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PDF FormatKissinger’s experiences as a Jew in a world filled with antisemitism made him a permanent “outsider,” even as he acquired access to foreign policy “insiders.” For all his fame and loyalty to the American state, Kissinger confronted social prejudice against Jews at every stage in his career—often from the very people who empowered him. His personal insecurity and sycophancy to powerful figures reflected his continual fear of exclusion. As a man who had witnessed the depths of human cruelty, Kissinger was never at ease in his professional or social position in American society. He always feared that he was surrounded by enemies. He always feared that he could lose everything.
Across the globe, Kissinger’s personal insecurity translated into a search for strong state leaders and a diversion from traditional democratic ideals and economic aims. Kissinger did not seek to make the world “safe for democracy.” Instead, he sought to create stability based upon trust and cooperation between strong leaders while ensuring continuous mediation by the American government. To him, the establishment and preservation of order and justice were not organic developments, but rather policy choices made by political elites that required active enforcement prior to being accepted by the general public. The pursuit of political goals through more democratic means was, intellectually and emotionally, too dangerous for a man who had experienced violence and hatred directed toward immigrants, Jews, and other “outsiders.” The vulnerable, including Kissinger, needed powerful leaders and strong states to protect their access to the American dream.
Not all immigrants of Kissinger’s background shared his worldview, of course. Although similar experiences often produce divergent perceptions, historians must recognize that certain personal experiences are formative for policymakers in their aspirations and activities. For Kissinger, his background as a German-Jewish immigrant remained important because they were continually invoked by the powerful men with whom he worked—including Nixon, Sadat, and Rabin. He had to react to the ever-present nightmare of his personal past as he negotiated a Middle East settlement. Kissinger was a child of World War II, the Holocaust, and the hopes of postwar American society. He was a policymaker who carried these perceptions into the Vietnam War, Middle East diplomacy, and the current war in Iraq.
Jeremi Suri is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of its European Union Center of Excellence. He is the author of the recent book Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Belknap, 2007).
Notes
1. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), pp. 228-229.
2. Author’s interview with Henry Kissinger, October 26, 2005.
3. For some of the best recent work on the history of American immigration, see Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton: Princeton, 2003); Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton, 2002); Donna R. Gabaccia, “Is Everywhere Nowhere? Nomads, Nations, and the Immigrant Paradigm of United States History,” Journal of American History 86:3 (December 1999), pp. 1115-1134.
4. Henry A. Kissinger to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., September 8, 1961, Box WH-13, Folder: Kissinger, Henry 4/19/61-12/2/61, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Mass. [hereafter JFKL].
5. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), p. 833.
6. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 432. For Kissinger’s display of emotion at the swearing-in ceremony, see David Binder, “Kissinger Sworn, Praised by Nixon,” New York Times, September 23, 1973, p. 11.
7. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 431.
8. Quotation from Louise Bobrow’s videotaped oral history interview with Henry Kissinger, January 11, 2001, Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York.
9. These are all topics discussed at length in my book, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2007).
10. Quotation in Guy Stern, “The Jewish Exiles in the Service of U.S. Intelligence: The Post-War Years,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 40 (1995), p. 52.
11. McGeorge Bundy, “The Battlefields of Power and the Searchlights of the Academy,” in E.A.J. Johnson, ed., The Dimensions of Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1964), p. 3.
12. McGeorge Bundy to Henry Kissinger, January 28, 1961; Bundy to Kissinger, February 18, 1961, Folder: Staff Memoranda, Henry Kissinger 5/61, Box 320, National Security Files, JFKL.
13. For more on Kissinger’s early years in Fürth and their formative influence upon him, see Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, ch. 1.
14. See Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, ch. 2.
15. Quoted in Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 61.
16. Henry Kissinger to William Elliott, December 12, 1950, Folder: Memos-U.S. Strategy-Kissinger, Henry, 1951, Box 27, Papers of William Y. Elliott, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Calif. [hereafter Elliott Papers].
17. Kissinger to Elliott, fall 1950, Folder: International Seminar, Harvard, 1951-1959, Box 2, Elliott Papers.
18. Kissinger to Elliott, fall 1950, Folder: International Seminar, Harvard, 1951-1959, Box 2, Elliott Papers.
19. See “Recommended Position: U.S.-U.S.S.R.,” prepared by Kissinger for Nelson Rockefeller’s briefing book, May 15, 1968, Folder 8, Box 5, Series 35, Record Group 15, Nelson A. Rockefeller Papers, Gubernatorial, Rockefeller Archive Center, Pocantico Hills, New York; Henry Kissinger, “The Policymaker and the Intellectual,” The Reporter, March 5, 1959, pp. 30-35.
20. These quotations come from Walter Isaacson’s 1988 interviews with Henry Kissinger. See Isaacson, Kissinger, pp. 40, 56-57.
21. On the creation of a “Judeo-Christian” ethic in the United States, see David A. Hollinger, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Intellectual History (Princeton: Princeton, 1996), pp. 17-41; Mark Silk, “Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America,” American Quarterly 36:1 (Spring 1984), pp. 65-85; Deborah Dash Moore, “Jewish GIs and the Creation of the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Religion and American Culture 8:1 (Winter 1998), pp. 31-53.
22. Author’s interview with Kissinger, September 12, 2006.
23. Transcript of the audio recording from Nixon’s meeting with Charles Colson, January 1, 1973. Quoted in Stanley I. Kutler, ed., Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Free Press, 1997), p. 191. Max Frankel was a German-Jewish immigrant to the United States, who, like Kissinger, spent his late teenage years in the Washington Heights section of New York City. See Max Frankel, The Times of My Life, and My Life with the Times (New York: Random House, 1999).
24. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Nixon, October 16, 1973, available through the United States Department of State’s Freedom of Information Act website, http://foia.state.gov/SearchColls/CollsSearch.asp [hereafter State FOIA]. For Kissinger’s incomplete, published version of this transcript, see Henry Kissinger, Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), p. 268.
25. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with David Abshire,
October 3, 1973, State FOIA. In this conversation, Kissinger is mistaken in his assumption that Joseph Sisco was Jewish. Sisco was the child of non-Jewish Italian immigrants. See his obituary in the Washington Post, November 24, 2004, p. B07.
October 3, 1973, State FOIA. In this conversation, Kissinger is mistaken in his assumption that Joseph Sisco was Jewish. Sisco was the child of non-Jewish Italian immigrants. See his obituary in the Washington Post, November 24, 2004, p. B07.
26. Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 833.
27. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 228-229.
28. See Robert Schulzinger, Henry Kissinger: Doctor of Diplomacy (New York: Columbia, 1989); Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford, 2004); Margaret Macmillan, Nixon in China: The Week that Changed the World (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2006); Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
29. Ernst Hans Van der Beugel oral history, chapter 7, Archive Location 2.21.183.08, Inventory 60-65, National Archive, the Netherlands. I would like to thank Floris Kunert for helping me to use the Van der Beugel materials. I also thank Danielle Kleijwegt for her translation of the Van der Beugel oral history.
30. Quotations from Bobrow’s interview with Kissinger.
31. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, October 6, 1973, 8:35 a.m.; transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Richard Nixon, October 7, 1973, 2:07 p.m., State FOIA. See also “Indications of Arab Intentions to Initiate Hostilities” (circa summer 1973), Folder: Rabin/Kissinger (Dinitz) 1973, January-July [2 of 3], Box 135, Henry Kissinger Office Files, NSC Files, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives, College Park, Md. [hereafter Nixon Papers].
32. Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East (New York: Schocken, 2004), pp. 65-100, quotation on p. 89. See also Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), pp. 318-320.
33. Dayan quoted in Rabinovich, Yom Kippur War, p. 219.
34. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Nixon, October 6, 1973, 9:25 a.m., State FOIA.
35. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Nixon, October 6, 1973, 9:25 a.m., State FOIA; transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Anatoly Dobrynin, October 6, 1973, State FOIA.
36. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Haig, October 6, 1973, 12:45 p.m., State FOIA.
37. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Nixon, October 16, 1973, State FOIA.
38. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger, James Schlesinger, William Colby, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Brent Scowcroft, October 19, 1973, Digital National Security Archive Document Database [hereafter NSA], http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu.
39. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Brent Scowcroft, October 18, 1973, State FOIA.
40. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 636.
41. Memorandum of conversation between Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Ismail Fahmy, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Sisco, June 1, 1975, NSA.
42. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger, Nixon, Scowcroft, and bipartisan Congressional delegation, May 31, 1974, NSA. For Kissinger’s analysis of the “gray areas,” see Kissinger, “Military Policy and Defense of the ‘Gray Areas,’” Foreign Affairs 33 (April 1955), pp. 416-428.
43. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 638, 647.
44. Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 291; Memorandum of conversation between Sadat, Mubarak, Fahmy, Ford, Kissinger, Sisco, June 1, 1975, NSA.
45. Memorandum of conversation between Sadat, Mubarak, Fahmy, Ford, Kissinger, Sisco, June 1, 1975, NSA; Memorandum of conversation between Sadat, Fahmy, Kissinger, Eilts, Rodman, May 30, 1974, NSA.
46. Memorandum of conversation between Sadat, Fahmy, Kissinger, Eilts, Rodman, May 30, 1974, NSA.
47. Memorandum of conversation between Sadat, Fahmy, Kissinger, Eilts, Rodman, May 30, 1974, NSA; Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 291. A former United States diplomat in the Middle East argues that the leaders of Saudi Arabia similarly believed that Kissinger had powerful personal leverage over Israel. See Edward R.F. Sheehan, The Arabs, Israelis, and Kissinger: A Secret History of American Diplomacy in the Middle East (New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976), p. 75.
48. Transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Scowcroft, October 18, 1973, 10:45 p.m.; transcript of Kissinger’s telephone conversation with Mr. Jameson, November 2, 1973, State FOIA.
49. Menachem Begin’s November 15, 1973, speech in the Israeli Knesset, quoted in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, November 16, 1973, p. 5 [Hebrew]. After the Yom Kippur War, vituperative criticisms of Kissinger saturated the Israeli press. See Haaretz, November 2, 1973, pp. 7-8; November 6, 1973, p. 4; November 7, 1973, p. 6; November 22, 1973, p. 5; December 6, 1973, p. 7 [Hebrew]. Also see Maariv, October 29, 1973, p. 2; November 2, 1973, p. 13; November 16, 1973, p. 17 [Hebrew]. Also see Yediot Aharonot, November 2, 1973, p. 8; November 8, 1973, p. 24 [Hebrew]. A group of right-wing Israeli extremists allegedly hired one or more foreign hit men to assassinate Kissinger. See “Bare Plot to Kill Kissinger,” Chicago Tribune, January 14, 1977, p. 1. I want to thank my research assistant, Dr. Gil Ribak, for helping to find and translate these materials.
50. Quotations from Ralph Blumenfeld and the staff and editors of the New York Post, Henry Kissinger: The Private and Public Story (New York: Signet, 1974), p. 254; memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and American Jewish intellectuals, December 6, 1973, NSA.
51. Yitzhak Rabin with the assistance of Eitan Haber, Yitzhak Rabin Converses with Leaders and Heads of State (Givatayim: Revivim, 1984), pp. 37-38 [Hebrew].
52. Author’s interview with Henry Rosovsky, July 7, 2006.
53. Rabbi Alexander Schindler’s remarks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hotel Pierre, New York City, January 11, 1977, quoted in the Washington Post, January 12, 1977, p. A16.
54. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and American Jewish intellectuals, December 6, 1973, NSA.
55. Memorandum of conversation between Rabin, Kissinger, et al., September 11, 1974, NSA. Between 1969 and 1973 Kissinger met frequently with Rabin in Washington, D.C. The two men had an intense, frank, and trusting relationship. See the accounts of their meetings in Boxes 134-135, Henry Kissinger Office Files, NSC Files, Nixon Papers.
56. Memorandum of conversation between Rabin, Kissinger, et al., September 11, 1974. Between 1973 and 1974 United States annual assistance to Israel increased from $492 million to $2.6 billion. See the Congressional Research Service Report, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” updated April 26, 2005, available at www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf.
57. Yigal Allon, quoted in Richard Valeriani, Travels with Henry (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), p. 208.
58. Kissinger’s address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, January 11, 1977, quoted in Department of State Bulletin 76 (January 31, 1977), p. 90.
59. Department of State Bulletin 76, p. 90. Emphasis added.
60. The same applies to the Palestinian territories. Indeed, Washington became an indirect financier for new Israeli settlements on land claimed by Palestinians.
61. Author’s interview with Kissinger, October 26, 2005.
