Years of upheaval

In Years of Upheaval, Henry Kissinger recalls the turbulent years of the second Administration of Richard Nixon, which began on 20 January 1973. Two momentous events and their consequences dominate this account: the Watergate scandal, and the 1973 October war in the Middle East.

The book opens at the Western White House on a summer afternoon in August of that year, when Dr Kissinger is told by the President during a poolside conversation that he is to become Secretary of State. The memories that follow are a rich compendium of his experiences in the months before and after appointment: an eerie trip to Hanoi shortly after the Vietnam ceasefire; efforts to settle the war in Cambodia; two Nixon-Brezhnev summits and the controversy over détente; the Shah of Iran; the oil crisis and the efforts to overcome it; the U.S. airlift to Israel and the military alert during the Middle East war; the origins of shuttle diplomacy; the fall of Salvador Allende in Chile; and the events surrounding Nixon's resignation.

Dr Kissinger's dramatic, day-by-day account of how the Middle East war was transformed into the beginning of peacemaking shapes the climactic chapters of the book, in counterpoint to the worsening crisis in the U.S., which culminated in Richard Nixon's resignation. His frank portrait of Nixon's last days is perhaps the most perceptive to date.

Candid appraisals of other world leaders - Golda Meir, Anwar Sadat, King Faisal, Chairman Mao, Leonid Brezhnev, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georges Pompidou, to name but a few - appear throughout the book, as do Dr Kissinger's insights on war, peace, diplomacy, and the nature of political leadership. At once illuminating, fascinating, and profound, Years of Upheaval is a lasting contribution to the history of our time, by one of its chief protagonists.