Henry Kissinger | Henry Kissinger, the Pope of Diplomacy, is died
Henry Kissinger
Born in Germany 100 years ago and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1973, he was the most influential and most listened to American diplomat.
For more than twenty years, he led America’s foreign policy, with his own vision of the balance of power, a very pragmatic diplomatic method and a finesse not devoid of cynicism. A very particular art of negotiation which contrasted with the classic doctrine of proselytism and democratic apostolate of the United States inherited from the Wilson presidency. Its concept was summed up in a word that will remain the hallmark of Henry Kissinger’s talent: “Realpolitik”.
During the forty years following his official retirement from business, he was sought for his advice by most successive presidents. Which never stopped him from loudly deploring certain actions, which he criticized when his recommendations had not been followed. Or that the tenants of the White House had not asked his opinion.
Operation “Marco Polo”
When he was a professor at Harvard, he was jealous of his peers because he had succeeded in making both a name and an address book among the future greats of this world. This geopolitical activism allowed him to waste no time when he left university life and entered the White House in January 1969.
Upon his arrival in the team of the newly elected Richard Nixon, he was the strategist who knew the right channels and seizes the moment for Mao’s China and the United States to resume a dialogue interrupted since the victory of the communists and the creation of the People’s Republic. After long months of secret contacts, he will achieve this breakthrough by resorting to parallel diplomacy. The one who will be his best ally during the negotiation on Vietnam.
Although he took charge of the National Security Council at the request of the new Republican president, he is not officially in charge of Foreign Affairs. However, Nixon, who agreed to rapprochement with Beijing, feared exposing official American diplomacy and Secretary of State William Rogers.
At least for fear of a rebuff from Mao. For more than a year, Kissinger secretly prepared the aptly named “Operation Marco Polo”. Under the cover of a trip to Pakistan and a supposed weekend of rest in a mountain resort, he changed planes and landed in Beijing on July 10, 1971 aboard a Pakistan Airlines aircraft. While he was received by Chou En-Lai, Mao’s prime minister for twenty-two years, they both formalized the resumption of dialogue between their countries and the promise of an official visit from Nixon in the spring of 1972.
