The Cushing Orator of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) traditionally is a contemporary philosopher whose accomplishments are of significant interest to the neurosurgical community. Henry A. Kissinger, PhD, national security adviser for six years, secretary of state to two presidents, and a Nobel laureate for his role in negotiating the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, was well prepared for his latest role.
Dr. Kissinger began his afternoon lecture with a bit of levity, recalling a time when a woman approached him at a reception: “I understand you are a fascinating man,” she said. “Fascinate me.” The standing ovation at the conclusion of his address, showed Dr. Kissinger to be equal to the challenge. By all accounts, the same was true of his conversation over breakfast with AANS President Roberto C. Heros and his guests. Between the two events, Dr. Kissinger made himself available for an interview with the Bulletin.
Within days following the interview, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln would reach San Diego Harbor on its return from the Persian Gulf. Aboard the vessel, President George W. Bush would declare an end to the military phase of the battle to end Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq, less than two months after the war’s inception. The president also would name his envoy to Iraq: L. Paul Bremer III, who at one time had been managing director of the Kissinger Group; nationwide, news anchors sought Dr. Kissinger’s commentary.
Less than one month thereafter, on May 27, Dr. Kissinger would reach the milestone of his 80th year.
Bulletin: You have said in your latest book [Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century] that the task of leaders is to take society from where they are to where they have never been.
Dr. Kissinger: Yes.
Bulletin: Can you talk about leadership in that context?
Well, the important moments of history are transformations where societies are now transformed or the international system is transformed. In such a situation, the general public is familiar with what it knows, but it does not yet fully understand the shape of what is emerging. The task of the leader is to bridge that gap, to inspire a society and to educate a society to move towards the future. And this is why almost all great leaders, at least in my field, in foreign policy, have been those who had a sense of history and a sense of the evolution of things.
Bulletin: You talked a little bit more about that in your book, as well-the importance of philosophy and history in being a background for effective foreign policy.
Dr. Kissinger: When you have to make a decision at a high level, the reason it gets to a high level is because the pros and cons are very evenly divided, or because the consequences of what you are doing are very drastic. So it’s about 50.5 percent against 49.5 percent conviction. You cannot navigate this simply by knowledge because it’s knowledge that has produced a close ballot. So you need some conviction and some moral certitude, otherwise you go crazy in high office.
Bulletin: Do you feel that American foreign policy has had that ingredient in the last 30 years, since you were in office?
Dr. Kissinger: America is a society that is happy with its direction, more or less. It isn’t happy with every last condition; so America has rarely had to make these big decisions internally of a gap between the future and the present. In America the foreign policy has never really had to deal with an environment in which there were many players and it was constantly engaged. So it is difficult for America to conduct a global foreign policy on a consistent basis. We have a tendency to believe that every problem has a solution, and a short-term solution, and that every effort has a terminal day. And that isn’t true in foreign policy. There are certain problems that continue, and every solution is an admissions ticket to another problem. So we’ve had problems, difficulty, along that line. On the other hand, there’s something about American optimism and American commitment, that continued, that has saved the world, much as in World War II…. So let’s say on many tactical things the United States has not performed as well, as professors of political science might recognize. But in the general historic direction we have done very well.
Bulletin: About your transition-You were a university professor before you became national security adviser and also secretary of state. What was that transition like for you, that leadership transition?
Dr. Kissinger: Well, of course, academic fights are more brutal than our fights in the real world because the stakes are so low, so the passions are very high. There is inverse proportion to the stakes. There is a big difference-in fact I was going to spend five minutes on that this afternoon-between the [attitude] of an observer and the attitude of a participant. For me the transition was made easier by the fact that I had been a White House consultant under President Kennedy for a year. So I had seen how the system works, and it helped me a lot when I came back in a position of responsibility. Otherwise, it would have been a very drastic change, and I don’t know whether I could have managed it.
Bulletin: At that time, not to go into detail about world events at that time, but just in general to talk about making very, very difficult decisions that you know are going to drastically affect the world-that also was part of that transition, that all of the sudden these decisions you are making are affecting people on such a large scale-
Dr. Kissinger: That is true, that has to affect you. But it cannot be-If you think about it every minute, you go crazy. So it’s something with which you have to come to terms, more or less once and for all. You know it affects things. You know it has serious consequences. But you also know you have to act, because non-action is ultimately a decision. And, so this is one of the dilemmas of foreign policy.
Bulletin: Getting back to the moral piece, that you have to have a moral certitude-
Dr. Kissinger: Well of course, a lot of people have moral certitude; moral certitude is no guarantee. You also need a certain humility. There was a 19th century statesman who said, The best a statesman can do is listen to the footsteps of God. Get a hold of the hem of his cloak, and walk with him a few steps of the way. So this is a combination of fates and humility that in a way is needed.
Bulletin: When your latest book came out, it was right before Sept. 11, correct?
Dr. Kissinger: Yes.
And you talk about Iraq in your book-I don’t know if you will be covering this afternoon at all-
Dr. Kissinger: Yes, I’ll talk about it. I’ve forgotten now what I said in the book.
Bulletin: It was very interesting.
Dr. Kissinger: Does it stand up?
Bulletin: Yes, I think it does. You talk about American hegemony and you say-this is not specific to Iraq, but you say that it would be the wrong course for America to proceed on.
Dr. Kissinger: Yes.
Bulletin: Then we had Sept. 11 and we have had-
Dr. Kissinger: I would still say that.
Bulletin: You would still say that. Would you say that is-
Dr. Kissinger: It depends on what you mean by hegemony.
Bulletin: OK-
Dr. Kissinger: We can do nothing about being the strongest nation in the world. And that’s desirable. That’s not undesirable anyway, but that’s what we are. But, by hegemony I understand that we impose our preferences on unwilling people. If we can translate our power into acceptance, so that other nations want to do what we think is best, and even better, if we get into a frame of mind where we want to do what is best for other people too, I don’t consider that hegemony.
Bulletin: So our action in Iraq you would not consider-How would you classify it?
Dr. Kissinger: Our action in Iraq I would consider partly self-defense, and partly an attempt to create a new international system, which is necessary anyway, in which other nations can participate.
Bulletin: You’ve made a connection in the book-you talk about a connection between democracy and the market and how those two things and the economy, how that affects policy in general-
Dr. Kissinger: And what’s the question?
Bulletin: It took 300 years, I believe you said in your book, to develop the [Western economy], but you said it sounds easier than it really is. Can you talk about what the current situation is in the post-Cold War-
Dr. Kissinger: Democracy developed in the West as a result of a number of conditions. There was-we had the Reformation-no other country in the world had such a split in its religion. Before the Reformation, we were more like the Muslim states, with one religion, and with a religion that claimed that it had the definition of justice in its control. You have the enlightenment in the West, which you have the capitalist revolution. None of these conditions exist in any other country in the world, and therefore it takes a while to create the precondition. The Reformation made necessary a pluralism of conscience; enlightenment stressed the power of reason; capitalism stressed free enterprise. All of these things had to come together in the West. Now I don’t insist that they all have to come together in the same way in every other society, but I do insist that you can’t just walk into a country and act as if these conditions already exist. You take Turkey-that’s now a fairly democratic state-they went through 25 years of authoritarian rule to go from an Islamic state to a democratic state. And Eastern Europe has gone through a decade of upheaval and they’re not yet at the end of the process.
Bulletin: So in Iraq what can we expect?
Dr. Kissinger: In Iraq we need-When an existing framework collapses, you need authority to reestablish some degree of order. What we can establish is a rapid improvement of human rights, rapid improvement of constitutionalism, a slower evolution of electoral processes.
I’ll take one more question…
Bulletin: Okay. What is…
Dr. Kissinger: These are good questions incidentally.
Bulletin: Wonderful-I have one more for you, maybe the most important, and one that I’m most curious about. What do you feel is your greatest success in your long career? What are you most proud of?
Dr. Kissinger: You know, I’m always asked that question, so I ought to have a good answer…
Bulletin: You always hope it’s not going to be asked, don’t you. [laughter]
Dr. Kissinger: I had to help guide this country from a period in which it was absolutely dominant in the world to a period in which many other nations emerged: China, the Middle East became more self-assertive, and we had to end a war in the process. And there were several individual successes I could mention. But I would like to think we contributed to first to built the United States into the international system on the page is greater, many of the big initiatives carried on for the next 30 years were started in our period.
Good.
Bulletin: Thank you very much.
Manda J. Seaver is staff editor of the Bulletin.