view of history. Kissinger was not given to enthusing, as Lansdale did, about the brotherhood of man. He preferred to pursue stability and to defend America’s narrow strategic interests rather than to promote democracy and human rights. Having written his doctoral thesis on European diplomacy after the Napoleonic Wars, Kissinger imagined himself to be another Metternich or Bismarck—another brilliant, cold-blooded statesman shrewdly moving pieces around the geostrategic chessboard with scant regard for the human cost.
