36 • The Sunday Times Magazineof spending time on their own, in solitude.
And they did not fear being divisive.
“There must be in the life of the leader
some moment of reflection,” he says,
pointing to
Adenauer’s time of
inner exile in Nazi
Germany; de
Gaulle’s time as
a German prisoner
in the First World
War; Nixon’s
wilderness years in
the mid-1960s after
he had lost bids for
both the presidency
and the California
governorship; Sadat’s jail time when Egypt
was still under British control. Some of the
most striking passages of the book are about
these periods of isolation. “Dominating
oneself ought to become a sort of habit,” de
Gaulle wrote as a PoW, “a moral reflex
acquired by a constant gymnastic of the will
especially in the tiniest things: dress,
conversation, the way one thinks.”
In 1932 the future French president called
“unceasing self-discipline” the price of
leadership — “the constant taking of risks,
and a perpetual inner struggle. The degree
of suffering involved varies according to the
temperament of the individual; but it is
bound to be no less tormenting than the hair
shirt of the penitent.”
The inner de Gaulle
was profoundly
compassionate, as
his love for his
daughter Anne,
who had Down’s
syndrome, revealed.
But the outer man
was austere, aloof,
antagonistic even
to allies.
We turn to
Margaret Thatcher, for whom Kissinger
evidently developed affection as well as
respect. At an early stage of the Falklands
War, having just been briefed by Britain’s
foreign secretary, Francis Pym, Kissinger
asked her which form of diplomatic solution
she favoured. “I will have no compromise!”
she thundered. “How can you, my old
friend? How can you say these things?”
“She was so irate,” Kissinger recalls. “I did
not have the heart to explain that the idea
was not mine but her chief diplomat’s.”
I suggest that the current prime minister,
Boris Johnson, is almost the opposite of a
leader as Kissinger defines it. There has
certainly not been much of de Gaulle’s
unceasing self-discipline in Downing Street
of late. Again, Kissinger’s answer surprises
me: “In terms of British history, he’s had
an astounding career — to alter the
direction of Britain on Europe, which will
certainly be listed as one of the important
transitions in history.A Republican since the 1950s, Kissinger
avoids stating explicitly that there are
elements on the American right that now
seem to question those values. But he is
clearly no more enthused by such populist
types than he was in the days of Barry
Goldwater, the 1960s presidential hopeful
who was an arch defender of individualism
and a fierce anti-communist. On the
progressive left, he says, people now argue
that “unless these basic values are
overturned, and the principles of [their]
execution altered, we have no moral right
even to carry out our own domestic policy,
much less our foreign policy”. This “is not
a common view yet,
but it is sufficiently
virulent to drive
everything else in
its direction and to
prevent unifying
policies ... [It] is [a
view held] by a large
group of the
intellectual
community,
probably
dominating all
universities and many media.”
I ask: “Can any leader fix this?”
“What happens if you have unbridgeable
divisions is one of two things. Either the
society collapses and is no longer capable of
carrying out its missions under either
leadership, or it transcends them ...”
“Does it need an external shock or an
external enemy?”
“That’s one way of doing it. Or you could
have an unmanageable domestic crisis.”I
take him back to the oldest of the
leaders profiled in his book, Konrad
Adenauer, who in 1949 became the
first chancellor of West Germany. At
their last meeting — for of course
Kissinger knew all six personally —
Adenauer asked: “Are any leaders still able
to conduct a genuine long-range policy? Is
true leadership still possible today?” That is
surely the question
Kissinger himself is
asking, nearly six
decades later.
Leadership has
become more
difficult, he says,
“because of the
combination of
social networks,
new styles of
journalism, the
internet and
television, all of which focus attention on
the short term”.
This brings us to his very distinctive view
of leadership. What his sextet of leaders had
in common were five qualities: they were
tellers of hard truths, they had vision and
they were bold. But they were also capable1923 Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in
Fürth, Germany, into a family of
Orthodox Jews. As a young boy he is
beaten up by Hitler Youth gangs.1938 The Kissinger family flee Nazi
persecution and migrate, via
London, to the US. Heinz changes
his name to Henry and becomes a
naturalised US citizen in 1943.1943-46 Serves in the US army and
participates in the liberation of
Ahlem concentration camp. Wins the
Bronze Star in 1945 for his part in the
breaking up of a Gestapo sleeper cell.1949 Marries Anne Fleischer. Two
children. Divorced 1964.1950 BA from Harvard, summa cum
laude. PhD from Harvard in 1954.1954-69 Harvard faculty member.
Consultant to various US agencies
during the administrations of
presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy
and Johnson.1969-73 National security adviser to
President Richard Nixon. Critics later
accuse Kissinger of “war crimes”
over the US bombing of Cambodia
in an extension of the Vietnam War,
and of supporting a brutal military
crackdown in Bangladesh that killed
hundreds of thousands.1973 Nobel peace prize joint winner
with the Vietnamese politician Le
Duc Tho for their efforts to end the
Vietnam War. Le Duc Tho refuses the
prize and Kissinger does not attend
the ceremony.1974 Marries Nancy Maginnes,
an aide to the New York governor
Nelson Rockefeller.1973-77 US secretary of state under
Nixon until Watergate in 1974, then
under Gerald Ford. Kissinger’s critics
later highlight how he supported
ruthless military dictatorships in
Argentina, Chile and elsewhere.1984-90 Member of Ronald Reagan’s
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.2001-20 Member of the Defense
Policy Board, an advisory committee
to the US Department of Defense.One man’s
turbulent century