The Kissinger Style

The year 1973 confirmed Henry Kissinger as the century’s most spectacular diplomat. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and topped the Most Admired poll. His wax dummy was the 1973 favorite at Madame Tussaud’s. And he has begun 1974 with another tour de force. The Suez disengagement accord may be only a small step toward solution of the Mideast conflict, but it is the largest step ever taken.

What, then, are the distinctive marks of the diplomatic style of this global swinger, who in 1973 must also have broken the jet set mileage record? I do not refer, in raising this question, to the philosophic and historical theories that scholars have discovered in his writings, but to what might be called the operational principles that are displayed in what, as diplomat, he actually does.

JB

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James Burnham

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The year 1973 confirmed Henry Kissinger as the century’s most spectacular diplomat. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and topped the Most Admired poll. His wax dummy was the 1973 favorite at Madame Tussaud’s. And he has begun 1974 with another tour de force. The Suez disengagement accord may be only a small step toward solution of the Mideast conflict, but it is the largest step ever taken.

What, then, are the distinctive marks of the diplomatic style of this global swinger, who in 1973 must also have broken the jet set mileage record? I do not refer, in raising this question, to the philosophic and historical theories that scholars have discovered in his writings, but to what might be called the operational principles that are displayed in what, as diplomat, he actually does.