Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger, the child refugee who rose to become US
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, has died at the age of one hundred.
Speaker 1: He was one of America's most distinguished diplomats. Kissinger passed
Speaker 1: away at his home in Connecticut, according to his statement
Speaker 1: from Kissinger associates. We get more on the life of
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger from Bloomberg's Nathan Hager.
Speaker 2: Henry Albert Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three in
Speaker 2: the German state of Bavaria, the oldest son of a
Speaker 2: Jewish school teacher, Kissinger was known as Heintz until he
Speaker 2: moved with his family to the United States in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty eight to escape Nazi persecution. At the age of nineteen,
Speaker 2: while excelling at City College of New York, Kissinger was
Speaker 2: drafted in the Army. He served as an interpreter in
Speaker 2: the country of his birth during World War II, and
Speaker 2: after the war he helped to round up Gestapo officers
Speaker 2: as a member of the nine hundred seventieth Counterintelligence Corps.
Speaker 2: In an interview with Bloomberg's editor in chief John Mickelthwade,
Speaker 2: Kissinger said he saw the first hand impact of authoritarianism
Speaker 2: and totalitarianism in his youth.
Speaker 3: It was an experience which it's so elemental then it
Speaker 3: becomes part of you.
Speaker 2: Kissinger brought that experience back with him to the United States.
Speaker 2: He resumed his studies at Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation
Speaker 2: there focused on balances of power in nineteenth century Europe.
Speaker 2: As a tenured professor at Harvard, Kissinger honed of the
Speaker 2: conservative real politic worldview that would dominate his thinking on
Speaker 2: foreign policy for more than a half century. Kissinger also
Speaker 2: cultivated relationships with policymakers in Washington that led him to
Speaker 2: the White House in nineteen sixty nine as National Security
Speaker 2: Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Kissinger's secret trips to China
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy one paved the way for arguably the
Speaker 2: greatest foreign policy achievement of the Nixon presidency. His own
Speaker 2: visit the following year.
Speaker 4: Knowing of President Nixon's express desire to visit the People's
Speaker 4: Republic of China, Premier jo and lae On, behalf of
Speaker 4: the government of the People's Republic of China, has extended
Speaker 4: an invitation to President Nexon to visit China.
Speaker 2: The opening of China and an anti ballistic missile treaty
Speaker 2: hammered out with the Soviet Union achieved what would become
Speaker 2: known as Kissinger's triangular diplomacy, but his penchate for secrecy
Speaker 2: would lead to controversy. Kissinger was the first person to
Speaker 2: serve as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
Speaker 2: at the same time. That allowed Nixon to run foreign
Speaker 2: policy more or less directly from the White House. The
Speaker 2: president summed up his attitude in a taped conversation with
Speaker 2: Kissinger about the Christmas Day bombing in Vietnam in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two. Kissinger fed into that paranoia about enemies in
Speaker 2: the press by ordering wiretaps of reporters and White House
Speaker 2: aids looking for leaks. That expanded use of surveillance led
Speaker 2: to Nixon's resignation under the weight of Watergate, but the
Speaker 2: weight of one major foreign policy decision would cloud Kissinger's
Speaker 2: legacy for the rest of his long life. The Secret
Speaker 2: War in Cambodia. Kissinger orchestrated the operation that dropped more
Speaker 2: than one hundred thousand tons of bombs on North Vietnamese
Speaker 2: positions in the country. It helped lead to the rise
Speaker 2: of a genocidal Khmer Rouge regime after the war, but
Speaker 2: Kissinger would never stop defending his conduct in Vietnam, even
Speaker 2: against critics who labeled him a war criminal.
Speaker 3: Would say a better way At any one point, we
Speaker 3: didn't think so. I still don't think so, but I'm
Speaker 3: open to that argument. But what is meant by better?
Speaker 2: That pragmatic approach to the world as it is, rather
Speaker 2: than how policymakers might like it to be would inform
Speaker 2: Kissinger's view long after he left public office and sought
Speaker 2: to wield influence as a private citizen. At the age
Speaker 2: of eighty eight, Kissinger wrote the book on China, about
Speaker 2: the country he helped to bring back to the world stage.
Speaker 2: In a twenty twenty interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum,
Speaker 2: Kissinger warned of the risks of confrontation between the world's
Speaker 2: two biggest economies.
Speaker 3: Let's say it's some pass for some cooperative action de
Speaker 3: Willsbill fld HMDU A catastrophe comfortable du wil.
Speaker 2: Dulw Henry Kissinger worked to head off that catastrophe. After
Speaker 2: he reached his one hundredth birthday as President, Biden sent
Speaker 2: cabinet secretaries to Beijing in twenty twenty three to stabilize relations.
Speaker 2: The one US diplomat that Chinese President Shi Jinping would
Speaker 2: meet face to face was the man he called an
Speaker 2: old friend to China, former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 2: I'm Nathan Hager Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We thank Bloomberg's Nathan Hager for that report. Kissinger sat
Speaker 1: down with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite on June
Speaker 1: seventh in New York City. They discussed his life and
Speaker 1: career upon turning one hundred years old. The conversation ranged
Speaker 1: from his concerns that China could end up in a
Speaker 1: military conflict with the US over Taiwan all the way
Speaker 1: to the future of President Vladimir Putin after Russher invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. He spoke about how his own worldview was
Speaker 1: shaped by what he experienced as a Jewish teenager he
Speaker 1: escaped Nazi Germany and what he saw in the concentration
Speaker 1: camps as an American soldier. Here's their conversation in its entirety.
Speaker 5: There are few living people who have had as great
Speaker 5: an impact on how the world stands today as Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 5: He has advised American presidents since the nineteen sixties, stood
Speaker 5: toe to toe with the likes of Chairman Mao Goldomeyir
Speaker 5: and Vladimir Putin changed the fortunes of countries in ways
Speaker 5: that are still admired, condemned, and debated. Seventy years ago,
Speaker 5: as a young man at Harvard, Kissinger wrote that in
Speaker 5: the life of every person, that comes a point when
Speaker 5: he realizes that, out of all the seemingly limitless possibilities
Speaker 5: of his youth, he has in fact become one actuality.
Speaker 5: One's journey across the meadows as indeed followed a regular path.
Speaker 5: Having just celebrated his one hundredth birthday, you might imagine
Speaker 5: Henry Kissinger's path is now set. In fact, he is
Speaker 5: plainly still involved in public life, still talking to leaders
Speaker 5: around the world. His legacy can be felt from Cuba
Speaker 5: to Caro. But we've broken this interview into three geographic parts.
Speaker 5: Europe where he was born, the United States, where he
Speaker 5: found power and fame, and Asia, which he transformed. And
Speaker 5: then we have a more personal epilogue to do with
Speaker 5: that legacy. Henry Kissinger was born in nineteen twenty three
Speaker 5: in the German town of Foth. Two years later, Adolf
Speaker 5: Hitler came to the town to denounce its Jewish citizens.
Speaker 5: I began by asking Henry Kissinger how his first fifteen
Speaker 5: years of persecution and chaos ended when his family escaped
Speaker 5: to America in nineteen thirty eight, has shaped his worldview.
Speaker 3: I spent my youth within a disintegrating society. The German
Speaker 3: society was collapsing into the Hitler period that gradually, in
Speaker 3: each election the Nati period party gained, and then when
Speaker 3: Hitler finally came to power, I, together with all my
Speaker 3: family and all the people I knew well, became part
Speaker 3: of a discriminated minority, living in a town in which
Speaker 3: there were science at every public place that Jews are
Speaker 3: not welcome here, and at the entrance to every town
Speaker 3: venue that did drain or car or anywhere. So there
Speaker 3: was my youth.
Speaker 5: Do you think that your view of the world of
Speaker 5: something that needed some degree of order if you look back.
Speaker 3: I believe that for a tutality, or for a group
Speaker 3: in which people lived, stability or to pre condition for creativity.
Speaker 3: Now that's not a sord I had then so precisely,
Speaker 3: but stability meant a great deal.
Speaker 5: The next time you came back to Germany was in
Speaker 5: the war. You came back as a soldier. You fought
Speaker 5: in the Battle of the Bulge, You saw the concentration camps,
Speaker 5: you helped, you took part in this of the rounding
Speaker 5: up of Nazis, all by the age of like twenty
Speaker 5: four to twenty five. That is a hinterland that very
Speaker 5: few people in modern politics have. If you look at
Speaker 5: the people you dealt with, the gal Mau, all those
Speaker 5: people that they had seen warfare well.
Speaker 3: I came back to Germany as a rifleman in the
Speaker 3: eighty fourth Infra Division of the US Army, and uh
Speaker 3: so I saw war in its most immediate form, under
Speaker 3: circumstances in which you have fellowship with your fellow soldiers,
Speaker 3: it's your hope of survival hm and everything depends on it.
Speaker 3: And I was lucky that my fellow soldiers of that
Speaker 3: period were from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Uh It's
Speaker 3: called the rail Splitter Division after Lincoln R. And so
Speaker 3: that was the environment to then as the battle neared
Speaker 3: the German border. After the bat during the Battle of
Speaker 3: the Bolts, I was transferred to intelligence, which was still
Speaker 3: at the front, but not right in it. For two
Speaker 3: miles back at the in the civilian population. But so
Speaker 3: I saw the impact of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in my
Speaker 3: youth and of war in the next period. And so
Speaker 3: it was an experience which it's so elemental that it
Speaker 3: becomes part of you, because the child both see dangers
Speaker 3: but also the sense of unity of a community when
Speaker 3: when they believe in fundamental We know today that German
Speaker 3: tanks were probably better than our tent, but you could
Speaker 3: never convince American soldiers of it, because they were convinced
Speaker 3: that if better tanks could be built, we'd be building.
Speaker 3: And I've never forgotten that.
Speaker 5: For most of your life you were dealing with world
Speaker 5: leaders who had had somewhat similar experiences. You could argue,
Speaker 5: but they'd seen combat. But the last American president to
Speaker 5: be in that state was the first President Bush. You
Speaker 5: look around the leaders of the Western world. Now, they're
Speaker 5: all people, some of them closer to my age than yours,
Speaker 5: who've never seen those things. And I wonder whether you
Speaker 5: think that makes a difference to world politics. Do you
Speaker 5: worry about that with today's leaders.
Speaker 3: I think that leaders who have not had any experience
Speaker 3: of cadetrophy or at the edge of cadetrophe sometimes believe
Speaker 3: they have more obsdence than they really do, and they
Speaker 3: did characteristic of our It's fatterly in the its.
Speaker 5: Because the one exception and possibly is Jijinping because he
Speaker 5: went through the Cultural Revolution, didn't he so he would
Speaker 5: have had some experience of the terror that you would
Speaker 5: have seen.
Speaker 3: Well. For t a crucial experience was living in a
Speaker 3: cave with it. Further, after father Adami leader was purged
Speaker 3: by Mao, and in his conversations before he became prejided,
Speaker 3: he would refer to the fact that this experience made
Speaker 3: him strong.
Speaker 5: As you said, you grew up in this period of
Speaker 5: chaos and disintegration. You are seen to be somebody who
Speaker 5: wants to does not want Russia, if it loses the
Speaker 5: war in Ukraine, to be overly punished. Is that in
Speaker 5: part because you saw what happened to Germany. The Germany
Speaker 5: before the First World War was a very seemed, a
Speaker 5: very proud, successful country. The best university is the best,
Speaker 5: all these things, and then humiliation and disintegration follows. Do
Speaker 5: you worry about that with Russia?
Speaker 3: I worry about the fact that Russia has been an
Speaker 3: integral part of European history for six hundred years, and
Speaker 3: in a very special way because it is infinitely larger
Speaker 3: than any European country and it has always been part
Speaker 3: of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. That the unique
Speaker 3: aspect of Russia in comparison to the European countries. So
Speaker 3: it has been torn throughout its history between a desire
Speaker 3: to become fully European and the fear of European technical
Speaker 3: uh superiority or capacity. Europe will become more stable, the
Speaker 3: world will become more stable when Ratia accepts the fact
Speaker 3: that it cannot conquer Europe ah, but it has to
Speaker 3: remain part of Europe by some sort of consensus as
Speaker 3: other states do UH. But a do Mond Rasa is
Speaker 3: so crushed that it sees its being a factor of
Speaker 3: international politics in other regions and becomes a subject for
Speaker 3: European competition among the various states. So it is important
Speaker 3: for Ukraine to be preserved and for Ukraine to emerge
Speaker 3: from the war as a autonomous, strong, in democratic country.
Speaker 3: We have substantially achieved this objective h by now it
Speaker 3: can still be improved in terms of the borders of
Speaker 3: Ukraine in the what I hope will be the concluding
Speaker 3: phases of the war. But I would prefer to preserve
Speaker 3: Prussia because the dissolution of Russia or the reduction of
Speaker 3: rassure to resentful impotence. What said of a new set
Speaker 3: of tensions, do.
Speaker 5: You think Vladimir Putin is somebody who could live with?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 5: Said? You want a Russia that doesn't that realizes where
Speaker 5: its borders are.
Speaker 3: That's to remember two things about Vladimia Pudent. That he is,
Speaker 3: on one level the inheritor of traditional Russia and therefore
Speaker 3: has the tendencies towards as certain that I've described earlier.
Speaker 3: But there's also uh a Vladimirir Pudent who grew up
Speaker 3: in the seats of Leningrad in which a over half
Speaker 3: of the population died of starvation. Uh and under under
Speaker 3: constance read but he has translated that into never warning
Speaker 3: European military power to be in easy leads of f
Speaker 3: Saint Petersburg and made sor cities like Moscow. So when
Speaker 3: the border of Europe at the end of the war,
Speaker 3: which was the d military border of Europe, which was
Speaker 3: in the center of Europe, moved to within three hundred
Speaker 3: miles of Moscow, and maybe fifty miles of Saint Petersburg.
Speaker 3: He reacted very strongly, and as it turns out, at
Speaker 3: the edge of your rationality.
Speaker 5: You once said to me that Ladim v. Putin was
Speaker 5: more Dostoyevsky than Hitler. Do you still think of him
Speaker 5: in that way?
Speaker 3: Well, I think he's a Dostoyevsky type figure, be set
Speaker 3: by ambivalences and unfulfillable aspirations, but not devoted to power
Speaker 3: in the abstract U, but very capable of HU using
Speaker 3: UH power that it turned out he used it excessively
Speaker 3: in relationship UH to UH to Ukraine. I would like
Speaker 3: a Russia to RECOGNI that recognizes that its relations to
Speaker 3: but to Europe have to be based on agreement and
Speaker 3: the kind of consensus. And I believe that this war
Speaker 3: will if it ended properly, may make it achievable.
Speaker 5: If it's ended on the terms you're describing. Do you
Speaker 5: think Vladimir Putin can survive in power?
Speaker 3: It's improbable.
Speaker 5: On the other side of the fence. With the moment
Speaker 5: we have, the Ukrainian counter offensive seems to begun. Do
Speaker 5: you see that as the last offensive before you have
Speaker 5: to move to diplomacy and peace. Talks of some sort.
Speaker 3: Well. I began to urge moving to its diplomat a
Speaker 3: year ago when I urged that the various parties to
Speaker 3: the conflict as themselves how they want to end it,
Speaker 3: not that they would end it right at that point,
Speaker 3: but that they would know what their political aims were.
Speaker 3: I think that becomes increasingly important as time goes on.
Speaker 3: Let'st we wound up at a point where the war
Speaker 3: becomes its own objective, and were military operations and military
Speaker 3: relations between powered dominate all of this geopolitical thinking. And
Speaker 3: at that point, countries like China will have to become
Speaker 3: from their point of view, increasingly active. That would spread
Speaker 3: it into a world conflict.
Speaker 5: Do you think that that is actually the real danger,
Speaker 5: that the Dombas doesn't become Europe's frontier with Russia becomes
Speaker 5: sort of Europe's frontier with China, that Russia gets driven
Speaker 5: back into the arms of China.
Speaker 3: Well, it could happen because Ratia gets driven back, or
Speaker 3: because Rasia collapsed and disintegrates. It's a functioning major or
Speaker 3: tenament state, and therefore it was so in its current faith,
Speaker 3: which I support, I think we will correct and resistently
Speaker 3: attack on Ukraine.
Speaker 5: We talked about China and Russia. One power that could
Speaker 5: emerge much more powerfully from this particular episode is Germany.
Speaker 5: Germany is probably the country that's going to rebuild Ukraine.
Speaker 5: If it happens, it may be involved in rebuilding Russia.
Speaker 5: And within Europe. If you visit Spain, if you visit Italy,
Speaker 5: you can feel that the frontier of Europe has been
Speaker 5: dragged to the east, so the center of Europe is
Speaker 5: now closer to Berlin, so to speak, and that Germany,
Speaker 5: by the fact it's been involved in supplying more arms
Speaker 5: and everything like that, that it is it looks set
Speaker 5: to become a bigger power in Europe. Do you agree
Speaker 5: with that? Firstly and secondly do you think that Germany
Speaker 5: is ready for that task?
Speaker 3: I agree that the which is the description of the
Speaker 3: transformation of the gender of gravity in Europe. It's been
Speaker 3: inherent since before World War One and was one of
Speaker 3: the causes of World War One because of the refusal
Speaker 3: of other countries to accept this reality, but also because
Speaker 3: of the inability of Germany to understand the transformation of
Speaker 3: its own possism. Because the leading country has to be
Speaker 3: an example of moderation and wisdom in balancing the interests
Speaker 3: of all the countries if there are to be participants
Speaker 3: in the system. And historically h Germany wanted to exercise
Speaker 3: its potential by domination, and its tragedy has been after
Speaker 3: the retirement of Pittmarck, the failure to learn this lesson,
Speaker 3: which tracted into two training wards, which also the entire
Speaker 3: position of Europe in the world. So now it has
Speaker 3: is again in this position, and it has no leaders
Speaker 3: with an experience of either the Nazi period or of
Speaker 3: the war MM, so they have to construct the system
Speaker 3: by themselves, and they're new there in off, it's only
Speaker 3: a year or so, and it is not a reflection
Speaker 3: on their abilities, but a description of a new talent
Speaker 3: for them that hasn't existed in that form before.
Speaker 5: Do you think that also causes problems for the other
Speaker 5: great powers? You know, you you wrote a lot of
Speaker 5: history about containing you know, first containing France, then containing Germany,
Speaker 5: and now that now there is an issue. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you if you are France.
Speaker 3: Well, if Germany was in conflict with France since the
Speaker 3: Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century, because French policy
Speaker 3: was explicitly based on maintaining the balance of power, within
Speaker 3: Central Europe, which in practice meant maintaining a division of
Speaker 3: Germany between MM competing states and friends. Partly to mid states.
Speaker 3: The Germany made and Britain came to look at Germany
Speaker 3: as a said to its sea power. So when the
Speaker 3: ball fell, the neither the British nor the French leader
Speaker 3: were enthusiastic about the unification of Germany. But the reality
Speaker 3: is that British private it's in the eighties and seventies
Speaker 3: when Germany was unified. It's the last major European country
Speaker 3: to be unified in eighteen seventy one. Set set this
Speaker 3: will have a greater impact than Diffrench Revolution. So we
Speaker 3: are at this moment now when a new structure of
Speaker 3: Europe has to be created HM based on this reality.
Speaker 3: And I'm describing the challenge here, not the UH. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that the Germans have failed. It's new and
Speaker 3: it's a new challenge for this generation.
Speaker 5: Also a challenge for France and Britain. Very quickly, they've
Speaker 5: followed very different paths, especially since Sewers. You know, frances
Speaker 5: has very much defined itself, often in opposition to America,
Speaker 5: and it's buried itself in the European Union. The British,
Speaker 5: by contrast, have tended to stick with the Americans. And
Speaker 5: now they are outside the European Union. And you and
Speaker 5: I can argue about who's got things right over the
Speaker 5: past fifty years, but we are where we are, and
Speaker 5: I wonder you look at France and you look at Britain. Now,
Speaker 5: who is better placed to go forward? Britain outside the
Speaker 5: europe Union, France inside it.
Speaker 3: Psychologically Britain it is fedow placed because in the structure
Speaker 3: of the world that one can imagine appearing, whatever Europe
Speaker 3: does to its own conception it r RelA cooperation with
Speaker 3: America and pursuing parallel politics with America will have to
Speaker 3: be an essential component on it because by itself opposing
Speaker 3: all the other major power centers uh, Europe is in
Speaker 3: a difficult position to do that, and it may be impossible.
Speaker 3: So Britain historically is better placed uh uh to do it. Uh.
Speaker 3: Britain's problem is its connection, how to connect with Europe,
Speaker 3: not how to connect with the United States. It has
Speaker 3: the history of the special partnership and an instinctive fear
Speaker 3: in Britain. Th the danger comes from across the oceans
Speaker 3: and comes from across the border, while in Europe the
Speaker 3: instinctive ferience the danger comes from land invasions. So for
Speaker 3: Britain to link to Europe has turned out to be
Speaker 3: not possible organically, so it now has to be done
Speaker 3: by policy. And I think.
Speaker 5: That you actually think Britain would. I might disagree with
Speaker 5: you on this, but you think that Britain is sort
Speaker 5: of psychologically happier outside the European Union.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it is, and I think it's also
Speaker 3: a great opportunity for it to act as a link
Speaker 3: between a unifying Europe and America.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
Speaker 1: former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
Speaker 1: of that conversation next. Henry Kissinger has died at the
Speaker 1: age of one hundred. We're listening to a special conversation
Speaker 1: he had with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite not
Speaker 1: too long ago. He discusses his life and career. Let's
Speaker 1: hear more of that conversation.
Speaker 3: Now, America has never been true to itself unless it
Speaker 3: meant something beyond itself.
Speaker 5: Henry Kissinger said those words about his adopted Homeland in
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy three. He first arrived in the United States
Speaker 5: in nineteen thirty eight as a fifteen year old refugee.
Speaker 5: I began the second part of our conversation about the
Speaker 5: United States by asking, if his life story was uniquely American,
Speaker 5: could he have achieved what he has done anywhere else?
Speaker 3: Absolutely uniquely American. I was at a dinner in Germany
Speaker 3: when the German chancellor of the Democratic Germany was prison
Speaker 3: and the American ambassador rather amazingly as the chancellor, what
Speaker 3: would have happened to me in Germany if I had
Speaker 3: survived due to this period? And he said, I would
Speaker 3: be a junior professor in Munich at Munich University.
Speaker 5: That brings us very nice. That brings us very nicely
Speaker 5: to the next phase of your life. You go to Harvard.
Speaker 5: I think at different times of your life you had
Speaker 5: taught about chemistry and being an accountant, which is a
Speaker 5: wonderful image. But one of your mentors, Fritz Kramer, had
Speaker 5: a phrase about you were you were musically tuned to history.
Speaker 5: You go to Harvard, and the other kind of great
Speaker 5: figure of your youth, Bill Elliott Oppressor at Harvard, directs
Speaker 5: you towards the philosophy of history rather than just history itself,
Speaker 5: and that's where you get all the cant or the spinosa.
Speaker 5: Is that a really important difference. You know, you've always
Speaker 5: been obsessed not as by history, but the ideas behind it.
Speaker 3: Later on in life, my views, in those of many
Speaker 3: of the academic community at Harvard can be teritibly described.
Speaker 3: It's not veral. But in that period of my life,
Speaker 3: which in a funny way was its second immigration into America, uh,
Speaker 3: the first from Germany and the second from the army.
Speaker 3: Mm Uh, I haven't played a very important role because
Speaker 3: it gave me uh confident or inspiration, it's a better word,
Speaker 3: into the direction I was sort of divided. I was
Speaker 3: doing extremely well in chemistry, mostly based on memory, and
Speaker 3: I went to see the head of the chemistry department.
Speaker 3: His name was Professor Kisyakovsky, became a very well known
Speaker 3: figure up and I asked him whether I should major
Speaker 3: in chemistry, and he said, if you have to ask me, no,
Speaker 3: and so this then, but I've I was on that
Speaker 3: other codes already inwardly, it gave me the confidence to
Speaker 3: do it. The philosophy. I was most interested at first
Speaker 3: in philosophy, in theory of knowledge, in theory of values.
Speaker 5: Mm.
Speaker 3: But history it's a way to combine the inherent uncertainties
Speaker 3: of philosophy. Inherent because so far no absolute answers have
Speaker 3: ever been found by any civilization. With the results of
Speaker 3: what actually happened, and the ads I progressed, I progress
Speaker 3: in development, I became very philosophical. History became my dominance then.
Speaker 3: And I think if one reads my books that seem
Speaker 3: run through all of.
Speaker 5: Them, where in your life is that the idea of
Speaker 5: the philosophy of history most most the ideas be most
Speaker 5: challenged by reality. You know, you've said that history is
Speaker 5: interesting because you get reality conflicting.
Speaker 3: Life is torn between managing the presence and the evolution
Speaker 3: of the presence, so that in individual lives and of
Speaker 3: course magnified into society's lives, there's always the ambiguity that
Speaker 3: emphasis on the presence leads to stagnation, and that therefore
Speaker 3: everything else around you will outstrip that society. And so
Speaker 3: how to strike that balance between ultimate values and what
Speaker 3: reality imposes on you?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: And reality is never quite adequate. But ultimate values are
Speaker 3: too absolute because they demand a degree of imposition on others. Ah,
Speaker 3: how to strike that balance is maybe it's maybe given
Speaker 3: to us. It's our insoluble problem to keep a motivation
Speaker 3: at the appropriate level.
Speaker 5: Isn't that quite interesting? Isn't that also the story of
Speaker 5: American foreign policy? You have this, You've always argued that
Speaker 5: there's a set of ideals that America wants to.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's best. The problem for America, Yeah, because we
Speaker 3: have been ex closed as it is possible to be,
Speaker 3: to be satisfied with where we are, and we've been
Speaker 3: protected by two great oceans because whenever the society in
Speaker 3: the almost every place else, every place else was tempted
Speaker 3: to be excessively satisfied with itself, its neighbors intruded on them.
Speaker 3: It was very difficult to do that in America because
Speaker 3: of these oceans. But after World War two and now
Speaker 3: increasingly so uh, and now it's artificial intelligence totally. So
Speaker 3: we are part of an international global system, and it
Speaker 3: goes beyond internationally, it goes beyond its universal system. And
Speaker 3: we have simultaneously to adjust to that and conducted day
Speaker 3: to day policy with countries that have the same situation
Speaker 3: and with other countries that grow up to our level
Speaker 3: of achievement. That never existed before in history.
Speaker 5: You've always said America should balance a sort of shining
Speaker 5: city on a hill, complex with reality. And you look
Speaker 5: at the last you look at the last Cold War,
Speaker 5: and America won it by kind of singing a song
Speaker 5: of liberty of those ideals, but also by doing really
Speaker 5: basic things helping people, the Marshall Plan and things like that.
Speaker 5: If you go to America's allies, they will say America
Speaker 5: doesn't talk about those ideals any longer. It just talks
Speaker 5: about America first. And in terms of trade deals and
Speaker 5: things like that, America isn't you know, it's not even
Speaker 5: doing trade deals with its allies in either Asia or Europe.
Speaker 5: So that America, in a strange way, is more disconnected
Speaker 5: from what it should be than it has been.
Speaker 3: Well, actually, in fact, America it's not more disconnected. It's
Speaker 3: probably more connected than it's been. In word, it's considered
Speaker 3: the great period of American history, except that during the
Speaker 3: Marshall Plan at the end of World War two, oh,
Speaker 3: this was new, so it was in a new experience,
Speaker 3: and it would therefore it became very significant in day
Speaker 3: to day thinking of policy makers. Now policy makers are
Speaker 3: torn between and at that time we had over fifty
Speaker 3: percent of the world's gross national product. Now we are
Speaker 3: down to about twenty four percent, which is still a
Speaker 3: huge percentage, and it's still extremely influential percentage, but it
Speaker 3: requires us to be more discriminating. So it looks as
Speaker 3: if we are entrenching the problem that bothers me. It's
Speaker 3: not right basically, the entrenching, but the we have not
Speaker 3: yet found a concept that unified Americans, and so now
Speaker 3: the advocacy of the realization that we need a new
Speaker 3: idea for world order, it's dunk to a much smaller
Speaker 3: group that existed at the end of World War Two.
Speaker 3: Our talents is conceptual more than practical.
Speaker 5: When you came to power, America had had a long
Speaker 5: period where it had been able to lecture the world.
Speaker 5: America was going through great difficulties then, you know, it
Speaker 5: was going through things at the gas price. You had
Speaker 5: all these things going wrong, and America didn't. You had
Speaker 5: to scramble, You had to try and find allies. You
Speaker 5: had to try and make things work. You've had another period,
Speaker 5: you know, from the Berlin Wall onwards, where where America
Speaker 5: seemed very strong. Now again it's it's stuck having to
Speaker 5: make allies having to find balances. Is there a comparison
Speaker 5: there at all?
Speaker 3: We now are living in an in in a world
Speaker 3: of uh unprecedented complexity. Uh the need for allies exists.
Speaker 3: But what allies are supposed to do in given circumstances?
Speaker 3: And now the alliances are supposed to operate when every
Speaker 3: issue has a global component but not not every issue
Speaker 3: has a comparable interest for every country, so that countries,
Speaker 3: they all have a global interest in global h stability,
Speaker 3: but they don't have the same interest in the immediate situation. Secondly,
Speaker 3: there head now when I was given the opportunity to
Speaker 3: participate in policy making, that was essentially the seventies and
Speaker 3: and early eighties, all these issues were discussing, were beginning
Speaker 3: in they were in their infancy and uh so that
Speaker 3: their very existence was in dispute. And one of the
Speaker 3: contributions of Nixon was that he was willing to face
Speaker 3: these new uh, these n new realities. But now they're
Speaker 3: upon us. Uh and in that sense, it's an evolution
Speaker 3: of the problems as huge us in New ques.
Speaker 5: Do you think now America is a worse ally? I mean,
Speaker 5: if you go to if I go to Paris, or
Speaker 5: I go to Chakato. They will say all we hear
Speaker 5: from America is we hear America first, and we hear
Speaker 5: we don't want to do trade deals. We don't want
Speaker 5: to do things with you. There is no there is
Speaker 5: no sense of reaching out. And they would probably say
Speaker 5: that Joe Biden is a little bit more polite than
Speaker 5: they're more helpful.
Speaker 3: They'd invade with in America had shifted to the extens
Speaker 3: So the difference between say, liberal Republicans and Democrats in
Speaker 3: its evident ages was about the degree of a participation
Speaker 3: in which they both say it. In the present period
Speaker 3: did invade they had shifty two. It seems in which
Speaker 3: days an extreme theory of America First, which is applied
Speaker 3: on both sides, but in such a way that it
Speaker 3: that it focuses too much on American interests and not
Speaker 3: on global interests. That is a challenged, but anyone who
Speaker 3: wants to conduct a series American foreign policy must balance
Speaker 3: it two or America will become isolated.
Speaker 5: Do you think the current administration is isk is doing
Speaker 5: a serious job at that.
Speaker 3: I think the current administration is trying to do a
Speaker 3: serious job of that, but it is so afraid of
Speaker 3: attacks on itself, that it doesn't do itself justice.
Speaker 5: You were a Rockefeller Republican. Nowadays there are no Rockefeller Republicans.
Speaker 5: There's there's there's Democrats on one extreme, there's Republicans on
Speaker 5: the other. The center of American politics. The fact it's disappeared,
Speaker 5: do you think that that has dramatic foreign policy locations?
Speaker 3: I think that sender still exists, but it doesn't have
Speaker 3: fully it doesn't. I have an articulate expression here, would you.
Speaker 5: Ever like to see an independent party in America?
Speaker 3: Well, independent bodies in America. I have not had a
Speaker 3: good faith, but I do well think it is important
Speaker 3: to maintained an argument for the philosophy that I have maintained.
Speaker 3: Not because I have maintained it, but because it reflects
Speaker 3: the necessity of a period. And that becomes magnified if
Speaker 3: you consider that we are now in the field of
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence, at the very beginning of a colossal transformation
Speaker 3: of human consciousness, which will have to be built into
Speaker 3: this foreign policy.
Speaker 5: But we have a paradox, don't we. You have these issues,
Speaker 5: you have artificial intelligence, you have climate change, you have
Speaker 5: maybe the global economy where interconnectedness is incredibly important. But America, that.
Speaker 3: Is in the current world. But the essence of what
Speaker 3: I'm concerned about, it's that we have opened the door
Speaker 3: to a dialogue with objects and with machines. That that
Speaker 3: when when the printing press was invented, it transformed to
Speaker 3: human consciousness and said, of what we call now the Enlightenment,
Speaker 3: which has been going on for five hundred years. Now
Speaker 3: we are a these machines. What is the esence of
Speaker 3: these machines? We ask a question of these machines. These
Speaker 3: machines are then capable of encumbaging all the knowledge that
Speaker 3: we have taught them, but that we cannot contain in
Speaker 3: one brain nor one machine. Look at it, give us
Speaker 3: an answer, and we act on the basis of that.
Speaker 3: That is a new reality that has that will be
Speaker 3: studied for decades like the old new reality was when
Speaker 3: the printing credits permitted exchanging information easily.
Speaker 5: But the pretty printing press was at the time of
Speaker 5: nation states or nation states were coming to the fore
Speaker 5: where you had an immediate need to interact with other ones.
Speaker 5: It was part of what appeared AI is coming part
Speaker 5: in it as you described in America, which is not
Speaker 5: is not doesn't have more.
Speaker 3: But I think America will be driven by reality in
Speaker 3: studying what i've and so below all other countries. It's
Speaker 3: not an American thing, but it's become a high tech thing.
Speaker 3: So therefore it will be a dialogue between Therefore, the
Speaker 3: dialogue between America and China will become more important, or
Speaker 3: even more crucial. But it will change the way we
Speaker 3: interpreted reality because due to our achievement, we have found
Speaker 3: the key to a new aspect of reality which we
Speaker 3: didn't know existed.
Speaker 5: One last thing on America, Given the huge complexity of
Speaker 5: what you've described, do you think that a presidential election
Speaker 5: between Joe Biden and Donald Trump offers somebody who is
Speaker 5: capable of dealing with that degree of complexity.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be very difficult. It's it's it's a painful question.
Speaker 3: We have to live with what exists, and we mustn't
Speaker 3: turn our disputes into civil wars.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
Speaker 1: former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
Speaker 1: of that conversation next.
Speaker 5: The third part of our conversation centered on Asia, perhaps
Speaker 5: the place where Kissinger's had the most enduring impact for
Speaker 5: most people now that impact is represented by China, which
Speaker 5: Kissinger and Richard Nixon helped open up to the West.
Speaker 5: But his first encounter with Asia, and the area of
Speaker 5: his life is critics focus on, was into China. I
Speaker 5: put it to Kissinger that although Nixon and he plainly
Speaker 5: inherited a mess in Vietnam in nineteen sixty eight, by
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy five, North Vietnam had taken control of Saigon
Speaker 5: in Cambodia, which America had bombed, was a disaster. I
Speaker 5: asked him whether from the perspective now of nearly fifty years,
Speaker 5: there was anything he would have done differently.
Speaker 3: Honestly, leave, We did the best we could. We inherited
Speaker 3: the war in which five hundred and fifty thousand Americans
Speaker 3: now five hundred thousand were in place, and fifty thousand
Speaker 3: more had already been ordered to go there, and we're
Speaker 3: on the way UH to go there. In America, public
Speaker 3: opinion had turned in a significant way against the war
Speaker 3: and in violent demonstrations UH in the seats, among out
Speaker 3: the international public. Everybody was against the war, but they
Speaker 3: also were for Americas defending them. So our gradibi around
Speaker 3: the world depended accidents today on our ability to perform
Speaker 3: the tasks we had assigned ourselves. We have comparable problems
Speaker 3: today in issues in Taiwan and elsewhere Ukraine. So our
Speaker 3: resistant was to try to end the war under condition
Speaker 3: in which we a in which the control over their
Speaker 3: own destiny became fell more and more into the hands
Speaker 3: of the South Vietnamese. We gradually withdrew our troops, conducted negotiations,
Speaker 3: but also conducted enough military operations so that our adversary
Speaker 3: now quasi ally, but our then adversary did not become
Speaker 3: convinced that he could take over. Uh. We did not
Speaker 3: want in afghan what Lady was in Afghanistan style withdrawal,
Speaker 3: which was for twenty five hundred people. We had five
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand people, bloss a million armed. We
Speaker 3: in amazing place. So was it at every stage conducted
Speaker 3: with the absolutely would say a better way at any
Speaker 3: one point we didn't think so. I still don't think so.
Speaker 3: But uh, I'm open to that argument. But but what
Speaker 3: is meant by better? We reduced American casualties substantially, so
Speaker 3: that by the last year of the war they were
Speaker 3: in the thousands. UH. When the Nixon administration came in.
Speaker 3: They were reduced to less than a hundred in the
Speaker 3: last year of the war, and we withdrew from ground
Speaker 3: combat within two years, at all times maintaining a negotiation.
Speaker 3: The irreducible demand we had was an autonomous democratic government
Speaker 3: in South Vietnam that was not granted until the last
Speaker 3: three months of the war, which is why they were
Speaker 3: the last three months of the war. At that point
Speaker 3: we settled, But then the next question became could we
Speaker 3: maintain the settlement. We believed that we could maintain the
Speaker 3: settlement as we did in South Korea, against all but
Speaker 3: an all out invasion from the North, at which point
Speaker 3: alliance issues were a varis. But we believed against foreseeable infiltrations,
Speaker 3: we could maintain the autonomy of the of the government
Speaker 3: and we could maintain it against even significant attacks. But
Speaker 3: then Watergate occurred within two months of the settlement, and
Speaker 3: the Congress, reflecting public opinion, forbade any kind of military
Speaker 3: action in over in Near Vietnam. At that point, uh
Speaker 3: we d it w had become and had destroyed the basis.
Speaker 3: It was painful. It was the saddest moment of my
Speaker 3: public life when I had to sit in the Security
Speaker 3: Advisor's office and recommend the final withdrawals, and I published
Speaker 3: in my memoirs conversations with President Ford to show how
Speaker 3: painful he found it to agree to these recommend I
Speaker 3: think the time we gained enabled us. By the time
Speaker 3: the war was ended, we had already opened to China,
Speaker 3: and that in turn, or China had opened to us.
Speaker 3: Either way, but that was the crucial turning point of
Speaker 3: the Cold War, and also a created a structure from
Speaker 3: which we could have maintained or at least given the
Speaker 3: vietnamse a reasonable chance. During the debates and the pressures,
Speaker 3: many things were said that can now be s used
Speaker 3: to indicate different views. But this was our resential views,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure that any later books that are written
Speaker 3: on the subject that have access to material will see
Speaker 3: that this was what we thought and acted on.
Speaker 5: It's pretty quick on that. You think the in the end,
Speaker 5: the end, and the end justified all the collateral damage
Speaker 5: of hanging on that.
Speaker 3: No, the energy for us, uh, the end we were
Speaker 3: aiming for was an honorable piece. By honorable peace, we
Speaker 3: meant a piece in which we did not turn over
Speaker 3: the people who had relied on us to the domination
Speaker 3: of those whom they had fought relying on our promises.
Speaker 3: That was our definition of the end. We honestly believed
Speaker 3: that we had achieved that, and in presenting his proposal,
Speaker 3: the North Vietnam Meets negotiated, Lee Doctor. The crucial point
Speaker 3: was in October nineteen seventy two when the North Vietnam
Speaker 3: Meets negotiated turned over a proposal and then ready to
Speaker 3: DS and said this is essentially what President Nixon has
Speaker 3: proposed in January. At that point I asked for a recess.
Speaker 3: And my closes associated that point was a man called
Speaker 3: Vinceton Lot Hm went on to a distinguished career, and
Speaker 3: he had sort of resigning at the time we uh
Speaker 3: fought in Cambodia. And I told him, then you have
Speaker 3: two choices. You can go outside and walk around with
Speaker 3: a blacket, oh, you can help end it work. And
Speaker 3: so at that moment I turned to Winston or such
Speaker 3: Americans at that point, and I turned to him and
Speaker 3: I said, we've done it. Turned out to be a
Speaker 3: sad statement, because yeah, we hadn't, because we could not
Speaker 3: maintain the domestic support that was needed to sustain it. Ah.
Speaker 3: But the effort if the effort had not been made,
Speaker 3: and if we had gone to either of the other
Speaker 3: extreme solutions, one of it was to go all out
Speaker 3: upon coming into office before the ground had been laid
Speaker 3: with Russia and China, or to withdraw unconditionally and tried
Speaker 3: to extricate hundreds of thousands of troops while the enemy
Speaker 3: was still around them. In the foe mened local people
Speaker 3: might have turned against us. Was uh was not U
Speaker 3: was not acceptable, and there were no other terms that
Speaker 3: could have been n uh n uh negotiated. That was
Speaker 3: the reality ah that we faced, and so in retrospect
Speaker 3: President Nixon came to believe and actually I thought already
Speaker 3: at that time we should have considered a more all
Speaker 3: out military solution at the beginning. But reflecting about it,
Speaker 3: at the time we had had assassinations in America HM
Speaker 3: and already violent demonstrations. That was probably more theoretical than practical.
Speaker 3: So that was our thinking, of course, that it's all
Speaker 3: below it's been debated.
Speaker 5: The other bit, which you you mentioned as being in
Speaker 5: part a reason why staying there made sense was China.
Speaker 5: From that point of view, you went there, you hope it.
Speaker 3: Was important for us to show we ended up it
Speaker 3: convinced that a country of the magnitude of China and
Speaker 3: the history of China could not be kept out of
Speaker 3: the international system, and that we could not keep it
Speaker 3: out of the international system, that it would find a
Speaker 3: way to enter it, and so we began effort to
Speaker 3: open relations. At that moment, China had withdrawn all its
Speaker 3: ambassadors from every country in the world except to Poland
Speaker 3: and Egypt. And Poland was maintained in the Geneva Agreement
Speaker 3: of nineteen fifty four as a contact point between America
Speaker 3: and China, and negotiations began on a regular patis, that is,
Speaker 3: between the ambassadors. That there were one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: two meetings between nineteen fifty four and nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 3: none less and more than a day, because each began
Speaker 3: with the Chinese demanding the immediate return of Taiwan to
Speaker 3: China and with the Americans demanding that the UH China
Speaker 3: affirm its commitment to a commitment to a peaceful evolution
Speaker 3: of the process. Neither demand was accepted, and so we
Speaker 3: began from that basis and then went through many contortions
Speaker 3: to establish contact and exploring many e ways of possibly
Speaker 3: doing it, and finally found a way when President Nixon
Speaker 3: told Yakub Khan in Pakistan that we wanted contact, that
Speaker 3: to convey to the Chinese that we wanted a real dialogue,
Speaker 3: and we emphasized it by sending an embarassador in Poland,
Speaker 3: the impacted in Poland to approach the Chinese embassador at
Speaker 3: any social function which all impacted and were invited, which
Speaker 3: turned out to be a Yugoslav fashion show, and one
Speaker 3: normally doesn't associate with Yugoslavia. But we uh approached him,
Speaker 3: and it was at that moment we the embattlor a
Speaker 3: few weeks later drove up to our office to our
Speaker 3: empathy and said they were ready to begin negotiations. Those
Speaker 3: other contortions through which things were conducted at the time,
Speaker 3: but from there we worked together with China on the
Speaker 3: specific problem of enabling in a dire which gave for
Speaker 3: us something additional to think about, and then led to
Speaker 3: the eating of the Cold War and the culmination of
Speaker 3: the Vietnamese agreements and subsequent evolution of Journeese American relations.
Speaker 5: There's always a metaphor. Well, I think the first time
Speaker 5: you said we were in the foothills of a new
Speaker 5: Cold War and then we went up to the mountain passes.
Speaker 5: Then the world was on a precipice looking over. But
Speaker 5: each time we talk, the relationship between America and China
Speaker 5: seems to be worse. Is that Is that true today?
Speaker 3: I say we are now at the top of the precipice,
Speaker 3: and one of the big problems is both sides needed
Speaker 3: to step back from it several days. If one of
Speaker 3: them stepped ba back, it is falling. So both have
Speaker 3: to decide to take the tension out of this situation.
Speaker 3: But there's an inherent diff difficulty in that relationship. China
Speaker 3: had been a great country for much of its story,
Speaker 3: but in the period that prior to the assumption of
Speaker 3: relations in the terms of measuring power uh China was
Speaker 3: much weaker hm than the U than the United States.
Speaker 3: Its capacity was to stir up difficulty all over the
Speaker 3: world by using its diplomatic and potential commercial in influence.
Speaker 3: As China grew in strengths, which was inherent in opening
Speaker 3: the relationship uh it's it c gained the capacity of
Speaker 3: threatening the United States. In the nature of modern technology
Speaker 3: and the nuclear age from the beginning raised the issue
Speaker 3: that countries developing nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver
Speaker 3: them HM were able to inflict the amount of damage
Speaker 3: that would normally require years of warfare, so that therefore
Speaker 3: their capacity to influence actions by threats grew. That was
Speaker 3: the dilemma of the nuclears to begin with, and it
Speaker 3: was one reason why many of us thought negotiations for
Speaker 3: the reduction of that that were important. So with respect
Speaker 3: to Chinese American relations MM and China grew stronger, and
Speaker 3: as the American debate became more complicated, as we've discussed
Speaker 3: earlier mm UH, and as the Chinese governments changed over
Speaker 3: the years, UH, the tension became harder and harder to manage,
Speaker 3: and on the American side, it became him it's object,
Speaker 3: which it had not been, of domestic politics, so that
Speaker 3: candidates are now influenced by the degree of which their
Speaker 3: opponents can accuse them of selling out of China HM.
Speaker 3: So that it's the current problem, however, and it is
Speaker 3: a unique situation in the sense that the biggest threat
Speaker 3: of each country it's the other. That it's the biggest
Speaker 3: threat to China, it's America in their perception, and the
Speaker 3: same it's true here that the Chi that the biggest
Speaker 3: threat on the other hand, ors have become either unwinnable
Speaker 3: with the advanced weapons or venerable only at courts said
Speaker 3: out of proportion and so out of port efforts to negotiate,
Speaker 3: which China and I've been urging them.
Speaker 5: There's one interesting thing you said. You pointed out there
Speaker 5: in America that politics has changed because successive yet leaders
Speaker 5: and the elections people fight. In China, you've had one leader.
Speaker 5: You've a jaging thing now for over ten years. So
Speaker 5: the fact that it's got worse in China is that
Speaker 5: his fault. What what is has he gone in the
Speaker 5: wrong direction?
Speaker 3: Well, what he has done is the so called wolves diplomacy,
Speaker 3: en which China needs leader. Chinese diplomats were urged in
Speaker 3: effect to throw around their weight the in re s
Speaker 3: so in relations with say Australia, which of a dramatic
Speaker 3: reduction of Chinese trait because of some political and other
Speaker 3: statements that had been made. It's a problem with little
Speaker 3: bit comparable to what we did cussed before about Germany
Speaker 3: before nineteen fourteen, that Germany had suddenly became a great
Speaker 3: power and after it t h pit Mark at first
Speaker 3: had to h Ye did not know how to apply
Speaker 3: it in a way that translated into diplomatic results.
Speaker 5: You described Deng Shaping, for instance, as a great man.
Speaker 5: Do you think of Jijinping as a great man?
Speaker 3: Well, T is dung Chapin had finished his that had
Speaker 3: finished its destiny or its role.
Speaker 5: H t.
Speaker 3: Came in after a cultural revolution which wiped out many
Speaker 3: of these experienced leaders, and I don't describe him now
Speaker 3: as a great man, but I think he's foul doing golds,
Speaker 3: which might earn him the title and the American president
Speaker 3: if they achieve a real balancing of relationship between the
Speaker 3: two countries.
Speaker 5: What chances do you see of of an invasion of
Speaker 5: Taiwan sometime in the next three four years on the
Speaker 5: current trajectory of relations.
Speaker 3: Well, on the current trajectory of relations, I think some
Speaker 3: military conflict it's probable, But I also think the current
Speaker 3: prajectory of relations must be altered and full the beads
Speaker 3: preceding our discussion, there have been signs on both sides
Speaker 3: of trying to end them. They have not yet actually
Speaker 3: engaged in the sort of dialogue that that I suggest it,
Speaker 3: but I think they're moving towards it, and I leave
Speaker 3: my mind open in relation to the outcome.
Speaker 5: The other thing which has happened is that China has
Speaker 5: got more involved in things beyond its traditional region. You know,
Speaker 5: you've seen China talking to Zelensky. You saw China brokering
Speaker 5: a kind of truth between I Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: It should be an inevitable part of these discussions that
Speaker 3: both sides explained to each other what their core interests
Speaker 3: are and determine how do I handle situations in which
Speaker 3: they are core into its clash and I would hope
Speaker 3: to resolve into its in which CoInc it's class without conflict,
Speaker 3: or managed to avoid situations of clerging coincines.
Speaker 5: At the moment, you have India, which seems to be
Speaker 5: a non aligned country. It is not on one side
Speaker 5: or the other. Would would it? Would a younger Kissinger
Speaker 5: now focus from an American point of view of trying
Speaker 5: to bring India, which will be the next great power,
Speaker 5: onto the American side.
Speaker 3: I have no. I have not dealt with India for
Speaker 3: in terms of years, even longer than I've dealt with China,
Speaker 3: and at the early period of my dealing with India,
Speaker 3: their non alignment or a suit of considerable irritation because
Speaker 3: it took the form of lecturing arts on the virtues
Speaker 3: of non alignment. That choice was open to them, but
Speaker 3: not to us. When you are in a cold war,
Speaker 3: you can retreat from it and say you're not going
Speaker 3: to choose non alignment. But in the decades Wi which
Speaker 3: I've dealt with India said, since I think their policy,
Speaker 3: their current policy is extraordinarily thoughtful, and I have great
Speaker 3: respect for their foreign minister, who is a very i
Speaker 3: would say brilliant executor of that of that policy. India
Speaker 3: is a great power, and over the decades ahead, it
Speaker 3: will grow very comfortably to China, maybe not quite of
Speaker 3: the same string, but it doesn't matter at that point
Speaker 3: exactly it it will be of sufficient strength to uh
Speaker 3: sud itself, and so it performs best when it defends
Speaker 3: its own interests, which overlap many of ours. Our interests
Speaker 3: as a great power are to prevent any country from
Speaker 3: dominating the world or its regions in such a way
Speaker 3: that we lose our influence. To achieve important objective.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a special conversation with distinguished diplomat and
Speaker 1: former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. We'll have more
Speaker 1: of that conversation next.
Speaker 5: The final part of our conversation focused on legacy and
Speaker 5: the personal side. Henry Kissinger has remained a pretty private person.
Speaker 5: In an age where leaders like to play on emotional narratives,
Speaker 5: he has, as we shall shortly see, tended to suppress
Speaker 5: his backstory even when it might win him sympathy. One
Speaker 5: constant in the three decades that I've known him has
Speaker 5: been football. His first question on seeing me was why
Speaker 5: had Leicester City, my football team, just been relegated from
Speaker 5: the Premier League. He has followed Firth, which itself got
Speaker 5: relegated from the Bundesliga last year since he was a boy. Indeed,
Speaker 5: he and his brother were beaten up by Nazi thugs
Speaker 5: for trying to sneak into a game. You have lived
Speaker 5: one hundred years and Firth is yet to win the Bundesliga.
Speaker 5: How long would you have to live for that to happen?
Speaker 3: Oh, it would come close to the definition to giving
Speaker 3: us a definition of infinity.
Speaker 5: I've read a lot of things you've written, and nothing
Speaker 5: quite as sort of powerful as this. And it's it's
Speaker 5: in Neil Focuson's book. It was a private essay you
Speaker 5: wrote when you visited our concentration camp. When you age,
Speaker 5: I think just twenty two, and especially you meet this
Speaker 5: inmate called Felxama, and you say, Felix Samer, your foot
Speaker 5: has been crushed so that you can't run away. Your
Speaker 5: face is forty, your body is ageless. Yet all your
Speaker 5: certificate reads is sixteen. And I stand there with my
Speaker 5: clean clothes and make a speech to you and your comrades, Felixamer.
Speaker 5: Humanity stands accused in you, I, Joe Smith, human dignity.
Speaker 5: Everybody has failed you. You should be preserved in cement
Speaker 5: up here on the hillside for future generations to look
Speaker 5: upon and take stock human dignity. Objective values have stopped
Speaker 5: at this barbedoir. As long as conscience exists as a
Speaker 5: conception in the world, you will personify it. Nothing done
Speaker 5: for you will ever restore you. You are eternal in
Speaker 5: this respect. Obviously had a very profound experience in you.
Speaker 5: But if something you chose to keep so private for
Speaker 5: a long time is that do you think that's a
Speaker 5: different way of people seeing Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: It was a feeling that its concentration camp evoked in me.
Speaker 3: I wrote that within a week of having seen the
Speaker 3: level of dehumanization that we can imagine that people were
Speaker 3: too weak to hurt the god that kept them and
Speaker 3: be killed some people by mistake by giving them solid food.
Speaker 3: A but it so I wrote that for myself. I
Speaker 3: had no intention of publishing it, because feelings about humanity
Speaker 3: can affect your own actions. A biographer discovered it mm
Speaker 3: not among papers I gave him, but it ref It
Speaker 3: reflects an underlying reality that we have to recognize its
Speaker 3: lurking behind our technical capacities, and that we need to
Speaker 3: contain and prevent from breaking and to you, to prevent
Speaker 3: the bearing side from breaking out.
Speaker 5: When you look back at your life now from one
Speaker 5: hundred year point of view, do you think that has
Speaker 5: been the core of it? Is trying to do that.
Speaker 3: It's been an important core of it. But I don't advertise.
Speaker 5: It on that thing. I know you're you're one hundred,
Speaker 5: you're talking about writing two more books. But how if
Speaker 5: not for that, how would you like to be remembered.
Speaker 3: It's out of my control. I tried to do. They're
Speaker 3: best I could within the frameburg that we.
Speaker 5: Have did good, Henry Quest, thank you very much for
Speaker 5: talking to Bloomberg. A very delayed happy birthday, Thank you
Speaker 5: very much,