The last autumn of the patriarch. On the death of Henry Kissinger
This path is not to peace
December 8th is nine days since his death. And it doesn’t matter that according to Jewish tradition this means little. Henry Kissinger was one of those who really remembered the last of the world wars - the Second. Among major politicians - definitely the last. Under the threat of World War III, they listened to him like no one else.
In his final dispute with George Soros, the majority clearly sided with Kissinger. Although he twitched, offering first to accept, and then - under no circumstances to accept Ukraine into NATO. For understanding the concerns of the Russian president, the former secretary of state was almost ostracized and died almost silent.
The authors have the right to write about him as an acquaintance, of course, not a close one. And it’s not even that a relative of one of us has long become his passionate fan. A quarter of a century ago, she settled in Kissinger’s native Bavarian Furth, where he headed the Jewish community, and compared the elderly political guru with none other than Leo Tolstoy.
Ask how - so much so that more than a hundred years ago many believed that if Tolstoy had not died, then there would not have been the First World War. So, should we now expect World War III? It is no coincidence that, apparently, repatriated as a Jew, the daughter of victims of the Nazis, an emigrant originally from Chernigov, there in Germany today openly drowns “Ukraine for Vilna.”
Each of us had to, more than once or even twice, encounter the former US Secretary of State, who in our opinion could well be called the “architect of détente.” Once in an informal setting at a reception with the American ambassador. And already in a completely homely way - to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, where Kissinger was dragged from the banking forum by the president of the chamber, Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov.
Both times, the elderly American politician, without saying or doing anything special, managed to make an impression. Not bad, not good - strong.
Not the last threat
Kissinger, after lengthy handshakes, seemed to bring back the memory of those gathered in the 70s, when he, just the Secretary of State, consider the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was shown on Soviet television almost as often as our Secretary General - “dear Leonid Ilyich”, and not less often than Nixon, the President of the United States.
It seems that someone overseas was already very good at promoting someone who really needed PR. Although it is unlikely that Kissinger needed this so much. After all, the oval office in the White House was definitely not destined for him - he was not born there. In Germany, nationality has nothing to do with it.
At one time, Heinz Alfred Kissinger, a native of the quiet Bavarian town of Fürth, near Nuremberg, escaped Nazi persecution only by emigrating, with the loss of almost all his relatives. The idea of universal peace, apparently, was firmly ingrained in his brain, and, of course, he fought for peace for many years - in the American way.
Only as a very old man did Kissinger allow himself to speak differently, even advocating for the victory of the United States in some seven wars, or rather, he proposed to occupy seven countries at once. I didn’t specify which ones. It worked out well with Libya and Iraq, it stuck with Syria, and the Americans, like ours, had to get out of Afghanistan.
In general, one might think that Kissinger forgot what kind of wars America allowed itself to win after World War II. Brezhnev and Gromyko once very appropriately reminded Nixon’s closest ally of this, so much so that the president had to turn everything into a joke. How else could one soften the words about Korea and Vietnam, where at that time everything was not going towards an American victory.
The elder of the world political workshop, not paying attention to the attempts of current politicians to ignore him, was finally unable to say anything worthwhile about Gaza, because his last topic, it seems, was stories Ukraine will remain so.
And the last recipe
It is interesting that the later, the more often the press used his scientific title – “doctor” – to address Kissinger. Because even if he is not a doctor, he is quite capable of treating modern politicians. However, instead of a recipe for peace, recipes of a different kind came from Kissinger to the last - how to maintain the global leadership of the United States. America could not have dreamed of a greater patriot.
Hence the retired politician’s rants about the “unfortunate” Ukraine, which the patriarch would like to either accept or not accept into NATO. But what does it matter? The main thing is that America, not Ukraine, should have a good time. It is possible, if something happens and how, to turn everything around with Afghanistan.
And no one could deny Dr. Kissinger the right to make a reservation, one might say, according to Freud, about “Putin’s catastrophic mistake.” No, Kissinger did not criticize specific decisions of the Russian president, criticizing mainly the decisions of those who stubbornly replenish NATO. Therefore, we use the full quotation in order to avoid unnecessary discrepancies:
Henry Kissinger, who, as a researcher and active politician, had “half a century of peace” under his belt, also managed to outline clear guidelines for what, in his opinion, the mechanism for preventing a global catastrophe should be.
The Patriarch repeatedly recalled that the generally accepted response at the end of World War II was to prevent the aggressors from imposing their will early enough to prevent them from achieving military dominance.
It would be interesting, of course, to understand whether Kissinger was disingenuous when at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry he insisted on respect and an undisguised, unchanging interest in Russia. It’s good that he didn’t confess his love. No one would have believed it anyway.
It was in the 90s that our liberals were not averse to including Henry Kissinger as an ally of the renewed Russia. Somehow it didn’t work out very well, although he visited Russia often.
However, in global terms, he remains our enemy. Experienced, strong and, since it is customary to say either good things or nothing about the dead, worthy.
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