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Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year is the gripping history of one of America's most enigmatic and influential foreign policy advisers during a pivotal year in the country's postwar history.

By any measure, 1973 was not an ordinary year. It should have been Kissinger's year of triumph -- a time to bask in his hard-won achievements and build on his successes. Kissinger's strategy of opening the door to China and détente with the Soviet Union had been judged an overwhelming success. After furthering his policy of realpolitik through backchannel diplomacy during Nixon's first term, Kissinger was finally awarded the plum position of secretary of state. But then major events shattered whatever peace and calm America had attained in the early part of the decade: first came defeat in Vietnam; then Watergate, culminating in the president's resignation; war in the Middle East; and finally an economic collapse caused by the Arab oil embargo. All of these momentous blows to the country's security occurred on Henry Kissinger's watch. Rather than progressing on all fronts, as he had expected, Kissinger would confront some of the most critical policy challenges of his career.

Based on full access to the subject and his papers, Kissinger is an intimate portrait of a man, a country, and a presidency at a critical point. From the blowup in the Middle East, to détente with Russia, to the opening of the door to China, the United States' response to the pivotal events of 1973 -- and Kissinger's crucial role in the formulation of that response -- continues to shape and influence United States foreign policy today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good but Flawed
Though Mr Horne is an accomplished historian, he trolled too close to the trees to see the Kissinger forest. Interesting anecdotes aside, his accounting of a pivotal year in the career of the refugee from Hitlerite Germany seems too starry eyed about the dubious achievements of his subject. Way too dismissive of Kissinger's role in the Allende tragedy (if not outright fascist in his treatment of the Chilean), he glosses over most of Kissinger's other crimes because those would diminish the profile Horne wishes to paint. Fine for hagiography, but one expects more from an unbiased historian of international repute. But Horne makes it obvious he will only allow reactionary, right wing perspectives; not for him any leftist skew of the world. Next time, Mr Horne, spend less time being wined and charmed at your subject's home and more on scrutiny, skepticism and objectivity.

A CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE
At the beginning of this book, we are informed that if one had to write a full biography of Henry Kissinger,he would have to cope with the impossible-to-handlemission of reading thirty-three tons of material and documentation.Thus,choosing one year to describe Kissinger seems a wise and reasonable decision.This year was to be 1973,and Mr.Horne has chosen to focus particularly on four main issues:Watergate,Detente,Yom Kippur War and Vietnam.
Nixon and Kissinger were an odd couple:the first one was a poor Californian boy who had a rough life, the second was a German Jew whose family immigrated to the United States, where he got the best education and reached the pinnacle of American policy making pyramid.Both men were and felt extremely insecure in their lives.
Conversely, there was one thing which was the driving force of these two: their ambition to succeed in life and to establish a place in history.This they have managed, albeit in different ways.
The first part of this book describes the unfortunate days of Vietnam ,the most controversial American war.It does not take the stroke of a genius to confirm that 58000 American casualties and 350000 wounded and disabled men paid a horrible price because the American policy makers took a stupid decision to get themselves involved in a quagmire named Vietnam.At the beginning of the seventies of the previous century,this war was going nowhere.Nixon and Kissinger knew it very well.They cannot be blamed for something they have inherited.
However, Kissinger had the mandate to end this war provided he would reach a "peace with honour" agreement.Indeed,such an agreement was finally signed by the belligerent parties.But this important fact cannot detract one inch of resposibility which Nixon and especially Kissinger bear:the secret bombing of Cambodia.
I share the view with many others that in this respect,Kissinger can be regarded as a war criminal, not only for this episode but also for the State Department's responsibility in helping and brewing schemes to destabilize unfriendly regimes, particularly in South America.Chile is the most famous example and this is dealt in another chapter of the book, where Kissinger tries to exculpate himself unconvincingly.
Even the reconciliation with the Chinese cannot be attributed to Kissinger but to his boss.
The main and best part of the book deals with the Yom Kippur War,where Kissinger had played a vital role in establishing a cease fire between Israel and her neighbours.This episode as well as his
detachment and uninvolvement in the Watergate scandal can credit Kissinger with some extra points.
As the author points out,one cannot stay aloof from Kissinger's image.You either like the man or hate him.
Unfortunately,one suspects that the author,in spite of trying to be impartial and doing every possible effort to remain neutral about his subject(whom he interviewed a number of times),cannot avoid falling in the trap of admiring Kissinger.The truth is that here are only few positive points that can be said about Kissinger, who has himself written at the end of his book "Crisis" that when the last of American helicopters took off from the roof of the American embassy," only a feeling of emptiness remained".

A noted historian's Kissinger retrospective
Thirty five years after Richard Nixon's August 1974 resignation as president, the well regarded English historian, Alistair Horne, has written an informative and balanced examination of Henry Kissinger's 1973 tenure as Nixon's national security director and secretary of state. Horne travels a long road focusing on Henry Kissinger's first trip to China, followed by Nixon's 1972 trip, the 1973 Paris peace talks, the US's detente with Russia, the failed Year of Europe, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and his famous shuttle diplomacy securing Israel's final Sinai withdrawal; all heavily overlaid with the looming Watergate scandal and its impact leading to Nixon's resignation. Horne's credentials as a judge of history are impressive and he does not fail the reader. The book is convincing with facts and quotes and a thorough synthesis of memoirs, interviews and other source material. He does not skimp with details and provides interesting cameos and asides of the major players. This is true history told from the perspective of time and reflection; his conclusions are dispassionate and sensible. One is fascinated with Kissinger's adroitness in handling negotiations with Brezhnev, Sadat, Zhou En Lai, Golda Meir and the subtle nuances of his diplomacy forcing the withdrawal of the Israelis from the Sinai. Fact checking gaffes however mar the story line; he confuses "John McCord" and "James McCord" of Watergate infamy, there was only one James McCord, a defendant in the first Watergate trial. His claim that the House of Representative had no power over Kissinger ignores the House's power of the purse and the power of subpoena. Horne's claim that Nixon was "incapacitated" for DEFCON 3 and that this was one of "the most critical meetings in US - indeed, world- history since 1945" is an exaggeration. Horne's jumps on George W. Bush contending he fired one of his White House chief of staff but that contention has no basis. Rightly turning on the Watergate media, "the witch doctors of the media," he sees a feeding frenzy on Nixon and Kissinger with adverse historical consequences for American foreign policy. What is notable is that this is a balanced treatment of Richard Nixon foreign policy contributions without the typical slanted American scream. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A productive and quite innovative way to look at the 70's.
Thornton looks at foreign policy in a way that not many other scholars do.He realizes that, for example, there was more to the Watergate Scandal than the American people were led to believe at the time, and even to thisvery day.By reading this work, you can become one of the few whounderstand the whole story behind the 'silent coup' that occurred in theearly 70's.After reading Thornton's account of the Nixon-Kissinger years,you will never look at foreign policy the same way again. ... Read more

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A detailed yet readable account of American Middle East policy during the Kissinger era. ... Read more

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5,771 pages of Henry Kissinger telephone conversation transcriptions (telcons). Telcons of telephone conversations taking place from January 1973 through January 1977, archived on CD-ROM.

The telcons contain Dr. Kissinger's often candid comments on a wide variety of issues. They provide a uniquely personal and intimate perspective to the events of the day in which Dr. Kissinger was involved. Henry Kissinger's personality and his sense of humor and occasionally his anger, comes through in the telcons, which show the importance of personal relations and personality in his diplomacy and national security relations. The telcons flesh out the already rich documentary record of foreign policy during Kissinger's tenure.

Among the many participants in the recording are: Richard Nixon, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft, President Gerald Ford, Alexander Haig, Robert McNamara, Cyrus Vance, William Colby, Hubert Humphrey, Elliot Richardson, Dean Rusk, Senator Ted. Kennedy, National Review Editor William F. Buckley, ABC newsman Ted Koppel, Paul Bremer, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, Chief Justice Warren Burger, William Paley, David Rockefeller, Roy Wilkins, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Joe Califano, George Meany, James Reston, Ben Bradlee, David Frost, Joseph Alsop, Patrick Moynihan, Eric Severeid, Richard Daley, Jack Valenti, Mike Wallace, Winson Lord, Nelson Rockefeller, Adlai Stevenson, McGeorge Bundy, Frank Sinatra and Lisa Minelli.

CD-ROM uses Windows or MAC ... Read more

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"Eloquent . . . immensely readable . . . the saga of the victory of capitalism over the brutal and irrational fraud that was state socialism."
—The Baltimore Sun

"Buckley's lucid account celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to achieve freedom."
—Publishers Weekly

"This is a small masterpiece of the narrative tradition. The Fall of the Berlin Wall keep[s] readers turning the page."
—National Review

"[A] great narrative of democratic survival and democratic victory."
—The Washington Times

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the turning point in the struggle against Communism in Eastern Europe. In The Fall of the Berlin Wall, renowned author and conservative pioneer William F. Buckley Jr. explains why the wall was built, reveals its devastating impact on the lives of people on both sides, and provides a riveting account of the events that led to the wall's destruction and the end of the Cold War. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

An excellent book, the handiwork of a genius
William F. Buckley, Jr., is remembered as a serious and influential Conservative thinker, and also as an author who wrote in a concise yet highly-informative way. This book definitely shows that that reputation was well deserved. In a mere 212 pages (192, if you don't count the endnotes and index!), Mr. Buckley tells the story of the Berlin Wall, from its conception in the mind of de facto East German leader Walter Ulbricht, through its building, its long and terror-filled life, and on to its final destruction in a carnival-like atmosphere. But, this book is even more than that, in a remarkably short space, the book tells the story of the Cold War in Europe, from the end of World War 2 to the final fall of Communism.

Yeah, this is an excellent book, the handiwork of a genius. I found the book to be very informative, and very interesting. Indeed, it is surprisingly gripping, keeping me from even looking at another book before this one was finished. I highly enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Cold War.

The Fall of the Berling Wall
The Fall of the Berlin Wall is a carefully researched and colorfully written documentation by the talented, much-admired late author, William F. Buckley. Mr. Buckley brings rich history and a unique perspective within Germany and the world as events led to the fall of "the Wall." I highly rcommend this wonderful book. I couldn't put it down!

Recent return from the former GDR
I recently spent 2 1/2 months in the former GDR working at a university. My trip was a great experience and I was really struck by the historical remnants and stories of those that had grown up and moved into the former GDR after the fall of the wall. When the wall fell I was only 9 years old and many of my friends there were in my age range and we had few memories of this time. This book was an easy read and gave me a great starting point to understanding the political climate of the time. I plan to read more texts on the subject but recommend this to anyone and everyone.

The Cold War's Story, Concisely Told
We are extremely fortunate to have the story of the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall rendered in the precise narrative of Mr. Buckley's book. Sceptics who might have expected Mr. Buckley exclusively to lavish praise on President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher will be sorely disappointed.What emerges in this concise history is far more complex.Three factors combined over time "to tear down this wall." First, Reagan and Thatcher were remarkably adept at pressuring the Soviet Union. On the U.S. side, National Security Directive - 75 sanctioned efforts to stimulate internal pressures on the USSR. The Star Wars program became a threat that Gorbachev could neither ignore nor afford to confront.Second, Gorbachev himself made the right moral choice in choosing to recognize rather than repress the growing aspirations for democracy in the Soviet bloc. [There was nothing inevitable in that, as made clear in the Gorbachev chapter in Ferguson's Virtual History.] Finally, within the Soviet Union, perhaps most especially in Gdansk, the desire for autonomy was courageously made actionable by ordinary citizens who at that perfect moment in time decided to become some of the century's greatest heroes.All these factors combined to replace the cold, unwavering Brezhnev Doctrine -- once a Soviet state always a Soviet state -- with what Primakov later implied was the new, Sinatra doctrine -- they can do it their way.Inevitably, the problem with well-written short books is that one wishes they were longer. So, I would like to have seen Mr. Buckley delve more into the Soviet struggle in Afghanistan with the ensuing alleged consequences for Al Queada, and I think the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict deserved a more in-depth narrative, one placing it in its larger historical context. All that is little more than saying I wish Buckely had continued to write this book, and that, I think, is often the way good short books books become really long insipid books.Thankfully, Buckley opted to give us a superbly readable and precisely rendered account of a significant part of what was both, as historian John Gaddis called it, the "long peace," and at the same time the long war of the 20th Century.

The erection of the Berlin Wall and its fall.
Although I don't subscribe to Buckley's conservative ethics, this was a good read for such a short book.It took me all of one day to go through this book.What I liked best is the first chapters talking about the loss of population in East Germany due to the easiness of walking into West Berlin and emigrating to West Germany.The erection of the wall prevented this exodus in 1962.It simply stopped the flow and erected the barrier to the population shift.What I dispute is Buckley's view that the East Germans would have stopped the building if a few American tanks rolled over the barbed wire barricades to assert their rights of the four powers in Berlin.This might have started a Third World War.Perhaps Buckley has seen some documentation that I don't know about.The later part of the book I witnessed in person in Eastern Europe, so this is something I was very familiar with.
Buckley throws in a few complicated words in this book, so I had to consult my dictionary.I did not know there was a word for throwing someone out of a building, but apparently Buckley found one.I have already decided not to add this word to my vocabulary.Other than that, this is a nice little read for someone interested in the Cold War and Eastern Europe. ... Read more

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Kissinger: The secret side of the Secretary of State (Paperback) Gary Allen Publisher: Concord Books 1981 Language: English ISBN-10: 0686313119 ISBN-13: 978-0686313113 ... Read more

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Detailing the heavy involvement of the Nixon administration in the 1973 coup against the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende of Chile, Qureshi provides the reasons for the coup including the threat Allende posed to the United States' notions of hegemony in Latin America. ... Read more

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An inside view of his dealings with the superpowers by the former West German chancellor. He gives candid impressions of, amongst others, Reagan, Carter, Gorbachev and Thatcher, recalls the crucial episodes of his chancellorship, and speculates on the future of world politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Realpolitiker
Helmut Schmidt's autobiography gives us a candid look behind the curtain of world politics at the highest level.
It shows us Schmidt as a shrewd, tough and cunning politician with a brilliant insight into political and economical world problems in the short as well as in the long run.

He saw the foreign policy of the Soviet Union as a continuation of tsarist expansionism (Witte: from the Ural to the North Sea). He understood also that the SU military budget constituted a heavy drag on the whole soviet economy.
For the CEE, he saw big problems ahead: a crazy agricultural regime, no independent military force and splintered economic and monetary policies. Only one of these problems has been partly solved today.
This book shows also the importance of think tanks: the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the London Institute for Strategic Studies, the Bilderberg Conferences and the Library Group which was co-founded by him.

H. Schmidt was also a brilliant economist with his magical rectangular: price stability, growth, high employment and foreign trade equilibrium.

His sworn enemy was US President Jimmy Carter. The latter wanted that Germany inflated its economy and that it stopped its export of nuclear reactors. He threatened to block the delivery of enriched uranium with the risk of an energy black-out in the whole of Germany.
H. Schmidt also opposed a recall of Western credits to Poland during the Jaruzelski regime. He knew all too well that a Polish revolution would have the same fatal outcome as those in Budapest and Prague.

This book contains valuable information on the Suez-crisis, hawk Brzezinski and Khrushchev.

A must for historians and for all those interested in world politics.

The Chancelor's point of view.
Interesting book by former German chancelor Helmut Schmidt about his experiences with nations and leaders while he was in power during 1974 to 1982. He is along with former French President Valery Giscard D'Estain thefounder of the European Monetary Union (Ecu, later EURO) and thinks thatmost of the current brokers on Wall Street are crazy psycopaths, who driveUS economy to a big crash! ... Read more