Henry Kissinger (Fürth, Bavaria, 1923) is a controversial character. For Robert Kaplan he would be the paradigm of the lucid realist, capable of making difficult decisions putting the convenience of his country before idealistic or moral criteria.
Thus, the bombing of Cambodia and North Vietnam would have facilitated a dignified withdrawal and contributed to putting an end to a war in which the prestige of the United States was only aired as a retaining wall for communism; support for the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile would have prevented those countries from dissolving into chaos by facilitating Soviet infiltration, and its policy in the Middle East would lay the foundations for the pacification of the area. For his part, the opening to China would be the great geostrategic work of this Jewish intellectual whom Golda Meier reproached for his equanimity in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Instead, for Christopher Hitchens, Kissinger was nothing more than a criminal who should be tried by the International Criminal Court: the instigator of the murders of Pinochet and Videla. In fact, even today he cannot travel to many countries in the world due to the risk of being arrested and subjected to prosecution.
In the controversy over his role in history, he marks the centenary of an academic and statesman in his new book, Leadership, a kind of underhanded political testament in which to vindicate essential aspects of his own management regarding biographical notes on other subjects. This is an essay on six politicians who shaped the second half of the 20th century and, to a large extent, shaped the world today. One of those who, as Rosa Luxemburg said, do not make their history freely. But still, they do it.
Kissinger, in a not too obvious way (in the end it seems that the qualities of all of them are more or less the same: perseverance, tenacity, farsightedness, firmness, vision of the future…), distinguishes between statesmen and prophets to analyze the keys to leadership. A study that transcends the limits of what biographical history is to delve into the testimonial chronicle from the moment Kissinger intervenes in the events he recounts.
Adenauer, De Gaulle, Nixon, Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher are the protagonists of these profiles, and, unlike what happens in Ian Kershaw’s latest essay (Personality and Power, 2022), their negative aspects are ignored , offering a complacent view of trajectories with undeniably dark spots. It is logical: the successes of its protagonists are those of Kissinger himself, and this is not a book in which one can look for the slightest reconsideration or remorse.
Adenauer incorporated former Nazi officials into the FRG government; De Gaulle appears too favored in the decolonization process of Indochina and Algeria and it is more than debatable that Sadat’s policies and his follow-up to the Kissinger Plan for the Middle East deserve such a benign judgment. Benevolence, by the way, which, in the case of Thatcher, reaches somewhat embarrassing extremes.
The most cumbersome part is dedicated to Nixon, a man unfairly treated by history, at least in Kissinger’s opinion, to a great extent the architect of his international strategy. Nixon’s disregard for the checks and balances of the democratic system is lukewarmly justified, and the events that led to his ouster over Watergate are aired with the bizarre excuse that he gave his subordinates many stupid orders that he hoped no one would follow. .
Despite this, the essay is profusely documented – in large part with first-hand information from Kissinger himself – and makes up an essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary history. The work of an effective writer and a polemicist with chiaroscuro in search of benevolence for his posterity.
Henry Kissinger Leadership. Six studies on global strategy Translated by Ramón González Ferriz and MarÃa Valdivieso. Debate. 645 pages. 26.50 euros
