Follow up on Cuba speech
A follow up on Bush’s
This is nothing new. Henry Kissinger hated the people who worked at State because many of them questioned the Nixon administration’s unqualified support for dictatorships—he mocked them constantly. Over time I’ve talked to State Department staffers (mostly talking about Chilean politics) and there are many very thoughtful and intelligent people working there, i.e. they aren’t political appointees. Right now they’re being told to keep reasoned analysis to themselves and follow orders.
2 comments:
That is an oversimplification of Kissingers position vis a vis State. He also thought they were resistant to change and anything challenging their bureaucratic prerogrative. And liable to send information to back channels in the Pentagon and press. That is why he cut them out, when he was talking to North Vietnam, China and the USSR simultaneously
Resistance to change and compulsive leaking are well-documented Kissinger hallmarks, and so his own complaints should not be taken seriously. With regard to Argentina and Chile, for example, his own declassified statements make clear his dislike of the soft human rights types at State.
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