Why glorify Henry Kissinger, given that some people hold deeply negative views of his role in places such as Cambodia or Chile?
Even if one takes exception to some of the policies with which Kissinger is closely associated, his record contains valuable lessons for anyone who negotiates. Our purpose in writing Kissinger the Negotiator was to extract and elucidate such lessons, not to add to the considerable—and often dashing-literature weighing his legacy. Still, we acknowledge that to this day, merely mentioning Kissinger risks evoking strong feelings around sensitive issues such as human rights, support for authoritarian regimes, as well as U.S. actions in Southeast Asia, Chile, Bangladesh, East Timor, and elsewhere. As a recent example, almost four decades after he left public office, an "intense confrontation" over Kissinger's record erupted during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary debates. Hillary Clinton's praise of Kissinger's acumen was swiftly followed by Bernie Sanders's sharp condemnation. This exchange sparked a clash of columnists in the New York Times under the headline "Henry Kissinger: Sage or Pariah?" Many other publications ran similar stories.
We are quite familiar with books and articles that range from merely criticizing Kissinger to harshly condemning him; their authors include figures such as William Shawcross. Seymour Hersh, Christopher Hitchens, and Greg Grandin. Other analysts, though hardly uncritical, come out much more favorably: this group would include figures such as Robert D. Kaplan, Josef Joffe, Alistair Home, and Niall Ferguson. Delving deeply into these contrasting views reveals much greater complexity on each side that the black and white caricatures of Kissinger sometimes suggest.
While our footnotes and bibliography offer interested readers a large number of sources on both sides of this debate, we do not see our comparative advantage as weighing in on this lively argument. We do not try to evaluate whether Henry Kissinger was a saint or a sinner. Rather, by plumbing a career of extraordinary effectiveness, we seek to learn as much as possible, extracting useful insights into the art and science of negotiation from Kissinger's dealmaking at the highest level. (You can find more detail on what we believe can be learned can be found here and here.)
Moreover, while we remain deeply impressed by Kissinger's negotiating strategies and tactics overall— and their value well beyond 1970s diplomacy—we did not write this book as a kind of tribute. Indeed, we take important positions with which Kissinger strongly disagreed, both in discussions with us and in print. We seriously question his Cold War assumptions in notable cases and raise ethical issues throughout. To enhance understanding, we also dissect a number of his negotiating failures that helpfully contrast with his successes.
In our view, it would be a bad misreading of our intentions or analysis to characterize this book as glorifying the former secretary of state. Rather, at a time when faith in the power diplomacy and negotiation has waned in many quarters, we see even greater urgency in seeking enduring lessons from the approach of one of its most successful practitioners.