Introduction

Asaf Siniver

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511511660.003

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2009

Asaf Siniver

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Asaf Siniver: Affiliation:
University of Birmingham

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Summary

The statesman is therefore like one of the heroes in classical drama who has a vision of the future but who cannot transmit it directly to his fellow-men and who cannot validate its ‘truth’…It is for this reason that statesmen often share the fate of prophets, that they are without honor in their own country, that they always have a difficult task in legitimizing their programmes domestically, and their greatness is usually apparent only in retrospect when their intuition has become experience.

Henry Kissinger, 1964

Henry Kissinger made this observation five years before being appointed Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to President Richard Nixon, and nine years before becoming U.S. Secretary of State and arguably one of the most powerful men in world politics. One cannot help but admire his prophetic vision, as these words would eventually come to symbolise the legacy of U.S. foreign policy under the partnership of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

This book explores the making of American foreign policy during the Nixon years. More specifically, it is concerned with the mechanism of crisis decision-making during four major foreign policy crises between 1969 and 1974. To date, questions about the organisation of the foreign policy machinery and its impact on the making of foreign policy have been overshadowed by more descriptive accounts of the main achievements of the Nixon administration in foreign affairs.

Type: Chapter
Information: Nixon, Kissinger, and US Foreign Policy Making
The Machinery of Crisis
, pp. 1 - 11

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511511660.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

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References

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