The Kissinger Tapes
Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Publishing:2nd Jun '26
£26.99
This title is due to be published on 2nd June, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A richly detailed collection of transcripts of Henry Kissinger's secretly recorded phone conversations from his time in the Nixon administration that touch on every important issue of Kissinger's day and provide a sweeping view of his era. Henry Kissinger is unquestionably one of the most consequential foreign policy makers in American history. A remarkably influential academic during his long tenure at Harvard, Kissinger became Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor in 1969 and Secretary of State in 1973. Like Nixon, Kissinger left a trail of secretly recorded evidence in his wake. Kissinger began taping in 1969, two years before Nixon did in 1971, and he continued taping for over three years after Nixon's recording system was dismantled in 1973. In The Kissinger Tapes, Tom Wells draws on his expertise in the Nixon era to provide carefully selected, edited, and annotated transcripts of Kissinger's phone conversations, which chronologically highlight the most momentous crises and controversies of the era. They not only provide context and many revelations on Kissinger's role in numerous events but also throw his personality, character, and checkered record into sharp relief. The conversations cover a wide range of issues, including the Vietnam War, the India-Pakistan conflict, the opening to China, the Middle East, the Greek coup in Cyprus, the Nixon administration's illegal wiretapping, and the Watergate scandal. The transcripts reveal Kissinger's opinions and attitudes on important policy matters and his complex relationship with President Nixon, as well as the many battles he fought with other administration officials and his subtle manipulations of well-known journalists. A richly detailed collection of Kissinger's transcripts and commentary, this book provides a novel window into the Nixon administration and offers a genuinely unique perspective on one of the most important figures in modern American history.
From the fog of history Tom Wells offers a gift that keeps giving by masterfully assembling a trove of Kissinger's previously secret conversations across virtually every area of his engagement during the Nixon presidency. The book adds much to understanding the personalities, politics, and policies of the era plus illuminates the nuances of Kissinger's pettiness, deceit, and self-adulation. Wells has given us a real historical gem. * Larry Berman, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Davis, and author of No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger and Betrayal in Vietnam *
The Kissinger Tapes is an essential document for anyone wishing to understand how power works in the world. Wells ably guides the reader through the air-conditioned jungle of the Nixon White House. * Tim Weiner, author of The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century and One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon *
Under one cover, Tom Wells has assembled perhaps the most unique, candid, and revealing collection of formerly secret conversations ever to be declassified. The Kissinger Tapes provides an incomparable compilation of Henry Kissinger in his own words—and a verdict of history on his controversial foreign policies. * Peter Kornbluh, Senior Analyst, The National Security Archive *
Tom Wells' The Kissinger Tapes is a fascinating look at the political class's self-surveillance, and of the consuming distrust and paranoia that comes from waging illegal wars and coups across multiple continents. Now, if we only had a recording of Kissinger's psyche... * Greg Grandin, C.Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University, and the author of Pulitzer winning The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America *
Wells provides unparalleled insight into the premier American diplomat of the twentieth century... * Foreign Affairs *
Since Kissinger did not intend his transcripts to be public, the collection is a window both into him as a person and into the operations of the U.S. national security state... For Kissinger, lies weren't a strategic tool limited to selective uses in international statecraft. They appear to have been part of his personal makeup...Throughout the transcripts, he deceives his foreign counterparts, his colleagues, and the media...He lied to obtain strategic advantage; he lied to shift blame; he lied to protect his reputation and status...Reading these conversations, one can't help but wonder whether a country that abandons its morals for potential security will preserve neither its morals nor its security, while strengthening the greatest threat to both: the state's unchecked power. * Reason Magazine *
ISBN: 9780190933340
Dimensions: 238mm x 166mm x 41mm
Weight: 1002g
640 pages