Henry

I’m about halfway through this lengthy biography. Isaacson has written a very balanced account of Kissinger and it includes evidence of his intelligence and his foibles including his titanic ego. He was astonishingly thin skinned.

After the book came out, Kissinger, for a while, stopped speaking to the author. Finally, a phone call came. “Well Walter…even the 30 years war had to come to an end.” The ice had broken, and they continued to be in contact.

If you’ve even wanted to know more about Washington palace intrigue, this is a good book to read. Kissinger was—in turns— brilliant, seductive, charming, manipulative and devious. People in Washington who spoke with him figured out that he was a master at telling people who had different opinions what they wanted to hear.

Kissinger played down the early experience he and his family had as the Nazis came to power in Germany. He lost of lot of extended family members in the Holocaust.

The reader will learn a great deal about Kissinger’s complex relationship with Richard Nixon. Two men with serious insecurities who worked with one another warily. Isaacson has a gift for sketching out profiles of the various players. You’ll gain an understanding of the behaviors of Nelson Rockefeller, Alexander Haig, William Rogers, Mel Laird, Haldeman and Erlichman and many others.

Kissinger was not particularly well organized. One source described the chaos of his office operation as akin to a “Moroccan whore house.” (That image made me chuckle.)

One learning I still work to comprehend is just how Machiavellian some folks are willing to be. This book helped in that respect. (Sometimes I find myself shaking my head in amazement.)

Not everyone in positions of power at the time was prone to extreme deviousness. But people such as Gerald Ford, William Rogers, Melvin Laird, and others who were basically straight forward, “what you see is what you get” types were seen by Kissinger and Nixon as somewhat naive and, therefore, marginalized or largely ignored.

As is the case with all Isaacson biographies, this book is thorough and extensively researched.

If you have the time for it (not to mention the stomach,) it’s a worthwhile read.