Kissinger was surely one of the very few statesmen to try to do something positive to break the log jam of the Cold War; to try to end the war in Vietnam; to bring a halt to the cycle of war in the Middle East. Alistair Horne More Quotes by Alistair Horne More Quotes From Alistair Horne There is a widespread view among the liberal intelligentsia to the effect that Henry Kissinger, U.S. National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975 and Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, was a bad man. That may even be an understatement. In this fashionable consensus, he is not just a bad man: he is a war criminal. Alistair Horne view bad man war Without Kissinger's work in the Middle East, with Sadat especially, I doubt if the Camp David Agreements five years later would have happened. His achievements over detente, the seeds of trust he sowed in a very distrustful and hostile Moscow, helped over a long period. Alistair Horne seeds trust work long I greatly blame Congress, spurred on by its personal hatred of Nixon, for passing legislation in June through August of '73 which embargoed any further U.S. help to South Vietnam. Alistair Horne help personal blame hatred Vietnam ended a failure: repeatedly, to me, Kissinger described it as his greatest, and most persistent regret. But Congress was more to blame than Kissinger. Alistair Horne me blame failure regret Keeping his face clean over Watergate was one of Kissinger's biggest successes; so was his overall handling of the Yom Kippur War. Alistair Horne face over clean war
