#40- Henry Kissinger - The best you can do

Its been my belief that sometimes stories convey concepts better than preaching.

Is this the best you can do ?

A  story I'd heard about how Henry Kissinger motivated his staff to do their best when he was Secretary of State. The story is told by retired ambassador Winston Lord in aoral history project conducted at George Washington University:

WL: ... Kissinger was a speechwriter. He thought speeches made policy, and he took great care on them. I did more of this later when he was in the State Department, so you'd have to go through about 20 drafts and many insults before you got to the final speech.

INT: Yeah, biographies of Kissinger have him jumping up and down on speeches. Isn't there an anecdote where... you'd written a speech and he kept having you re-write it and saying, "Can't you do any better?" and clearly he hadn't read them?

WL: Well, basically it was, I went in with a draft, and it was actually of a presidential foreign policy report. This is slightly apocryphal and not directly on your subject here, but I would go in with a draft of the speech. He called me in the next day and said, "Is this the best you can do?" I said, "Henry, I thought so, but I'll try again." So I go back in a few days, another draft. He called me in the next day and he said, "Are you sure this is the best you can do?" I said, "Well, I really thought so. I'll try one more time." Anyway, this went on eight times, eight drafts; each time he said, "Is this the best you can do?" So I went in there with a ninth draft, and when he called me in the next day and asked me that same question, I really got exasperated and I said, "Henry, I've beaten my brains out - this is the ninth draft. I know it's the best I can do: I can't possibly improve one more word." He then looked at me and said, "In that case, now I'll read it."

Henry Alfred Kissinger (/?k?s?nd??r/;[1] born Heinz Alfred Kissinger [ha?nts ?alf??t ?k?s???]; Born May 27, 1923) is an American diplomat and political scientist. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as United States Secretary of State in the administrations of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating the ceasefire in Vietnam (though never realized), Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances,[2] with two members of the committee resigning in protest. After his term, his advice has been sought by world leaders including subsequent U.S. presidents.

A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. Kissinger's Realpolitik resulted in controversial policies such as U.S. support for Pakistan, despite its genocidal actions during the Bangladesh War.[3] He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm. Kissinger has been a prolific author of books on politics and international relations with over one dozen books authored.

General opinion of Henry Kissinger remains widely divided. Several scholars have ranked Kissinger as the most effective U.S. Secretary of State since 1965.[4] Various activists and human rights lawyers, however, have sought his prosecution for alleged war crimes