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Between the Old Left and the New Right

By Henry A. Kissinger
May/June 1999
Article Summary and Author Biography

After Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election, a new political force -- the neoconservatives, former anti-Nixon liberals now bent on total victory over the Soviet Union -- emerged to undermine his diplomacy. Nixon and his heir, Gerald Ford, sought to carefully wear the Soviets down, but the neocons yearned to vanquish communism with a burst of ideological elan. The new right's insistence on smearing detente as appeasement led them to ignore subtle Soviet encroachments and abandon Ford when he urged Congress to aid Indochina and Angola. The neocons undercut the real foreign policy debate, which was between the White House and the liberals.

Henry A. Kissinger was Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations and National Security Adviser to President Nixon. His books include A World Restored and Diplomacy. This essay is adapted from the recently published third volume of his memoirs, Years of Renewal.

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