Kissinger at 100: His Complex Historical Legacy with author Alan J. Steinberg

Historian and political journalist Alan J. Steinberg joins us to discuss his essay Kissinger at 100: His Complex Historical Legacy. It is a deep dive into one of the most interesting men in the history of the United States. We link to his paper below and it is an outstanding look a very complex man.

His article can be found here

https://jandoli.net/2023/05/24/kissinger-at-100-his-complex-historical-legacy/

Episode Transcript

(00:28):
Maybe want to welcome to this specialedition, going to delve in and do
a deep dive into one of themost complex figures in history, someone who
very soon actually will be celebrating hishundredth birthday, and that of course is

(00:51):
Henry Kissinger. And to speak aboutHenry Kissinger and think of no better person
and my friend than also one ofthe top historian journalists and opinion journalists out
there, Alan steinbry Allen. Welcome, how you doing. I'm delliwed to
be on the show with you again, Jim, and I'm feel very privileged

(01:14):
to do this so that with you, well, it's my privilege and to
speak to someone who has done sucha magnificent job of chronicling everything that made
up and has made up one ofthe most complex people in the United States

(01:34):
political history. There is no onewho who touches so many different buttons than
Henry Kissinger. Let's start with avery dark portion of his life, and
that's back with the Holocaust. Rightaround the nineteen thirties and forties. Henry

(02:00):
Kissinger was actually fortunate enough to bean escape e from the Holocaust. He
and his family came over to NewYork City and the very late thirties,
I believe was nineteen thirty eight.Now he escaped the horrors and the exterminations,
but he lost a great deal ofhis family, and it was a
frightening thing to leave when Hitler wasachieving the height of his powers and he

(02:24):
was also beginning to implement the horrorsof the Holocaust. And what was frightening
to Henry Kissinger was the fact thatHitler came to power through the democratic process.
It wasn't as if he orchestrated somecoup or violent incident that brought up
the power. And the lesson thatthat taught Henry is the lesson to be

(02:46):
fearful and concerned about maub rule.It's one thing to distress democracy and basically
what we call a republic form electedofficials, and also it's very good distress
civil liberties. However, populist democracy, where you have a populist like what
we have in America right now,what we've had with Donald Trump, when

(03:07):
you have a demogogue who is apopulist, that is a very dangerous thing,
and that put not only Kissinger onguard, but other very prominent German
Jewish refugees in the Holocaust people likeHans Morgenthau, people like Leo Strauss,
and also Hannah Arendt, who isa very well known journalist, the author

(03:30):
of Eisman and Jerusalem. So Henrywas part of that group, and that's
us. This always was something thatwas in the back and the front of
his mind. Let's start with somethingthat I think that you've dealt with in
is fascinating. We don't know agreat deal you know about Henry Kissinger from

(03:55):
his early years, as you know, someone who is formulating what would later
be a role in politics. Let'sstart from that standpoint, from you know,
how he got into and was discoveredas you know, someone who was

(04:15):
keenly valuable and keenly someone who wouldbe of importance to any political either party
or in this case you know,different centers, and eventually serving President Nixon.
That was one of the most interestingportions of any study of Henry Kissinger.

(04:41):
He joined the army during the SecondWorld War. He was promoted very
quickly. He was actually participating inthe Battle of the Balls, but when
the Allied forces began to occupy Germany, he was placed in charge of a
certain area of administering the occupation andin spite of all the suffering that his
family had endured from the Hitler Rightgovernment. He was very sensitive in the

(05:06):
way he was administering the people whowere now coming under his control. And
he also understood how important this transitionperiod would be between the time that the
Allies were occupying Germany and eventually theGermans would have some degree self rule.

(05:29):
So Henry had an unusual political mindand he displayed that during this period.
From from that point was he discoveredby you know, Jenna Eisenhower, who
who first discovered Kissinger's abilities. Hewas discovered by his supervisors in the army.

(05:58):
It didn't go all the way tothe level of Eisenhoar at that point,
but when he went to Harvard,he was discovered by one of the
most prominent professors at that time,and I believe it was William Elliott.
And at that time, when hestarted working on eventually his bachelor's degree,

(06:20):
his master's degree, and his doctorate, he was just displaying a brilliance that
you would not have expected, particularlyfrom a person who had learned the English
language. But he was not anative born American. And from that point
on he went on to a brilliantearly career in academia, and as such

(06:43):
he was just a remarkable discovery atHarvard. He was later offered the opportunity
by Hans Morganfou to go to theUniverse of Chicago and be a professor there.
Morgenfou influenced Kissinger a great deal becauseof the philosophy of Real Paulick,
which Henry ended up subscribing to.That Henry decided to stay at Harvard,

(07:05):
and it wasn't easy for him.Harvard at that time. I wouldn't describe
them as anti Semitic, but theywere not so sensitive to the new Jewish
arrivals that Henry managed to transcend that. Okay, so we've now got into
Harvard and we've got him as asomeone who is considered an intellectual. Fair

(07:31):
is that a fairer sent? Veryfair? Okay? Where does he enter
the political arena for the first time. He basically gets involved with Nelson Rockefeller
and he gets involved with the Councilof Foreign Relations. Rockefeller was a tremendous

(07:51):
factor in promoting Kissinger in his career. That was also his entree into dealing
with the as an Her administration.He also had a great deal of interplay
with the Democrats, William Actually itwas mc George Bunday at Harvard at that
time, who was close to theKennedy's was a point of entry for him

(08:16):
as well. Henry always did wellwith interfacing with the right people, and
he had a great deal of tact. He had a great deal of personal
judgment, and that stood him ingood stead in his career. So he's
now moving up the ranks. He'sidentified by both Democrats and Republicans as someone

(08:43):
who is valuable. One of thethings that I've always now I'm going to
ask you, because you would knowin the deep dive you did, Kissinger
always struck me as being one ofthe great listeners of our time, and

(09:05):
that he played off of the listening. So in other words, you would
see him lean in, listen inalmost like a computer, you know,
be able to read the room orread what was going on, and give
you know, almost an instant analysisof it. Is that a fair comprehension

(09:28):
of what he did or was thatmaybe giving him a little too much credit
in that record? Well, hewas a great listener, You're absolutely correct,
But he also was very great inthe way he gave responses and he
knew the value of media. Soin nineteen fifty eight, when it was
after he had started writing about hisview that we should not have a philosophy

(09:50):
of mutual assured destruction that could leadto a paralysis internationally, or at worst,
it could lead to an all outnuclear war with destroyed civilization. So
when he started talking about the possibilityof limited war with tactical nuclear weapons and
conventional forces, he was interviewed ontelevision by Mike Wallace in nineteen fifty eight.

(10:13):
In my article that sparked this podcasttoday, my academic essay I wrote
with the Jandoli Institute over Saint BonaventureUniversity, I referenced that television interview.
That's when I would really recommend thatyour listeners take the time to listen to

(10:37):
because that was Henry's first entree intoAmerican media, and he did amazingly well.
He wasn't the kind of person whowas real colorful in interviews. He
talked in a monotone, but youcould understand him, and he was totally
coherent in expressing his views, hisideas, his philosophies. He was always

(10:58):
very good with the media and thathelped him a great deal later when he
became the chief diplomat in American FallerForeign falls and also the chief policy maker
m One of the things she justtouched on him was the monotone vote voice,
which he had for so many years, was kind of like a signature

(11:22):
for him. Let me ask youabout this with Kissinger. One of the
things that I always thought, andit's brought up in your essay, well,
is you really couldn't pin him asa Democrat or Republican. You couldn't
pin him as a conservative. There'sa little liberum. There wasn't kind of

(11:43):
like a you know, someone whocould see everything at forty thousand feet even
if he's in the room. You'reabsolutely correct. Let me give you a
manifestation of that. In the nineteensixty eight campaign, he was assisting both
Nixon and Humphrey, and there wasa great deal thought as Humphrey started closing

(12:07):
in at the end of the campaign, coming very close to defeating Nixon,
that if Humphrey had won, hewould have hired Henry Kissinger as his national
security advisor, the exact that Nixongave him when he won. So he
did try to play the game ina bipartisan way. But what people confused.

(12:28):
They confused the fact that he playedthe game in a bipartisan way,
that somehow he was immune from politics. He was, all of them,
a politician. He knew exactly howto play the game. I don't think
there was ever a greater political player, either as national security advisor or as
Secretary of State than Henry Kissinger.He was phenomenal at understanding the importance of

(12:52):
getting domestic support or any foreign policyprogram. He knew how to use the
media in that vein. He knewhow to deal with journalists. He was
absolutely without peer and dealing with journalists, giving them off the record interviews,
knowing which journalists he could or couldn'ttrust. So he was uniquely qualified in

(13:15):
terms of what we call political outreach, which is part of the function of
a sector of State or national securityadvisor. Let's start for a minute about
you know, now we've moved intothe Nixon years, there were members of
Nixon's inner circle, and certainly Nixonhad a pretty tight inner circle. Halderman,

(13:43):
those guys were not necessarily fans ofHubert. I'm sorry of kissing and
and I believe that they felt andagain, this is something you can reflect
the point the hell intimidated. Theyfelt intimidated, and they also felt they

(14:07):
couldn't trust him one hundred percent,but they also knew how valuable he was.
There was never really a serious moveto fire him. There was talk
about that after Nixon began his secondterm, but he got into trouble right
away with Watergate, and at thatpoint Henry was one of the most popular
people in the Nixon administration with ageneral public, so at that point it

(14:28):
was too late to fire him.But Henry was a person that could be
intimidating because he knew so much hecould just overwhelm you in debate. One
of the things he did very effectivelywas when he was National Security Advisor and
Bill Rogers was Secretary of State,he really made sure that Rogers, in

(14:52):
effect, was out of the loop. He ended up basically being an administrator
at the diplomatic level, but wasfirst among equals in terms of advising Nixon
on foreign policy and in terms ofplaying the big diplomatic role. It was
Nixon that it was Kissinger, excuseme, that Nixon sent to China.

(15:13):
It was Kissinger that Nixon always firstbrought into the loop on big foreign policy
issues. So even though there wassuspicion and mistrusts, and he was probably
the most secure person in the Nixonadministration. True, let's tough for a
second. He just touched on it. Would you say that his biggest accomplishment

(15:37):
as Secretive State was to open thedoor to China? Yes, I in
my essay I talked about two accomplishments, in particular where opening the door to
China bringing them into the Community ofNations. His diplomatic work was superb.
However, it is very important tonote for the sake of history that the

(16:00):
author, the strategist of bringing Chinainto the Community of Nations was not Kissinger,
was Nixon. Nixon had written anarticle in nineteen sixty seven called Asia
after Vietnam, and he stressed theimportance of finally getting China in a position
of communicating with the Western powers.That surprises a lot of people because Nixon

(16:23):
has thought of as part of theChina lobby. That was very cool to
Shack. He was very emphatically ananti communist. But more than that,
however, Nixon was a great believerin real politic, the politics of realism.
They say, to be a goodpolitician of realism, you have to
be a statesman, and the statesmanrecognizes the world the way it is.

(16:47):
A moralist politician usually is not astatesman because a moralist has a problem with
accepting the way things are. ButNixon could do that, and as such,
Kissinger, who also was a foreignpolicy adherent of real politic, was
able to work very well with Nixon. They were ideologically one hundred percent compatible,

(17:07):
and they made a great team onChina because it was Nixon who had
come up with the insight and itwas Kissinger who administered the transition. The
other great accomplishment of Kissinger was onewhere he really ended up being the chief
policymaker as well, and that wasbringing the Young Key Poor War to a
conclusion because at that point Nixon wasreally besieged by Watergate. He was spending

(17:33):
most of the day dealing with Watergateissues. There were times when he was
inebriated, and Kissinger had to actquickly and make a lot of decisions,
and he was very sage and theway he handled the Young Keypoor War.
He knew that the Arabs and Israeliswere not yet ready for face to face
negotiations, so he formulated a stepby step approach where they would try to

(17:57):
have some interim cope building measures whereyou wouldn't really need direct talks. But
eventually it led to more and moreconfidence on the part of each side,
so much so that I think mostof the storians will give Kissinger the credit
for the agreement that ended the Junkyfour War, which after Nixon and Kissinger

(18:18):
left office, laid the groundwork forEgypt and Israel to recognize each other and
to establish permanent diplomatic relations, whichwas one of the great accomplishments and diplomacy
in modern times. But not onlythat, Kissinger was involved in shuttled diplomacy.
He was always flying between Cairo andJerusalem, demands in Jerusalem, and

(18:44):
he really was in a situation withSyria where at the beginning the prospects where
he'll never be able to reach aninterim agreement with Syria, but he did.
And what's remarkable is the disengagement agreementon the Goal on Heights, which
came before that agreement has lasted nowfor a total forty eight years, and

(19:08):
that's a remarkable accomplishment when you considerhow much hostility there was between Israel and
Syria. Sure Let's talk another aboutanother area of Nixon and Kissinger that might
not be um the shining moment aspectand that right, you bring this up

(19:30):
in your in your paper, andthat has to do with you know,
Vietnam. Yeah, why don't youtalk about the issues there because there were
many some of which were unfairly hoistedupon Kissinger and some of them not.
So you know, we're actually fairlyhoisted upon. Nixon and Kissinger were not

(19:57):
responsible for America's entry and escalation ofthe Vietnam War. However, they felt
that the war had to be ended, but it should be ended by a
basically a transitory withdrawal, the processof Vietnamization, where gradually America would turn

(20:19):
over responsibility for the fighting of thewar to the troops of the South Vietnamese
Army, the Army of the Republicof Vietnam. It was known as ARVIN.
And they felt that way America afraw troops that they would engage in
training as they left of the SouthVietnamese forces. But the South Vietnamese forces

(20:42):
were never that motivated. They werenot fighting for democracy, they were fighting
for a very corrupt government. Soafter America finally withdrew permanently. After the
prisoners of war were released in nineteenseventy three, it didn't take longer than
two years for the North Vietnamese Armyto enter Paigon conquer all of Vietnam,

(21:08):
and what Kissinger and Nixon had triedso hard to avoid, they tried to
avoid an ignominious defeat. But that'swhat happened. So one has to ask,
now, if the American forces hadbeen unilaterally withdrawn at the beginning of
the Nixon administration, how would thathave been any worse than what happened.

(21:30):
At least we would have avoided thosetens of thousands of casualties that we incurred.
Instead, we incurred the casualties.The war was lost, anyway,
that dishonor of defeat was still there. In order to defend the war,
Nixon went to such great extremes,such as the Daniel Ellsberg situation, the
Watergate Burglars. Nixon was a verysuspicious man, and because of his suspicions,

(21:56):
which were more due to defending apolicy in Vietnam, he wasn't a
response. It wasn't his award,but he ended up going to such lengths
to defend the policy against the enemy'sreal and imaginary, that this kind of
paranoia led the water Gate and destroyedhis administration. So the historical issue was
one that was always praised very wellby John Kerry. He said, who

(22:19):
wants to be the last person todie for a mistake? And with the
vantage point of history, one canhonestly at this point assert that we would
have been better off. However,much of the humiliation would it would have
been if we had agreed to auniverlateral withdrawal at the beginning of the Knicks
administration contingent upon the release of ourprisoners of war. And you know it's

(22:47):
been I mean, he was,He's with him to the end. I
mean, you can't question Kissinger's loyaltyto the Knicks, him to the very
very end. And I think that'skey. Let's sea. Yeah, that's
a good point. Um, let'slet's put a button on this. We've

(23:12):
you know, we've gone from theother days through the the Watergate days.
Let's transition now into kissing your umon the the final part of his career.
At this point, where do youput him in your I mean,

(23:36):
again, you're a historian, You'resomebody who loves history, who you know,
is absolutely um fantastic at an understandingand really boiling down this stuff.
Um, where do you put himin your all time list of m most

(23:56):
important members of UM of the USgovernment over you know, we won't say
over history because that would be fair, but certainly over his career lifetime,
there is no question that he's atthe top of the list of importance.
But whether in a positive or negativeway is the difficult question. Because again

(24:19):
he had the positive accomplishments of endingthe own key for war, also the
entry of China into the Community ofNations, also Dayton. I discussed Dayton
in my essay. Even though itwas very criticized by members of his own
party, it was in net balanceof positive. But then you have the

(24:40):
negative aspects of Kissinger, which wereof the Vietnam War. But also he
deprioritized human rights, and there werea lot of things that he did that
were abridgement of other nations human rightsthat were unnecessary. For example, there
was no reason for America to getinvolved in the coup that overthrew the Chilian

(25:00):
democratically elected government of Alliende. Kissingersaid, well, how can why is
it our fault? When people voteirresponsibly for a communist government, well,
they have a right to vote fora communist government. We may not like
the government, but that doesn't meanthat we should go in and try to
administer the overthrow of that government.And that was an infringement of human rights.

(25:26):
You also had times when he wasvery insensitive. He was very insensitive
in terms of the genocide that wasoccurring in Bangladesh. He didn't want to
offend the Pakistanis who were responsible forthe genocide because at that point they were

(25:47):
intermediaries between American and China in termsof establishing that relationship. But I doubt
that if we had protested against thatgenocide and maybe threatened with US ornate in
Pakistan, I don't think they wouldhave withdrawn from the intermediary role because it
was important to them that they havethis status. The other thing, the

(26:08):
other matter was an East teamar whichwas a portune of these colony at one
time they gained independence and Indonesia invadedEast Team War at the cost of thousands
of lives, and they did itwith American weapons, and Kissinger and Jerry
Ford at the time never protested.I don't see they know they were always
concerned about governments maybe going in adifferent direction, are losing support of these

(26:34):
governments. Then they always saw aconflict between our interest and whatever human rights
concerns there may be. Well,there are times in history where you have
to give human rights a secondary ranking. The best example of that is American
World War two made an alliance withJoseph Stalin, one of the most evil
people who ever lived, but thatwas necessary to fight a greater evil,

(26:57):
which was at all Fitler. Foreignpolicy is, Kissinger often observed, is
the study of lesser evils in termsof alternatives. You never have great alternatives.
The question is which alternative is theleast harmful, And that's what foreign

(27:17):
policy is about. And Kissinger understoodthat. But sometimes he perceived a conflict
between our interests and the human rightsof the people. We were dealing with
that in a situation where the conflictdidn't have to exist, And so he
will have the poor ranking in termsof human rights. It all depends how
long the beneficial impact of his accomplishmentswill last. Foreign policy is an arena

(27:45):
where you really have to wait generations. It's just like if you study the
end of the Napoleonic wars. Metternick, whom Kissinger admired tremendously, was responsible
for the Congress of Vienna, theConcert of Yours, and everybody thought that
this was a situation that would lastforever. Well, in eighteen forty eight

(28:06):
you had the beginning of uprisings inEurope, such a particularly the friend and
France and other areas. You hadthe overthrow of the Austrians, who were
basically superintending a lot of Italy atthat time. You then had the war
between the Prussians and the French.So what looked like basically a permanent peace

(28:32):
at the time of the Congress,at the end and the conscient of Europe
vanished because you never know in foreignpolicy. We don't live in a static
world. We live in a worldwhere economic relationships, diplomatic relationships are always
in transition. So you can't reallyat this point judge whether Kissinger's accomplishments,

(28:52):
whether they netted out for the betteror for the worst. It'll take some
time out. Yeah, some finalthoughts from you on kissing your at his
complex or historical legacy and allan,where can people read this wonderful document?

(29:15):
Well, I would suggest that theygo to the Jandoe j N d o
l I Institute website. My articlemy essay is posted on there. I
would welcome any feedback from any listenersof this podcast because I learned from the
views of others, and so Ihope that you do read the essay and

(29:38):
that you contact me because my firstfor historical knowledge, my passion for history
is a part of me every day, and as such, I look forward
to the listeners reading the essay andcontacting me, and I always look forward
to my appearances with you on yourpodcast. Jim Well, it's my pleasure,

(30:03):
Allen. I always learned a lotfrom you every time we get together.
It's it's kind of like I geta masterclass. And I greatly appreciate
that one of the things we willlink the will link to the paper in
our in our showbox below. Anotherthing that I highly recommend people do is

(30:26):
follow you on Twitter. You've gota very fun Twitter following in an opportunity
where people can actually interact with you, and I truly um I think that
you're one of the better followers onTwitter from that standpoint. So given you
your Twitter address, and I wouldalso suggest that perhaps you take the link

(30:51):
and put it in your in yourTwitter up account. I've already posted the
link of the article on also onFacebook. Very active on Facebook and Alan
Joel Steinberg all right, outstanding,Alan, thanks so much, and again
that's just endured a hundreds is complexhistorical legacy and it's well worth the read,

(31:17):
folks. It definitely is well Alan, thank you. We will see
you soon again. And until then, I'm Jim Williams for Alan Steinberg saying
thank you very much and we willsee you soon. Have to safe and
happy holiday weekend. The