Signed by Henry Kissinger, Brand New, First Edition, First Printing, List: $1.25, 100 pages

Time Magazine

October 1, 1979

Exclusive

White House Years

(pages 40 - 59)

by

Henry Kissinger

(May 27, 1923 - November 29, 2023)

Henry Alfred Kissinger born Heinz Alfred Kissinger; was an American politician, diplomat, political scientist, and geopolitical consultant. He served as United States secretary of state and national security advisor in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977.

Kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated an opening of relations with China, engaged in what became known as shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East to end the Yom Kippur War, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, which ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. He has also been associated with controversial policies, such as the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, U.S. involvement in the 1973 Chilean military coup, a "green light" to Argentina's military junta for their Dirty War, and U.S. support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War despite a genocide being perpetrated by Pakistan.

Kissinger was a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938. In the United States, he excelled academically and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1950, where he studied political science under William Yandell Elliott. He earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively. He then had a prominent academic career at Harvard before moving onto government.

After leaving government, he formed Kissinger Associates, an international geopolitical consulting firm. Kissinger wrote over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations. Kissinger's legacy is a polarizing subject in American politics. He has been widely considered by scholars to be an effective Secretary of State but is condemned for turning a blind eye to war crimes committed by American allies due to his support of a pragmatic approach to politics called Realpolitik. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam War, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances.

Awards, Honors, and Associations

• Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ were jointly offered the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Paris Peace Accords which prompted the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam war. Lê Đức Thọ declined to accept the award on the grounds that peace had not actually been achieved in Vietnam. Kissinger donated his prize money to charity, did not attend the award ceremony and later offered to return his prize medal after the fall of South Vietnam to North Vietnamese forces 18 months later.
• In 1973, Kissinger received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
• In 1976, Kissinger became the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
• On January 13, 1977, Kissinger received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford.
• In 1980, Kissinger won the National Book Award in History (hardcover) for the first volume of his memoirs, The White House Years.
• In 1986, Kissinger was one of twelve recipients of the Medal of Liberty.
• In 1995, Kissinger was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George.
• In 2000, Kissinger received the Sylvanus Thayer Award at United States Military Academy at West Point.
• In 2002, Kissinger became an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee.
• On March 1, 2012, Kissinger was awarded Israel's President's Medal.
• In October 2013, Kissinger was awarded the Henry A. Grunwald Award for Public Service by Lighthouse International.
• Kissinger was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford.
• Kissinger was a member of the following groups:
  • Aspen Institute
  • Atlantic Council
  • Bilderberg Group
  • Bohemian Club
  • Council on Foreign Relations
  • Center for Strategic and International Studies
  • World.Minds
  • Bloomberg New Economy Forum
• Kissinger served on the board of Theranos, a fraudulent health technology company, from 2014 to 2017.
• He received the Theodore Roosevelt American Experience Award from the Union League Club of New York in 2009.
• He became the Honorary Chair of the advisory board for the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in 2018.
• He also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
• In 2023, he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art from Minister-President of Bavaria Markus Söder.

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Book Description for White House Years (1,521 pages)

Kissinger’s invaluable and lasting contribution to the history of this crucial time. One of the most important books to come out of the Nixon Administration, the New York Times bestselling White House Years covers Henry Kissinger’s first four years (1969–1973) as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Among the momentous events recounted in this first volume of Kissinger’s timeless memoirs are his secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris to end the Vietnam War, the Jordan crisis of 1970, the India-Pakistan war of 1971, his back-channel and face-to-face negotiations with Soviet leaders to limit the nuclear arms race, his secret journey to China, and the historic summit meetings in Moscow and Beijing in 1972. He covers major controversies of the period, including events in Laos and Cambodia, his “peace is at hand” press conference and the breakdown of talks with the North Vietnamese that led to the Christmas bombing in 1972. Throughout, Kissinger presents candid portraits of world leaders, including Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Jordan’s King Hussein, Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman Mao and Chou En-lai, Willy Brandt, Charles de Gaulle, and many others.

from Kirkus Reviews

The long-awaited first installment of Henry's History has finally arrived and, advertising hype aside, White House Years is an event. Beginning with the call from Richard Nixon in 1969—ironically, while Kissinger was lunching with Nelson Rockefeller—that brought him into national prominence, and ending with the signing of the Paris accords on Vietnam in 1972, this segment inevitably centers on the Vietnam War, with side-trips to Moscow and China. Much attention will be paid to the nuts and bolts of negotiations between the U.S. and North Vietnam, the beginnings of détente, the secret mission to Peking, and the Mideast maneuvers of the period, as well as to Kissinger's profiles of colleagues and of Nixon. But one of those profiles may provide a clue to this maze of words; in speaking of then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, Kissinger notes that Laird would raise a host of issues in order to camouflage the main issue on which he wanted to prevail in inter-departmental wrangling. Kissinger's appreciation of Laird's bureaucratic acumen may be reflected in the massive scale of this book, fully 1,521 pages in all. But the layers of meetings, memoranda, and reflection can't hide its basic value; this is one of the great documents of today's amoral, antidemocratic political manipulation. Kissinger claims, for instance, that he originally intended to maintain the structure of the National Security Council as he found it, but that Nixon, suspicious of the Foreign Service, insisted on strengthening the NSC as his instrument. Later—in reference to presumed disagreements between him and Nixon over the Christmas bombing of Hanoi in 1971—he claims disingenuously that "a Presidential Assistant soon learns that his only strength is the President's confidence"; but the intervening 1,450 pages have shown us a Kissinger who knew how to institutionalize his power, and who, in the end, outmaneuvered even Richard Nixon. Kissinger's amorality is apparent from the start, as he never questions the propriety of accepting a position with the Nixon Administration after extolling the virtues of Rockefeller; the only question was which position to go for. Later, he could claim that "Cambodia was not a moral issue." But the greatest example may be Chile, where Kissinger justifies covert actions against Allende because his election was based "only" on a plurality—and, in any event, "was a challenge to our national interest," solely on the basis of his Marxist ideology. For Kissinger, values are ideology, power is truth. Though he wrings his hands over the "poor Cambodians" and those killed in Vietnam, his commitment was to American international "credibility" and effectiveness. For those not snowed by the erudition and charm, then, White House Years is a fundamentally important book.