Kissinger's Idealism: A Visceral Rejection of Totalitarianism

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The United States is in terrible trouble. Not only is it failing, disastrously in Vietnam, but it is deeply divided at home. So I think it's really important to convey the weakness of the American position and the seriousness with which the Soviets were pursuing their own ambitions. Re-capture the sense that lots of countries are on the brink of going communist. And if the US doesn't act, they will tip over into the communist camp.

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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