Henry Kissinger’s Memoirs and the Shaping of History

Immediately after leaving office in January 1977, Kissinger secured a $5 million publishing deal for his memoirs, then conceived as a single volume. He would eventually write three volumes, totaling nearly 4,000 pages. Their impact on his legacy and reputation have never been properly assessed. This paper argues that Kissinger’s memoirs, in particular the first volume published in 1979, were central to cementing his reputation as a diplomatic guru whose opinion would be sought by every subsequent president and by print and television media outlets to this day.

Using previously untapped archival sources from Kissinger’s publishers, the paper shows how Time magazine bent over backward to publish Kissinger’s perspectives on key events in their 45-pages of serialized excerpts—which introduced the memoirs to millions of Americans; how Kissinger took advantage of key changes in the book publishing industry in the 1970s to secure a highly favorable deal; and how Kissinger used a private office at the Library of Congress to access government documents (never approved for declassification) to write the book. The paper explains the reasons for the extraordinarily favorable reception of the first volume and traces its impact on journalism and history in the decades before the official record was declassified.

The larger stories the paper traces are about the workings of power and celebrity in these years and how those gifted with fame and access can shape history.