Recent events suggest that the Clinton administration's silence on human rights, coupled with free trade, has only led to a worsening of conditions inside the country. In following the Kissingerian formula, the United States has sold out human rights without getting anything in return. Kissinger will have none of this. He concludes on a sentimental note. But perhaps the true answer is that the thing he was most realistic about was orchestrating his own ascent.
Realism can often be another term for opportunism.
It fit right in with Kissinger's ambitions for himself. Turning himself into a small power at Harvard, he carefully climbed the greasy pole to become America's most celebrated foreign policy figure. The further his tenure recedes into the distance, the smaller his accomplishments will appear. Kissinger confused his own decline with America's. Jacob Heilbrunn is a senior editor at The New Republic.