Kissinger’s Legacy

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Henry Kissinger was one of the most important diplomatic figures of the last 50 years. James Naughtie looks back at his global influence, as he reflects on his own interview with Kissinger, conducted just a year before his death.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Global Story, with Smart Takes and Fresh Perspective, on one big news story, every Monday to Friday from the BBC World Service.
0:11.0	Search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC
0:15.2	podcasts to find out more.
0:18.9	The The Legacy
0:25.0	World Service.
0:27.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:31.0	This is James Nokte, exploring the Kissinger story after his death, aged 100.
0:37.0	He was the refugee from Nazi Germany to the United States in the 1930s who went on to teach a generation of students at Harvard University the history of diplomacy and war, and then in the 60s turned into a man of government. Never an elected politician
0:57.0	he became an advisor who changed America's relations with the rest of the world.
1:02.0	After serving presidents in the White House through the 1970s,
1:06.0	he became a kind of freelance diplomatic advisor,
1:09.0	and for the rest of his long life,
1:11.0	sustained an unrivaled network of government contacts around the world.
1:15.6	I spoke to him over two days in the summer of 2022 at his home north of New York,
1:22.0	about his long and remarkable life.
1:24.5	It was a riveting conversation that ranged far and wide.
1:28.0	History shapes decisions to the extent that you believe in the validity and in the quality of the past.
1:45.0	If the whole social effort revolves around the question,
1:50.4	how to overcome the past, the possibility of creative leadership towards the rest of the world
1:58.0	becomes sharply constrained. As I left him on that Sunday morning, he apologized for not being able to talk into the afternoon,
2:11.0	but the Chinese ambassador and his advisors were about to arrive for lunch.
2:16.0	Kissinger had just turned 99 but couldn't stop.
	...

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