Next on book tvs afterwards, historian Neil Ferguson discusses his book kissinger, the idealists. It looks at the early life of Henry Kissinger. He is interviewed by Carla Anne Robbins of the council on Foreign Relations and National Security prep best threat root college. Welcome professor and thank you for doing this. This is the first of two book authorized under the prep as you say that not only has this book been written with her kissingers cooperation it was written with his suggestion. How did that happen . Authors ought to be nervous of it because it advised that he had some control over it. When he suggested this to me which is number than ten years ago i said, yes i will be willing to do this but one condition, i have a completely free hand and you have to accept that if you ask me to do this and give me access to your private papers, i will write what i think is the truth. Which is incidentally the basis for which i have written the previous book. So he agreed to that. I think i would be willing to take it on on any other basis. So how does it happen . Did you know him before hand . I had met him of course, he read my stuff, we met at a party in london. I preface this in a story in the beginning. We were talking about one of the books i had written i were having a conversation about that. So we met on that basis and i forget exactly when but sometime after that the subject came up, i think he was attracted to the idea of a scholarly biography being written. I was not the first person who had been considered for this job. But when he put the questions in me i initially said no and then he then wrote me a very Henry Kissinger letter. Wasnt a letter or . It was a letter. He did not do email. The letter said, what a great shame, just when i had decided you are the ideal man to do this and just as i had found 150 boxes of my private papers had been lost. Once i started looking at the stuff i just decided i should do this. I was a bit daunted daunted before. It is an extremely difficult life to write for a whole range of reasons, its its controversy, as well documented, its a difficult thing to do. When i started to write the early correspondence and diary extracts, within a few hours i thought i really had to take this on. So this is not a man who had been undocumented, he has written his own memoirs extensively, even longer than your book. Yes. So why do you think he wanted he also shared some information, he spoke with Walter Isaacson for his biography, why do you think you wanted this book written . One of the points i make in the book as he is a by training a historian, a historian knows that the memoirs from the biographies, his three volumes actually cover the time and government was really next to nothing about the. Before 1969. So there is half of his life in effect that he had not written about. With isaacsons book book which is very good, suspended essentially a journalists book, i think the idea was something should write a scholarly biography based on the documents, they archivals, because those exists. Although there are bunch a bunch of books you can find them libraries that ought to be biographies of kissinger, most are are not really based on much more than what he hearsay. I think the argument of that is a compelling one. It turns out the material was very good, very rich. I was lucky because that hole. Really from his earlier stage growing up in germany right down to the moment Richard Nixon offered him a job of National Security advisor, had largely been neglected. Host you are often described as a conservative historian. Do you think you chose you apart for that reason . Was the other unnamed person also a conservative historian . Guest yes, he was. I think it is more important that i am british though because i think theres some advantage to being a british writer in writing the work of an american historian. One characteristic feature of Henry Kissingers life has been the extraordinary political progress of that date to the early 1970s and has raged on more incessantly. In some ways those are of the generation of 1968. Of the generation that came of age during the vietnam war. And your generation. Im someone who can, this is history, i dont have memorabilia from woodstock in my attic. I think thats important. On the question of conservativism i think its worth adding a footnote because conservative mean something different. If you have grown up in the u. K. , its not republicanism, the u. S. Version and i am not by any means a republican in my politics now that i live in the United States. I am a conservatives in the way that Henry Kissinger was in conservative. Im a european conservative. He often feel like a liberal if youre a european conservative in the United States. Things that American American conservative say are shocking too. In the same kind of way that kissingers conservativism is really european variance, so is mine. That may be one reason he thought it would work. Host when you say european conservative and things you find shocking, are than the National Security realm or is it social issues . Guest is a social issues, those things that i regard as not being the main policies that are in the us. Our National Security issues seems to me it is often the case that people get confused into thinking there is some kind of straight pungent duty, argument going on about National Security. I have been critical in recent years of president obama, i, i have also been critical of his predecessor in the book colossal. I was extremely critical of the invasion of iraq and the way it was handled. I had been drawn into the debate about u. S. Foreign policy from the moment really that i set foot into the u. S. I have probably approached it rather naively thinking i could criticize both republicans and democrats. It is hard to be in that position, youre never to be in expected to be on one side or the other. Host im not sure, theres no question theres been a convergence of the end of the cold war. If you look at iraq itself there are people on the left whose saw the humanitarian challenges, people in the right who are isolationist, that is really true. Im not sure what an independent is other than someone who chooses casebycase . Spee2 right, or someone recognizes that there can be a simple party line on this National Security issues and someone who doesnt want to be bound by party line on social and cultural issues. Interestingly, i found kissinger as a young man was in rather the same position. He thought of himself as a small conservative, he did not identify as a liberal in 1950s 50s or 1960s. But when he encounters real american conservativism, and and Harry Goldwater supporters of 1964, he was appalled. He always had a very uneasy relationship with the reich of the republican party. Indeed with conservatives as well. Thats one of the interesting things about kissingers predicament and then we explain why he is a controversial figure. He always had enemies on the right, particularly in the debates on the 1970s about whether the soviet union was a stellar. Host so the book is called the idealist, which is a is a rather contrarian taken kissinger even in those calmly descriptions is described as the ultimate realist, if not a direct descendent. So you choice of the word idealists as you describe in the book is not its more of a notion of idealism, can you explain for the audience at home what you mean by idealist when it comes to kissinger and one our notion of courses traditionally smithsonianism, but thats but thats really not the description youre using. Guest it is true most people think of Henry Kissinger as the ark realist in the name they throw around, maybe it is not surprising people fall into that trap. I like to show the book that if it is a trap. He really wasnt a realist. One of the realists who argued the United States should simply follow its narrow national interest, he was not one of them. So those who were realist and were critical of him it started to read his writings thoroughly, which i began to think that many people had done, i was really struck by some things. They were in fact critical of realism, brooke of out the congress, things are quite revolutionary and highly critical of the 19th century politics. So i started to think there is something funny there. Then i delved deeper into his development, three things are striking. One, his own experience growing up typically germany in 1938 made him not surprisingly highly critical of the foreign policy. What he appears as a realist and very interesting essay because they thought they are pursuing a narrow selfinterested approach to form policy and disregarded the human rights abuses of dictatorship. So number one his own experience in the 1930s makes them suspicious of what he thought of the realists. Number two, he comes to harvard and to try to get rid of this rather pushy undergraduate, they said go in and read the manual come back when youre finished expecting never to see him again and underestimating him. He put it into his senior thesis, he was deeply influenced particularly in the problem that on the one hand if there is such a thing as freedom, free will, free choice, that the, that the experience of freedom is real, on the other hand he argues that there is some kind of plan for the world, for humanity needing ultimately perpetual peace. The essential discussion in kissingers thesis of and he concludes that there is and ultimately the experience of choice is a real one. Freedom, as kissinger finds it is in the experience. The third point which is perhaps the crucial one given the cold war complex of his early academic career, was that kissinger rejects materialism. And hes an idealist in the sense that he would reject materialist views of history like marxism. The theory of the soviet bloc, he also rejected capitalist materialistic theories that said rfr growth rate is higher than the their growth rate then well win the cold war. I think im those three counts kissinger emerges as an idealist. Where was he in the harvard of the 19 fifties . I i think it is what made his contribution fundamentally distinctive and made him stand out from the pack of people that thought you could solve the cold war was systems and analysis. Host although you have many quotes in the book that make him sound as though he is an idealist, and certainly someone who is horrified by the appeasers, someone believes the u. S. Is more likely to win on ideals that are materialist issues. At the same time, his writing writing and other biographies are filled with pretty brutal policy quotes from him as well. I i noticed in Walter Isaacsons biography kissinger pushing back in the 1970s asking why is it our business how they government themselves . He defends cutting off aid to iraq saying covert action should not be confused with missionary work. That doesnt sound to me like an idealist, someone he doesnt feel the u. S. Has to be defending human rights or oppressing allies because of the repressive nature. Guest one is that were really talking about volume to which i had not written yet. Me me telling what the subtitle will be, could be the idealist. Im a little cautious about talking about becomes i am still doing research. I tend not to make up my mind until i plow through a lot of documents. In the early days to be talking about the 1970s to me. The most i could risk risk saying secondly in response is that we cant really understand wars by kissinger, next thing, ford and and the president s he served were trying to achieve if we just look at isolated cases and throw up our hands and say how shocking and callous. These isolated countries, these particular instances you mention have to be a serious part of a grand strategy. Most are highly critical of kissinger tend to focus on a particular issue and disregard the strategic framework. The strategic framework as kissinger said in his early rising is something that imposes a hierarchy. If your primary goal is to avoid world war iii and seek some kind of accommodation with the soviet union than there may be other things upon the chessboard that you can sacrifice to that end. If your second goal is to use an opening to china to put pressure on the soviets them for the sake of that, you may have to make compromises with say, the pakistani government. If you had no other concerns you might not make. I think any judgment you make about form policy has to be done, not on a on a casebycase basis but in a strategic framework. In his early writing on this and we talked about what kissinger says it is the nature of statesmanship that you have to make choices and youre free to make these choices. They are really very equally choices between evils and the challenges to decide what the lesser of two evils is. Kissinger says this is their right from the very earliest rising, thats the problem. Thats the challenge that there are sometimes when good options theres just evil to choose from b1 all that is persuasive but i just put that in her real policy camp in the sense of seeking stability for the sake of peace or having to look the other way on that oppression and pakistan are his decision on the joint decision of his bombing in cambodia. Or and you do engage some of this in the book, his role role in chile. Himself has suggested that before, that he engineers that he thoroughly supported the idea that he wanted to hang in there. These are transcendent things that sound like very politics to me and reasons why he is so very controversial. Guest one of the things i do at the end of volume on and in effect in january 1969 is to imply that there is questions for volume 2. The question is, does he remain an idealist . Does idealist . Does he adhere to the principles that he set out or did the experience of government change him into a realist . That question i have have yet to answer. It is clearly central to volume two of this biography. This biography, the first following line covers the first half of his life. In that period, although he was involved with government for example with the kennedy, he was mostly a writer of books and articles. I think its fascinating to study him as an intellectual. Imagine if he was hit by a bus in january 1969, this book would have been impossible, the second im not sure about that because the intellectual contributions are extensional. At a time when international rage has become more far from history. Kissinger argued that you have to have a historical framework, history is the nations what characters to individual. If you dont know the history you wont understand the counterpart. I think thats an important insight which is still important today. Think about the central problem he defines as a problem of conjecture. He gets to the heart of some of the questions he is raising. Kissinger said not only do you have to choose between two evils, when you make the choice you dont really know how things will turn out. He may take it difficult preempt that an advert disaster. But if you are successful and you over world war ii, is anybody grateful . Now because it didnt happen. International relations and foreign policies are not a symmetry. It may get you no payoff because in preempting disaster you basically prevent it from happening and therefore you prevent people from suffering it. If you place time, you may get lucky and then people may think you want. If youre not lucky and things turn out badly you can i say well, i did my best. The temptation as we say, you kick kick the can down the road. When you come to assess any of the decisions that were tanking after 1968 were aware and a position to advise the decisionmaking of the president , you have to ask yourself not only how does this fit into the grand strategy, but also the question at the time the decision was making, was this the right decision . At the time could you say with certainty or with confidence, not with certainty this is the lesser evil of any two course of action. Thats a challenge i set myself and trying to to assess his work in the second volume. Host said you said, the book begins with his childhood in germany. In out several times that kissinger placed on the impact on his worldview of the child view. He lost many friends and many members of his family to the holocaust. You quote a 2007 interview with him when he says my First Political experience was a member of the persecuted jewish minority, many members of my family, 70 of the people i would school with that in concentration camps. That is that is not something i can forget. I do not agree with the view that analysts everything for my alleged jewish origin, have not thought of myself in those terms. What is going on there . Im a Jewish American and a lot of my attitude toward my horrible goes on in the world, repressions, extreme isms, as well as my notion of american responsibility to try to fix things, comes fix things, comes out of that path. I certainly did not live through the holocaust. And i would say the alleged jewish origin is rather disturbing area what is happening with him . Guest i have tried in the book to tell the story as accurately as i can. Really it is a remarkable one but not unique. He grew grew up in a part of germany were nazi, next to newburgh, as he grew up he became a teenager in the nazi regime came to power. His rights were acquitted away, just as his parents work until the point they reach they had to flee. When they came back six years after leaving in a u. S. Army uniform, he witnessed a liberation of a concentration camp outside of hanover. He then discovered after the war was over that nearly all the family members who had not left germany had died, including his grandmother. So clearly these were searing experiences. I think the reason he subsequently thought to downplay them was the tendency of maybe earlier writers to describe so was reported to those events that his Subsequent Development was a kind of a response to trauma. His very clear in the letters he writes home to his parents in the late 19 forties, the things he writes about the Work Experience, that he is not traumatized. It is something he explicitly says. I think we need to understand that the Work Experience was not quite as we might imagine it. Those of us were too young too young to experience it. For example, i think its v