Powerful political observers identified Kissinger as a loyal agent of the American government. He had only recently arrived in the United States, but he had received intensive training and indoctrination through the military during World War II. The army, Kissinger frequently commented, “made me feel like an American.” “It was an Americanization process,” he explained, and it was, in fact, where he was naturalized as an American citizen.²⁰ But it was a process that did not end in 1945. Kissinger’s key personal contacts continued to revolve around government figures. His most consistent personal support came from individuals—including his primary mentor at Harvard, Professor William Yandell Elliott—who worked extensively on government-sponsored projects. For Kissinger, as for many other immigrants at the time, social and professional mobility was largely sponsored by the New Deal and developing Cold War realities.

In a world still pervaded with antisemitism and other forms of intolerance, the American government was the institution that offered the most opportunity, and therefore commanded the most loyalty, from an ambitious Jewish immigrant to the United States. No other entity expended more resources—through the G.I. Bill and the promotion of a “Judeo-Christian” ethic—to create new opportunities for Jewish men, particularly those returning to civilian life from the military. It was the American government that encouraged universities such as Harvard to promote Jewish war veterans; it was the American government that paid for their education and subsidized their access to homeownership; and it was the American government that defined them as part of a common, “white” American race. As Jewish names became increasingly evident in universities and government offices during the second half of the 1950s, traditional demarcations of a “Hebrew” race disappeared.²¹

This is the context in which historians of foreign relations must address the Jewish experience of the twentieth century and its profound influence on American society and government policy during the Cold War. It is remarkable, in fact, how studiously historians have avoided this topic. The personal threats that Kissinger confronted throughout his life—persecution, exile, war, and prejudice—emerged from his identity as a Jew and served to reinforce that identity. The opportunities that allowed Kissinger to achieve professional success—immigration, military service, university access, and contributions to Cold War strategy—did not, despite the challenges he faced, erase his Jewishness. On the contrary, they in many ways reinforced it, through a combination of continued exclusion and special
access to arenas where powerful mainstream figures believed German Jews had special skills. At Harvard, for example, Kissinger could develop new programs for international study, but socially he remained segregated with other Jews. He never gained access to elite clubs on campus, even as a renowned professor. He lived the American dream but never escaped the nightmare of antisemitism. As late as 2006, after decades of Jewish integration into mainstream society and the formation of a broad American consensus on partnership with Israel, Kissinger continued to worry about antisemitism in the United States.²²

These concerns were ever-present throughout Kissinger’s career. They were reinforced by his intimate involvement with a White House and Congress in which prejudice against Jews remained common, despite the promotion of one as secretary of state. President Richard Nixon, in particular, gave Kissinger unprecedented foreign policy power while simultaneously complaining about his disloyal and degenerate “Jewish” characteristics. Angry with the press because of information leaks from his administration, Nixon invoked fears of a Jewish conspiracy. Referring to Max Frankel, an editor at the New York Times, he explained: “Henry is compulsive on Frankel. He’s Jewish… Henry—the New York Times, see if he talked to Frankel.”²³

In his relationship with a prejudiced president and a narrow-minded public, Kissinger worked hard to anticipate potential accusations about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. He was forever in a defensive position on the topic, forever fearful of the suspicion emanating from the Oval Office and other parts of society. Ironically, his attempts to preempt antisemitism meant that he had to address the issue directly rather than sidestep it as he had in the past. And so, in October 1973, when Kissinger prepared to present a list of appointees to the United States Senate for confirmation, he noticed an overwhelming preponderance of Jewish names:

As an intellectual, a strategist, and a policymaker, Kissinger consistently worked in the shadow of antisemitism and the violence he witnessed as its popular expression in Germany and other societies. The tolerant, rational, just, and orderly American state was the bright light that promised safety and salvation. It was not the Messiah, but for Kissinger it was the closest thing to it in the contemporary world. For all his later brooding about Spenglerian decline, Kissinger’s attachment to America was always an article of faith, a touchstone for self-protection and personal advancement. It was akin to the Holy Land of the Jewish Bible, imperfect but blessed and deserving of special preservation. Kissinger described the United States as a nation that refused “to be bound by history.”²⁶ And as a policymaker, he defined himself as a protector of “the stake that all men and women of goodwill had in America’s strength and purpose.”²⁷

Kissinger’s identity as a Jewish immigrant to America matters for more than purely biographical reasons. It helps to explain his policy choices throughout his career. As additional documents about Kissinger’s years in office become available, we can expect an avalanche of studies that will elucidate what he did. A number of excellent books have already provided thorough and compelling assessments of his actions and their consequences.²⁸ However, the most difficult, and therefore most avoided, question is why: Why did he act as he did, why did so many people follow his counsel, and why does he draw so much more controversy than other, perhaps equally flawed policymakers? Diplomatic historians are very poor at answering these questions. We describe and assess policy with great empirical detail but rarely probe personal motives.