Volume 21, Number 14 · September 19, 1974
All About Henry
By Ronald Steel
Kissinger
by Marvin Kalb, by Bernard Kalb
Little Brown, 577 pp., $12.50
Diplomacy may be, as is often said, a liar's game. But to play that game well, a semblance of sincerity is essential. As a master of the art, Henry Kissinger has always understood this. 'Sincerity has meaning only in reference to a standard of truth of conduct,' he once wrote in an admiring analysis[1] of the German master of power politics. 'It was not that Bismarck lied, but that he was finely attuned to the subtlest currents of any environment and produced measures precisely adjusted to the need to prevail. The key to Bismarck's success was that he was always sincere.'
Review, 6234 words
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