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Book: Kissinger: Volume I: The Idealist, 1923-1968
Quotes of Book: Kissinger: Volume I: The
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  1. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    the first symptoms of decline. "The collapse of nations," he argued, was due to "internal rigidity coupled with a decline in the ability, both moral and physical, to shape surrounding circumstances. . . . What would have been Western history if the knights who defeated the Arabs at Tours had surrendered because they believed in the historic inevitability of the triumph of Christianity? Central Europe would today be Moslem."134
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  2. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    Let every nation know," declared Kennedy in his inaugural address, "that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
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  3. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    It was misconceived because Johnson appeared to think the kind of tactics that worked in a Texas saloon would work in Vietnam: beat a man, then stop beating him and say, "Give in, or I'll beat you some more.
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  4. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    Only general officers were entitled to know our true rank. To all others our standard reply to the inevitable question, "What is your rank?" was simply a firm, "My rank is confidential, but at this moment I am not outranked."39
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  5. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    do you think that I believe that you will protect us? I said, yes. He said, I no longer believe that you will protect us. Your actions over recent years have made clear that to you detente is more important than anything else. I do not believe that any American president will risk nuclear war for Berlin; the only thing that is saving us is that the Soviets cannot be sure of this.72
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  6. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    Let's face up to the question of who we support; let's defend the bastards and reform them later. "
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  7. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    The thinkers in their youth are almost always very lonely creatures. . . . The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself least lonely, most positively furthered and most richly fed. -WILLIAM JAMES1
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  8. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    In particular, it lacked the skills to carry out pacification effectively-or as Kissinger politely put it, "the special qualities developed in a decade or more of combat training do not include discriminating political judgment in volatile and complex circumstances.
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  9. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    All these people want is a chance for the future, a chance they will follow with a strict consequentness {sic}. They will resent pity, they will be suspicious of oversolicitousness. They have seen man from his most evil side, who can blame them for being suspicious? They will resent having somebody plan every little detail for them. And in all fairness, who can blame them for that? Have they not lived in the land of the dead and so what can be so terrifying about the land of the living?"
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  10. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    I would feel happier about professions of high moral principles if they did not so frequently coincide with a policy of minimum risk."189
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  11. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    Vice President Nixon the following year: he was even prepared to use atomic weapons to shore up the French position in Indochina.63 "The United States cannot afford to preclude itself from using nuclear weapons even in a local situation,
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  12. Niall Ferguson _ Kissinger: Volume I: The

    Since no country has had any experience with the tactical use of nuclear weapons, the possibility of miscalculation is considerable. The temptation to use the same target system as for conventional war and thereby produce vast casualties will be overwhelming. The pace of operations may out strip the possibilities of negotiation. Both sides would be operating in the dark with no precedents to guide them.119
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