Cold War History

ISSN: 1468-2745 (Print) 1743-7962 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcwh20

Kissinger, vol. 1: 1923–1968: The Idealist and

Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America's
Most Controversial Statesman

Jussi M. Hanhimäki

To cite this article: Jussi M. Hanhimäki (2016): Kissinger, vol. 1: 1923–1968: The Idealist and
Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman, Cold War
History, DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2016.1226816

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2016.1226816

Published online: 06 Sep 2016.

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Download by: [Cornell University Library] Date: 05 October 2016, At: 11:46
COLD WAR HISTORY, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2016.1226816

BOOK REVIEW

Niall Ferguson, Kissinger, vol. 1: 1923–1968: The Idealist (New York: Penguin Press,
2015), xix + 986 pp.

Greg Grandin, Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial
Statesman (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015), 270 pp.

Whatever one may think of Henry Kissinger’s record, his longevity as a subject for historians is
remarkable. Ever since he joined the Nixon White House as the National Security Advisor in
1969, the former Harvard professor has been the subject of intense scrutiny that shows no sign
of ebbing away. He is undoubtedly, as Greg Grandin’s subtitle puts it, ‘America’s most contro-
versial statesman’. Irrespective of his achievements or misdemeanours (or ‘crimes’) Kissinger
remains – if measured by the sheer number of pages written about him – in a class of his own.
He continues to attract controversy in ways that none of his successors at Foggy Bottom (Hilary
Clinton perhaps excepted) can match. Each in their own way, the two books under review feed
on this unmatched notoriety of America’s 56th Secretary of State.
The inevitable question – repeated each time a new tome on any aspect of Henry Kissinger’s
career appears – is whether a new book on the subject is needed. Perhaps surprisingly, the
case for each of these volumes is relatively strong. On the one hand, despite the abundance of
Kissingerology no one has had access to Kissinger’s personal papers similar to Niall Ferguson’s.
There is, hence, a potential for a truly ground-breaking re-evaluation, or at least the prospect
of the yet-to-be-seen authorised biography, a high profile and lengthy defence of the Kissinger
record. On the other hand, the absence of a full-scale evaluation of the post-1977 influence of
Kissinger on American foreign policy – something that is generally assumed to have been notice-
able – makes space for a work like Grandin’s. Add to this the simple fact that both authors are
known for their ability to make provocative arguments and the stage is set for potentially delight-
ful reading. And in this regard readers should not feel cheated: Ferguson and Grandin succeed
in inserting something new into the abundant field sometimes referred to as Kissingerology.1
Ferguson’s opening volume of his Kissinger biography announces in its very title that the
man usually thought of as a Machiavellian realist is, in fact, ‘the idealist’ (or at least was an
idealist until the 1968 presidential election, where this volume concludes). In contrast to con-
ventional wisdom, Ferguson’s central thesis – propagated in five ‘books’ – is that the pre-1968
Kissinger was an idealist, albeit of the Kantian variety. He makes this argument as a result of
seemingly painstaking research that has unearthed much new information from the 100-plus
archives that Ferguson, or those assisting him, have visited. Among other things, readers will
learn much about the travails of a Jewish family in interwar Bavaria, about the life of a young
immigrant in New York’s east side, and about Kissinger’s return to Germany during World War
II. Indeed, the young Kissinger we read about in The Idealist bears little resemblance to the
super star (or super villain) most of us have become accustomed to. From ‘book 2’ onwards,
the Kissinger story – a ‘true bildungsroman’ (p. 865) – moves to more familiar and inevitably
contested terrain. Ferguson charts Kissinger’s years at Harvard and his rise to the position of a
well-regarded, if sometimes controversial, public intellectual in the 1950s and 1960s. The book
then builds towards the real turning points of Kissinger’s early career: his relationship with
New York Governor and perennial presidential hopeful Nelson Rockefeller and, ultimately,
the 1968 presidential election that was followed by president-elect Richard Nixon’s decision to

1
For a decade-old evaluation of this ‘field’ see Jussi M. Hanhimäki, ‘Dr. Kissinger or Mr. Henry: Kissingerology, Thirty Years
and Counting’, Diplomatic History 27:5 (November 2003), pp. 637–676.
2 BOOK REVIEW

name Kissinger the new administration’s National Security advisor. Along the way the readers
get detailed accounts about Kissinger’s career at Harvard, his disappointing experience with the
Kennedy administration, and the future Secretary of State’s early, and unsuccessful, forays into
Vietnam peace mediation. Ferguson concludes by previewing what the main question for the
second volume is likely to be:
In forty-five years, Henry Kissinger had learned much … What Kissinger had yet to learn was the answer
to … his most difficult question. Could the idealist inhabit the real world of power and still retain his
ideals? (pp. 876–7)
Judging from the first volume, Ferguson’s likely answer is probably: ‘yes – but only by disguis-
ing his idealism as a non-emotional pursuit of American national interest.’ But we will have to
wait and see. In fact, Ferguson’s biography is unlikely to have a major impact on the long-held
views of a large group of Kissingerologists. To be sure, he quite appropriately begins the book
by wondering why Kissinger is such a target of vitriolic attacks. After all, other Secretaries of
State whose record is in no way any more pristine than Kissinger’s (such as John Foster Dulles
or Dean Rusk) have been spared. It is a valid point. But The Idealist, given that it focuses mainly
on the less controversial period of Kissinger’s life, is unlikely to change the opinions of any
member of the card-carrying anti-Kissinger club. Such possible reappraisals will have to wait
for the second volume.
While Ferguson’s Idealist is of the ‘life and times’ genre, Grandin’s Kissinger’s Shadow is more
in the tradition of a well-informed think piece. Relying on previously published work, the author
is mostly focused on the influence that Henry Kissinger – as informal advisor to US administra-
tions and as a highly valued public intellectual – has had on the contours of American foreign
over the past four decades. The ‘shadow’ Grandin discovers is one that shares little resemblance
to the image of a master intellectual sensibly examining the historical context of the United
States’ changing role in the world. Instead, Grandin’s Kissinger is the man whose actions and
pontifications symbolise the essential acceptance by both liberals and conservatives that the
use of force – be it overt military intervention or the use of ‘off hand’ tools like the drones – is
a central ingredient of American foreign policy. While acknowledging that Kissinger is in no
way responsible for everything done in the name of US foreign policy, Grandin (p. 15) claims
that ‘Kissinger’s career courses through the decades like a bright red light … from the jungles
of Vietnam and Cambodia to the sands of the Persian Gulf ’.
As the above implies, Ferguson and Grandin approach their subject from two rather oppo-
site viewpoints. Ferguson’s Kissinger is a truly towering figure, whose intellectual capacities
far outweighed most of his contemporaries even as those around him – and most of those
who have written about him since – misunderstood his thinking and pigeonholed him in the
classical realist box. In contrast, while Grandin’s Kissinger is not comparable to the portraits of,
say, Christopher Hitchens or Seymour Hersh, he places the former Secretary of State under a
relentless trial. Yet, his starting point is in some ways unique and, given the conclusions Grandin
draws, even in some agreement with Ferguson: Kissinger was not the hard-core realist many
of his critics and admirers have argued. Instead he was a man who believed that there was no
objective truth, but that it was the individuals’ task – or the statesman’s role – to create that
truth. If Ferguson’s Kissinger was a Kantian idealist, Grandin sees in him a Kantian existen-
tialist. Or, for those not keen on such philosophical labelling: Kissinger was mainly a careerist
whose worldview was based on the assumption that there was no such thing as absolute truth.
Everything was relative.
These contrasting interpretations have problems. In Ferguson’s case it begins with the title:
perhaps more a provocative marketing device than an accurate reflection of the facts that the
author marshals forth. No amount of verbal and analytical acrobatics can change the fact that
on the simplistic idealist-realist fault line Kissinger – if measured by his writings – identi-
fied himself in the classical realist tradition, with questions and perceptions affecting national
 COLD WAR HISTORY 3

security trumping values and questions of morality. Of course, there is no such thing as a ‘pure’
realist. However, the fact that Kissinger believed that ideas also mattered does not diminish his
adherence to basic tenets of realpolitik, his penchant for a great man theory of history, and his
repeatedly emphasised disdain for idealism and legalism. Whether the whole realist-idealist
debate is even worth entering into is, of course, another question.
The Idealist also oddly – given the masses of often entertaining anecdotes – discounts a
central part of Kissinger’s humanity, his relentless ambition. For example, Ferguson argues that
Kissinger’s ‘non-realist’ support for the Kennedy and Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy
in the 1960s was a by-product of his essential belief that the United States should sacrifice life
and treasure for the cause of South Vietnam’s national self-determination. But while Kissinger
remained a public defender of the Johnson administration, Ferguson maintains that ‘in private,
as the archival records show, he was a scathing critic’ (p. 583). Yet he continued to support the
war. Why? Perhaps because Kissinger was also an opportunistic man driven by personal advance-
ment, eager to enter the world of policymaking? This is essentially what Ferguson asserts when
he writes that Kissinger’s Janus-faced approach to the Vietnam War was due to the fact that he
‘was not content to carp from the sidelines’ (p. 584). In other words, by publicly supporting the
war, Kissinger did not lose his chance of acting as a consultant and a freewheeling back-channel
diplomat for the Johnson administration. The trouble with this is not that Ferguson is ignoring
facts – every part of the book is exceedingly well documented. The problem is one of interpre-
tation: what Ferguson sees a closet idealist at play trying to push a peace agenda, others might
easily, perhaps more convincingly, regard as an example of a man so hungry for power and
influence as to disregard his own understanding of the situation.
Indeed, in an effort to somehow ‘humanise’ Kissinger and hence underwrite his brand of
‘idealism’, Ferguson comes dangerously close to whitewashing him. That Kissinger, apparently,
loved his dog is a mildly interesting detail. But a full biography of this kind should probably
also examine the negative perceptions – arrogant, untrustworthy, self-centred – about Kissinger
in some detail, rather than merely casting them aside as unfair or products of jealousy. Some
readers more familiar with Kissinger’s life may also be left wondering why we learn very little of
Kissinger’s first marriage (that ended in divorce in the early 1960s) and his relationship with his
two children. Other examples of issues left unexamined abound. Indeed, ultimately the author
fails to give his readers a much-awaited ‘warts and all’ analysis. In this book, there are very
few warts; the impression one gets, instead, is indeed one of ‘authorised’ biography. Ferguson’s
Kissinger is essentially a misunderstood hero who reached office not because he was driven to
achieve but due to strength of his convictions.
Grandin’s Shadow is certainly not bent on whitewashing Kissinger’s reputation. But it has a
tendency of tilting a too far in the other direction. Notwithstanding his original debunking of
the ‘realist’ label when assessing Kissinger’s influence, Grandin describes a Kissinger who is a
bit too much larger than life in his ability to exude malignant influence on decades of American
foreign policy. Did the secret bombing of Cambodia (which actually had commenced on Lyndon
Johnson’s watch) and other misuses of power really enable, even encourage, future policymakers
to use force – be it overt intervention or the use of drones – as a tool of policy? Could one not
argue, with equal justification, that Kissinger’s central insight was to find other means than
military intervention for upholding American primacy? For if one does accept the argument
that Kissinger’s dark shadow lies behind all American meddling and interventionism since
1977, is that not a rather than indictment of the American foreign policy establishment – from
neo-cons to neo-liberals – as a whole?
This is not to deny that Kissinger has been a towering figure within the US foreign policy
establishment over the last four decades. Presidents have consulted him and have been eager to
have his ‘blessing’ for their policies. But has he had any real impact beyond providing Delphic-
like pronouncements that politicians have felt free to interpret as providing expert support for
4 BOOK REVIEW

their questionable policy choices? Given Kissinger’s extraordinary ability to produce tomes that
can be interpreted easily as providing justifications to interventionism and non-interventionism
alike, one is tempted to argue that rather than magnifying his role, we might get closer to reality
by noting the essential banality of much of his writing and acknowledge that whatever impact –
positive or negative – he continues to yield derives not from the power of his ideas but the very
iconic nature of his personality.
Niall Ferguson and Greg Grandin have produced two fascinating and, in their central tenet,
dramatically opposed portraits of Henry Kissinger. The trouble is that in trying to provide a ‘new’
interpretation of their subject both authors ultimately overreach. By claiming that Kissinger was
either a closet idealist or a cynical enabler of war, neither author has made a truly convincing con-
tribution. For better or worse they have, though, managed to reignite Kissingerology. Yet again.

Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
jussi.hanhimaki@graduateinstitute.ch
© 2016 Jussi M. Hanhimäki
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2016.1226816