ajpirzada
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I was sitting in Dr Kissingers New York office in mid-town Manhattan, overlooking Central Park, with its beautiful trees and enthralling vistas, and enjoying his ideas and thoughts on a range of topics and subjects. Then Dr Kissinger was heading his own consultant firm of Kissinger Associates, which he had founded after concluding his distinguished career. The year was 1992. I had obtained the appointment after a lot of effort. A direct call to his secretary led nowhere, as I was told, every time my office called, that Mr Kissinger was busy for the next several weeks and there was no telling when he would be able to see me. Often he was travelling, having been called by the King of Morocco or the president of France or whoever else anywhere else. I then tried to reach him through our lobbyist in Washington, but again the appointment was not coming through. Finally, I called Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a good friend, one of his many protégés, and a Senior Fellow at Brookings at the time. I took him out to lunch at the classy restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and persuaded him to arrange a meeting for me with his world famous guru, and the appointment came through. In the meeting, Kissinger lounged on a sofa chair and smoked a cigar, and I sat on a straight back chair near him. The office had a beautiful European tapestry on one wall, family pictures on the desk, which was period-style, and a rich Persian carpet on the floor. It was a lazy New York afternoon, and the renowned diplomat and statesman was expansive and garrulous.
I had read three of his many biographies, one by Marvin and Bernard Kalb, another by David Landau and the most interesting one by Walter Isaacson.
I had also read his own works, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, published in 1957, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-22, published in 1973, and the definitive exposition of his world-view, Diplomacy published in 1994. Compared to historical figures like Richelieu, Metternich and Bismarck, Kissinger dominated U.S. foreign policy for nearly a decade, from 1969 to 1977. His main contributions in this period was in the field of disarmament, when he negotiated with the then Soviet Union over an extended period of time the elements of the SALT treaties and the ABM Treaty, the conduct and subsequent conclusion of the Vietnam War, the U.S. opening to China (through the good offices of Pakistan) and extended negotiations with the Arabs and the Israelis, regarding a possible solution of the Palestinian problem.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, with his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, for reaching a negotiated settlement of the Vietnam conflict. In his high profile role in these dominant problems of the time, Kissinger often did and said many things which became controversial. He has been blamed for the napalm bombings in Cambodia and Vietnam that the U.S. resorted to in the later phase of the Vietnam War, for duplicity and deceit with the Arabs in the Arab-Israeli issue, and for having had a hand in the toppling of the duly elected Presidents Allende of Chile and Isobel Peron of Argentina. Be it as it may, Kissinger is generally acknowledged as having been a brilliant negotiator and strategist, who started out as an academic of Harvard, worked in Washington in many important places culminating in the positions of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. He was equally at home in philosophic sweeps, historical analysis, tactical probing, and light repartee , which is how he described Zhou En Lai, and which description aptly fits him also. Zhou En Lai is said to have told Kissinger You are a very brilliant man, Dr Kissinger! (quoted in Isaacson).
Going back to our meeting, Kissinger talked of the excitement of the secret trip he made to Beijing in July 1971, when he came to Pakistan, was reported to be resting in Nathiagali, and instead was flown to Beijing under Pakistani arrangements. He had a total of eight or nine hours of discussions with Premier Zhou En Lai, that eventually resulted in the U.S. recognition of the Peoples Republic of China. Till then the U.S. had maintained the fiction that the Nationalist Government in Taiwan was the legitimate government of China! In this historic correction of the U.S. position, Pakistan played the pivotal role in making it possible. Kissinger told me, If Pakistan had not had the complete confidence of China, and if we had waited for some other appropriate time, the commencement of direct U.S. interaction with China may have been delayed by many years, with consequent negative fallout for international relations as a whole. Then Kissinger talked of India-Pakistan relations. He said he was convinced Mrs Indira Gandhi wanted to destroy Pakistan, which would not have been in the strategic interest of the U.S. Kissinger was the one who was persuading President Nixon to have, what was later dubbed as the famous U.S. tilt towards Pakistan, but the rest of Nixons advisers were perhaps not on board. Kissinger admitted as much in his conversation with me and this position is confirmed by the historical fact that the U.S. did nothing to stop India from waging war against Pakistan, and thus bringing about the break-up of Pakistan. Kissinger made a very disparaging remark about Indira Gandhi, which is better left unsaid. However, I remember vividly what Kissinger said at the end of our discussion of this topic. He said The fact of the matter is that when Pakistanis talk about India three-fourths of the time, it is understandable, as Pakistan is smaller and weaker than India, but when Indians talk about Pakistan three-fourths of the time, it is abnormal, and quite bizarre! When I said good-bye and took the elevator down to the street, I remember thinking that Kissinger was a friend of Pakistan. However, that was in 1992. In recent years, Kissinger has made his peace with the Indians, as he supported the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and said at the time that he thinks India is a natural strategic ally of the U.S.
IDL
I had read three of his many biographies, one by Marvin and Bernard Kalb, another by David Landau and the most interesting one by Walter Isaacson.
I had also read his own works, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, published in 1957, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-22, published in 1973, and the definitive exposition of his world-view, Diplomacy published in 1994. Compared to historical figures like Richelieu, Metternich and Bismarck, Kissinger dominated U.S. foreign policy for nearly a decade, from 1969 to 1977. His main contributions in this period was in the field of disarmament, when he negotiated with the then Soviet Union over an extended period of time the elements of the SALT treaties and the ABM Treaty, the conduct and subsequent conclusion of the Vietnam War, the U.S. opening to China (through the good offices of Pakistan) and extended negotiations with the Arabs and the Israelis, regarding a possible solution of the Palestinian problem.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, with his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, for reaching a negotiated settlement of the Vietnam conflict. In his high profile role in these dominant problems of the time, Kissinger often did and said many things which became controversial. He has been blamed for the napalm bombings in Cambodia and Vietnam that the U.S. resorted to in the later phase of the Vietnam War, for duplicity and deceit with the Arabs in the Arab-Israeli issue, and for having had a hand in the toppling of the duly elected Presidents Allende of Chile and Isobel Peron of Argentina. Be it as it may, Kissinger is generally acknowledged as having been a brilliant negotiator and strategist, who started out as an academic of Harvard, worked in Washington in many important places culminating in the positions of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. He was equally at home in philosophic sweeps, historical analysis, tactical probing, and light repartee , which is how he described Zhou En Lai, and which description aptly fits him also. Zhou En Lai is said to have told Kissinger You are a very brilliant man, Dr Kissinger! (quoted in Isaacson).
Going back to our meeting, Kissinger talked of the excitement of the secret trip he made to Beijing in July 1971, when he came to Pakistan, was reported to be resting in Nathiagali, and instead was flown to Beijing under Pakistani arrangements. He had a total of eight or nine hours of discussions with Premier Zhou En Lai, that eventually resulted in the U.S. recognition of the Peoples Republic of China. Till then the U.S. had maintained the fiction that the Nationalist Government in Taiwan was the legitimate government of China! In this historic correction of the U.S. position, Pakistan played the pivotal role in making it possible. Kissinger told me, If Pakistan had not had the complete confidence of China, and if we had waited for some other appropriate time, the commencement of direct U.S. interaction with China may have been delayed by many years, with consequent negative fallout for international relations as a whole. Then Kissinger talked of India-Pakistan relations. He said he was convinced Mrs Indira Gandhi wanted to destroy Pakistan, which would not have been in the strategic interest of the U.S. Kissinger was the one who was persuading President Nixon to have, what was later dubbed as the famous U.S. tilt towards Pakistan, but the rest of Nixons advisers were perhaps not on board. Kissinger admitted as much in his conversation with me and this position is confirmed by the historical fact that the U.S. did nothing to stop India from waging war against Pakistan, and thus bringing about the break-up of Pakistan. Kissinger made a very disparaging remark about Indira Gandhi, which is better left unsaid. However, I remember vividly what Kissinger said at the end of our discussion of this topic. He said The fact of the matter is that when Pakistanis talk about India three-fourths of the time, it is understandable, as Pakistan is smaller and weaker than India, but when Indians talk about Pakistan three-fourths of the time, it is abnormal, and quite bizarre! When I said good-bye and took the elevator down to the street, I remember thinking that Kissinger was a friend of Pakistan. However, that was in 1992. In recent years, Kissinger has made his peace with the Indians, as he supported the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and said at the time that he thinks India is a natural strategic ally of the U.S.
IDL
