White House Years Paperback – May 24, 2011

I have never read a better non-fiction book in my life. Kissinger was brilliant and he was there. His ability to create a picture in words of what was going on in very complex situations in Nixon's White House is as close to perfect as it can get.

This book, due to length and level of detail, will not be for everyone. But it is a vitally important work for those who want to understand some of the critical foreign policy events in American history. This book deals with Kissinger's tenure as Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor from 1969-1972, and is the first volume of his memoirs. An astounding amount of history is compressed into that time period, including the Nixon opening to China, the intractable problems of the Middle East, with special focus on the triangular diplomacy involving the Soviet Union, Egypt, and the United States, the war in Vietnam, and the exceedingly tortured negotiations to end that war, (with a good look at the Nixon decisions on the excursion into Cambodia, the "Christmas Bombing", and the self described "brutal" treatment of the recalcitrant South Vietnamese as agreement neared), and the Indo-Pakistan war, and the "tilt" towards Pakistan. Any one of those items would be a book in itself, and the fact that Kissinger not only kept all of those balls in the air but manages, through this volume, to show how they were all "connected" is a testament to his brilliance. Dr. Kissinger has many detractors, and Nixon Administration policies, especially with regard to Vietnam, have drawn severe criticism over the years. Kissinger takes those critics on directly, and makes some strong and compelling arguments to justify his policy recommendations. Vietnam was a tragic error for the United States, but Kissinger brings an up close perspective to why many of the important players acted the way they did.Kissinger's devotion to the "realist" school of diplomacy is evident through his actions and policy prescriptions described in this volume. His hard headed and "realistic" approach to bargaining are laid out clearly in his approach to the negotiations with North Vietnam, where he recognized that an unfavorable "balance of forces" on the ground would lead to an unsatisfactory outcome from the perspective of the U.S. His devotion to "equilibrium" govern his negotiations on SALT, and advise his relationship and policy recommendations with the Soviets.For the historian this book is essential. Kissinger dealt with some of the very true giants of this (or any other era), including Chou En-Lai, Indira Ghandi, Le Duc Tho, Leonid Breznhev, Andrei Gromyko, Mao Tse Tung, Moshe Dayan, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, and so many others. He seems to me to be exceedingly honest about his relationship with Richard Nixon, who he described as brooding, lonely, and filled with resentment towards so many. He, in my opinion, fairly describes some of the dysfunction of the foreign policy methodology of the first term Nixon Administration, and takes some of the blame onto himself. (The relationship with Secretary of State William Rodgers is a big part of this dysfunction) Kissinger is writing to make sure history records his perspective, but he does so in a way that brings valuable insight to a critical time in U.S. foreign policy, when change and bold steps produced much disruption in this arena. Love them or hate them the Nixon-Kissinger team shook US foreign policy and produced real change that impacts us to this very day. A must read for those who love history or foreign policy.

Good book on White House with Nixon by Kissinger, we’ll written, very detailed very informative.

Indispensable for whoever is interested in the history of the Nixon and Ford administrations and othe world in these troubled times, from an unreplacable vantage point. Not exceedingly self-serving. Kindle edition welcome for this heavy book: you can carry all three volumes -The White House Years, Years of Upheaval and Years of Renewal- around with you, something that was impossible to do with the paper edition. And you have also a search function.

I started this book on a whim in a coffee shop and soon decided to read all 1,475 pages (which required buying the book!) Kissinger has an amazing story to tell and writes exceptionally well. He gives vivid descriptions of encounters with world leaders and of Washington politics. His reflections range over history, politics, culture in many countries, war, and US policy.He is full of surprises, sharp-edged, hilarious, philosophical, and always authoritative. Professor Kissinger doesn't use fancy words. He is never aloof. His purpose is to make the material understandable. Some passages about negotiations have perhaps more detail than one really wants.The last four years of the Viet Nam war figure prominently in the book. Nixon and Kissinger's insistence on winding down the war slowly over four years is controversial. The whole book is unsentimental, convincing and will appeal to the liberal or conservative reader. It is also a revealing study of the "Cold War", including Nixon's trip to China, the Middle East, the SALT treaty, European relations, war between India and Pakistan, and more.

"White House Years" is a masterpiece. It is undoubtedly one of the five greatest war/political memoirs in human history. It will be read in two thousand years in much the same way that Plutarch is. Not only is the history, policy analysis, and the thinking elevating, but as a work of literature, it is probably as good as or even better than Churchill's WW-II memoirs. While Churchill's war memoirs are more inspirational, Kissinger's description of how he and Mr. Nixon used strength of mind to cope with the constraints of limited power, nihilist undermining domestic pressures, and both men's shrewd insights into the way international power politics truly work - is better. Even his portraits of his political opposites in foreign countries are so penetrating that Kissinger brings these people to the opposite chair in our reading rooms in ways that will translate to readers millenaia in the future. Even the font and binding are beautiful. Anyone interested in how great power politics work should read Thucydides, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger.

Excellent

I choose five stars because, as any other Kissinger book, this one is also a history lesson. His capacity to evaluate any situation is excelent. I also like the mixed analisys that he does telling us why that particular decision was taken at that given time, making a study of the facts as we know, the facts that the people on that time knew, and the personality of the authorities that took the decision.The writing is perfect and the vocabulary is very rich.