Moderated by Richard Haass, 11/4/14

My first reaction to viewing this on Thanksgiving morning was, ‘Henry Kissinger is still alive—and fat too!’

This was an interesting and enjoyable discussion platform in which the former mastermind behind Richard Nixon’s foreign policy was candidly entertained by a bunch of beltway types.

Kissinger had quite a few cool stories about interactions with his Soviet counterparts, as well as his assessment of Margaret Thatcher as a bimbo with no sense of history. He had his favorite Soviet leaders though admitted that many of them were painfully unimaginative. Overall he gave the impression that he and his Soviet counterparts labored like compromising gnomes in an attempt to avert nuclear war. He was candid as to being surprised that the Soviet Union crumbled so abruptly, and that much of the process was done with less sure intelligence than he would have liked.

Where he really shined was in laying out the framework within which successful foreign policy must be pursued, and noting that the framework has been notably lacking in recent decades, with the current administration essentially rolling dice.

Some of Mister Kissinger’s axioms are below:

He seems to see national leadership as a systems maintenance process.

The perception of a leader as a ‘Great man’ is ultimately based on him acting according to correct analysis and appropriate vision.

A nation led by a person with a vision limited to ‘what is’ stagnates the system.

A nation led by a person with a vision in excess of the available capacity explodes the system.

In order for a system to thrive the operating vision must be based on correct analysis—not wishful thinking—and be limited to ‘the possible’.

Some phrases from Henry’s recollections of dealing with the Soviets follow:

“A certain limitation”

“Not a penetrating mind”

“Why don’t we let Henry deal with it” [Breshnev on the Middle East]

When pressed on the question of current U.S. foreign policy, particularly as regards Russia, it was difficult for him not to be insulting, or to say much without shaking his head, and he was duly rescued from casting disparaging judgment upon the current administration by Haass who brought the discussion back on topic.