It could be said that no modern political figure was more controversial, more influential, and more difficult to define than Dr. Henry Kissinger. He had a brilliant political mind and embraced the full range of the best and worst of American foreign policy. Some saw him as emblematic of strength and stability during the turmoil of Watergate, but others hold him personally responsible for the devastating atrocities in Cambodia during the Vietnam War and for the rise of an authoritarian dictator in Chile. He tolerated massacres and genocides, but he justified them as necessary to prevent more devastating consequences for the world. The man’s deep complexity and expansive career were what called filmmaker Barak Goodman to produce this new documentary from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, Kissinger.
In 2023, just after Kissinger died at age 100, Goodman reached out to AMERICAN EXPERIENCE with his pitch. “There are very few figures who tell us a more important American history than Henry Kissinger does. As an individual, he had such a fascinating set of contradictory motivations: naked ambition mixed with a good amount of idealism. Hard, practical realism mixed with a certain amount of realpolitik mixed with a certain amount of utopianism,” Goodman remarked. “I love the figures who embody both extremes of the human makeup. The story turned out to be just as fascinating and sprawling as I expected it to be.”
“At this moment when America’s role on the world stage is constantly being interrogated, I thought it would be fascinating to look at a man who arguably had as much impact on foreign policy as a President of the United States,” said AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’s Executive Producer Cameo George. ”Henry Kissinger had a hand in some of this country’s biggest wins and losses abroad and the amount of power he wielded as both a National Security Advisor and Secretary of State was — and still is — unparalleled.”
A significant challenge to crafting this film was the sheer volume of information available about Kissinger. In his career, he was an Army intelligence officer, an academic, a government consultant, head of the National Security Council, Secretary of State, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, an author, and a public speaker. By centering the film on Kissinger’s early life through his time as President Nixon’s Secretary of State, the documentary could drill down on the foreign policy that Kissinger directly created and examine how this policy changed our nation. Even with this focused timeframe, Goodman found unique challenges in telling this story. “Once Kissinger came into office, he was everywhere. He had the energy of ten men. It was difficult to follow all the tendrils of his story because they went everywhere. He had this triumph and then this failure and then he rose above, but those were all happening at the same time. It’s hard to tell a chronological story.”
Most of Kissinger’s remaining colleagues from the National Security Council (NSC), including many who have rarely gone on camera, agreed to speak with Goodman. This included people like former NSC senior staff member Roger Morris, Kissinger’s special assistant Winston Lord, and former NSC director of policy planning Morton Halperin. Kissinger’s son David, historians, and journalists who covered him throughout his career were also interviewed. Goodman believes that the reputation of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE opened many of these doors.
Kissinger’s rise to power was, in many ways, utterly improbable, and his early story is the one that held the most surprises for Goodman. How did the young man who escaped fascist Germany and spoke no English go on to become a highly respected intelligence officer and ultimately one of the best-known foreign policy experts of modern times? Goodman saw an opportunity to explore this lesser known side of Kissinger’s story.
Although never elected to office, Kissinger gathered a level of power in the government that most could only dream of. Through a series of strategic moves, he left academia and became an invaluable asset to the government as it developed new strategies for the Vietnam War. Later, as Nixon’s Secretary of State, he was constantly in the President’s ear, essentially serving as deputy president. “They were a team,” said Goodman. “For a while, when Nixon was in real trouble in Watergate, he was essentially the president, or at least the foreign policy president. He was making decisions unilaterally.” And the approach to foreign policy was a radical shift from the policies the United States had originally pursued. “It was a chess game,” said Goodman. “That’s the way they conceived the world. If the Soviets do this, we need to counter with this. There hadn’t been much foreign policy earlier. The United States didn’t want anything to do with the world. We were safe between oceans. Roosevelt got us into the war, but afterwards, we could have retreated back into our shell. Instead, people like Kissinger made us face the world and essentially try to conquer it peacefully.”
Peaceful may not be the word others would use to describe Kissinger. His legacy also has a dark side, and Goodman did not shy away from this part of his story. This is the gray area of defining Kissinger that Goodman faced. “I don’t agree with the extreme polarities in terms of Kissinger. There is an interesting middle ground which he occupies,” said Goodman. “He was a human being shaped by the trauma of his youth, and I think that informs the way he saw the world. He and Nixon did some amazing things together, but then they did things we can look back on with real skepticism and regret, because they fell prey to their own fears and that led to real damage and real suffering.”
The film also presents a side of Kissinger that others might overlook, one that Goodman sees as a critical component to his success — his winning personality. “He had a wonderful sense of humor,” said Goodman. “His self-deprecation was so charming. The press corps loved him. Even [New York Times correspondent] Hendrick Smith, who was wiretapped by Kissinger, found him charming. Kissinger was able to deflect a lot of criticism just through sheer magnetism and charm.”
Ultimately, Goodman hopes that this film allows people to truly see Kissinger as a multidimensional human. “He was a brilliant deep thinker and an equally brilliant political operator. It is rare to see both at such a high level brought together in the same person. But he also had plenty of flaws. He was someone who believed the ends justified the means and that the greater good often entailed doing things that were unsavory,” said Goodman. “He held a mirror up to who we are. There are places where he crossed lines that undermined who we are as a country, but if we are fair-minded, we have to look at both sides fairly. We have to see the greatness of America, and we have to see the darkness of America. Both are true, and Kissinger really embodied that as well.”
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Kissinger airs Monday and Tuesday (10/27-10/28) at 9pm on GBH 2 and on the PBS App.
