DIPLOMACY: His Legacy: Realism and Allure

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Since 1970, TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold Schecter has been covering the world of Henry Kissinger. His assessment of the man who reshaped U.S. foreign policy:

After all the years of high drama, the secret missions overseas, the exhausting negotiations when everything depended upon him, it seems hard to believe that Henry Kissinger will no longer be the U.S. Secretary of State. There will never be another like him—a prospect that pleases his enemies as much as it saddens his admirers. The debate on Henry the K's legacy is just starting and promises to grow—and grow. He is, as Psychohistorian Bruce Mazlish explains, "one of those figures, like a Churchill or a De Gaulle, who bestride their eras and dominate by the sheer weight of their character. Such figures take on mythical, as well as historical attributes, even in their own time."

The Secretary's secret diplomacy and his secret-swinger life-style energized the Nixon years and turned them into the Kissinger era. To critics, such as a former Cabinet rival, "most of Kissinger's performance was theater and the rest was fiction." His "balance of power" approach has been attacked as reflecting a static view of the world that overemphasized superpower relationships and squandered American assets without deriving strategic benefits. New York Times Columnist Anthony Lewis has accused him of conducting foreign policy with "cynical brutality." Kissinger shrugs off attacks with a quip: "Even a paranoid can have enemies." Some of them, apparently, are real enough. Members of a right-wing extremist group in Israel are said to have put up $150,000 for his assassination.

Discussing his record. Kissinger compares the world of 1968 with that of 1976. When he came to the White House, Berlin was a flash point for World War III, and there were 500,000 American troops in Viet Nam. There was little American presence or influence in the Middle East outside of Israel, no relations with Communist China, and cold-war jargon dominated any dialogue with Moscow.

All this has changed. He leaves with the U.S. poised for new initiatives throughout the world. The damage of the Viet Nam War and Watergate has been contained. Despite the buildup of Soviet conventional forces, the outbreak of a major war seems remote.

How much did Kissinger contribute to these changes? Was he simply a brilliant tactical negotiator, or did he begin building the "structure of peace" he sought and lay the foundations for a "permanent foreign policy"? In his behalf, Kissinger can mount an impressive case. His design for a global foreign policy included a comprehensive economic, political and military approach with long-term goals. He has sought to explain the new reality that although America is still the world's greatest economic power and possesses massive military strength, "we no longer enjoy meaningful nuclear supremacy." For Kissinger, this has meant the imperative of survival: building a process of negotiation and the policy of detente. It has meant playing the Russians against the Chinese while never admitting he was engaging in such a dangerous game.