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The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top-Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow
Considered among the most important Cold War records to emerge thus far by the former Beijing bureau chief of the New York Times, The Kissinger Transcripts gives readers the unvarnished record of Henry Kissinger's diplomacy during the Nixon years.
- GenresChina
515 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 24, 2013
This book is made up of a series of previously classified transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with the Chinese and the Soviets. I would say that is requires a lot of knowledge of the foreign policy under the Nixon and Ford administrations. It is often fairly technical such as discussions on the number of warheads to be permitted for each missile under the SALT agreements.
My favorite parts was the transcripts of Kissinger and Mao's discussions on philosophy. They both admit to being greatly influenced by Hegel and disliking Indian philosophy. The discussion of Indian philosophy leads Kissinger to share his view that Gandhi's non-violence approach had no basis in either Indian philosophy or tradition and was simply a revolutionary tactic to take advantage of the moralistic British in order gain independence. Mao counters that India never gained independence, they simply changed from being dominated by the British to being dominated by the Soviets.
Another funny part is where Mao half jokingly offers the Americans 10 million Chinese women. In order to, as he says, make the lives of the Chinese less complicated and bring chaos to America. Here we can see the thinking leading o Chinas one child policy, for Mao explains that China has too many women, leading to too many children being born, keeping China in poverty. Kissinger in a typical American fashion states that offer is very tempting but that any women who come to America has to come of their own free will.
My favorite parts was the transcripts of Kissinger and Mao's discussions on philosophy. They both admit to being greatly influenced by Hegel and disliking Indian philosophy. The discussion of Indian philosophy leads Kissinger to share his view that Gandhi's non-violence approach had no basis in either Indian philosophy or tradition and was simply a revolutionary tactic to take advantage of the moralistic British in order gain independence. Mao counters that India never gained independence, they simply changed from being dominated by the British to being dominated by the Soviets.
Another funny part is where Mao half jokingly offers the Americans 10 million Chinese women. In order to, as he says, make the lives of the Chinese less complicated and bring chaos to America. Here we can see the thinking leading o Chinas one child policy, for Mao explains that China has too many women, leading to too many children being born, keeping China in poverty. Kissinger in a typical American fashion states that offer is very tempting but that any women who come to America has to come of their own free will.
July 3, 2012
An interesting book, but a boring read. It's interesting to see how the officials related, and it's great to have these kinds of high level documents, however, not the best casual reading.
December 28, 2012
mr. kissinger is a brilliant conversationalist even cunning. i am using this book in my dealings with sharks, the politicians
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews