STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Henry Kissinger’s new book called WORLD ORDER receives a grade of  C+  maybe B-. 

Please readers don’t worry about a New World Order! It ain’t goin’ happen’ noways!
Many of you have written to me about the impending gloom that you feared would be encased in Henry Kissinger’s new book, World Order.  Sorry but I have to disappoint those individuals who believe the past statements made by many of our Democratic and Republican Presidents [Clinton, Bush Sr , Bush Jr et. al] , Henry is not espousing any new type of world order.

What Henry has done quite masterfully is to explain the rise of the concepts of nation-states as they are reflected in the present situations of Western Cultures in comparison to Islamic Culture and Chinese/Asian cultures.  For the first 200 pages,  Henry illuminates very clearly the rise of those three respective civilizations without any of his former Teutonic prejudices,  as manifested in his early writings and thoughts.

You all know I was a DAS during the Nixon Administration when he was Secretary of State and that I refused to work with Henry directly or in any way to help him in his efforts to prolong wars. My assignments were directly overseen by Lawrence Eagleburger, a man of his own rectitude and strong opinions. However, having said the above, I was really surprised to read a very cogent discussion of what I would call Comparative Civilizations.  The book is lucid, well-written and develops some very interesting conclusions which I will leave up to you to read or not.

One insight that I particularly liked was on P. 167, when Henry says the following:
“For nations,  history plays a role that character confers on human beings.  In Iran’s proud and rich history, one distinguishes three different approaches to international order.” 

For me that is quite an admission for Henry where he states what I had learned all along at MIT,  that different nations have different national characters.  Also I must give credit to the fact that Henry is 91 years old and despite two severe heart attacks and two coronary bypasses,  he found the time, courage and fortitude to write his last book, which I consider probably to be the best of all his books.

Why did I give Henry a C+ or B-?

I came out of a very rigorous past of study and credentials.  For most of my academic career,  I was not an A student.  In fact, Cornell University and Cornell Medical School were appropriately severe on my lack of scholastic enthusiasm.  I was at best a C student.  At Harvard Medical College,  I did relatively better but again, not an “A” student.  With this personal academic history,  I must assign H.K. an average grade for his last work.   Henry simply recapitulates the history of the different cultures as if he were a Professor of Freshman at Harvard College or maybe, even a High School Teacher in Advanced History.

His clear elucidations do not earn him points for original thinking or new concepts for the 21st century.  Henry demonstrates real problems when he has to address the modern phenomenon of the internet and social media.  If Henry had been at MIT in 1973,  he would not had any such issue because he would had studied with Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool or Everett Hagen or Lucian Pye.  So in terms of understanding modern times,  Henry seriously lacks any gravitas or credentials other than the sobriquet of a “Historian”.

Yet part of me leans toward leniency and grades Henry a B- because he gives credit to many of his formidable colleagues in his last book.  Allow me to mention a few: Charlie Hill,  the most brilliant, unusual Foreign Service Officer that I ever had the pleasure to work with and ‘annoy’. We had worked together in the Carter, Regan and Bush Jr administrations. He was the ‘keeper of the door’. In every administration there is one individual who is as important as the Sec State, but no one, not even the NYTimes reporters knew about Charlie Hill. I would walk into his office, usually to be reprimanded for something but I always enjoyed seeing him. Why? Charlie would sit at his desk, silent, Buddha-like, not even raising his eyes to greet you.  One side of the table he had a motorcycle helmet, on the other side he had an original copy of some Greek historian which he was literally translating in front of me with his beautiful handwriting. When I left his office on the Seventh Floor, I was often asked what did he tell you?  My response was always the same, “I have no idea! But it was brilliant!”

Next Henry thanked Les Gelb.  Many of you might remember his name because he was the Managing Editor of the NY Times, as well as the President of the Council On Foreign Relations.  To me,  he was someone very special.  During a very tense time in the Carter Administration when the lovely, gentleman-like Cyrus Vance had internal problems with Zbigniew Brzezinski [smart, tough Pole],  Les was the first one to defy Zbig’s orders and resign publicly.  Les represented the type of courage that we always need in every different administrations.

Henry also thanked a man I did not know well but I admired as one of our finest FSO Ambassadors---Jay Stapleton Roy.  Finally one of Henry’s closest associates and also a very brilliant China scholar and brave individual was and is, Winston Lord, a former Ambassador to China. Winston, a modest, brilliant scholar of the Far East, was a humble man  yet born to wealth who possessed all the humor and courage of a man who defied the Chinese Authorities during the Tianamen Square crisis.  There he sacrificed himself and his famous wife, in order to shelter some of the Chinese Political dissidents. He has always garnered my admiration for his courage and scholarship.

What you really are reading is not the story of new world order but rather the story of a poor immigrant German Jew who came to America in order to flee the Nazis; and rose to the highest positions of power and national security throughout his career, garnering the talents of those different young men with whom he could and could not work. Whatever else I can say or not say about Henry Kissinger,  he was and is a historical phenomenon equivalent to the man I wrote about in my book--- Charles Maurice de Perigord Talleyrand or simply Talleyrand.  Henry wrote his doctoral thesis on Metternich but over time he had learned more than the Teutonic icons he so adored and tried to emulate. He became more like the French Cardinal Richelieu and his nephew, Bishop Talleyrand. That’s not a bad place to be in history for a German Jewish Refugee who lived near the George Washington Bridge and who started his national security career in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps interviewing Nazi war criminals.

Unlike most of his WASP predecessors at the State Department,  Henry was not born to the manor.  Right or wrong,  he has earned his place in the history of western civilization.  As did his much maligned patron – President Richard Nixon-- who understood better than anyone how to manipulate ‘Henry’.  If not for those ignominious ‘snitches,’  like John Dean and Bob Woodward,  Nixon would be recognized for the great President he was once.  Remember: it was Nixon, and not Henry who had developed all the incredible strategies to approach China and neutralize the Soviet Union.  Eventually, history will accord both men their rightful place in our textbooks. 

If you want to understand Henry then I recommend that you buy his book, WORLD ORDER.  For those out there who are considered conspirators, like me, forget about it.  There is no conspiracy in this book.  Just simple history and clear, lucid analysis.

That’s all folks!