Reviewed Title: The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World by Barry Gewen. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020. 452 pp. ISBN: 9781324004059

Van Der Slik, Jack R.

English

Dordt College

Volume 49 Number 3 Article 7 March 2021 The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (Book Review) Jack R. Van Der Slik Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege  Part of the Christianity Commons, and the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation Van Der Slik, Jack R. (2021) "The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (Book Review)," Pro Rege: Vol. 49: No. 3, 55 - 56. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol49/iss3/7 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact ingrid.mulder@dordt.edu. Pro Rege—March 2021     55 a contemporaneous and non-eschatological reading (145, 150, 164). Daniel does not refer to the far dis-tant future. Chapters 2 and 7 represent kingdoms and situations now long past. Chapters 8 and 11 relate to the period of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (216-164 BC) and the Maccabean Revolt (144-8, 157-8). More par-ticularly, the much debated passage at Daniel 7: 9-14 is seen as referring to the first advent, not the last judgement (144).Calvin’s humanistic training as a lawyer was for-mative for his approach to the biblical texts. At a piv-otal point in his life he learned from teachers such as Pierre de l’Éstoile (1480-1537) and Andrea Alciato (1492-1550) to interpret legal sources such as the Corpus iuris civilis of Justinian in historical terms. These earlier legal studies were formative for the way they shaped Calvin’s approach to the Five Books of Moses (172-3) and the Bible generally. This is an area in which further research would be most valuable. Other such areas highlighted by Pitkin include the importance of the Calvin-Melanchthon connection (60-6) and the part played by Calvin’s view of history in the political-legal-historical writing of François Hotman (1524-90), whose Francogallia (1573) of-fered an interpretation of French history deeply re-spectful of Calvin’s teaching (208-18).I first read Calvin (in translation) in 1962. My interest in historiography dates from the same time. I wish that I had had access to this sort of work on Calvin back then. As to the minister whom I mentioned earlier, I expect that this volume would have gone a long way to addressing his misapprehensions. Indeed, with this book Barbara Pitkin has placed those who honor and respect the legacy of John Calvin in her debt.The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World. Barry Gewen. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2020, 452pp. ISBN 978-1-324-00405-9. Reviewed by Jack R. Van Der Slik, Professor of Political Studies and Public Affairs emeritus, University of Illinois-Springfield.Barry Gewin is refreshingly forthright about his view of international politics. He opens his new book about the American statesmen Henry Kissinger by characterizing himself as a political “Realist” thusly: “[I have] tried to reach conclusions based on the pow-er relationships of a given situation. I attempted to as-sess how American national interest would be affected by a particular decision and to measure what was pos-sible, not simply desirable. To put it another way: I thought it was important to distinguish between what was true—Realism—and what one wished was true. I was distrustful, even dismissive, of applying moral considerations in a field where abstract mo-rality did not seem especially relevant…. I certainly didn’t believe in moral absolutes that outweighed all other considerations, national well-being foremost among them” (xi).Equipped with this intellectual perspective, Gewen chooses to differentiate “good guy-bad guy” perspectives on American foreign relations. His he-roic political realist is Henry Kissinger, definitely for Gewen a good guy. In American politics, according to Gewen, the quintessential bad guy was Woodrow Wilson. The Wilsonian liberal ideal, holding out for a golden age of freedom and democracy throughout the world, justified a world war for democracy.  As Gewen puts it, “Wilson appealed to a mind-set that was fun-damentally melodramatic and absolutist rather than political and pragmatic….The United States was not like other nations. It would engage in battle for the sake of the transcendent, universal values, with con-fidence that God, or at least history, was on its side” (325). To expound and interpret Kissinger’s life and Gewen’s Realism, Gewen traces the views of earlier in-tellectual interpreters of Realism: Leo Strauss, a noted philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, and Hannah Arendt, a secular Jewish scholar who grew up in Germany before World War II. The common threads of thought they shared included a skepticism about human equality and, therefore, government im-posed through democracy and equal rights. Strauss approved of an elite rule pursuing the public good rather than a democratic process for people primar-ily in pursuit of their self-interests. Arendt, a refugee from Nazism, wrote skeptically about various dangers Dordt University is a Christian liberal arts university in Sioux Center, Iowa, which believes that the Bible is the infallible and inspired Word of God and which bases the education it provides upon the Bible as it is explained in the Reformed creeds. Hence, the university confesses that our world from creation to consummation belongs to God, that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that true comfort and reliable strength can be had only from his Holy Spirit.Dordt University was established in 1955 and owes its continuing existence to a community of believers that is committed to supporting Christian schools from kindergarten through college. Believing in the Creator demands obedience to his principles in all of life: certainly in education but also in everything from art to zoology.The Dordt University community believes in the Word of God. God’s revelation in word and deed finds its root in Jesus Christ, who is both Savior from our sin and Lord over the heavens and the earth. The Bible reveals the way of salvation in Christ Jesus and requires faithful thanksgiving to him as the Lord of life, especially when exploring, coming to understand, and unfolding the diversity of creation.Dordt University, in its many departments and programs, celebrates that diversity and challenges students not merely to confess Christ with their mouth but to serve him with their lives. Empowered by the strength of his Spirit, Dordt University stands ready to meet the challenge of providing and developing serviceable insight for the people of God.SubmissionsWe invite letters to the editor, book reviews, and articles, of between 2,500 and 8,000 words, double-spaced, using Chicago Style Manual documentation. Subjects should be approached from a Reformed Christian perspective and should treat issues in the areas of the arts, culture, economics, education, history, literature, media, political thought, the sciences, the social sciences, theology and technology. Please include an email of introduction with the electronic copy of your paper. If you choose to send a paper copy, please include a cover letter with your email address and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Send your submission to the following:  Pro Rege  c/o Dr. Mary Dengler, Editor  Dordt University  700 7th St. NE  Sioux Center, Iowa 5125056     Pro Rege—March 2021in post-war American trends, particularly the decline of authority and disregard for tradition. She feared the delusions of unthinking, anti-intellectual masses.Kissinger’s closest intellectual mentor was, like Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Germany: Hans Morgenthau. As Gewen details, Morgenthau was a colleague of Strauss, a friend of Arendt, and, thereby, an intellectual “bridge” to Kissinger. Morgenthau escaped Germany in 1937 after the rise of Nazism. By scholarly accomplishment he gained an appoint-ment at the University of Chicago in 1943. Between 1946 and 1951, Morgenthau published four books and 34 articles. He became a leading proponent of a Realist approach to international politics. In a world of potentially hostile relationships, Morgenthau in-terpreted and explained relations among the nations according to their accumulation of and application of power. In his view, the road to international peace (or the absence of war) is best achieved through a bal-ance of power. Balance can be achieved by preventing dominance by any particular state. If violators arise, rival states can (should) unite to reset the power bal-ance. The Realism of power politics means that states-men make calculated choices, not between “good and evil,” but between “bad and less bad” (199).The heart of Gewen’s inquiry is in the last two chapters, “Vietnam” and “Kissinger in Power.” Kissinger completed his doctorate at Harvard in 1954 and remained there in an academic appointment. During the bipolar 1950s, President Eisenhower es-chewed engagement in Vietnam. Willing to “pay any price,” President Kennedy sent a number, grow-ing into thousands, of American military “advisors” to South Vietnam. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, hugely upped the ante with armed forces, eventually discrediting himself and the Democrats by failing to save South Vietnam from its northern communist ag-gressors.The 1968 presidential election brought the Nixon administration, conspicuously including Henry Kissinger, to the White House. Gewen points out that “Two Realpolitikers were now in charge of American foreign policy, with ideals, and even mo-rality, far from the center of their thinking” (259). Gradually and painfully, but eventually, the Realists “Vietnamized” the war by reversing the Johnson numbers with withdrawals. The 550,000 Americans in Vietnam in 1968 dwindled under Nixon to 90,000 in 1972. In October of that presidential election year, Kissinger claimed, “Peace is at hand.” Well, not really. After winning re-election in November, in a burst of Nixonian impatience in December, a “Christmas bombing” over a dozen days brought negotiations to a head. In January 1973, the U.S. agreed to exchange prisoners and de-part Vietnam. Two years later what was left of South Vietnam fell to the communist regime.  By that time domestic politics was focused upon Watergate and the Nixon denouement and departure from the presi-dency.Gerald Ford clung to Henry Kissinger and his Realist approach to foreign policy. Except for George H.W. Bush, Gewen notes that Nixon’s successors, even Trump, have mostly applied a moralistic, na-tionalistic perspective in foreign-policy making, not a judicious balance-of-power pragmatism. Gewen ad-mires Kissinger for applying power for limited, and not absolute, ends. Gewen’s immersive book that well describes the Cold-War world of international rela-tions concludes with a pessimistic coda: If doing good in the world is what you yearn for, you aren’t cut out for foreign affairs. Maybe there is no better way of putting all this than to say that in Henry Kissinger’s world, the amoral world of statesmen and diplomats, you could allow yourself few expectations. If you were to act at all what had to be accepted was the imperfectability of man, the unpredictability of consequences, the prospect of arriving at no perma-nent solutions, the inevitability of tragedy. (393-4)Let me respond to Gewen with a challenge found-ed on Christian faith with a call for our government to do public justice. This counsel is from Our World Belongs To God, para. 55:Following the Prince of Peace, we are called upon to be peacemakers, and to promote harmony and or-der. We call on our governments to work for peace; we deplore the arms race and the horrors that we risk. We call on all nations to limit their weapons to those needed in the defense of justice and freedom. We pledge to walk in the ways of peace, confessing that our world belongs to God; he is our sure defense.

The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (Book Review)

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The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (Book Review)

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