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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

I've already listened and it's excellent.

Tl;dr version: Kissinger was an almost superhuman ass-kisser. He had an incredible knack for playing along with whatever insane idea somebody had and made everybody in the room feel goddamned brilliant. The richest, most powerful, and most beautiful people in the world just loved being around him because he consistently sounded interesting and made them feel intelligent.

And he used that power to stay in the halls of power whoever was in charge.

The only thing that seemed his own idea was personally planning and picking bombing targets to murder hell out of everybody in Cambodia.

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>He had an incredible knack for playing along with whatever insane idea somebody had and made everybody in the room feel goddamned brilliant. The richest, most powerful, and most beautiful people in the world just loved being around him because he consistently sounded interesting and made them feel intelligent.

You call that ass-kissing, others may call it diplomacy. He may have furthered his own interests but did he also further the interests of the US more effectively than most could?

“ He may have furthered his own interests but did he also further the interests of the US more effectively than most could?”

Hahahahaha nope, he literally was just a leech on society that got into high enough positions that his vapid bullshitting didn’t just fool his bosses into paying him a good wage but directly contributed to the deaths of countless innocent humans… for absolutely zero good reason from any perspective other than kissingers. Seriously this isn’t serial killer level stuff, this is war criminal mass murderer levels off violence and he never ever faced any real consequences for it.

I am not religious but Kissinger makes me want to believe in hell just so I can fall asleep with the comforting thought that Kissinger is burning in hell forever. He deserves nothing less, rest in piss, Kissinger.

> He may have furthered his own interests but did he also further the interests of the US more effectively than most could?

No.

Diplomacy and "ass-kissing to stay in the halls of power forever" seem like they can have some nonempty intersection, but still are different concepts.

Diplomacy would further the needs of a state or at least a faction of people. Ass-kissing for personal gain seems like a different thing that may even hinder more genuine diplomatic efforts.

Those wars in Cambodia and Vietnam didn't further the interests of the US at all. They just wasted tons of lives for nothing. Same as with the recent Afghanistan campaign.

At least the military industrial complex got even richer of it. That's the only reason.

> Those wars in Cambodia and Vietnam didn't further the interests of the US at all.

It's easy to judge history in hindsight. USA bombed the crap out of Japan during WW2, and Japan had amazing recovery.

Not to say that Cambodia was at all justified (or Japan for that matter), but that it's more complicated.

It's a lot easier to judge a person on objective things, like how effective they were at executing their policy.

For context:

    Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—double the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II.

    Pound for pound, it remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.

Japan's "amazing recovery" wasn't hampered by a legacy of UXB (unexploded bombs) that still kill and cripple children to this day.

America had total control of Japan following their surrender, and the time/power/resources to rebuild Japan as they saw fit (which was to become an eastern bulwark of capitalist freedom, against China and Russia).

Bombing Cambodia had the much more cynical purpose of convincing Ho Chi Min that Nixon was an unrestrained madman whose demands in peace talks had to be surrendered to, to avoid further mindless devastation for all involved. Yes, it was more complicated in the details, but pretty damn clear in the larger picture.

> It's easy to judge history in hindsight. USA bombed the crap out of Japan during WW2, and Japan had amazing recovery.

Did you happen to forget that the United States occupied and reconstructed Japan from 1945-1952?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan

It helps to be familiar with history before making judgements about it.

It depends on your evaluation of his outcomes, but the scholarly opinion of him is that the legacy of his that endures is the death toll, while the geopolitical outcomes were bad for the U.S. (losing Vietname/Cambodia/Laos), temporary advantages (Pinochet in Chile), or opinionated side-taking that has not been good for the U.S. or the world (Israel/Palestinians).

He was very effective at remaining in a position of power and influence. I don't think you'll find many who believe he was as consequentially good for America.

> The only thing that seemed his own idea was personally planning and picking bombing targets to murder hell out of everybody in Cambodia.

That and being a total horn dog.

The crowd here might find it preposterous but Kissinger dated models and movie stars. One that I remember was the actress Jill St. John who was a Bond girl in the movie Diamonds are forever. The two dated for a couple of years. Miss St. John also dated Michael Caine, Sean Connery, David Frost and Tom Selleck.

Proving once again an ugly man can get the ladies if they have compensating traits.

Well, he did say that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

Interestingly, the Behind the Bastards episodes on him point out that his relationships with women may have been one of the only non-bastard things about him. He was seen as “safe” compared to other men of the time!

> ...was an almost superhuman ass-kisser.

This piques my curiosity. Does anyone have the mechanical specifics of how this worked, as in actual conversations when Kissinger was in his element that demonstrated this quality in action?

Teens today who have never experienced Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field normally don't believe my shorthand description of the RDF like the above encapsulated description of "superhuman ass-kisser". Fortunately, I can show them the historical records, giving them not just the video of his meticulously-rehearsed MacWorld presentations, but the context of the enormous stakes he was playing with, to change their minds. And to teach them that what seems extraordinary can be accomplished with extraordinary effort, if one is willing to relentlessly study and practice.

So whenever I hear about extraordinary abilities, I'm always curious to see how they worked up close, mechanically, in dissect-able action.

If you listen to Nixon’s tapes, there are many instances where Nixon makes outrageously antisemitic comments, and Kissinger (who was Jewish himself), ever the brown-noser, agrees and responds with an even more outlandish one.

The podcast also covers some more humoring of extreme antisemitism when he was negotiating in the middle east. It's not just that he tolerated it, he validated and played along with very clever quips about being a Jew.

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