Now, they're
(12:20):
all people, some of them closer to my age than yours,
who've never seen those things. And I wonder whether you
think that makes a difference to world politics. Do you
worry about that with today's leaders.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I think that leaders who have not had any experience
of cadetrophy or at the edge of cadetrophe sometimes believe
they have more obsdence than they really do, and they
(12:53):
did characteristic of our It's fatterly in the its.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Because the one exception and possibly is Jijinping because he
went through the Cultural Revolution, didn't he so he would
have had some experience of the terror that you would
have seen.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Well. For t a crucial experience was living in a
cave with it. Further, after father Adami leader was purged
by Mao, and in his conversations before he became prejided,
(13:31):
he would refer to the fact that this experience made
him strong.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
As you said, you grew up in this period of
chaos and disintegration. You are seen to be somebody who
wants to does not want Russia, if it loses the
war in Ukraine, to be overly punished. Is that in
part because you saw what happened to Germany. The Germany
before the First World War was a very seemed, a
(14:00):
very proud, successful country. The best university is the best,
all these things, and then humiliation and disintegration follows. Do
you worry about that with Russia?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I worry about the fact that Russia has been an
integral part of European history for six hundred years, and
in a very special way because it is infinitely larger
(14:31):
than any European country and it has always been part
of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. That the unique
aspect of Russia in comparison to the European countries. So
it has been torn throughout its history between a desire
(14:57):
to become fully European and the fear of European technical
uh superiority or capacity. Europe will become more stable, the
world will become more stable when Ratia accepts the fact
(15:20):
that it cannot conquer Europe ah, but it has to
remain part of Europe by some sort of consensus as
other states do UH. But a do Mond Rasa is
so crushed that it sees its being a factor of
(15:41):
international politics in other regions and becomes a subject for
European competition among the various states. So it is important
for Ukraine to be preserved and for Ukraine to emerge
(16:06):
from the war as a autonomous, strong, in democratic country.
We have substantially achieved this objective h by now it
can still be improved in terms of the borders of
(16:28):
Ukraine in the what I hope will be the concluding
phases of the war. But I would prefer to preserve
Prussia because the dissolution of Russia or the reduction of
rassure to resentful impotence. What said of a new set
(16:55):
of tensions, do.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You think Vladimir Putin is somebody who could live with?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
You?
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Said? You want a Russia that doesn't that realizes where
its borders are.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's to remember two things about Vladimia Pudent. That he is,
on one level the inheritor of traditional Russia and therefore
has the tendencies towards as certain that I've described earlier.
(17:26):
But there's also uh a Vladimirir Pudent who grew up
in the seats of Leningrad in which a over half
of the population died of starvation. Uh and under under
constance read but he has translated that into never warning
(17:52):
European military power to be in easy leads of f
Saint Petersburg and made sor cities like Moscow. So when
the border of Europe at the end of the war,
which was the d military border of Europe, which was
(18:15):
in the center of Europe, moved to within three hundred
miles of Moscow, and maybe fifty miles of Saint Petersburg.
He reacted very strongly, and as it turns out, at
the edge of your rationality.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
You once said to me that Ladim v. Putin was
more Dostoyevsky than Hitler. Do you still think of him
in that way?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Well, I think he's a Dostoyevsky type figure, be set
by ambivalences and unfulfillable aspirations, but not devoted to power
in the abstract U, but very capable of HU using
(19:04):
UH power that it turned out he used it excessively
in relationship UH to UH to Ukraine. I would like
a Russia to RECOGNI that recognizes that its relations to
(19:28):
but to Europe have to be based on agreement and
the kind of consensus. And I believe that this war
will if it ended properly, may make it achievable.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
If it's ended on the terms you're describing. Do you
think Vladimir Putin can survive in power?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It's improbable.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
On the other side of the fence. With the moment
we have, the Ukrainian counter offensive seems to begun. Do
you see that as the last offensive before you have
to move to diplomacy and peace. Talks of some sort.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Well. I began to urge moving to its diplomat a
year ago when I urged that the various parties to
the conflict as themselves how they want to end it,
not that they would end it right at that point,
(20:36):
but that they would know what their political aims were.
I think that becomes increasingly important as time goes on.
Let'st we wound up at a point where the war
becomes its own objective, and were military operations and military
(21:00):
relations between powered dominate all of this geopolitical thinking. And
at that point, countries like China will have to become
from their point of view, increasingly active. That would spread
(21:22):
it into a world conflict.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Do you think that that is actually the real danger,
that the Dombas doesn't become Europe's frontier with Russia becomes
sort of Europe's frontier with China, that Russia gets driven
back into the arms of China.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Well, it could happen because Ratia gets driven back, or
because Rasia collapsed and disintegrates. It's a functioning major or
tenament state, and therefore it was so in its current faith,
(22:07):
which I support, I think we will correct and resistently
attack on Ukraine.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
We talked about China and Russia. One power that could
emerge much more powerfully from this particular episode is Germany.
Germany is probably the country that's going to rebuild Ukraine.
If it happens, it may be involved in rebuilding Russia.
And within Europe. If you visit Spain, if you visit Italy,
(22:37):
you can feel that the frontier of Europe has been
dragged to the east, so the center of Europe is
now closer to Berlin, so to speak, and that Germany,
by the fact it's been involved in supplying more arms
and everything like that, that it is it looks set
to become a bigger power in Europe. Do you agree
with that? Firstly and secondly do you think that Germany
(23:00):
is ready for that task?
Speaker 3 (23:03):
I agree that the which is the description of the
transformation of the gender of gravity in Europe. It's been
inherent since before World War One and was one of
(23:24):
the causes of World War One because of the refusal
of other countries to accept this reality, but also because
of the inability of Germany to understand the transformation of
(23:44):
its own possism. Because the leading country has to be
an example of moderation and wisdom in balancing the interests
(24:06):
of all the countries if there are to be participants
in the system. And historically h Germany wanted to exercise
its potential by domination, and its tragedy has been after
(24:32):
the retirement of Pittmarck, the failure to learn this lesson,
which tracted into two training wards, which also the entire
position of Europe in the world. So now it has
(25:00):
is again in this position, and it has no leaders
with an experience of either the Nazi period or of
the war MM, so they have to construct the system
by themselves, and they're new there in off, it's only
(25:25):
a year or so, and it is not a reflection
on their abilities, but a description of a new talent
for them that hasn't existed in that form before.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Do you think that also causes problems for the other
great powers? You know, you you wrote a lot of
history about containing you know, first containing France, then containing Germany,
and now that now there is an issue. I mean,
if you if you are France.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Well, if Germany was in conflict with France since the
Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century, because French policy
was explicitly based on maintaining the balance of power, within
(26:18):
Central Europe, which in practice meant maintaining a division of
Germany between MM competing states and friends. Partly to mid states.
The Germany made and Britain came to look at Germany
(26:40):
as a said to its sea power. So when the
ball fell, the neither the British nor the French leader
were enthusiastic about the unification of Germany. But the reality
(27:04):
is that British private it's in the eighties and seventies
when Germany was unified. It's the last major European country
to be unified in eighteen seventy one. Set set this
will have a greater impact than Diffrench Revolution. So we
(27:27):
are at this moment now when a new structure of
Europe has to be created HM based on this reality.
And I'm describing the challenge here, not the UH. I'm
(27:48):
not saying that the Germans have failed. It's new and
it's a new challenge for this generation.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Also a challenge for France and Britain. Very quickly, they've
followed very different paths, especially since Sewers. You know, frances
has very much defined itself, often in opposition to America,
and it's buried itself in the European Union. The British,
by contrast, have tended to stick with the Americans. And
now they are outside the European Union. And you and
(28:22):
I can argue about who's got things right over the
past fifty years, but we are where we are, and
I wonder you look at France and you look at Britain. Now,
who is better placed to go forward? Britain outside the
europe Union, France inside it.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Psychologically Britain it is fedow placed because in the structure
of the world that one can imagine appearing, whatever Europe
does to its own conception it r RelA cooperation with
(29:03):
America and pursuing parallel politics with America will have to
be an essential component on it because by itself opposing
all the other major power centers uh, Europe is in
a difficult position to do that, and it may be impossible.
(29:27):
So Britain historically is better placed uh uh to do it. Uh.
Britain's problem is its connection, how to connect with Europe,
not how to connect with the United States. It has
(29:49):
the history of the special partnership and an instinctive fear
in Britain. Th the danger comes from across the oceans
and comes from across the border, while in Europe the
(30:11):
instinctive ferience the danger comes from land invasions. So for
Britain to link to Europe has turned out to be
not possible organically, so it now has to be done
by policy. And I think.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
That you actually think Britain would. I might disagree with
you on this, but you think that Britain is sort
of psychologically happier outside the European Union.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yes, I think it is, and I think it's also
a great opportunity for it to act as a link
between a unifying Europe and America.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next. Henry Kissinger has died at the
age of one hundred. We're listening to a special conversation
he had with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite not
too long ago. He discusses his life and career. Let's
(31:21):
hear more of that conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Now, America has never been true to itself unless it
meant something beyond itself.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Henry Kissinger said those words about his adopted Homeland in
nineteen seventy three. He first arrived in the United States
in nineteen thirty eight as a fifteen year old refugee.
I began the second part of our conversation about the
United States by asking, if his life story was uniquely American,
could he have achieved what he has done anywhere else?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Absolutely uniquely American. I was at a dinner in Germany
when the German chancellor of the Democratic Germany was prison
and the American ambassador rather amazingly as the chancellor, what
(32:24):
would have happened to me in Germany if I had
survived due to this period? And he said, I would
be a junior professor in Munich at Munich University.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
That brings us very nice. That brings us very nicely
to the next phase of your life. You go to Harvard.
I think at different times of your life you had
taught about chemistry and being an accountant, which is a
wonderful image. But one of your mentors, Fritz Kramer, had
a phrase about you were you were musically tuned to history.
(33:11):
You go to Harvard, and the other kind of great
figure of your youth, Bill Elliott Oppressor at Harvard, directs
you towards the philosophy of history rather than just history itself,
and that's where you get all the cant or the spinosa.
Is that a really important difference. You know, you've always
been obsessed not as by history, but the ideas behind it.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Later on in life, my views, in those of many
of the academic community at Harvard can be teritibly described.
It's not veral. But in that period of my life,
(33:57):
which in a funny way was its second immigration into America, uh,
the first from Germany and the second from the army.
Mm Uh, I haven't played a very important role because
it gave me uh confident or inspiration, it's a better word,
(34:25):
into the direction I was sort of divided. I was
doing extremely well in chemistry, mostly based on memory, and
I went to see the head of the chemistry department.
His name was Professor Kisyakovsky, became a very well known
(34:48):
figure up and I asked him whether I should major
in chemistry, and he said, if you have to ask me, no,
and so this then, but I've I was on that
other codes already inwardly, it gave me the confidence to
(35:12):
do it. The philosophy. I was most interested at first
in philosophy, in theory of knowledge, in theory of values.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Mm.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
But history it's a way to combine the inherent uncertainties
of philosophy. Inherent because so far no absolute answers have
ever been found by any civilization. With the results of
(35:50):
what actually happened, and the ads I progressed, I progress
in development, I became very philosophical. History became my dominance then.
(36:14):
And I think if one reads my books that seem
run through all of.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Them, where in your life is that the idea of
the philosophy of history most most the ideas be most
challenged by reality. You know, you've said that history is
interesting because you get reality conflicting.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Life is torn between managing the presence and the evolution
of the presence, so that in individual lives and of
course magnified into society's lives, there's always the ambiguity that
(37:06):
emphasis on the presence leads to stagnation, and that therefore
everything else around you will outstrip that society. And so
how to strike that balance between ultimate values and what
(37:27):
reality imposes on you?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
And reality is never quite adequate. But ultimate values are
too absolute because they demand a degree of imposition on others. Ah,
how to strike that balance is maybe it's maybe given
(37:51):
to us. It's our insoluble problem to keep a motivation
at the appropriate level.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Isn't that quite interesting? Isn't that also the story of
American foreign policy? You have this, You've always argued that
there's a set of ideals that America wants to.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yes, it's best. The problem for America, Yeah, because we
have been ex closed as it is possible to be,
to be satisfied with where we are, and we've been
protected by two great oceans because whenever the society in
(38:33):
the almost every place else, every place else was tempted
to be excessively satisfied with itself, its neighbors intruded on them.
It was very difficult to do that in America because
of these oceans. But after World War two and now
(38:56):
increasingly so uh, and now it's artificial intelligence totally. So
we are part of an international global system, and it
goes beyond internationally, it goes beyond its universal system. And
(39:20):
we have simultaneously to adjust to that and conducted day
to day policy with countries that have the same situation
and with other countries that grow up to our level
of achievement. That never existed before in history.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
You've always said America should balance a sort of shining
city on a hill, complex with reality. And you look
at the last you look at the last Cold War,
and America won it by kind of singing a song
of liberty of those ideals, but also by doing really
basic things helping people, the Marshall Plan and things like that.
(40:06):
If you go to America's allies, they will say America
doesn't talk about those ideals any longer. It just talks
about America first. And in terms of trade deals and
things like that, America isn't you know, it's not even
doing trade deals with its allies in either Asia or Europe.
So that America, in a strange way, is more disconnected
(40:26):
from what it should be than it has been.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Well, actually, in fact, America it's not more disconnected. It's
probably more connected than it's been. In word, it's considered
the great period of American history, except that during the
Marshall Plan at the end of World War two, oh,
(40:51):
this was new, so it was in a new experience,
and it would therefore it became very significant in day
to day thinking of policy makers. Now policy makers are
torn between and at that time we had over fifty
(41:14):
percent of the world's gross national product. Now we are
down to about twenty four percent, which is still a
huge percentage, and it's still extremely influential percentage, but it
requires us to be more discriminating. So it looks as
(41:38):
if we are entrenching the problem that bothers me. It's
not right basically, the entrenching, but the we have not
yet found a concept that unified Americans, and so now
(42:01):
the advocacy of the realization that we need a new
idea for world order, it's dunk to a much smaller
group that existed at the end of World War Two.
Our talents is conceptual more than practical.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
When you came to power, America had had a long
period where it had been able to lecture the world.
America was going through great difficulties then, you know, it
was going through things at the gas price. You had
all these things going wrong, and America didn't. You had
to scramble, You had to try and find allies. You
had to try and make things work. You've had another period,
you know, from the Berlin Wall onwards, where where America
(42:51):
seemed very strong. Now again it's it's stuck having to
make allies having to find balances. Is there a comparison
there at all?
Speaker 3 (43:00):
We now are living in an in in a world
of uh unprecedented complexity. Uh the need for allies exists.
(43:23):
But what allies are supposed to do in given circumstances?
And now the alliances are supposed to operate when every
issue has a global component but not not every issue
has a comparable interest for every country, so that countries,
(43:47):
they all have a global interest in global h stability,
but they don't have the same interest in the immediate situation. Secondly,
there head now when I was given the opportunity to
participate in policy making, that was essentially the seventies and
(44:16):
and early eighties, all these issues were discussing, were beginning
in they were in their infancy and uh so that
their very existence was in dispute. And one of the
(44:36):
contributions of Nixon was that he was willing to face
these new uh, these n new realities. But now they're
upon us. Uh and in that sense, it's an evolution
(44:57):
of the problems as huge us in New ques.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
Do you think now America is a worse ally? I mean,
if you go to if I go to Paris, or
I go to Chakato. They will say all we hear
from America is we hear America first, and we hear
we don't want to do trade deals. We don't want
to do things with you. There is no there is
no sense of reaching out. And they would probably say
that Joe Biden is a little bit more polite than
(45:26):
they're more helpful.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
They'd invade with in America had shifted to the extens
So the difference between say, liberal Republicans and Democrats in
its evident ages was about the degree of a participation
(45:48):
in which they both say it. In the present period
did invade they had shifty two. It seems in which
days an extreme theory of America First, which is applied
on both sides, but in such a way that it
(46:11):
that it focuses too much on American interests and not
on global interests. That is a challenged, but anyone who
wants to conduct a series American foreign policy must balance
it two or America will become isolated.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Do you think the current administration is isk is doing
a serious job at that.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
I think the current administration is trying to do a
serious job of that, but it is so afraid of
attacks on itself, that it doesn't do itself justice.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
You were a Rockefeller Republican. Nowadays there are no Rockefeller Republicans.
There's there's there's Democrats on one extreme, there's Republicans on
the other. The center of American politics. The fact it's disappeared,
do you think that that has dramatic foreign policy locations?
Speaker 3 (47:16):
I think that sender still exists, but it doesn't have
fully it doesn't. I have an articulate expression here, would you.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
Ever like to see an independent party in America?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Well, independent bodies in America. I have not had a
good faith, but I do well think it is important
to maintained an argument for the philosophy that I have maintained.
Not because I have maintained it, but because it reflects
(47:56):
the necessity of a period. And that becomes magnified if
you consider that we are now in the field of
artificial intelligence, at the very beginning of a colossal transformation
(48:21):
of human consciousness, which will have to be built into
this foreign policy.
Speaker 5 (48:30):
But we have a paradox, don't we. You have these issues,
you have artificial intelligence, you have climate change, you have
maybe the global economy where interconnectedness is incredibly important. But America, that.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Is in the current world. But the essence of what
I'm concerned about, it's that we have opened the door
to a dialogue with objects and with machines. That that
(49:05):
when when the printing press was invented, it transformed to
human consciousness and said, of what we call now the Enlightenment,
which has been going on for five hundred years. Now
we are a these machines. What is the esence of
(49:28):
these machines? We ask a question of these machines. These
machines are then capable of encumbaging all the knowledge that
we have taught them, but that we cannot contain in
one brain nor one machine. Look at it, give us
(49:52):
an answer, and we act on the basis of that.
That is a new reality that has that will be
studied for decades like the old new reality was when
the printing credits permitted exchanging information easily.
Speaker 5 (50:16):
But the pretty printing press was at the time of
nation states or nation states were coming to the fore
where you had an immediate need to interact with other ones.
It was part of what appeared AI is coming part
in it as you described in America, which is not
is not doesn't have more.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
But I think America will be driven by reality in
studying what i've and so below all other countries. It's
not an American thing, but it's become a high tech thing.
So therefore it will be a dialogue between Therefore, the
(50:58):
dialogue between America and China will become more important, or
even more crucial. But it will change the way we
interpreted reality because due to our achievement, we have found
(51:19):
the key to a new aspect of reality which we
didn't know existed.
Speaker 5 (51:28):
One last thing on America, Given the huge complexity of
what you've described, do you think that a presidential election
between Joe Biden and Donald Trump offers somebody who is
capable of dealing with that degree of complexity.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
It's gonna be very difficult. It's it's it's a painful question.
We have to live with what exists, and we mustn't
turn our disputes into civil wars.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
The third part of our conversation centered on Asia, perhaps
the place where Kissinger's had the most enduring impact for
most people now that impact is represented by China, which
Kissinger and Richard Nixon helped open up to the West.
But his first encounter with Asia, and the area of
his life is critics focus on, was into China. I
put it to Kissinger that although Nixon and he plainly
(52:40):
inherited a mess in Vietnam in nineteen sixty eight, by
nineteen seventy five, North Vietnam had taken control of Saigon
in Cambodia, which America had bombed, was a disaster. I
asked him whether from the perspective now of nearly fifty years,
there was anything he would have done differently.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Honestly, leave, We did the best we could. We inherited
the war in which five hundred and fifty thousand Americans
now five hundred thousand were in place, and fifty thousand
more had already been ordered to go there, and we're
(53:22):
on the way UH to go there. In America, public
opinion had turned in a significant way against the war
and in violent demonstrations UH in the seats, among out
the international public. Everybody was against the war, but they
(53:51):
also were for Americas defending them. So our gradibi around
the world depended accidents today on our ability to perform
the tasks we had assigned ourselves. We have comparable problems
(54:17):
today in issues in Taiwan and elsewhere Ukraine. So our
resistant was to try to end the war under condition
in which we a in which the control over their
(54:39):
own destiny became fell more and more into the hands
of the South Vietnamese. We gradually withdrew our troops, conducted negotiations,
but also conducted enough military operations so that our adversary
(55:03):
now quasi ally, but our then adversary did not become
convinced that he could take over. Uh. We did not
want in afghan what Lady was in Afghanistan style withdrawal,
which was for twenty five hundred people. We had five
(55:26):
hundred and fifty thousand people, bloss a million armed. We
in amazing place. So was it at every stage conducted
with the absolutely would say a better way at any
one point we didn't think so. I still don't think so.
(55:50):
But uh, I'm open to that argument. But but what
is meant by better? We reduced American casualties substantially, so
that by the last year of the war they were
in the thousands. UH. When the Nixon administration came in.
(56:13):
They were reduced to less than a hundred in the
last year of the war, and we withdrew from ground
combat within two years, at all times maintaining a negotiation.
(56:37):
The irreducible demand we had was an autonomous democratic government
in South Vietnam that was not granted until the last
three months of the war, which is why they were
the last three months of the war. At that point
(57:00):
we settled, But then the next question became could we
maintain the settlement. We believed that we could maintain the
settlement as we did in South Korea, against all but
(57:21):
an all out invasion from the North, at which point
alliance issues were a varis. But we believed against foreseeable infiltrations,
we could maintain the autonomy of the of the government
(57:43):
and we could maintain it against even significant attacks. But
then Watergate occurred within two months of the settlement, and
the Congress, reflecting public opinion, forbade any kind of military
(58:05):
action in over in Near Vietnam. At that point, uh
we d it w had become and had destroyed the basis.
It was painful. It was the saddest moment of my
(58:28):
public life when I had to sit in the Security
Advisor's office and recommend the final withdrawals, and I published
in my memoirs conversations with President Ford to show how
(58:53):
painful he found it to agree to these recommend I
think the time we gained enabled us. By the time
the war was ended, we had already opened to China,
(59:14):
and that in turn, or China had opened to us.
Either way, but that was the crucial turning point of
the Cold War, and also a created a structure from
which we could have maintained or at least given the
(59:42):
vietnamse a reasonable chance. During the debates and the pressures,
many things were said that can now be s used
to indicate different views. But this was our resential views,
and I'm sure that any later books that are written
(01:00:07):
on the subject that have access to material will see
that this was what we thought and acted on.
Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
It's pretty quick on that. You think the in the end,
the end, and the end justified all the collateral damage
of hanging on that.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
No, the energy for us, uh, the end we were
aiming for was an honorable piece. By honorable peace, we
meant a piece in which we did not turn over
the people who had relied on us to the domination
of those whom they had fought relying on our promises.
(01:00:48):
That was our definition of the end. We honestly believed
that we had achieved that, and in presenting his proposal,
the North Vietnam Meets negotiated, Lee Doctor. The crucial point
(01:01:12):
was in October nineteen seventy two when the North Vietnam
Meets negotiated turned over a proposal and then ready to
DS and said this is essentially what President Nixon has
proposed in January. At that point I asked for a recess.
(01:01:39):
And my closes associated that point was a man called
Vinceton Lot Hm went on to a distinguished career, and
he had sort of resigning at the time we uh
fought in Cambodia. And I told him, then you have
(01:02:00):
two choices. You can go outside and walk around with
a blacket, oh, you can help end it work. And
so at that moment I turned to Winston or such
Americans at that point, and I turned to him and
(01:02:22):
I said, we've done it. Turned out to be a
sad statement, because yeah, we hadn't, because we could not
maintain the domestic support that was needed to sustain it. Ah.
(01:02:42):
But the effort if the effort had not been made,
and if we had gone to either of the other
extreme solutions, one of it was to go all out
upon coming into office before the ground had been laid
(01:03:06):
with Russia and China, or to withdraw unconditionally and tried
to extricate hundreds of thousands of troops while the enemy
was still around them. In the foe mened local people
(01:03:27):
might have turned against us. Was uh was not U
was not acceptable, and there were no other terms that
could have been n uh n uh negotiated. That was
the reality ah that we faced, and so in retrospect
(01:03:57):
President Nixon came to believe and actually I thought already
at that time we should have considered a more all
out military solution at the beginning. But reflecting about it,
(01:04:19):
at the time we had had assassinations in America HM
and already violent demonstrations. That was probably more theoretical than practical.
So that was our thinking, of course, that it's all
below it's been debated.
Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
The other bit, which you you mentioned as being in
part a reason why staying there made sense was China.
From that point of view, you went there, you hope it.
Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Was important for us to show we ended up it
convinced that a country of the magnitude of China and
the history of China could not be kept out of
the international system, and that we could not keep it
(01:05:10):
out of the international system, that it would find a
way to enter it, and so we began effort to
open relations. At that moment, China had withdrawn all its
(01:05:31):
ambassadors from every country in the world except to Poland
and Egypt. And Poland was maintained in the Geneva Agreement
(01:05:51):
of nineteen fifty four as a contact point between America
and China, and negotiations began on a regular patis, that is,
between the ambassadors. That there were one hundred and sixty
(01:06:15):
two meetings between nineteen fifty four and nineteen seventy one,
none less and more than a day, because each began
with the Chinese demanding the immediate return of Taiwan to
(01:06:36):
China and with the Americans demanding that the UH China
affirm its commitment to a commitment to a peaceful evolution
of the process. Neither demand was accepted, and so we
(01:07:00):
began from that basis and then went through many contortions
to establish contact and exploring many e ways of possibly
doing it, and finally found a way when President Nixon
(01:07:25):
told Yakub Khan in Pakistan that we wanted contact, that
to convey to the Chinese that we wanted a real dialogue,
and we emphasized it by sending an embarassador in Poland,
(01:07:50):
the impacted in Poland to approach the Chinese embassador at
any social function which all impacted and were invited, which
turned out to be a Yugoslav fashion show, and one
normally doesn't associate with Yugoslavia. But we uh approached him,
(01:08:20):
and it was at that moment we the embattlor a
few weeks later drove up to our office to our
empathy and said they were ready to begin negotiations. Those
other contortions through which things were conducted at the time,
(01:08:45):
but from there we worked together with China on the
specific problem of enabling in a dire which gave for
us something additional to think about, and then led to
(01:09:10):
the eating of the Cold War and the culmination of
the Vietnamese agreements and subsequent evolution of Journeese American relations.
Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
There's always a metaphor. Well, I think the first time
you said we were in the foothills of a new
Cold War and then we went up to the mountain passes.
Then the world was on a precipice looking over. But
each time we talk, the relationship between America and China
seems to be worse. Is that Is that true today?
Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
I say we are now at the top of the precipice,
and one of the big problems is both sides needed
to step back from it several days. If one of
them stepped ba back, it is falling. So both have
(01:10:04):
to decide to take the tension out of this situation.
But there's an inherent diff difficulty in that relationship. China
had been a great country for much of its story,
(01:10:25):
but in the period that prior to the assumption of
relations in the terms of measuring power uh China was
much weaker hm than the U than the United States.
(01:10:46):
Its capacity was to stir up difficulty all over the
world by using its diplomatic and potential commercial in influence.
As China grew in strengths, which was inherent in opening
(01:11:07):
the relationship uh it's it c gained the capacity of
threatening the United States. In the nature of modern technology
(01:11:28):
and the nuclear age from the beginning raised the issue
that countries developing nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver
them HM were able to inflict the amount of damage
(01:11:48):
that would normally require years of warfare, so that therefore
their capacity to influence actions by threats grew. That was
the dilemma of the nuclears to begin with, and it
was one reason why many of us thought negotiations for
(01:12:13):
the reduction of that that were important. So with respect
to Chinese American relations MM and China grew stronger, and
as the American debate became more complicated, as we've discussed
(01:12:35):
earlier mm UH, and as the Chinese governments changed over
the years, UH, the tension became harder and harder to manage,
(01:12:56):
and on the American side, it became him it's object,
which it had not been, of domestic politics, so that
candidates are now influenced by the degree of which their
opponents can accuse them of selling out of China HM.
(01:13:22):
So that it's the current problem, however, and it is
a unique situation in the sense that the biggest threat
of each country it's the other. That it's the biggest
(01:13:45):
threat to China, it's America in their perception, and the
same it's true here that the Chi that the biggest
threat on the other hand, ors have become either unwinnable
(01:14:09):
with the advanced weapons or venerable only at courts said
out of proportion and so out of port efforts to negotiate,
which China and I've been urging them.
Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
There's one interesting thing you said. You pointed out there
in America that politics has changed because successive yet leaders
and the elections people fight. In China, you've had one leader.
You've a jaging thing now for over ten years. So
the fact that it's got worse in China is that
his fault. What what is has he gone in the
(01:14:49):
wrong direction?
Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Well, what he has done is the so called wolves diplomacy,
en which China needs leader. Chinese diplomats were urged in
effect to throw around their weight the in re s
so in relations with say Australia, which of a dramatic
(01:15:20):
reduction of Chinese trait because of some political and other
statements that had been made. It's a problem with little
bit comparable to what we did cussed before about Germany
(01:15:41):
before nineteen fourteen, that Germany had suddenly became a great
power and after it t h pit Mark at first
had to h Ye did not know how to apply
(01:16:04):
it in a way that translated into diplomatic results.
Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
You described Deng Shaping, for instance, as a great man.
Do you think of Jijinping as a great man?
Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
Well, T is dung Chapin had finished his that had
finished its destiny or its role.
Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
H t.
Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
Came in after a cultural revolution which wiped out many
of these experienced leaders, and I don't describe him now
as a great man, but I think he's foul doing golds,
(01:17:02):
which might earn him the title and the American president
if they achieve a real balancing of relationship between the
two countries.
Speaker 5 (01:17:17):
What chances do you see of of an invasion of
Taiwan sometime in the next three four years on the
current trajectory of relations.
Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
Well, on the current trajectory of relations, I think some
military conflict it's probable, But I also think the current
prajectory of relations must be altered and full the beads
(01:17:50):
preceding our discussion, there have been signs on both sides
of trying to end them. They have not yet actually
engaged in the sort of dialogue that that I suggest it,
(01:18:14):
but I think they're moving towards it, and I leave
my mind open in relation to the outcome.
Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
The other thing which has happened is that China has
got more involved in things beyond its traditional region. You know,
you've seen China talking to Zelensky. You saw China brokering
a kind of truth between I Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
It should be an inevitable part of these discussions that
both sides explained to each other what their core interests
are and determine how do I handle situations in which
they are core into its clash and I would hope
(01:19:00):
to resolve into its in which CoInc it's class without conflict,
or managed to avoid situations of clerging coincines.
Speaker 5 (01:19:15):
At the moment, you have India, which seems to be
a non aligned country. It is not on one side
or the other. Would would it? Would a younger Kissinger
now focus from an American point of view of trying
to bring India, which will be the next great power,
onto the American side.
Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
I have no. I have not dealt with India for
in terms of years, even longer than I've dealt with China,
and at the early period of my dealing with India,
(01:19:54):
their non alignment or a suit of considerable irritation because
it took the form of lecturing arts on the virtues
of non alignment. That choice was open to them, but
not to us. When you are in a cold war,
you can retreat from it and say you're not going
(01:20:17):
to choose non alignment. But in the decades Wi which
I've dealt with India said, since I think their policy,
their current policy is extraordinarily thoughtful, and I have great
(01:20:42):
respect for their foreign minister, who is a very i
would say brilliant executor of that of that policy. India
is a great power, and over the decades ahead, it
(01:21:04):
will grow very comfortably to China, maybe not quite of
the same string, but it doesn't matter at that point
exactly it it will be of sufficient strength to uh
sud itself, and so it performs best when it defends
(01:21:32):
its own interests, which overlap many of ours. Our interests
as a great power are to prevent any country from
dominating the world or its regions in such a way
that we lose our influence. To achieve important objective.
Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
of that conversation next.
Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
The final part of our conversation focused on legacy and
the personal side. Henry Kissinger has remained a pretty private person.
In an age where leaders like to play on emotional narratives,
he has, as we shall shortly see, tended to suppress
his backstory even when it might win him sympathy. One
(01:22:31):
constant in the three decades that I've known him has
been football. His first question on seeing me was why
had Leicester City, my football team, just been relegated from
the Premier League. He has followed Firth, which itself got
relegated from the Bundesliga last year since he was a boy. Indeed,
he and his brother were beaten up by Nazi thugs
for trying to sneak into a game. You have lived
(01:22:55):
one hundred years and Firth is yet to win the Bundesliga.
How long would you have to live for that to happen?
Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Oh, it would come close to the definition to giving
us a definition of infinity.
Speaker 5 (01:23:10):
I've read a lot of things you've written, and nothing
quite as sort of powerful as this. And it's it's
in Neil Focuson's book. It was a private essay you
wrote when you visited our concentration camp. When you age,
I think just twenty two, and especially you meet this
inmate called Felxama, and you say, Felix Samer, your foot
(01:23:30):
has been crushed so that you can't run away. Your
face is forty, your body is ageless. Yet all your
certificate reads is sixteen. And I stand there with my
clean clothes and make a speech to you and your comrades, Felixamer.
Humanity stands accused in you, I, Joe Smith, human dignity.
Everybody has failed you. You should be preserved in cement
(01:23:51):
up here on the hillside for future generations to look
upon and take stock human dignity. Objective values have stopped
at this barbedoir. As long as conscience exists as a
conception in the world, you will personify it. Nothing done
for you will ever restore you. You are eternal in
this respect. Obviously had a very profound experience in you.
(01:24:12):
But if something you chose to keep so private for
a long time is that do you think that's a
different way of people seeing Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
It was a feeling that its concentration camp evoked in me.
I wrote that within a week of having seen the
level of dehumanization that we can imagine that people were
(01:24:44):
too weak to hurt the god that kept them and
be killed some people by mistake by giving them solid food.
A but it so I wrote that for myself. I
(01:25:07):
had no intention of publishing it, because feelings about humanity
can affect your own actions. A biographer discovered it mm
not among papers I gave him, but it ref It
(01:25:29):
reflects an underlying reality that we have to recognize its
lurking behind our technical capacities, and that we need to
(01:25:51):
contain and prevent from breaking and to you, to prevent
the bearing side from breaking out.
Speaker 5 (01:26:05):
When you look back at your life now from one
hundred year point of view, do you think that has
been the core of it? Is trying to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
It's been an important core of it. But I don't advertise.
Speaker 5 (01:26:22):
It on that thing. I know you're you're one hundred,
you're talking about writing two more books. But how if
not for that, how would you like to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
It's out of my control. I tried to do. They're
best I could within the frameburg that we.
Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
Have did good, Henry Quest, thank you very much for
talking to Bloomberg. A very delayed happy birthday, Thank you
very much,
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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