Never trusted him.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...1ff8764ac60c48&ei=15

I remember reading in a Nixon biography that the two of them couldn’t stand each other

100 years old - he did good

The Left called him "a celebrity war criminal" because he got major results. He had a brutal honesty dealing with a violent world.

AMF

Weren’t Kissinger and Dick Nixon the masterminds that put China on the path to world domination?

Mixed reviews on him by many.
December 1972 and I was about to get drafted, my lottery number was #4 for the ‘73 draft, when he helped negotiate an end to the war. Really more a face saving truce so we could get out of that mess.

They immediately stopped the draft and it is yet to be resumed. I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

He was a major player for a number of big events in the world and still traveling recently at age 100.

Mrs. Mike had Heinz on her celebrity death list this year. Looks like Mat-Mat will win this year with four so far.

quote:

I remember reading in a Nixon biography that the two of them couldn’t stand each other

I remember when it came out that Nixon referred to him as "Jew boy". They had a love hate relationship for sure.

Bigger tits than Cher

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Weren’t Kissinger and Dick Nixon the masterminds that put China on the path to world domination?

Yeah, we all thought we knew it all back then, but then learned too hard and too late not to trust the Chinese.

Or, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Early in 1972 I was in a senior-level seminar on international politics and conflict, taught by one of Kissinger's advisors, and it was perhaps the most interesting course I took in college.

The day after we mined Haiphong Harbor, my professor showed up, bleary-eyed and exhausted. We peppered him with questions until he quietly said "Someone close the door" and filled us in for the next 1-1/2 hours.

A week later, Walter Cronkite began his evening newscast, wide-eyed, saying we had also mined the rivers, which were the real Ho Chi Minh trail. I just smiled to myself, and thought, "I knew that".

I agree that Kissinger pretty-much sold us out with his Viet Nam peace agreement, but understand why it went that way.

I guess you had to be there.

America was at the beginning of the decline that has been all-too obvious the last few years, except for the few of us that recognized it for what it was, and that is what Kissinger had to deal with. I never met him, and I regret that.

Kissinger and Nixon advocated opening relations with China as a method to approach detente with the Soviets. Basically playing the two communist superpowers against each other...and it worked. They in no way endorsed the later policy of sending American jobs to the communist. These were clear eyed individuals who understood how the world worked. It's unfair to saddle Kissinger with the rise of China. It never would have happened under his watch.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Weren’t Kissinger and Dick Nixon the masterminds that put China on the path to world domination?

Thanks, Henry, for doing your small part in helping Communist China become the military and economic threat they are today. As Chairman Mao burns in hell, he still has a smile on his face when he thinks about the one he put over on you and Nixon as you tried to make China a more democratic and capitalist country.

He was one of my father’s instructors at the Air War College way back.

It took him long enough

quote:

Originally posted by bdylan:
It's unfair to saddle Kissinger with the rise of China. It never would have happened under his watch.

It wasn't a "one and done" deal. Kissinger had his little fingers in American foreign policy for 50 years.

Kissinger had no sway in the Democrat administrations that prioritized making China an economic powerhouse. Realpolitik was predicated on engaging with your enemies and playing different groups against each other...not becoming lovers with communist China.

Strangely enough, the communists in Vietnam have become one of our stronger partners in the region and are practical enough to see the Chinese and Russians are not their friends.
Kissinger's approach was to analyze your adversary and see what they are looking for, see things through their eyes, to better understand how to make a deal with them.
They weren't so much pro our cold war enemies, they didn't want to be anyone's colony like most smaller countries in that region. Hopefully one day they will be a bit less authoritarian but they've seemed to navigate reasonably well between the larger powers to get where they are now.