On the laureate of the Nobel peace prize and a war criminal – Jacob Bernstein in NYT:

‘Henry A. Kissinger, the powerful diplomat who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and accused of being a war criminal for his realpolitik approach to foreign affairs, had a kind of second career on the society circuit, especially in the years after he served as secretary of state under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.’

(…)

‘“Henry was not designed for intellectual monasteries,” said the diplomat Richard Haass, who, as the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, often booked Mr. Kissinger to speak at events on global politics. “He was designed to be around people.”’

(…)

‘Andy Warhol, who shared with Mr. Kissinger a zeal for placing himself in the company of the famous and the powerful, found him to be a bore. “So long-winded,” he wrote in his diary, describing an affair at the Waldorf Towers that was attended by the broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, the television executive Roone Arledge and the newly minted New York City mayor Edward Koch.’

(…)

‘The Kissingers bought a duplex apartment in River House, an Upper East Side cooperative that has been home to New York society types including Kermit Roosevelt (a son of Teddy), Deeda Blair and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. The move to that building was “very much its own statement” about having arrived in Manhattan, according to Holly Peterson, an author and social commentator.’

(…)

‘The milder political climate in those years was an important factor in the couple’s social standing. When the Kissingers attended dinners with Agnellis, Astors, Buckleys and Erteguns, Democrats and Republicans were in broad agreement about Communism and other issues of the day.
“There really were no woke Democrats or neo-Nazi Republicans then hanging around Park Avenue,” said Bob Colacello, the author of “Ronnie & Nancy: Their Path to the White House,” a portrait of the Reagans.’

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‘Mr. Kissinger put those differences aside in exchange for a place at one of Manhattan’s most-talked-about social events of 1998, Time magazine’s 75th anniversary party. As the top editor of Time in those days, Mr. Isaacson was a host of the gala at Radio City Music Hall, which included President Bill Clinton, Toni Morrison, Mikhail Gorbachev and Sharon Stone as guests.’

Read the article here.

Mr. Kissinger, the benign war criminal (it helps to have killed many people if you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize), was also a socialite and social climber, which I state without any condescendence. What’s emancipation without social climbing, and with a Bavarian accent. I’m still wondering what’s the difference between a German accent and a Bavarian accent.

Anyhow, ten years ago or so, I went to the Munich Security Conference where Mr. Kissinger was also speaking, he was not so much longwinded, he was a bit dull. But probably that’s the characteristic of a realpolitik, dullness, between the killings.

And by the way, those were the days that you could be Republican without being close to neo-Nazis or being a neo-Nazi yourself. Sort of.