HAK, 1923-2023, R.I.P.

By C.J. Marcinko

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(Off the top of my head like last week’s haircut.? Relying only on my rusty memory (except 2 quotes) and spastic fingertips, this one’s for you Hank.)

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Immigrant.? Professor.? Writer.? National security Advisor.? Secretary of State.? Morality aside, Henry David Kissinger was a great man.? Morality included, he was one of the more important people in national and international history.? Highlights include ending The Vietnam War (for which he won the Noble Peace Prize), re-opening diplomatic relations with China after 20 years of alienation, arguably was acting Co-President of the United States, invented “shuttle diplomacy” saved Israel and brokered a peace deal in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, wrote a ton of books, remained an unofficial Presidential advisor, dated Candice Bergen and a bunch of other “stars & starlets”, and helped win the cold war.? Not a bad list of accomplishments, for an immigrant kid.? However, nobody bats a thousand.? Lowlights include egging on President Nixon’s worst impulses, getting the United States involved in wars, bombings, coups, assassinations and all sorts of other nefarious stuff around the globe.? Hero to some, War Criminal to others, he remained diplomatically Important for over half a century.

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Henry David Kissinger was born in Germany to Jewish parents.? They, being smart enough (or having good enough instincts) to smell the gas chambers and furnaces in advance, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1930’s.? When he was old enough, Kissinger joined the U.S. Army and went back to a post-war Germany under reconstruction from the twelve-year nightmare that was Adolph Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich.? Even back then, he had solid advice for his bosses: he said if you want to find any ex-Nazi’s in your list of job applications, pay attention to the ones that mention they were ex-police officers.? The Army caught a bunch of Nazis, whether they later became “valued assets” of the Central Intelligence Agency is another matter.

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After his service and education, he became a Professor at Harvard.? “Academic feuds are so bitter, because the stakes are so small,” he’d opine.? Colleagues, like William Bundy and Brzezinski (something old, something Zbigniew) would later have their knives out for him, maybe not without reason.? Some of Kissinger’s big heroes were Metternich, Bismarck and Richelieu.? The most important to Kissinger from a philosophical standpoint, IMO, was Richelieu, whose principle of Raison De’tat (reason of state) philosophy went something like this:? people that run countries have a greater responsibility than average folk, after all they were accountable for not just their lives and family’s lives, but the lives of everyone in their country, all the natural resources, not to mention posterity.? Therefore, according to Richelieu, a Catholic Cardinal, the laws of morality for the common folk, don’t apply to national leaders.? Without endorsing that view, national leaders are often faced with two options: bad and worse, seldom black or white, but sludgy grey.? Somehow, though, I don’t think that means morality should be thrown out the window.? Ever.? It’s a short, slimy, slippery slope from Raison De’tat? to “Under Article Two of the Constitution, I can do whatever I want.”

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During the 1968 Presidential campaign, Kissinger had the distinction of advising both the Humphry and Nixon campaigns.? Not sure if anyone played both sides like that before or since, but with him not a surprise.? Guess we could call it “Raison De’Henry.”

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During the Vietnam war, a conflict they didn’t start but were forced to finish, Nixon and Kissinger re-opened diplomatic relations with China, sealed a wheat deal with the U.S.S.R., and increased the size of the wedge between the two communist behemoths.? This helped bring about the end of the war as well as an eventual victory in the Cold War.? William Bundy, national security veteran of the preceding administrations, in his book about the Nixon Administrations foreign policy “A Tangled Web,” snottily waves off these accomplishments, sore-loserman style, saying that had Humphry been elected, this would have happened anyways.? People and their hypotheticals so certain about their guesswork, are they.? Bundy, who worked for Kennedy and Johnson, doesn’t note that they had 8 years to do the same, but somehow didn’t get around to it.? Well, isn’t that special.? Then again, Kissinger might have been National Security Advisor or Secretary of State if Humphry had won.

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During a several month stretch during Watergate, when Nixon was too drunk to function, our country was basically run by Chief of Staff Al Haig and Kissinger.? They weren’t our first unelected Presidents (Edith Wilson, Woodrow’s wife was in charge after his stroke) or our last (Nancy Reagan, during Ronnie’s increasing dementia actually fired the Chief of Staff and Communications Director, amongst others) but they served this country during a difficult time.

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With the exception of the Carter Administration (no doubt in part due to Carters’ National Security Advisor Brzezinski), Kissinger would informally advise every following administration.? Our current Secretary of State Anthony (Winkin’ and) Blinken asked his advice not even a month ago.? He continued to write and spout opinions.? He was initially optimistic about the Trump Administration, but later he thought refusal to work with our allies was suicidal.?? When he basically took the side of Vladimir Putin (someone he was not unfriendly with) last year and told Ukraine that they shouldn’t join NATO and give Russia whatever they wanted, I wrote that off as the opinion of a 99-year-old that perhaps had lost a tad bit of his mental edge.? However, when Ukraine’s fortunes improved on the battlefield, Kissinger pivoted like the realist, cold-warrior of old and said there was no reason why Ukraine should not join NATO.? It seems Uncle Vlad was another despot invited on to the Kissinger Express than thrown off it, when circumstances change.? It’s a mean, old, cold hard world and the Doctor wasn’t exactly warm and cuddly.

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He was a human quote machine, almost approaching Churchill territory.? Sarcastically noting Chile’s geostrategic importance, he called it “A Pistol pointed at the heart of Antarctica.”? “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”? “Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.”? “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” is probably his most famous,” but my favorite was “You’re not Paranoid if People Really are Out to get You.”? That last one has been a crutch for me, as well as a cross to carry and hang from, but enough about me.

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Or not.? I hardly claim to be unbiased about him.? Without question I’ve read more about Foreign Policy by him than any other person, probably more than the next two or three combined on my reading list.? I didn’t delve too deeply into the negatives and there certainly were plenty, I’ll leave that to others, which I’m sure in the media, they’ll be corpse carvers, a-plenty.? But he remained sharp, active, relevant and true to himself, to the very end.

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