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98-678: It was the subject of John Maclean 's book Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire . On July 2, 1994, lightning sparked a fire near the base of Storm King Mountain, 7 miles (11 km) west of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Initially small and well away from private property, the fire was assigned low priority and allowed to smolder for the first two days. By July 4, the fire had burned only 3 acres (1.2 ha). Nearby residents of Canyon Creek Estates, however, were growing increasingly concerned by

196-635: A naturalized U.S. citizen . The army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania under the Army Specialized Training Program , but the program was canceled and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division . There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer , a fellow immigrant from Germany who noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect and arranged for him to be assigned to

294-600: A shaving brush factory during the day. Kissinger studied accounting at the City College of New York , excelling academically as a part-time student while continuing to work. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army . Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina . On June 19, 1943, while stationed in South Carolina, he became

392-667: A "decaying" alliance as he believed that there was nothing at present to stop the Red Army from overrunning Western Europe in a conventional forces conflict. The "linkage" concept more applied to the question of security as Kissinger noted that the United States was going to sacrifice NATO for the sake of " citrus fruits ". According to notes taken by H. R. Haldeman , Nixon "ordered his aides to exclude all Jewish-Americans from policy-making on Israel", including Kissinger. One note quotes Nixon as saying "get K. [Kissinger] out of

490-630: A Nixon campaign aide, Richard Allen , to state he was willing to do anything to help Nixon win. After Nixon became president in January 1969, Kissinger was appointed as National Security Advisor . By this time, he was arguably "one of the most important theorists about foreign policy ever to be produced by the United States", according to his official biographer Niall Ferguson . Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon and continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford . With

588-519: A United Nations member and asked him to consider the "two Chinas" compromise to avoid offending American public opinion. Zhou responded with his claim that the People's Republic was the legitimate government of all China, and no compromise was possible. Kissinger said that the United States could not totally sever ties with Chiang, who had been an ally in World War II. Kissinger told Nixon that Bush

686-567: A businessman. Kissinger's family was German-Jewish . His great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb adopted "Kissinger" as his surname in 1817, taking it from the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen . In his childhood, Kissinger enjoyed playing soccer. He played for the youth team of SpVgg Fürth , one of the nation's best clubs at the time. In a 2022 BBC interview, Kissinger vividly recalled being nine years old in 1933 and learning of Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor of Germany , which proved to be

784-679: A ceasefire to gain more time for Israel to push across the Suez Canal to the African side, and wanted to be perceived as a mere presidential emissary who needed to consult the White House all the time as a stalling tactic. Kissinger promised the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir that the United States would replace its losses in equipment after the war, but sought initially to delay arms shipments to Israel, as he believed it would improve

882-803: A condition for a final settlement. We had long passed that threshold". In the fall of 1972, both Kissinger and Nixon were frustrated with Thiệu's refusal to accept any sort of peace deal calling for withdrawal of American forces. On October 21 Kissinger and the American ambassador Ellsworth Bunker arrived in Saigon to show Thiệu the peace agreement. Thiệu refused to sign the peace agreement and demanded very extensive amendments that Kissinger reported to Nixon "verge on insanity". Though Nixon had initially supported Kissinger against Thiệu, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman urged him to reconsider, arguing that Thiệu's objections had merit. Nixon wanted 69 amendments to

980-514: A consultant to government agencies, think tanks , and the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller and Nixon before being appointed as national security advisor and later secretary of state by President Nixon. An advocate of a pragmatic approach to geopolitics known as Realpolitik , Kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union , orchestrated an opening of relations with China , engaged in " shuttle diplomacy " in

1078-451: A dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations . His advice was sought by American presidents of both major political parties. Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923, in Fürth , Bavaria, Germany. He was the son of homemaker Paula ( née  Stern ), from Leutershausen , and Louis Kissinger, a schoolteacher. He had a younger brother, Walter, who was

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1176-821: A great deal of order and very little justice; it was not the sort of place likely to inspire devotion to order in the abstract." Nevertheless, many scholars, including Kissinger's biographer Walter Isaacson , have argued that his experiences influenced the formation of his realist approach to foreign policy. Kissinger spent his high-school years in the German-Jewish community in Washington Heights, Manhattan . Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced German accent , due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. After his first year at George Washington High School , he completed school at night while working in

1274-605: A party hosted by Clare Boothe Luce in 1967, saying that he found him more "thoughtful" than he expected. During the Republican primaries in 1968, Kissinger again served as the foreign policy adviser to Rockefeller and in July 1968 called Nixon "the most dangerous of all the men running to have as president". Initially upset when Nixon won the Republican nomination, the ambitious Kissinger soon changed his mind about Nixon and contacted

1372-499: A penchant for secrecy and conducted numerous "backchannel" negotiations, such as that through the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin , that excluded State Department experts. Historian David Rothkopf looked at the personalities of Nixon and Kissinger, saying: They were a fascinating pair. In a way, they complemented each other perfectly. Kissinger was the charming and worldly Mr. Outside who provided

1470-410: A political and public relations disaster for Kissinger as he agreed that Vietnam was a "useless war", implied that he preferred to have dinner with Lê Đức Thọ over Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (in her 1976 book Interview with History , Fallaci recalled that Kissinger agreed with many of her negative sentiments towards Thiệu in a private discussion before the interview), and engaged in a now infamous exchange with

1568-533: A profound turning point for the Kissinger family. During Nazi rule , Kissinger and his friends were regularly harassed and beaten by Hitler Youth gangs. Kissinger sometimes defied the segregation imposed by Nazi racial laws by sneaking into soccer stadiums to watch matches, often receiving beatings from security guards. As a result of the Nazis' anti-Semitic laws , Kissinger was unable to gain admittance to

1666-578: A science teacher in Anchorage, Alaska, and John Fitzroy, a public defender for the state of Maryland. In 1970 Maclean was assigned to the Washington Bureau of the Tribune. During his newspaper career he spent more than a decade as the Tribune ’s diplomatic correspondent; he was one of the “Kissinger 14,” the journalists who regularly traveled with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during

1764-722: A secret meeting of Kissinger and Thọ in Paris came the decisive breakthrough in the talks. Thọ began with "a very realistic and very simple proposal" for a ceasefire that would see the Americans pull all their forces out of Vietnam in exchange for the release of all the POWs in North Vietnam. Kissinger accepted Thọ's offer as the best deal possible, saying that the "mutual withdrawal formula" had to be abandoned as it been "unobtainable through ten years of war ... We could not make it

1862-463: A serious economic rival by 1970. Applying his favorite " linkage " concept, Nixon intended henceforward economic relations with Europe would not be severed from security relations, and if the EEC states wanted changes in American tariff and monetary policies, the price would be defense spending on their part. Kissinger in particular as part of the "Year of Europe" wanted to "revitalize" NATO, which he called

1960-467: A significant relaxation in U.S.–Soviet tensions and played a crucial role in 1971 talks with the People's Republic of China premier Zhou Enlai . The talks concluded with a rapprochement between the United States and China, and the formation of a new strategic anti-Soviet Sino-American alignment. He was jointly awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Lê Đức Thọ for helping to establish a ceasefire and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. The ceasefire, however,

2058-594: A spy for the FBI . Kissinger's doctoral dissertation was titled Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich ) . Stephen Graubard, Kissinger's friend, asserted that Kissinger primarily pursued such endeavor to instruct himself on the history of power play between European states in the 19th century. In his doctoral dissertation, Kissinger first introduced

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2156-410: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . John Norman Maclean John Norman Maclean is a journalist and author who has written five books on fatal wildland fires and a memoir, Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River (June 2021, published by HarperCollins ). He is the son of Norman Maclean , author of A River Runs Through It and Young Men and Fire , and grandson of

2254-504: Is the present location of the Storm King Mountain Memorial Trail. Firefighters began constructing firelines to contain the blaze. The fight was joined that evening by smokejumpers who began aiding in the construction of the fireline, working well into the night of July 5 but quitting early due to "danger from rolling rocks." The following day, twenty Hotshots from Prineville, Oregon , were rushed to

2352-594: The Gymnasium and his father was dismissed from his teaching job. On August 20, 1938, when Kissinger was 15 years old, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution. The family briefly stopped in London before arriving in New York City on September 5. Kissinger later downplayed the influence his experiences of Nazi persecution had had on his policies, writing that the "Germany of my youth had

2450-529: The 2006 wildfire that killed five firefighters on a Forest Service engine crew in southern California. The arsonist, Raymond Lee Oyler , was the first person convicted of murder for setting a wildland fire; Oyler was sentenced to death and remains on Death Row at California's San Quentin State Prison. Maclean's fifth book, River of Fire: The Rattlesnake Fire and the Mission Boys , (2018) details

2548-575: The Bangladesh Liberation War and Bangladesh genocide . Widely considered by scholars to have been an effective secretary of state, Kissinger was also accused by critics of war crimes for the civilian death toll of the policies he pursued and for his role in facilitating U.S. support for authoritarian regimes . After leaving government, Kissinger founded Kissinger Associates , an international geopolitical consulting firm which he ran from 1982 until his death. He authored over

2646-607: The Council on Foreign Relations . He released his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy the following year. The book, which criticized the Eisenhower administration 's massive retaliation nuclear doctrine, caused much controversy at the time by proposing the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis to win wars. That same year, he published A World Restored , a study of balance-of-power politics in post-Napoleonic Europe. From 1956 to 1958, Kissinger worked for

2744-808: The Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), where he became a CIC Special Agent holding the enlisted rank of sergeant . He was given charge of a team in Hanover assigned to tracking down Gestapo officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star . Kissinger drew up a comprehensive list of all known Gestapo employees in the Bergstraße region, and had them rounded up. By the end of July, 12 men had been arrested. In March 1947, Fritz Girke, Hans Hellenbroich, Michael Raaf, and Karl Stattmann were subsequently caught and tried by

2842-673: The Dachau Military Tribunal for killing two American prisoners of war. The four men were all found guilty and sentenced to death. They were executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison in October 1948. In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of the Bensheim metro CIC detachment, Bergstraße district of Hesse , with responsibility for denazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against

2940-664: The Operations Research Office , the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency , Department of State , and the RAND Corporation . Keen to have a greater influence on U.S. foreign policy , Kissinger became foreign policy advisor to the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller , supporting his bids for the Republican nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968. Kissinger first met Richard Nixon at

3038-621: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project . He served as the director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971. In 1958, he also co-founded the Center for International Affairs with Robert R. Bowie where he served as its associate director. Outside of academia, he served as a consultant to several government agencies and think tanks, including

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3136-552: The Senator Charles Sumner Prize, an award given to the best dissertation "from the legal, political, historical, economic, social, or ethnic approach, dealing with any means or measures tending toward the prevention of war and the establishment of universal peace" by a student under the Harvard Department of Government. It was published in 1957 as A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and

3234-764: The formalization of relations between the two countries, ending 23 years of diplomatic isolation and mutual hostility. The result was the formation of a tacit strategic anti- Soviet alliance between China and the United States. Kissinger's diplomacy led to economic and cultural exchanges between the two sides and the establishment of " liaison offices " in the Chinese and American capitals, though full normalization of relations with China would not occur until 1979. Kissinger discussed being involved in Indochina prior to his appointment as National Security Adviser to Nixon. According to Kissinger, his friend Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. ,

3332-656: The invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Nixon felt his administration had neglected relations with the Western European states in his first term and in September 1972 decided that if he was reelected that 1973 would be the "Year of Europe" as the United States would focus on relations with the states of the European Economic Community (EEC) which had emerged as

3430-412: The "hemorrhage of state secrets" to the media was making diplomacy impossible. On August 1, 1972, Kissinger met Thọ again in Paris, and for first time, he seemed willing to compromise, saying that political and military terms of an armistice could be treated separately and hinted that his government was no longer willing to make the overthrow of Thiệu a precondition. On the evening of October 8, 1972, at

3528-556: The 1953 fire that killed 15 firefighters in northern California, 14 of them members of a missionary fire crew. The story was first chronicled in Maclean's second book, then expanded and updated for publication in this book. Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as United States Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 and National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975, in

3626-617: The 1970 Cambodian campaign and subsequent widespread bombing of Khmer Rouge targets in Cambodia . For his role in planning the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, scholars have stated that Kissinger bears substantial responsibility for the killing of between 50,000 and 150,000 Cambodian civilians and also the destabilization of Cambodia that the U.S. bombing campaign caused, which contributed to the Khmer Rouge's ascendance to power. The Paris peace talks had become stalemated by late 1969 owing to

3724-569: The Ambassador to Saigon, employed Kissinger as a consultant, leading to Kissinger visiting Vietnam once in 1965 and twice in 1966, where Kissinger realized that the United States "knew neither how to win or how to conclude" the Vietnam War. Kissinger also stated that in 1967, he served as an intermediary for negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam , with Kissinger providing the American position, while two Frenchmen provided

3822-520: The Bangladesh–Pakistan War in which he described Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi as a " bitch " and a " witch ". He also said "the Indians are bastards", shortly before the war. Kissinger later expressed his regret over the comments. As National Security Adviser under Nixon, Kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union , seeking a relaxation in tensions between

3920-626: The Chinese did not want a Vietnamese-dominated Indochina . We didn't want the Vietnamese to dominate. I don't believe we did anything for Pol Pot. But I suspect we closed our eyes when some others did something for Pol Pot." On November 4, 1972, Kissinger agreed to an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci . Kissinger, who rarely engaged in one-on-one interviews with the press and knew very little about Fallaci, accepted her request after reportedly being impressed with her 1969 interview with Võ Nguyên Giáp . The interview turned out to be

4018-761: The Middle East as he settled into the State Department. Kissinger later admitted that he was so engrossed with the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam war that he and others in Washington missed the significance of the Egyptian-Saudi alliance . Egyptian president Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet advisors from Egypt in May 1972, attempting to signal to the U.S. that he was open to disentangling Egypt from

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4116-686: The Middle East to end the Yom Kippur War , and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords , which ended American involvement in the Vietnam War . For his role in negotiating the accords, he was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize , which sparked controversy . Kissinger is also associated with controversial U.S. policies including its bombing of Cambodia , involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état , support for Argentina's military junta in its Dirty War , support for Indonesia in its invasion of East Timor , and support for Pakistan during

4214-614: The Mountains and Plains Booksellers award for the best non-fiction book of the year. The book was featured in two documentaries by Dateline NBC and the History Channel . Maclean has since written four more books on fatal wildland fires and two others, Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River , and the centennial edition of Ernest Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River, for which he wrote the foreword. An avid flyfisherman, he currently divides his time between Washington, D.C., and

4312-616: The North Vietnamese position. When he came into office in 1969, Kissinger favored a negotiating strategy under which the United States and North Vietnam would sign an armistice and agreed to pull their troops out of South Vietnam while the South Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were to agree to a coalition government. Kissinger had doubts about Nixon's theory of " linkage ", believing that this would give

4410-450: The Paris talks and told Nixon: "They're just a bunch of shits. Tawdry, filthy shits". On January 8, 1973, Kissinger and Thọ met again in Paris and the next day reached an agreement, which in main points was essentially the same as the one Nixon had rejected in October with only cosmetic concessions to the Americans. Thiệu once again rejected the peace agreement, only to receive an ultimatum from Nixon which caused Thiệu to reluctantly accept

4508-685: The Problems of Peace 1812–1822 . Kissinger remained at Harvard as a member of the faculty in the Department of Government where he served as the director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971. In 1955, he was a consultant to the National Security Council 's Operations Coordinating Board . During 1955 and 1956, he was also study director in nuclear weapons and foreign policy at

4606-511: The Soviet Union leverage over the United States and unlike Nixon was less concerned about the ultimate fate of South Vietnam. Though Kissinger did not regard South Vietnam as important in its own right, he believed it was necessary to support South Vietnam to maintain the United States as a global power, believing that none of America's allies would trust the United States if South Vietnam were abandoned too quickly. In early 1969, Kissinger

4704-566: The Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." He had a negative view of American Jews who lobbied for aid to Soviet Jews, calling them "bastards" and "self-serving". He went on to state that, "If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic " and "any people who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong." In September 1973, Nixon fired William P. Rogers as Secretary of State and replaced him with Kissinger. He would later state he had not been given enough time to know

4802-806: The Soviet sphere of influence; Kissinger offered secret talks on a settlement for the Middle East, though nothing came of the offer. By March 1973, Sadat had moved back towards the Soviets, closing the largest arms package between Egypt and the Soviet Union and allowing for the return of Soviet military personnel and advisors to Egypt. On October 6, 1973, at 6:15 am, assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs Joseph Sisco , informed Kissinger that Egypt and Syria were about to go to war with Israel. Sisco had been warned by U.S ambassador to Israel, Kenneth Keating , who two hours previously had been urgently summoned by Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir who believed conflict

4900-519: The Thai foreign minister: "You should tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs but we won't let that stand in our way." In a 1998 interview, Kissinger said: "some countries, the Chinese in particular supported Pol Pot as a counterweight to the Vietnamese supported people and We at least tolerated it." Kissinger said he did not approve of this due to the genocide and said he "would not have dealt with Pol Pot for any purpose whatsoever." He further said: "The Thais and

4998-420: The U.S. Congress passed a bill limiting American aid to South Vietnam to $ 700 million annually. By November 1974, Kissinger lobbied Leonid Brezhnev to end Soviet military aid to North Vietnam. The same month, he also lobbied Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to end Chinese military aid to North Vietnam. On April 15, 1975, Kissinger testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee , urging Congress to increase

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5096-420: The United Nations George H. W. Bush was lobbying for the " two Chinas " formula, Kissinger was removing favorable references to Taiwan from a speech that then Secretary of State William P. Rogers was preparing, as he expected the country to be expelled from the United Nations. During his second visit to Beijing, Kissinger told Zhou that according to a public opinion poll 62% of Americans wanted Taiwan to remain

5194-546: The Vietnam war ended and the rest to be pulled out as Sino-American relations improved. In October 1971, as Kissinger was making his second trip to the People's Republic, the issue of which Chinese government deserved to be represented in the United Nations came up again. Out of concern to not be seen abandoning an ally, the United States tried to promote a compromise under which both Chinese regimes would be United Nations members , although Kissinger called it "an essentially doomed rearguard action". While American ambassador to

5292-411: The War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam", signed the previous January. According to Irwin Abrams in 2001, this prize was the most controversial to date. For the first time in the history of the Peace Prize, two members left the Nobel Committee in protest. Thọ rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been restored in South Vietnam. Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted

5390-422: The award "with humility", and "donated the entire proceeds to the children of American service members killed or missing in action in Indochina". After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Kissinger attempted to return the award. By the summer of 1974, the U.S. embassy reported that morale in the ARVN had fallen to dangerously low levels and it was uncertain how much longer South Vietnam would last. In August 1974,

5488-419: The comedic "cowboy" comparison which infuriated Nixon. For several weeks afterwards, he refused to see Kissinger and even contemplated firing him. At one point, Kissinger, in desperation, drove up unannounced to Nixon's San Clemente residence but was rejected by Secret Service personnel at the gates. Kissinger later claimed that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of

5586-404: The concept of "legitimacy", which he defined as: "Legitimacy as used here should not be confused with justice. It means no more than an international agreement about the nature of workable arrangements and about the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy". An international order accepted by all of the major powers is "legitimate" whereas an international order not accepted by one or more of

5684-410: The contrary, if you really want to know, I care nothing about popularity. I'm not at all afraid of losing my public; I can allow myself to say what I think. I'm referring to what's genuine in me. If I were to let myself be disturbed by the reactions of the public, if I were to act solely on the basis of a calculated technique, I would accomplish nothing. Nixon was enraged by the interview, in particular

5782-457: The death of George Shultz in February 2021, Kissinger was the last surviving member of the Nixon administration Cabinet. The relationship between Nixon and Kissinger was unusually close, and has been compared to the relationships of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House , or Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins . In all three cases, the State Department was relegated to a backseat role in developing foreign policy. Kissinger and Nixon shared

5880-480: The division's military intelligence . Kissinger saw combat with the division and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge . On April 10, 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Hannover-Ahlem concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . At the time, Kissinger wrote in his journal, "I had never seen people degraded to the level that people were in Ahlem. They barely looked human. They were skeletons." After

5978-415: The draft peace agreement included in the final treaty and ordered Kissinger back to Paris to force Thọ to accept them. Kissinger regarded Nixon's 69 amendments as "preposterous" as he knew Thọ would never accept them. As expected, Thọ refused to consider any of the 69 amendments, and on December 13, 1972, left Paris for Hanoi. Kissinger by this stage was worked up into a state of fury after Thọ walked out of

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6076-452: The driving force behind the rapprochement with China was Nixon. In April 1970, both Nixon and Kissinger promised Chiang Ching-kuo , the son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek , that they would never abandon Taiwan or make any compromises with Mao Zedong , although Nixon did speak vaguely of his wish to improve relations with the People's Republic. Kissinger made two trips to the People's Republic in July and October 1971 (the first of which

6174-408: The era of shuttle diplomacy. Maclean was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University for the 1974-1975 academic year and became the Tribune ’s Foreign Editor in Chicago in 1988. He resigned from the newspaper after the 1994 South Canyon Fire on Colorado's Storm King Mountain killed 14 firefighters. He wrote the story of the fire in his first book, Fire on the Mountain , which in 2000 won

6272-465: The fact that they believe in me when you sway or convince somebody, you shouldn't confuse them. Nor can you even simply calculate. Some people think that I carefully plan what are to be the consequences, for the public, of any of my initiatives or efforts. They think this preoccupation is always on my mind. Instead the consequences of what I do, I mean the public's judgment, have never bothered me. I don't ask for popularity, I'm not looking for popularity. On

6370-410: The family cabin at the edge of Seeley Lake, Montana. Maclean's most recent book, "Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River," was published in 2021 and has been called a worthy companion to his father's book, "A River Runs through It," as well as a satisfying read on its own merits. The book won an honor award from the Montana Book Award Committee, who called it "a gorgeous chronicle of a family and

6468-447: The fire to aid in the battle. That afternoon, a dry cold front passed through the area, increasing the winds and fire activity. By 4 p.m., the fire had "spotted" beyond the fireline and below the firefighters' location to the west and began to race towards them up the steep, densely vegetated terrain. Twelve firefighters were unable to outrun the blaze and perished. Two more helitack firefighters were also killed as they tried to flee to

6566-412: The first telegram from the U.S. consul general in East Pakistan , Archer K. Blood , and 20 members of his staff, which informed the U.S. that their allies West Pakistan were undertaking, in Blood's words, "a selective genocide" targeting the Bengali intelligentsia, supporters of independence for East Pakistan, and the Hindu minority. In the second, more famous, Blood Telegram the word ' genocide '

6664-431: The grace and intellectual-establishment respectability that Nixon lacked, disdained and aspired to. Kissinger was an international citizen. Nixon very much a classic American. Kissinger had a worldview and a facility for adjusting it to meet the times, Nixon had pragmatism and a strategic vision that provided the foundations for their policies. Kissinger would, of course, say that he was not political like Nixon—but in fact he

6762-421: The great powers is "revolutionary" and hence dangerous. Thus, when after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the leaders of Britain , France , Austria , Prussia , and Russia agreed to co-operate in the Concert of Europe to preserve the peace after Austria, Prussia, and Russia participated in a series of three Partitions of Poland , in Kissinger's viewpoint this international system was "legitimate" because it

6860-438: The hard-pressing Fallaci, with Kissinger comparing himself to a cowboy leading the Nixon administration: Fallaci : I suppose that at the root of everything there's your success. I mean, like a chess player, you've made two or three good moves. China, first of all. People like chess players who checkmate the king. Kissinger : Yes, China has been a very important element in the mechanics of my success. And yet that's not

6958-406: The initial shock, however, Kissinger was relatively silent about his wartime service. During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger, though only a private , was put in charge of the administration of the city of Krefeld because of a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Within eight days he had established a civilian administration. Kissinger was then reassigned to

7056-688: The land they call home." The centennial edition of Ernest Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River, published in 2023, for which he wrote the foreword. Maclean's second book, Fire and Ashes: On the Frontlines of American Wildfire , was published in 2003 and chronicles the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire on the Mendocino National Forest in northern California, along with the 1999 Sadler Fire in Nevada and the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in Montana, which

7154-610: The likelihood of Pakistani victory against Bengali rebels. Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in the Indian subcontinent as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the Soviet Union, and sought to demonstrate to China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the Soviet Union) the value of a tacit alliance with the United States. Kissinger had also come under fire for private comments he made to Nixon during

7252-808: The local population by his command. In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King and, as a civilian employee following his separation from the army, continued to serve in this role. Kissinger recalled that his experience in the army "made me feel like an American". Kissinger earned his Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude , Phi Beta Kappa in political science from Harvard College in 1950, where he lived in Adams House and studied under William Yandell Elliott . His senior undergraduate thesis, titled The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler , Toynbee and Kant ,

7350-447: The main point. The main point. ... Well, yes, I'll tell you. What do I care? The main point arises from the fact that I've always acted alone. Americans like that immensely. Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else. Maybe even without a pistol, since he doesn't shoot. He acts, that's all, by being in

7448-581: The military aid budget to South Vietnam by another $ 700 million to save the ARVN as the PAVN was rapidly advancing on Saigon , which was refused. Kissinger maintained at the time, and until his death, that if only Congress had approved of his request for another $ 700 million South Vietnam would have been able to resist. In November 1975, seven months after the Khmer Rouge took power, Kissinger told

7546-660: The minister John Norman Maclean . John N. Maclean was born in Chicago, Illinois , in 1943, the second of two children. He graduated from Shimer College in Mt. Carroll, Illinois . Maclean began his career in journalism in 1964 as a police reporter with the City News Bureau of Chicago . He went to work for the Chicago Tribune the following year. He married Frances Ellen McGeachie in 1968; they have two sons—Daniel,

7644-937: The northwest. Those who died: The Storm King Mountain Memorial Trail, closely following the actual path the firefighters hiked to fight the blaze, leads visitors to the site. Plaques and memorials line the trail explaining the events and paying homage to those who fell. Crosses were installed where each person fell. Memorials have also been constructed at Two Rivers Park in Glenwood Springs , at Ochoco Creek Park in Prineville, Oregon , and in McDonald Forest's Peavy Arboretum near Corvallis, Oregon . 39°34′26.48″N 107°25′36.82″W  /  39.5740222°N 107.4268944°W  / 39.5740222; -107.4268944 This wildfire -related article

7742-481: The obstructionism of the South Vietnamese delegation. The South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu did not want the United States to withdraw from Vietnam, and out of frustration with him, Kissinger began secret peace talks with Le Duc Thọ in Paris parallel to the official talks that the South Vietnamese were unaware of. In June 1971, Kissinger supported Nixon's effort to ban the Pentagon Papers saying

7840-399: The odds of making peace along the lines of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 . In 1973, Meir requested $ 850 million worth of American arms and equipment to replace its materiel losses. Nixon instead sent some $ 2 billion worth. The arms lift enraged King Faisal of Saudi Arabia , and he retaliated on October 20, 1973, by placing a total embargo on oil shipments to

7938-470: The peace agreement. On January 27, 1973, Kissinger and Thọ signed a peace agreement that called for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Vietnam by March in exchange for North Vietnam freeing all the U.S. POWs. Along with Thọ, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending

8036-401: The persistent blaze, prompting local authorities to take action. Due to the uneven terrain, and the efforts necessary to coordinate the incident response, it was decided that the fight against the fire would commence the following morning. On July 5, firefighters began their approach from the west at the east end of Canyon Creek Estates, making a difficult march up the rugged terrain along which

8134-460: The play— Haig handle it". In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there was in the interest of U.S. foreign policy. In a conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in

8232-540: The presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford . Born in Germany, Kissinger emigrated to the United States in 1938 as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution . He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University , where he excelled academically. He later became a professor of government at the university and earned an international reputation as an expert on nuclear weapons and foreign policy . He acted as

8330-417: The press". Fallaci described the interview with the evasive, monotonous, non-expressive Kissinger as the most uncomfortable and most difficult she ever did, criticizing Kissinger as a "intellectual adventurer" and a self-styled Metternich . Nixon supported Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Kissinger sneered at people who "bleed" for "the dying Bengalis " and ignored

8428-764: The right place at the right time. In short, a Western. Fallaci : I see. You see yourself as a kind of Henry Fonda , unarmed and ready to fight with his fists for honest ideals. Alone, courageous ... Kissinger : Not necessarily courageous. In fact, this cowboy doesn't have to be courageous. All he needs is to be alone, to show others that he rides into the town and does everything by himself. This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique. Together with independence. Oh, that's very important in me and for me. And finally, conviction. I've always been convinced that I had to do whatever I've done. And people feel it, and believe in it. And I care about

8526-761: The two superpowers. As a part of this strategy, he negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (culminating in the SALT I treaty ) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Leonid Brezhnev , General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party . Negotiations about strategic disarmament were originally supposed to start under the Lyndon Johnson administration but were postponed in protest upon

8624-433: The weekend at Key Biscayne discussing Spiro Agnew 's imminent resignation. According to Kissinger his urgent calls to the Soviets and Egyptians were ineffective. On October 12, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial advice, while Kissinger was on his way to Moscow to discuss conditions for a cease-fire, Nixon sent a message to Brezhnev giving Kissinger full negotiating authority. Kissinger wanted to stall

8722-675: Was "too soft and not sophisticated" enough to properly represent the United States at the United Nations and expressed no anger when the United Nations General Assembly voted to expel Taiwan and give China's seat on the United Nations Security Council to the People's Republic. Kissinger's trips paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou, and Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong , as well as

8820-478: Was accepted by the leaders of all five of the Great Powers of Europe. Notably, Kissinger's Primat der Außenpolitik (Primacy of foreign policy) approach to diplomacy took it for granted that as long as the decision-makers in the major states were willing to accept the international order, then it is "legitimate" with questions of public opinion and morality dismissed as irrelevant. His dissertation also won him

8918-556: Was again used to describe the events, and further that with its continuing support for West Pakistan the U.S. government had "evidenced ... moral bankruptcy ". As a direct response to the dissent against U.S. policy, Kissinger and Nixon ended Archer Blood's tenure as United States consul general in East Pakistan and put him to work in the State Department's Personnel Office. Christopher Clary argues that Nixon and Kissinger were unconsciously biased, leading them to overestimate

9016-456: Was imminent. Prioritising detante , Kissinger's first phone call (at 6:40 am) was to Soviet ambassador and good friend Anatoly Dobrynin . He would later make calls to British ambassador Rowland Baring and the U.N. secretary-general Kurt Waldheim . Kissinger did not inform President Richard Nixon or White House chief of staff Alexander Haig about the start of the Yom Kippur War until either 8:35 or 9:25 am. as both were spending

9114-461: Was just as political as Nixon, just as calculating, just as relentlessly ambitious ... these self-made men were driven as much by their need for approval and their neuroses as by their strengths. A proponent of Realpolitik , Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. In that period, he extended the policy of détente . This policy led to

9212-532: Was made in secret) to confer with Premier Zhou Enlai , then in charge of Chinese foreign policy . During his visit to Beijing, the main issue turned out to be Taiwan, as Zhou demanded the United States recognize that Taiwan was a legitimate part of the People's Republic, pull U.S. forces out of Taiwan, and end military support for the Kuomintang regime. Kissinger gave way by promising to pull U.S. forces out of Taiwan, saying two-thirds would be pulled out when

9310-507: Was not durable. Thọ declined to accept the award and Kissinger appeared deeply ambivalent about it—he donated his prize money to charity, did not attend the award ceremony, and later offered to return his prize medal. As National Security Advisor in 1974, Kissinger directed the much-debated National Security Study Memorandum 200 . Kissinger initially had little interest in China when he began his work as National Security Adviser in 1969, and

9408-406: Was opposed to the plans for Operation Menu , the bombing of Cambodia, fearing that Nixon was acting rashly with no plans for the diplomatic fall-out, but on March 16, 1969, Nixon announced the bombing would start the next day. As he saw the president was committed, he became more supportive. Kissinger played a key role in bombing Cambodia to disrupt raids into South Vietnam from Cambodia, as well as

9506-516: Was over 400 pages long, and provoked Harvard's current cap on the length of undergraduate theses (35,000 words). He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively. In 1952, while still a graduate student at Harvard, he served as a consultant to the director of the Psychological Strategy Board , and founded a magazine, Confluence . At that time, he sought to work as

9604-476: Was the subject of his father Norman's Young Men and Fire , a book published posthumously. Maclean's third book, The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal , recounts the deadly Thirtymile Fire and the controversy and recriminations in its aftermath. The Thirtymile entrapped and killed four firefighters. Maclean's fourth book, The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57 details

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