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Historiography of kissinger
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As Walter Isaacson will tell you, Kissinger is the sort of man who will draw polar reactions from people-- you either love him or hate him. This makes it difficult to write an objective biography of him while still providing useful commentary. In my opinion, Isaacson succeeds brilliantly. Although he is very penetrating in analyzing Kissinger's techniques and views as National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State, he stops short of giving us his views on whether they were good and bad, focusing instead on whether or not they worked, and what reaction they provoked. This leaves the reader to form their own opinion on whether or not Kissinger was justified in his actions, or if his policies were the best ones. This is as it should be-- Kissinger is too complex a subject and too emotional a topic to be fed someone else's reaction to his actions.
What Isaacson does is provides an excellent insight into Kissinger's complex personality, as well as an analysis of his foreign policy, the effects of his personality on his policy, and the options available to him.
At the same time I kept wondering how anyone could believe anything that comes out of Kissinger's mouth. To say he is disingenuous seems to be an understatement. Isaacson brings out the fact that Kissinger would flatter a person and then insult him behind his back. Quite often this would come back to haunt Kissinger.
Isaacson does a masterful job in articulating the "realist" school of foreign policy and the "idealist" school. The realist view sees things in terms of balances of power, whereas the idealist school sees things in terms of promoting American values in foreign policy (like democracy, human rights, etc.). Kissinger, holding to the former school, had no feel for the latter whatsoever. This left his foreign policy open, and I believe rightly so, to criticism from human rights groups and from average Americans who felt we should put our best values forward in conducting foreign affairs.
Walter Isaacson simply set out to chronicle and highlight to the life and times of Henry Kissinger. What resulted was one of the most comprehensive, insightful, and nonpartisan biographies of the field. Isaacson draws extensively from Kissinger's own memoirs, Years of Upheaval, White House Years, and Years of Renewal, as well as other works written by Kissinger. However, Isaacson also uses other secondary sources written by authors sympathetic and unsympathetic to the former Secretary of State.
In 1971, John Kerry stood in front of the Senate and spoke about his experiences in Vietnam as a soldier. There would be many that would agree with his position, some that would disagree and ultimately some that had no strong opinion at all. John Kerry knew that although he was speaking to the senate he was also speaking to the American people and through his intentional way of speaking he used this to his advantage. In John Kerry’s speech, strongly opposing the Vietnam War, Kerry successfully uses his persona as one who experienced the war head on, to reveal the lack of morality in Vietnam and paint the war as barbaric acts with no true purpose behind them.
This unfortunate legacy of failure in Vietnam carried far past the end of his service as Secretary of Defense. For years after, there have been ongoing debates as to what factors led the outcome of the Vietnam War. It wasn’t until 1995 that Robert McNamara contributed his own viewpoint on where the responsibility for the result of the war fell. McNamara’s memoir, “In Retrospect”, chronicles his perspective on the role he played as Secretary of Defense. It is apparent in his memoir that the public image associated with McNamara is vastly different from the McNamara he presents. Ironically, this infamous war he was so commonly know for may have been a war that privately he did not support.[1] This raises the question—was this hawk actually a
This investigation assesses the success of the policies of Henry Kissinger during the tense period of the Cold War and the sequential years, specifically pertaining to the peace summits with Russian officials in 1972 and 1973 with regard to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties. This investigation evaluates Kissinger’s impact during the period of the SALT treaties on the reduction of nuclear arms and the implementation of détente. Specifically, how Kissinger got what he wanted, the risks involved, and the outcome of the treaties. The sources used, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine, by Robert S. Litwak and Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year, by Alistair Horne, will then be evaluated for their origins, purposes, values, and limitations.
Robert S. McNamara's book, In Retrospect, tells the story of one man's journey throughout the trials and tribulations of what seems to be the United States utmost fatality; the Vietnam War. McNamara's personal encounters gives an inside perspective never before heard of, and exposes the truth behind the administration.
General Douglas Macarthur was one of the most well known military figures in the history of the United States. He gave his farewell speech to congress on 19th April 1951 and went into retirement after 52 years of service in the United States army. He was given the chance to address his final message to the US government. This analysis carefully examines his ethics, goals, strategies, strengths and weaknesses. The speech is very famous and highly popular among the American audience. Therefore, we will take into account all factors to critically evaluate the speech and find out what makes it important.
1 Walter Lippman, The Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947) 48-52.
Nixon’s approach to the war was viewed as Birchesque. He redefined the war by resorting to the excuse of POW/MIA, and successfully reconstructed American’s memory of the war. When the anti-war movement criticized these measures, Nixon did what any Bircher would do: he decried the anti-war movement as a communist conspiracy that was prolonging the war and that deserved to be treated as an internal security threat. Meanwhile he redefined the war by creating a myth of POW/MIA, and successfully created new visions of the war for Americans.
302-308. Offner, Arnold. A. A. “‘Another Such Victory’: President Truman, American Foreign Policy, and the Cold War.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views On Controversial Issues in United States History.
Starting with the economic collapse that preceded World War II, Heller describes how profit driven America acts in self-interest, avoiding danger and risk at a much higher clip than their allies. While in the Air Force, Doc Daneeka does not uphold his agreement to the Hippocratic oath: “to remember that he has “special obligations to all fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm” (Hippocratic Oath). The inherent nobility and altruism normally associated with a soldier or a physician is nowhere to be found in Doc Daneeka. Today, in schools and textbooks, the American people laud the United States Armed Forces and government for its honorable motive and deliberate course of action during World War II. Heller views Doc Daneeka and America in the same vein: the altruistic nobility of their perceived positions is misrepresentative and overstated. When asked about World War II, Harry Truman once said, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them” (Truman, 1945). In Catch-22, Joseph Heller masterfully found a way to accomplish
Christopher D. O’Sullivan, Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 62.
3. Divine, Robert A. Eisenhower and the Cold War. New York, Oxford University Press, 1981.
Richard Neustadt today is a professor of politics and has written many books on subjects pertaining to government and the inter workings of governments. He has many years of personal experience working with the government along with the knowledge of what makes a president powerful. He has worked under President Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. His credibility of politics has enhanced his respect in the field of politics. His works are studied in many Universities and he is considered well versed in his opinions of many different presidents. It is true that he seems to use Truman and Eisenhower as the main examples in this book and does show the reader the mistakes he believes were made along the way in achieving power.
Narrated by “the most dangerous man” himself, this compelling documentary begins with a history of Daniel Ellsberg’s life in order to put his controversial actions in context. On his very first day working at the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a U.S. navy captain in the Gulf of Tonkin reported that his ship was under attack from North Vietnam patrol boats. This new development led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and subsequently a substantial escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. It quickly became clear, however, that no attack had occurred at all. Having been working on the escalation of the war, Ellsberg decided to transfer to the State Department at the U.S. embassy in Saigon in order to see U.S. progress firsthand. After two years leading a company in the field, Ellsberg had seen more than enough to know that the propaganda boasting U.S. success in Vietnam was simply false. Even McNamara himself agreed with Ellsberg that the war could not be won, just before making a statement to the press asserting his confidence in ou...
Taubman, William. Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War. New York: Norton, 1982. Print.