Review: Kissinger, the Retreat of American Power
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207503000122 |
| Author | Colin S. Gray |
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
178
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
.on
the
wrong
track'
in
their
preference
for
some
form
of
United
States
unilateral
guarantee
of
Europe
and
arms
assistance. All
the
American
tells
us
is
that
he
was
not
'directly involved'
but
was
'in
and
out
of
the
talks.'
He
did
explain
the
'rationale'
of
NATO
to
the
Scandinavian
foreign
ministers
and
was
told
that
'he
helped
to
per-
suade
the
Norwegians
to
join.'
In
his
view
NATO
was
'simply
a
neces-
sity,'
not
a
panacea
for
settling
European
problems,
but
'an
elemen-
tary
precaution
against
Communist
aggression.'
I
found
these
memoirs
both
fascinating
and
enlightening.
F.H.
Soward/University
of
British
Columbia
KISSINGER
The
Uses
of
Power
David
Landau
Boston:
Toronto:
Houghton
Mifflin,
1972,
X,
270pp,
$5.95
THE
RETREAT
OF
AMERICAN
POWER
Henry
Brandon
New
York:
Toronto:
Doubleday,
1973,
xiv,
368pp,
$10.25
These
must
be
about
the
last two
books
written
on the
Nixon
ad-
ministration
that
make
no
mention
of
the Watergate
Follies.
The
book
by
David
Landau,
an
undergraduate
student
at Henry
Kiss-
inger's
former
academic
bastion,
Harvard,
attempts
an
intellectual
and
socio-psychological
history
of
its subject:
it
succeeds,
brilliantly.
However,
Landau
is
less
than
convincing when he
seeks
to
expose
the
inadequacies
of
the
Kissinger
way
of
diplomacy
in
the
context
of
trial
by
experience
from
1969
to
1972
(the
date
of
writing).
From
the
other
side
of
the generation
gap,
the
very
long-time
Washington
reporter
of
The
Sunday
Times,
Henry
Brandon,
offers
us
a
partially
inside
account
of
how
Nixon
and
Kissinger supervised
the
orderly
retreat
of
American power. If
Brandon
does
not
claim
to
be
the
confidante
of
former
President
Nixon, at
least he
would claim
to
have
had
his
ear
firmly
fixed
to
some
White
House
keyholes.
While
Brandon
could
certainly
not
be
accused
of
servility
(the
odd
tut!
tut!
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