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Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century, by Henry Kissinger (Simon & Schuster, 318 pp., $30)

WHY is it that, even though Henry Kissinger has beyond any doubt become the most honored elder in the world of foreign affairs, writing about him these days stirs in one the impulse to begin by defending him? It can hardly be claimed that society has treated him in any way shabbily: Has anyone else out of power for more than twenty years continued to be so actively sought out for his counsel and blessing? On the other hand, there are certain corners of allegedly respectable society in which the standing order with respect to him has from the first been “Shoot before you see the whites of his eyes”—the most recent case being that of the unforgivable Christopher Hitchens.

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Midge Decter

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Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century, by Henry Kissinger (Simon & Schuster, 318 pp., $30)

WHY is it that, even though Henry Kissinger has beyond any doubt become the most honored elder in the world of foreign affairs, writing about him these days stirs in one the impulse to begin by defending him? It can hardly be claimed that society has treated him in any way shabbily: Has anyone else out of power for more than twenty years continued to be so actively sought out for his counsel and blessing? On the other hand, there are certain corners of allegedly respectable society in which the standing order with respect to him has from the first been “Shoot before you see the whites of his eyes”—the most recent case being that of the unforgivable Christopher Hitchens.