ON KISSINGER'S PASSING

 I happened to have a brief exchange of views with Kissinger about China in 2000. At the time, I was alarmed by the laxity of the Clinton administration in policing the exports of dual-use high techology to China, which I deemed reckless. Kissinger asked his director of Kissinger Associates, Paul Bremer III – the future governor of Iraq – to answer on his behalf . In it, Bremer wrote that Kissinger told him that he shared my concerns, which were not however shared by the Washington elite at the time.

Whilst in my view he was less important and competent – among US top foreign policy experts – than George Kennan, Kissinger knew how to successfully make the transition from academic life to the corridors of power in Washington DC. I say that he was less competent than Kennan because he never really understood the USSR as Kennan did, nor could he get the better of Soviet diplomats the way he did with Zhou Enlai or Mao of China.

The book that launched his career was not about Metternich, but his 1957 " Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy”, in which he made the case for the feasability of limited nuclear wars among superpowers. The book made him one of the darlings of the military-industrial complex and impressed both Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Kissinger also knew how to deal with political leaders -from Ceaușescu to Nixon- who had oversized egos, if not downright megalomania, like the Romanian dictator. Nixon did not like Kissinger much, he just used him. For his part, Kissinger was singing praises to Nixon during working hours, whilst calling him unstable and a drunk in evening meetings with his friends.

Kissinger honestly acknowledged that at the origin of his success in China was the chief of the Czechoslovak secret service, which was the first to bring to his attention the existence of the Sino-Soviet split. Chancellor Adenauer of Germany also helped, giving him a book on the subject written by a German intelligence official.

Kissinger was an enormously ambitious individual. He wanted a big success in China and to get it, he made the error of agreeing to the demands of the Chinese to formally consider Taiwan as part of China. He did so without informing Nixon first or indeed without having his approval. Critics contend that he did in effect hand over Taiwan to China.

Finally, unlike Kennan, Kissinger was not known to oppose NATO’s eastern expansion, nor advocate for its dissolution . His last proposal was not to keep Ukraine neutral, but to convince Kiev to give up part of Ukraine’s territory in exchange for NATO membership. Sad but true.