Friendship of Princes: A Fickle Thing

Henry Kissinger's life knew how to deliver a quote. But context is king, and without being aware of the context in which it was delivered, a quote can easily be misinterpreted.

- ZARRAR KHUHRO

Take, for example, when Kissinger said: "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

This quote is doing the rounds in the context of Trump's moves in Ukraine and his vilification of its increasingly embattled president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Given that Donald Trump favors the Russian position over that of Ukraine, the same country the US and its allies armed, funded, and diplomatically supported against Russia for years in an effort to grind down Moscow in an 'unwinnable' war before taking the ultimate U-turn, Kissinger's seemingly blisteringly honest observation seems to ring true.

However, would Kissinger, who was known for his realpolitik and bluntness but was also dedicated to advancing US policy, actually admit to such a thing, and that too in the midst of the Cold War when the US needed all the allies it could get?

When you dig into the context of the quote, it turns out that Kissinger was talking to American writer William F. Buckley, soon after the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, about the need for Nixon to support the US's then-ally Nguyen Van Thieu, a Vietnamese general who became the president of South Vietnam after a deeply rigged election the year before and was embroiled in a conflict with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army.