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Henry Kissinger: The Emotional Statesman

1 points by areoform 3y ago

areoform 3y ago
You can find the full article via Anna's Archive, https://annas-archive.org/md5/0bffba127a0212b6098051b7f008c79b https://annas-archive.org/md5/0bffba127a0212b6098051b7f008c7... The paper's thesis is that Kissinger has been held up to be a rational actor, but a fuller examination of his record contradicts this perspective, Kissinger’s famously volatile temper was a perpetual source of trepidation for his much-abused staff. “Why have I been inflicted with such incompetents!” he would bellow, grabbing a staffer’s memo, throwing it to the floor, and jumping up and down on it. “When he stamps a foot in anger, you’re okay,” one National Security Council (NSC) aide recounted. “It’s when both feet leave the ground that you’re in trouble.”5 With self-deprecating humor he joked, “Since English is my second language, I didn’t know that maniac and fool were not terms of endearment.” After moving out of the White House basement to a bigger office, he complained that it now took him so long to stomp across the room to where his staffer sat that he sometimes forgot what he was angry about.6 The press, the diplomatic corps, and even foreign leaders were not safe from displays of his anger. During negotiations in May 1974, to cite one example, he yelled and threw a map across the table at Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.7 After one notable outburst over a leak, Soviet ambassador Anatolyi Dobrynin reported to the Kremlin that Kissinger had displayed “hot temper and lack of self-control, combined with tinges of semi-hysteria.” Dobrynin claimed to have chided him, “one must control one’s emotions." Temper tantrums, jealousy-induced rages, depressions, and displays of anguish are not usually regarded as natural accoutrements of Realpolitik. Yet Kissinger’s well-documented inability to control his emotions has had no discernible effect on his reputation as “the ultimate realist.”9 Such is the power of the Kissinger- as-realist iconography that scholars have generally reacted to Kissinger’s emotionalism either by ignoring it or treating it as a titillating sideshow. Walter Isaacson’s moderately critical 1992 biography is the only major study of Kissinger to discuss his outbursts at any length, but the anecdotes amount to little more than colorful asides included to enliven the text rather than analyzed to reveal the man’s inner workings.10 The recent spate of Kissingerology tends to ignore his emotional side altogether. In impressive and insightful recent works—Mario Del Pero’s brilliant study of Kissinger’s thought, Jussi Hanhimäki’s masterful account of Kissinger’s diplomacy, and Jeremi Suri’s revealing portrait of Kissinger as a product of “the American century”—the depressive, anger-prone statesman has almost disappeared.11 In these works, as in much of the literature that treats Kissinger’s role in particular issues and events, Kissinger appears above all as an intellectual.12 His vanity, insecurity, penchant for secrecy, and overweening ambition are assigned to the category of “personality traits” or “character flaws” that sometimes inhibit or distort his rationality. Whereas Nixon has been the subject of numerous psychological studies and speculation that he was mentally ill, the predominant mode of analysis in Kissinger studies has been to assume Kissinger was a rational actor.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

1 points by areoform 3y ago

You can find the full article via Anna's Archive, https://annas-archive.org/md5/0bffba127a0212b6098051b7f008c79b https://annas-archive.org/md5/0bffba127a0212b6098051b7f008c7... The paper's thesis is that Kissinger has been held up to be a rational actor, but a fuller examination of his record contradicts this perspective, Kissinger’s famously volatile temper was a perpetual source of trepidation for his much-abused staff. “Why have I been inflicted with such incompetents!” he would bellow, grabbing a staffer’s memo, throwing it to the floor, and jumping up and down on it. “When he stamps a foot in anger, you’re okay,” one National Security Council (NSC) aide recounted. “It’s when both feet leave the ground that you’re in trouble.”5 With self-deprecating humor he joked, “Since English is my second language, I didn’t know that maniac and fool were not terms of endearment.” After moving out of the White House basement to a bigger office, he complained that it now took him so long to stomp across the room to where his staffer sat that he sometimes forgot what he was angry about.6 The press, the diplomatic corps, and even foreign leaders were not safe from displays of his anger. During negotiations in May 1974, to cite one example, he yelled and threw a map across the table at Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.7 After one notable outburst over a leak, Soviet ambassador Anatolyi Dobrynin reported to the Kremlin that Kissinger had displayed “hot temper and lack of self-control, combined with tinges of semi-hysteria.” Dobrynin claimed to have chided him, “one must control one’s emotions." Temper tantrums, jealousy-induced rages, depressions, and displays of anguish are not usually regarded as natural accoutrements of Realpolitik. Yet Kissinger’s well-documented inability to control his emotions has had no discernible effect on his reputation as “the ultimate realist.”9 Such is the power of the Kissinger- as-realist iconography that scholars have generally reacted to Kissinger’s emotionalism either by ignoring it or treating it as a titillating sideshow. Walter Isaacson’s moderately critical 1992 biography is the only major study of Kissinger to discuss his outbursts at any length, but the anecdotes amount to little more than colorful asides included to enliven the text rather than analyzed to reveal the man’s inner workings.10 The recent spate of Kissingerology tends to ignore his emotional side altogether. In impressive and insightful recent works—Mario Del Pero’s brilliant study of Kissinger’s thought, Jussi Hanhimäki’s masterful account of Kissinger’s diplomacy, and Jeremi Suri’s revealing portrait of Kissinger as a product of “the American century”—the depressive, anger-prone statesman has almost disappeared.11 In these works, as in much of the literature that treats Kissinger’s role in particular issues and events, Kissinger appears above all as an intellectual.12 His vanity, insecurity, penchant for secrecy, and overweening ambition are assigned to the category of “personality traits” or “character flaws” that sometimes inhibit or distort his rationality. Whereas Nixon has been the subject of numerous psychological studies and speculation that he was mentally ill, the predominant mode of analysis in Kissinger studies has been to assume Kissinger was a rational actor.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]