Includes bibliographical references (pages 771-840) and index

Fürth: coming of age in Nazi Germany, 1923-1938 -- Washington Heights: the Americanization of an aspiring account, 1938-1943 -- The army: "Mr. Henry" comes marching home again, 1943-1947 -- Harvard: the ambitious student, 1947-1955 -- New York: in the service of the establishment, 1954-1957 -- Harvard again: The professor, 1957-1968 -- The fringes of power: Kennedy, Johnson, and Rockefeller, 1961-1968 -- The co-conspirators: Kissinger and Nixon, 1968 -- Welcome to Vietnam: secret options, secret bombings -- Kissinger's empire: the boss's power and how he operated -- The wiretaps: office bugs, dead keys, and other devices -- No exit: Vietnam swallows another administration -- The invasion of Cambodia: an expanded war, resignations, and rage -- Two weeks in September: an hour-by-hour look at the art of crisis juggling -- Salt: arms control in the back channel -- China: creating a triangle -- Celebrity: the secret life of the world's least likely sex symbol -- Winter of the long knives: after a mishandled war, Kissinger hits a low point --The triangle: summit spring in Moscow and Beijing -- Peace at hand: the Paris talks produce an elusive accord -- The Christmas bombing: Hanoi is hit in order to convince Saigon to sign -- Secretary of State: a rise that was helped because everyone else was sinking -- The Yom Kipper war: a mideast initiation, a resupply dispute, and a nuclear alert -- The shuttle: step by step through Israel, Egypt, and Syria -- The press: how to be captivating on a background basis -- Transitions: the final days, and a new beginning -- The death of détente: an odd coalition takes a hard line -- The magic is gone: setbacks in the Sinai and Southeast Asia -- Morality in foreign policy: Kissinger's realpolitik and how it was challenged -- Africa: covert involvment followed by shuttle diplomacy -- Exit: not with a bang but a whimper -- Citizen Kissinger: the jet-set life of a minister without portfolio -- Kissinger associates: how the world's most famous consultant struck it rich -- Legacy: policy and personality

As his parents finished packing the few personal belongings they were permitted to take out of Germany, the bespectacled 15-year-old stood in the corner of the apartment memorizing the details of the scene. He was a bookish and reflective child, with that odd mixture of ego and insecurity that can come from growing up smart yet persecuted. "I'll be back someday," he said to the customs inspector who was surveying the boxes. Years later, he would recall how the official looked at him "with the disdain of age" and said nothing. Henry Kissinger was right: he did come back to his Bavarian birthplace, first as a soldier with the U.S. Army counterintelligence corps, then as a renowned scholar of international relations, and eventually as the dominant statesman of his era. By the time he was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to the Gallup Poll, the most admired person in America. In addition, as he conducted foreign policy with the air of a guest of honor at a cocktail party, he became one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world's imagination. Yet Kissinger was reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists, who in varying ways considered him a Strangelovean power manipulator dangerously devoid of moral principles. Kissinger's power-oriented approach to global politics resulted in a messy conclusion to the Vietnam War that included the secret bombing and invasion of Cambodia and the Christmas bombing of Hanoi. Yet he was also able to design a triangular balance based on detente with Russia and an opening to China that preserved America's influence in the world. He had an instinctive feel for power, but it was not matched by a feel for the openness of America's democratic system or for the moral values that are a basic source of its world influence. This book, the first full biography of Kissinger, explores the relationship between his complex personality - brilliant, conspiratorial, furtive, prone to power struggles, charming yet at times deceitful - and the foreign policy he pursued. It draws on extensive interviews with Kissinger as well as 150 other sources, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, H.R. Haldeman, former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, Russian diplomats, cabinet colleagues, disillusioned aides, childhood friends, and business clients. In addition, it makes use of many of Kissinger's private papers, personal letters, recorded telephone conversations, his desk diaries and those of various officials, memos of classified meetings, and transcripts of FBI wiretaps. The result is an intimate narrative, filled with surprising revelations, that takes this century's most colorful statesman from his childhood as a persecuted Jew in Nazi Germany, through his tortured relationship with Richard Nixon, to his twilight years as a globe-trotting business consultant

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews