The Myth of Henry Kissinger

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Part of the issue is that Kissinger's policy when he came into office was attacked from both the left and the right. And I think it's partly to do with the nature of the strategy of the early 1970s, but it's also partly I think to do with his being Jewish. He has become a lightning rod for a whole set of accusations that could be leveled against every secretary of state, right down to the present. Yet somehow they have to be leveled at Kissinger.

No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. To the late Christopher Hitchens he was a war criminal who should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. To his admirers he is the greatest strategic thinker America has ever produced, the ‘indispensable man’, whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. Internationally renowned Harvard historian Niall Ferguson came to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his new appraisal of Kissinger. In his view, far from being the amoral arch-realist portrayed by his enemies, Kissinger owed a profound debt to philosophical idealism. In this exclusive London appearance, Ferguson was joined by the distinguished historian Andrew Roberts, who brought his expertise from writing about great statesmen of the past – from Napoleon to Churchill – to the examination of this controversial figure. How did Kissinger’s worldview develop over the course of his early years, as a Jew in Hitler’s Germany, a...

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