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The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House
Price of Power examines Henry Kissinger’s influence on the development of the foreign policy of the United States during the presidency of Richard Nixon.
700 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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2208 people want to read
About the author
Seymour M. Hersh
35 books467 followersSeymour (Sy) Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."
He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.
He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.
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November 29, 2025
Originally published in 1983, Seymour Hersh's formidable The Price of Power remains the definitive indictment of Henry Kissinger. Hersh compiles a decade’s worth of interviews and exhaustive research into a damning account of Kissinger and Richard Nixon’s warped pas de deux between 1969 to 1974. Everything liberals and leftists ever suspected about the dark contours of Nixon’s foreign policy (and Kissinger’s role therein) was exposed here: Kissinger’s role in sabotaging the Paris peace talks just before the ‘68 election, acting as a “double-agent” funneling information from Hubert Humphrey’s campaign and diplomats in Paris, is laid out in stunning detail. Hersh shows that Kissinger, far from a brilliant diplomat, is an amoral opportunist who gained power by playing to the insecurities of Nixon, who alternately loathed and needed this suave, Harvard-educated “Jew boy” to affect his own designs. Nixon, at least, could be afforded credit for some idealism (however debased in practice) as a sincere peacemaker; Kissinger, Hersh convincingly argues, deserves no such recognition.
The list of abuses comes fast, thick and numbing. Nixon allows Kissinger, as National Security Adviser, to short-circuit traditional power structures. Secretary of State William Rogers (a pathetic, empty shell who endures endless humiliations) is cut out of the loop on nearly all important decisions; Defense Secretary Melvin Laird (a wily pragmatist who served as Kissinger’s foil) is spied on, harassed and humiliated by the White House. Kissinger orders wiretaps on his own staff, humiliates them in public and private, all the while cultivating his image as a dynamic thinker and witty bon vivant with reporters, academics, movie stars and liberal politicians (many of whom he also wiretapped). Though Kissinger escapes Watergate with no direct taint, he helps set in motion the paranoia, obsession with secrecy and extralegal activity that triggered his boss’s downfall (no coincidence that David Young, once a Kissinger aide, became co-director of the White House Plumbers). "The illegal we do immediately,” Kissinger supposedly said; “the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” He had ample opportunity for both.
All this before reaching Kissinger’s foreign policy! Far from a brilliant diplomat, Kissinger emerges as a near-sociopath, conniving in Nixon’s “Madman Theory” of bombing Vietnam to the Stone Age. He encourages Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia, over the objections of Rogers, Laird and others; he overrides advice from staffers to invade that neutral country (along with further misadventures in Laos), setting it on the path to genocide. In the Middle East, he short-circuits Rogers’ efforts at diplomacy, partially due to genuine misreading of Arab and Israeli intentions and partly out of spite towards his rival. Kissinger and Nixon connive in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile; support the brutal Colonel’s junta in Greece; nearly provoke a nuclear war with the USSR over a submarine base in Cuba; disregarding diplomatic warnings of genocide in Bangladesh to aid Pakistan’s Yahya Khan in his war with India (due to Khan’s role in negotiating the China opening). The list goes on and on, the crimes staggering, the death toll unimaginable.
Hersh makes no secret about his biases; the worst that can be said is that he overstates his arguments. He grants Kissinger too much autonomy, downplaying how much Nixon micromanaged foreign policy himself, often ignoring even Kissinger’s advice. He also grants Kissinger almost no credit for his successes. Even Kissinger’s biggest detractors will generally give him and Nixon credit for the SALT I treaty with the USSR and the China opening. Hersh is loathe to do either; his portrayal of SALT as a failure (relying heavily on the memoirs of Gerard C. Smith, the embittered chief negotiator) provide the book’s least persuasive arguments, focusing on the failure to outlaw MIRV missiles and not the other reductions that provided a real, if temporary, step towards peace. Similarly, Nixon’s visit to China was an epochal event that opened up the world’s biggest country and massively thawed the Cold War. It’s not unfair for Hersh to show that Nixon’s road to Beijing was paved in blood (particularly through Vietnam and Bangladesh); but it’s a bit much to treat the achievement as no achievement all.
These shortcomings provide a reader pause; it’s also frustrating that the book ends with Nixon’s reelection, avoiding the Yom Kippur War, Watergate and Kissinger’s further misadventures under Gerald Ford. But these flaws don’t damage the overall structure. The Price of Power has informed decades of leftist critique, enhanced by future authors Gary Bass, Greg Grandin and Christopher Hitchens, while White House tapes and documents declassified in subsequent decades enhance its findings (recent disclosures about the nuclear alert of October 1969, only glanced at here, and the apocalyptic “Duck Hook” plan in Vietnam make Hersh seem, if anything, generous). More sympathetic biographers, from Walter Isaacson to Niall Ferguson, have softened the edges of Hersh’s portrait and punctured holes in his weaker arguments; certainly, Kissinger shrugged off this book, remaining a respected elder statesman well into his 90s. Yet Hersh’s essential theses - of Nixon’s White House as a madhouse, Nixon as Madman in Chief and Kissinger as Destroyer of the Third World - remain chillingly persuasive, his book a voluminous indictment largely unanswered and impossible to dismiss.
The list of abuses comes fast, thick and numbing. Nixon allows Kissinger, as National Security Adviser, to short-circuit traditional power structures. Secretary of State William Rogers (a pathetic, empty shell who endures endless humiliations) is cut out of the loop on nearly all important decisions; Defense Secretary Melvin Laird (a wily pragmatist who served as Kissinger’s foil) is spied on, harassed and humiliated by the White House. Kissinger orders wiretaps on his own staff, humiliates them in public and private, all the while cultivating his image as a dynamic thinker and witty bon vivant with reporters, academics, movie stars and liberal politicians (many of whom he also wiretapped). Though Kissinger escapes Watergate with no direct taint, he helps set in motion the paranoia, obsession with secrecy and extralegal activity that triggered his boss’s downfall (no coincidence that David Young, once a Kissinger aide, became co-director of the White House Plumbers). "The illegal we do immediately,” Kissinger supposedly said; “the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” He had ample opportunity for both.
All this before reaching Kissinger’s foreign policy! Far from a brilliant diplomat, Kissinger emerges as a near-sociopath, conniving in Nixon’s “Madman Theory” of bombing Vietnam to the Stone Age. He encourages Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia, over the objections of Rogers, Laird and others; he overrides advice from staffers to invade that neutral country (along with further misadventures in Laos), setting it on the path to genocide. In the Middle East, he short-circuits Rogers’ efforts at diplomacy, partially due to genuine misreading of Arab and Israeli intentions and partly out of spite towards his rival. Kissinger and Nixon connive in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile; support the brutal Colonel’s junta in Greece; nearly provoke a nuclear war with the USSR over a submarine base in Cuba; disregarding diplomatic warnings of genocide in Bangladesh to aid Pakistan’s Yahya Khan in his war with India (due to Khan’s role in negotiating the China opening). The list goes on and on, the crimes staggering, the death toll unimaginable.
Hersh makes no secret about his biases; the worst that can be said is that he overstates his arguments. He grants Kissinger too much autonomy, downplaying how much Nixon micromanaged foreign policy himself, often ignoring even Kissinger’s advice. He also grants Kissinger almost no credit for his successes. Even Kissinger’s biggest detractors will generally give him and Nixon credit for the SALT I treaty with the USSR and the China opening. Hersh is loathe to do either; his portrayal of SALT as a failure (relying heavily on the memoirs of Gerard C. Smith, the embittered chief negotiator) provide the book’s least persuasive arguments, focusing on the failure to outlaw MIRV missiles and not the other reductions that provided a real, if temporary, step towards peace. Similarly, Nixon’s visit to China was an epochal event that opened up the world’s biggest country and massively thawed the Cold War. It’s not unfair for Hersh to show that Nixon’s road to Beijing was paved in blood (particularly through Vietnam and Bangladesh); but it’s a bit much to treat the achievement as no achievement all.
These shortcomings provide a reader pause; it’s also frustrating that the book ends with Nixon’s reelection, avoiding the Yom Kippur War, Watergate and Kissinger’s further misadventures under Gerald Ford. But these flaws don’t damage the overall structure. The Price of Power has informed decades of leftist critique, enhanced by future authors Gary Bass, Greg Grandin and Christopher Hitchens, while White House tapes and documents declassified in subsequent decades enhance its findings (recent disclosures about the nuclear alert of October 1969, only glanced at here, and the apocalyptic “Duck Hook” plan in Vietnam make Hersh seem, if anything, generous). More sympathetic biographers, from Walter Isaacson to Niall Ferguson, have softened the edges of Hersh’s portrait and punctured holes in his weaker arguments; certainly, Kissinger shrugged off this book, remaining a respected elder statesman well into his 90s. Yet Hersh’s essential theses - of Nixon’s White House as a madhouse, Nixon as Madman in Chief and Kissinger as Destroyer of the Third World - remain chillingly persuasive, his book a voluminous indictment largely unanswered and impossible to dismiss.
August 7, 2025
"Foreign policy must not be confused with charity work".---Henry Kissinger, testifying before Congress, 1975
Now, this book is not dated because Faust and Mephistopheles are never dated. Kissinger, dead at 100, is a figure, for me anyway, of admiration without affection. Seymour Hersh, a national treasure who uncovered every scandal from the My Lai massacre, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, to the U.S. Navy sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline carrying oil and gas from Russia to Germany, here set his point-de-mir on the man who did the most to promote war and dictatorship throughout the world from his appointment as Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor in 1969 to his days as Secretary of State under Nixon and before Ford. (Though he did plenty of damage there and then too, such as double-crossing the Kurds in Iraq who had been fighting the Baath Party regime. For a savage look at the mid-Seventies Kissinger read Joseph Heller's novel GOOD AS GOLD.) Start with the fact that Kissinger arrived at the White House, after playing Nixon and Hubert Humphrey against each other during the 1968 presidential campaign to land a job (the Devil always finds work), and pronounced "It no longer matters why we got into Viet Nam. What does matter is that we can't pull out without looking weak". It did matter to the thousands of American G.I.s who would die in the next four years, and more than a million Vietnamese. In 1971 Kissinger orchestrated the "tilt towards Pakistan" that rewarded Pakistani dictator General Khan for acting as an intermediary with the Chinese. His compensation was total U.S. support for Pakistan in the war with India over Bangladesh, which cost 2-3 million Bangladeshi lives. That same year Kissinger-Nixon (Henry would be the first to tell you the two morphed politically, although not personally; Nixon hated Jews and intellectuals, and Kissinger was both) ordered the CIA to "make the Chilean economy scream" to bring down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger also manufactured a fake "new Cuban missile crisis" when Soviet submarines were found docking at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos. On the home front, Kissinger wiretapped his aides and journalists covering the State Department and got away with it since he knew both Congress and the press loved him for his negotiations with China, arranging a pro-American peace in the Middle East after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and beginning detente with the Russians. A self-described amoralist and practitioner of realpolitik Henry Kissinger stands above American foreign policy like the Colossus of Rhodes, including the broken pieces.
Now, this book is not dated because Faust and Mephistopheles are never dated. Kissinger, dead at 100, is a figure, for me anyway, of admiration without affection. Seymour Hersh, a national treasure who uncovered every scandal from the My Lai massacre, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, to the U.S. Navy sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline carrying oil and gas from Russia to Germany, here set his point-de-mir on the man who did the most to promote war and dictatorship throughout the world from his appointment as Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor in 1969 to his days as Secretary of State under Nixon and before Ford. (Though he did plenty of damage there and then too, such as double-crossing the Kurds in Iraq who had been fighting the Baath Party regime. For a savage look at the mid-Seventies Kissinger read Joseph Heller's novel GOOD AS GOLD.) Start with the fact that Kissinger arrived at the White House, after playing Nixon and Hubert Humphrey against each other during the 1968 presidential campaign to land a job (the Devil always finds work), and pronounced "It no longer matters why we got into Viet Nam. What does matter is that we can't pull out without looking weak". It did matter to the thousands of American G.I.s who would die in the next four years, and more than a million Vietnamese. In 1971 Kissinger orchestrated the "tilt towards Pakistan" that rewarded Pakistani dictator General Khan for acting as an intermediary with the Chinese. His compensation was total U.S. support for Pakistan in the war with India over Bangladesh, which cost 2-3 million Bangladeshi lives. That same year Kissinger-Nixon (Henry would be the first to tell you the two morphed politically, although not personally; Nixon hated Jews and intellectuals, and Kissinger was both) ordered the CIA to "make the Chilean economy scream" to bring down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger also manufactured a fake "new Cuban missile crisis" when Soviet submarines were found docking at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos. On the home front, Kissinger wiretapped his aides and journalists covering the State Department and got away with it since he knew both Congress and the press loved him for his negotiations with China, arranging a pro-American peace in the Middle East after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and beginning detente with the Russians. A self-described amoralist and practitioner of realpolitik Henry Kissinger stands above American foreign policy like the Colossus of Rhodes, including the broken pieces.
January 30, 2014
THE MEN THEY SHOULD HAVE HUNG
One has to admire Hersh for his forensic appraisal of Henry Kissingers time at the helm of President Nixons National Security Council (NSC). One of those astonishing facts is that some still have a high regard for the wisdom of Henry Kissinger; one has to only type his name into the search box on Amazon to read rave reviews for some of his writings. Anyone who has a tendency in that direction would be well advised to read through the 600 tightly written pages of "Kissinger: The Price of Power". Hopefully (and Im probably being hopelessly optimistic!) by the time they get to page 30 they will be cured, but will no doubt - as I did - feel compelled to read through to the end.
Though focusing on Kissingers NSC and Nixon, the War in Vietnam is the thread running through the book. It provides Kissinger with the opportunity to use his contacts to inform Nixon of the efforts for peace being made by the Johnson administration . Nixon was frantic about peace "breaking out" before the '68 election and used Kissingers information to derail the peace negotiations. Kissingers reward was to lead Nixons NSC. Strangely enough, peace didn't break out after the election, instead intermittent and brutal bombing of North and South Vietnam, Laos, and later the so called "Secret Bombing" of Cambodia.
Other area/events covered include the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), Chinese and Soviet negotiations and treaties. The India/Pakistan War of 1971 in which the U.S. tilted towards West Pakistan who were then involved in a murderous campaign in East Pakistan that resulted in between one and three million dead and the state of Bangladesh declaring its independence. The Middle East also appears and the Kissinger policy of leaving Sadat and his peace proposals out in the cold is examined, this misguided policy clearly played a part in the lead up to the October 73 war. Hersh marshals the information with regard to all those events, and others, and puts together a detailed picture of what happened. It is rarely pretty and Hersh, unlike his protagonist and his boss, bears in mind the cost in death and destruction.
The details on how the Nixon administration functioned (or didn't function) are a constant source of revelation: the Joint Chiefs spying on the NSC & Whitehouse, Kissingers spinning, the tapping of NSC staff and others telephones, Nixons drunken rages, Kissingers relationship with Alexander Haig, J.Edgar Hoover and Tricky Dicky himself. . . the list is practically endless.
Recommended reading for those interested in International History in general, and the U.S. foreign policy in particular during the first Nixon administration - it does focus on the "big" events though and shouldnt be regarded as being comprehensive on U.S. foreign policy for that period. The book was written in 1983 so I don't doubt that their has been an increase in the amount known about this period, but from my recollections of reading say "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" or "The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon" this account is still broadly correct. Some may find the sheer amount of detail a little off putting, in particular the SALT negotiations, but it is still a readable and fascinating book.
One has to admire Hersh for his forensic appraisal of Henry Kissingers time at the helm of President Nixons National Security Council (NSC). One of those astonishing facts is that some still have a high regard for the wisdom of Henry Kissinger; one has to only type his name into the search box on Amazon to read rave reviews for some of his writings. Anyone who has a tendency in that direction would be well advised to read through the 600 tightly written pages of "Kissinger: The Price of Power". Hopefully (and Im probably being hopelessly optimistic!) by the time they get to page 30 they will be cured, but will no doubt - as I did - feel compelled to read through to the end.
Though focusing on Kissingers NSC and Nixon, the War in Vietnam is the thread running through the book. It provides Kissinger with the opportunity to use his contacts to inform Nixon of the efforts for peace being made by the Johnson administration . Nixon was frantic about peace "breaking out" before the '68 election and used Kissingers information to derail the peace negotiations. Kissingers reward was to lead Nixons NSC. Strangely enough, peace didn't break out after the election, instead intermittent and brutal bombing of North and South Vietnam, Laos, and later the so called "Secret Bombing" of Cambodia.
Other area/events covered include the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), Chinese and Soviet negotiations and treaties. The India/Pakistan War of 1971 in which the U.S. tilted towards West Pakistan who were then involved in a murderous campaign in East Pakistan that resulted in between one and three million dead and the state of Bangladesh declaring its independence. The Middle East also appears and the Kissinger policy of leaving Sadat and his peace proposals out in the cold is examined, this misguided policy clearly played a part in the lead up to the October 73 war. Hersh marshals the information with regard to all those events, and others, and puts together a detailed picture of what happened. It is rarely pretty and Hersh, unlike his protagonist and his boss, bears in mind the cost in death and destruction.
The details on how the Nixon administration functioned (or didn't function) are a constant source of revelation: the Joint Chiefs spying on the NSC & Whitehouse, Kissingers spinning, the tapping of NSC staff and others telephones, Nixons drunken rages, Kissingers relationship with Alexander Haig, J.Edgar Hoover and Tricky Dicky himself. . . the list is practically endless.
Recommended reading for those interested in International History in general, and the U.S. foreign policy in particular during the first Nixon administration - it does focus on the "big" events though and shouldnt be regarded as being comprehensive on U.S. foreign policy for that period. The book was written in 1983 so I don't doubt that their has been an increase in the amount known about this period, but from my recollections of reading say "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" or "The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon" this account is still broadly correct. Some may find the sheer amount of detail a little off putting, in particular the SALT negotiations, but it is still a readable and fascinating book.
May 11, 2011
This is a well-documented, exhaustive overview of the crimes, legal and moral, committed by Henry Kissinger while serving in the Nixon White House as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. To read it is to be ashamed to be a citizen of the United States of America.
March 30, 2015
Petty. Back-stabbing. Selfish. Deceitful. Half-truths. Deliberate misinformation. Power. Glory. Paranoia. Secrecy. Misjudgments. Disrespect. Spying. Wiretapping. Illegalities. Leaks. Threats. All of these words describe what was going on in the Nixon White House, and with foreign policy as run by Henry Kissinger.
There were so many awful decisions that Kissinger made, and terrible things that he intentionally did to either hurt other people or make himself look better, that it is difficult to pick out what one might think was the most egregious thing that he did. But, for me, that came early in the book when he double-crossed the Johnson Administration in the Fall of 1968 by deliberately sabotaging the Paris peace talks. He did this in an (ultimately successful) effort to become a part of Richard Nixon's Administration. Kissinger didn't give a damn about all of the U.S. soldiers dying in Vietnam, nor did he care about the lives of the Vietnamese themselves. He only cared about himself.
Kissinger and Nixon badly misjudged many major foreign policy issues: the impact (or lack thereof) that China and the USSR had on North Vietnam, Cienfuegos, Jordan, the Middle East in general, the India-Pakistan War, and Chile. They viewed the world through a lens tainted by Communism - assuming that the USSR had far more influence over countries across the globe than it actually did. It is truly scary to realize that two such morally challenged and obtuse individuals had so much power.
This was a fascinating read, but not an easy one. Most pages have footnotes attached to them - and these footnotes are quite lengthy (and interesting) to read. But it slows one down as the print is so tiny. Nonetheless, a highly worthwhile read. I would have much preferred, however, that Hersh had continued the story through the end of Nixon's presidency, instead of stopping once the Vietnam War was "officially" ended.
Grade: A-
There were so many awful decisions that Kissinger made, and terrible things that he intentionally did to either hurt other people or make himself look better, that it is difficult to pick out what one might think was the most egregious thing that he did. But, for me, that came early in the book when he double-crossed the Johnson Administration in the Fall of 1968 by deliberately sabotaging the Paris peace talks. He did this in an (ultimately successful) effort to become a part of Richard Nixon's Administration. Kissinger didn't give a damn about all of the U.S. soldiers dying in Vietnam, nor did he care about the lives of the Vietnamese themselves. He only cared about himself.
Kissinger and Nixon badly misjudged many major foreign policy issues: the impact (or lack thereof) that China and the USSR had on North Vietnam, Cienfuegos, Jordan, the Middle East in general, the India-Pakistan War, and Chile. They viewed the world through a lens tainted by Communism - assuming that the USSR had far more influence over countries across the globe than it actually did. It is truly scary to realize that two such morally challenged and obtuse individuals had so much power.
This was a fascinating read, but not an easy one. Most pages have footnotes attached to them - and these footnotes are quite lengthy (and interesting) to read. But it slows one down as the print is so tiny. Nonetheless, a highly worthwhile read. I would have much preferred, however, that Hersh had continued the story through the end of Nixon's presidency, instead of stopping once the Vietnam War was "officially" ended.
Grade: A-
September 4, 2015
Exposé on Kissinger's toady relationship with "crazy man" Nixon. Incredible and dangerous way to make foreign policy.
February 20, 2022
Holy crap...........
Oh, want me to explain? Okay, here's the thing: as someone who finds the whole Nixon White House era fascinating for its seemingly endless stream of dysfunction surrounding the whole Watergate affair, I'd never really considered what role Henry Kissinger (National Security Advisor during Nixon's first term, later Secretary of State in his second and during Ford's tenure) might have played in Watergate or the other assorted scandals because, well, it's Kissinger. He was in charge of negotiating the end of the Vietnam War (years before losing his glasses in the bathroom of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant) and probably was too busy with that to really be involved in anything nefarious.
Oh, how naive I was...
"The Price of Power: Kissinger In the Nixon White House," by veteran investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, is arguably the sort of thing that takes a blowtorch to any assessment of Kissinger's legacy as one of good policy or even competent policy. In over six hundred pages, Hersh destroys any notion that Kissinger deserves the reputation he enjoys even today in many circles as a "statesman of high esteem." Instead, according to the book, Kissinger played his role in the Nixon administration almost singularly to suck up to the insecure, power-mad "King Richard" from San Clemente, whose legendary paranoia fueled not only the illegal wiretaps that led to the Watergate break-in but all sorts of shady shit that render Nixon arguably our most corrupt president (the jury's still out on #45, but I'm guessing he could give Nixon a run for his money).
Hersh, who has admittedly gone down some rabbit-holes adjacent to conspiracy theories in more recent times, wrote this book in the early Eighties, and it's a fantastic, deeply compelling and distressing account of just how Nixon and Kissinger, working in tandem but sometimes against one another, managed to screw up one scenario in foreign policy after another. At the root of it was power: Nixon's fear of losing it, Kissinger's desire to wield it, and each man's distrust of the other's motivations. Nixon's jealousy was only matched by Kissinger's obsequiousness; in an effed-up way, the two were made for each other. And America, as a result, was never going to get out of Vietnam until it was politically convenient for Nixon, and even then the war really wouldn't end until the South Vietnam government fell. If Nixon or Kissinger gave any thought to the countless lives lost between Nixon's election in 1968 (when he promised to end the war) and the actual signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, you'll find little evidence of it here. The callousness of politicians shouldn't surprise me at this late juncture in my life, but still: Nixon should be burning in Hell for all the shit he pulled, and Kissinger (at 98, as of this writing) might end up joining him there if there's any justice in the afterlife.
"The Price of Power" pulls no punches, exposing Nixon, Kissinger, Al Haig, and others associated with the foreign policy actions of the administration as cold, calculating goons, no better than their counterparts who conducted the efforts that coalesced around the Watergate break-in and cover-up. If anything, the actions Nixon and Kissinger undertook to prolong the war, destabilize democratically elected governments in Chile and elsewhere, and manufacture an "opening" to China just in time for the 1972 election might be even worse than Watergate. Nixon, to some extent, paid a price for his hubris, but as of this writing Kissinger has never really been held accountable for his actions because of his reputation (cultivated through sympathetic journalists of the era and since) as someone above the fray of Watergate and a statesman above reproach. If "The Price of Power" is to be believed, Henry Kissinger might be one of the worst war criminals in modern history, alongside the now deceased Nixon and his other underlings at the NSC and State Department.
If you think I'm being hyperbolic or over-reacting, I urge you to read this book for yourself and decide if I am. Henry Kissinger will likely die with all the respect accorded a former Cabinet officer of two administrations, with a reputation as a peacemaker that is rarely questioned. There will be no justice for the crimes he committed, as alleged by Hersh in this very large, very detailed, and widely-sourced book. But history may very well judge Kissinger to be as complicit in the crimes of Nixon as anyone of the other "President's Men." I can only hope so, especially after finishing this book.
Oh, want me to explain? Okay, here's the thing: as someone who finds the whole Nixon White House era fascinating for its seemingly endless stream of dysfunction surrounding the whole Watergate affair, I'd never really considered what role Henry Kissinger (National Security Advisor during Nixon's first term, later Secretary of State in his second and during Ford's tenure) might have played in Watergate or the other assorted scandals because, well, it's Kissinger. He was in charge of negotiating the end of the Vietnam War (years before losing his glasses in the bathroom of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant) and probably was too busy with that to really be involved in anything nefarious.
Oh, how naive I was...
"The Price of Power: Kissinger In the Nixon White House," by veteran investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, is arguably the sort of thing that takes a blowtorch to any assessment of Kissinger's legacy as one of good policy or even competent policy. In over six hundred pages, Hersh destroys any notion that Kissinger deserves the reputation he enjoys even today in many circles as a "statesman of high esteem." Instead, according to the book, Kissinger played his role in the Nixon administration almost singularly to suck up to the insecure, power-mad "King Richard" from San Clemente, whose legendary paranoia fueled not only the illegal wiretaps that led to the Watergate break-in but all sorts of shady shit that render Nixon arguably our most corrupt president (the jury's still out on #45, but I'm guessing he could give Nixon a run for his money).
Hersh, who has admittedly gone down some rabbit-holes adjacent to conspiracy theories in more recent times, wrote this book in the early Eighties, and it's a fantastic, deeply compelling and distressing account of just how Nixon and Kissinger, working in tandem but sometimes against one another, managed to screw up one scenario in foreign policy after another. At the root of it was power: Nixon's fear of losing it, Kissinger's desire to wield it, and each man's distrust of the other's motivations. Nixon's jealousy was only matched by Kissinger's obsequiousness; in an effed-up way, the two were made for each other. And America, as a result, was never going to get out of Vietnam until it was politically convenient for Nixon, and even then the war really wouldn't end until the South Vietnam government fell. If Nixon or Kissinger gave any thought to the countless lives lost between Nixon's election in 1968 (when he promised to end the war) and the actual signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, you'll find little evidence of it here. The callousness of politicians shouldn't surprise me at this late juncture in my life, but still: Nixon should be burning in Hell for all the shit he pulled, and Kissinger (at 98, as of this writing) might end up joining him there if there's any justice in the afterlife.
"The Price of Power" pulls no punches, exposing Nixon, Kissinger, Al Haig, and others associated with the foreign policy actions of the administration as cold, calculating goons, no better than their counterparts who conducted the efforts that coalesced around the Watergate break-in and cover-up. If anything, the actions Nixon and Kissinger undertook to prolong the war, destabilize democratically elected governments in Chile and elsewhere, and manufacture an "opening" to China just in time for the 1972 election might be even worse than Watergate. Nixon, to some extent, paid a price for his hubris, but as of this writing Kissinger has never really been held accountable for his actions because of his reputation (cultivated through sympathetic journalists of the era and since) as someone above the fray of Watergate and a statesman above reproach. If "The Price of Power" is to be believed, Henry Kissinger might be one of the worst war criminals in modern history, alongside the now deceased Nixon and his other underlings at the NSC and State Department.
If you think I'm being hyperbolic or over-reacting, I urge you to read this book for yourself and decide if I am. Henry Kissinger will likely die with all the respect accorded a former Cabinet officer of two administrations, with a reputation as a peacemaker that is rarely questioned. There will be no justice for the crimes he committed, as alleged by Hersh in this very large, very detailed, and widely-sourced book. But history may very well judge Kissinger to be as complicit in the crimes of Nixon as anyone of the other "President's Men." I can only hope so, especially after finishing this book.
August 30, 2017
Almost two years reading this book on and off. Very rich in detail, but a bit hard to keep track of everything. A good read all the same. Very well researched.
October 29, 2022
Essential reading. You can't read more than 50 pages a day, though -- I've tried. It requires too much adjusting, too much treating of your mind ...
If you find you're scattered all over the place (and your mind, and your sense of history ... ), this book is like a "defrag." for you "hard drive."
Pynchon was right (writing in a similar vein, circa the events in this book), there's no way to keep up, things are getting scattered
He was simply correct ...
It was just the CASE ...
Thanks, Seymour HERSH, for this book, so we can rewind ourselves ...
Thanks!!!
If you find you're scattered all over the place (and your mind, and your sense of history ... ), this book is like a "defrag." for you "hard drive."
Pynchon was right (writing in a similar vein, circa the events in this book), there's no way to keep up, things are getting scattered
He was simply correct ...
It was just the CASE ...
Thanks, Seymour HERSH, for this book, so we can rewind ourselves ...
Thanks!!!
July 5, 2019
I finished it and WOW, definitely worth reading. Makes me want to read more about these events.
Update; nearly finished and what a read! Toward the end, the level of detail (in particular on the SALT and Vietnam war treaty) gets a little beyond my level of interest, but it's just fascinating what went on. And we think the Bushies lied to us? Oh, no. You ain't seen nothing. Kissinger can't open his mouth without lying.
I'm a couple hundred pages into this and it's making my stomach turn what scum bags Kissinger and Nixon were. Just unbelievable!
Update; nearly finished and what a read! Toward the end, the level of detail (in particular on the SALT and Vietnam war treaty) gets a little beyond my level of interest, but it's just fascinating what went on. And we think the Bushies lied to us? Oh, no. You ain't seen nothing. Kissinger can't open his mouth without lying.
I'm a couple hundred pages into this and it's making my stomach turn what scum bags Kissinger and Nixon were. Just unbelievable!
September 4, 2020
One of the worst people in American history.
November 12, 2022
Should be required reading.
May 23, 2024
A very daunting and intimidating book. This tome is both a thorough analysis of the Nixon Administration’s foreign policy decisions as well as an excellent history book on the period.
July 29, 2024
The type of no-holds-barred investigative reporting that Seymour Hersh pursues seem more a relic of the high water mark achieved by journalism in the 1960s/1970s, as something like his 'anti-memoir' of Henry Kissinger's time as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State during Richard Nixon's presidency, would have certainly gotten him censored by the mainstream media and the prevailing business and government elite.
With the exception of China, Hersh convincingly argues that Kissinger's secretive bureaucracy behind the National Security Council and opaque back channel negotiations within foreign leaders without the consultation other government departments (and even the President himself), was nearly catastrophic for Richard Nixon's presidency. Almost single-handedly, Kissinger created a false nuclear crisis in Cuba; clandestinely supported a military coup of democratically-elected Salvador Allende in Chile; became a major sponsor of Pakistani leader Yahya Khan who was directly responsible for the murder of millions of ethnic Bengalis; failed to collaborate effectively with Anwar Sadat and the Egyptians for peace with the Israelis and fomented the 1973 Arab–Israeli War; bungled nuclear arms limitation talks with Russia (SALT); and effectively left the incumbent Cambodian and South Vietnamese government leaders out the dry after botched negotiations with North Vietnam to end US involvement in the region.
My sole critique is the seemingly intractable density of the end-page footnotes. For Hersh's depth of reporting, reading them is mandatory because of the incremental background information to the major political players within the Nixon administration, the bureaucratic machinations within their agencies, and their respective strategies with managing the press. Hersh's narrative flow not only feels exhaustive but unfortunately, also exhausting, as the reader is forced to stop and start at each footnote, as opposed to Robert Caro, whose prose never seems to drag despite the meticulousness of research in his famous biographies of Robert Moses or Lyndon Johnson.
With the exception of China, Hersh convincingly argues that Kissinger's secretive bureaucracy behind the National Security Council and opaque back channel negotiations within foreign leaders without the consultation other government departments (and even the President himself), was nearly catastrophic for Richard Nixon's presidency. Almost single-handedly, Kissinger created a false nuclear crisis in Cuba; clandestinely supported a military coup of democratically-elected Salvador Allende in Chile; became a major sponsor of Pakistani leader Yahya Khan who was directly responsible for the murder of millions of ethnic Bengalis; failed to collaborate effectively with Anwar Sadat and the Egyptians for peace with the Israelis and fomented the 1973 Arab–Israeli War; bungled nuclear arms limitation talks with Russia (SALT); and effectively left the incumbent Cambodian and South Vietnamese government leaders out the dry after botched negotiations with North Vietnam to end US involvement in the region.
My sole critique is the seemingly intractable density of the end-page footnotes. For Hersh's depth of reporting, reading them is mandatory because of the incremental background information to the major political players within the Nixon administration, the bureaucratic machinations within their agencies, and their respective strategies with managing the press. Hersh's narrative flow not only feels exhaustive but unfortunately, also exhausting, as the reader is forced to stop and start at each footnote, as opposed to Robert Caro, whose prose never seems to drag despite the meticulousness of research in his famous biographies of Robert Moses or Lyndon Johnson.
August 14, 2024
An exhaustive, well-researched history of the duplicity of both Henry Kissinger and his boss, Richard Nixon, in foreign affairs, including the Vietnam War, during Nixon’s truncated presidency. The book was written by Seymour Hersh, who also uncovered the My Lai massacre and was regarded as one of the greatest journalists of the 20th Century.
January 3, 2022
Intriguing and well researched description of Nixon/Kissinger White House and how they, at times together and at times individually, used the power of their offices to forcibly achieve their goals, no matter the cost
July 18, 2023
Outstanding at every level ... fascinating content well presented
July 8, 2011
Hersh is amazing. I can not imagine how dogged he had to be to drag this information from the bowels of Library of Congress under the Freedom of Information Act. It really makes me wonder why Kissinger is held in such high esteem today, and why he is still relevant in today's politics. Remember Paul Bremmer, who single handedly set back our operations in Iraq 2 years? He worked for Kissinger and Associates when he was hired. Remember during the last presidential campaign, when McCain handlers rushed to get a Kissinger/Palin photo to show Palin had the gravitas to be VP?
Kissinger as political opportunist, who countless times betrayed his own beliefs to maintain his close relationship to Nixon, is a true portrait of a genius gone mad. Kudos to Hersh for a powerful and compelling look inside Nixon's White House. A scary place it is.
SH
Kissinger as political opportunist, who countless times betrayed his own beliefs to maintain his close relationship to Nixon, is a true portrait of a genius gone mad. Kudos to Hersh for a powerful and compelling look inside Nixon's White House. A scary place it is.
SH
August 14, 2015
A very well written book; most extensive. The Nixon/ Kissinger American administration surely is one of the most corrupt and darkest periods in its history. How it managed to survive as long as it did is telling of the depth of its power to be in control. America was hijacked. The American people paid dearly. Neither truly were persecuted for their actions.
September 10, 2009
grew up in the '70's - always thought of Kissinger as brilliant - this bood really portrays him as power-hungry, sneaky, & backhanded - very interesting but can only absorb so much at one time - will probably take a month to read all 41 chapters.
October 1, 2015
Got a bit tiring with all the unnecessary details :-(
July 20, 2016
informative on kissinger's incompetence and craving for power
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