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The articles dealing with the Western “misalliance” (NATO), the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, and the Arab-Israeli wars show Draper at his brilliant best. They are recommended not only to the general reader but also to those whose business it is to deal with foreign affairs, for their scrupulous marshaling of the historical facts and their penetrating insights. In the case of the NATO articles, for example, the historical approach leads to the timely reminder that NATO was never an alliance in the sense of an organization formed for concerted undertakings; it was, instead, ab initio merely a unilateral guarantee by the United States of European security. Reconsideration of this one-sided relationship is now certainly on the agenda. And the essays on the Arab-Israeli wars are to my thinking among the most enlightening on this dismal subject. I had read them when they first appeared and find, on re-reading them, that they had the power of prophecy. Draper is particularly strong in demonstrating how the 1973 war, which was instigated by the Soviet Union, quickly exposed the fraudulence of the 1972 Nixon-Kissinger détente, and in detailing the ironic circumstances that produced Camp David and explaining why it has failed so far.

Draper’s articles on Kissinger and détente may be encapsulated in a simple question: Will the real Henry Kissinger please stand up? Is it Professor Kissinger, who as an academic wrote the classic texts on the pitfalls and illusions of détente, who warned repeatedly that the apparent Soviet turn from belligerency to détente was no more than a change of tactics to obtain access to Western technology and to achieve a peaceful victory over the West, and who pressed the need for even greater Western unity to resist the Soviets’ plans for world conquest? Or is it National Security Advisor/ Secretary of State Kissinger, who, in this second incarnation, made a 180-degree turn, established a “back channel” with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, neglected Europe and Latin America, embraced détente as initiating a new era in which the Soviets would cooperate to establish world peace, and hailed the ratification of SALT I, which ultimately led to Soviet nuclear superiority? Draper’s pen is dipped in acid as he mocks Kissinger’s “concepts” and “nuances” and adds Vietnam to his list of disasters. Draper manages to achieve in 75 pages what Seymour Hersh failed to achieve in the 640 pages of The Price of Power.

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The articles dealing with the Western “misalliance” (NATO), the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, and the Arab-Israeli wars show Draper at his brilliant best. They are recommended not only to the general reader but also to those whose business it is to deal with foreign affairs, for their scrupulous marshaling of the historical facts and their penetrating insights. In the case of the NATO articles, for example, the historical approach leads to the timely reminder that NATO was never an alliance in the sense of an organization formed for concerted undertakings; it was, instead, ab initio merely a unilateral guarantee by the United States of European security. Reconsideration of this one-sided relationship is now certainly on the agenda. And the essays on the Arab-Israeli wars are to my thinking among the most enlightening on this dismal subject. I had read them when they first appeared and find, on re-reading them, that they had the power of prophecy. Draper is particularly strong in demonstrating how the 1973 war, which was instigated by the Soviet Union, quickly exposed the fraudulence of the 1972 Nixon-Kissinger détente, and in detailing the ironic circumstances that produced Camp David and explaining why it has failed so far.

Draper’s articles on Kissinger and détente may be encapsulated in a simple question: Will the real Henry Kissinger please stand up? Is it Professor Kissinger, who as an academic wrote the classic texts on the pitfalls and illusions of détente, who warned repeatedly that the apparent Soviet turn from belligerency to détente was no more than a change of tactics to obtain access to Western technology and to achieve a peaceful victory over the West, and who pressed the need for even greater Western unity to resist the Soviets’ plans for world conquest? Or is it National Security Advisor/ Secretary of State Kissinger, who, in this second incarnation, made a 180-degree turn, established a “back channel” with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, neglected Europe and Latin America, embraced détente as initiating a new era in which the Soviets would cooperate to establish world peace, and hailed the ratification of SALT I, which ultimately led to Soviet nuclear superiority? Draper’s pen is dipped in acid as he mocks Kissinger’s “concepts” and “nuances” and adds Vietnam to his list of disasters. Draper manages to achieve in 75 pages what Seymour Hersh failed to achieve in the 640 pages of The Price of Power.