Categories: Daniel Serwer

Stevenson’s army, November 30

Henry Kissinger died Wednesday, 6 months after his 100th birthday. NYT has a comprehensive obit.  Fred Kaplan is more critical, drawing on declassified documents bundled by the National Security Archive.

As most of you know, Kissinger was one of my academic mentors. I TA’d in his course for two years, had weekly meetings with him. I almost went to work in his NSC — until my immediate sponsors resigned in protest because of the invasion of Cambodia.

I was disappointed that he never wrote a letter of recommendation for my academic job portfolio, but Tony Lake later told me he said he was too busy. Lake also said I was in good company. Among the other things Kissinger repeatedly didn’t have time for were relations with the UN and foreign economic policy.

– There’s a new poll showing US polarization and willingness to use political violence.

– NYT analyzes polls on US views of Israel and Palestine.

– NYT notes danger of US-Iran war.

– Paul Musgrave tells how views of war have changed.

One more point on Kissinger: while I admire many of his accomplishments and deplore others, I especially resent his way of trying to avoid responsibility by making jokes. [“The illegal we do right away; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”]

Daniel Serwer

Share
Published by
Daniel Serwer

Recent Posts

Hope is where the wild things are

Hope lies wherever the restraining and suffocating writ of the Trump Administration does not extend.…

3 days ago

America made a giant mistake

It will take more time for Americans to fathom the mistake they have made. But…

6 days ago

Serbia is going backwards

I received this plea today. The issues are not new but now the situation is…

2 weeks ago

Might doesn’t make right, but it’s winning

Trump can't get anything out of Putin because the American President has already given too…

2 weeks ago

Neither nothingburger nor whopper

Putin has weathered sanctions so far. And Trump shows no signs of taking advantage of…

3 weeks ago

Proving the opposite of what he intends

What Dodik is showing is that an unconstrained RS is a barrier to Bosnia's functionality…

3 weeks ago