Speeches
Munich, Germany - June 7, 2007
One of the few disagreements between Helmut Schmidt and me concerns how we met. We both agree that it occurred fifty years ago in 1957. He has claimed that our first encounter was at a conference at Harvard University where we argued about nuclear strategy. I have been convinced that our paths crossed a few months earlier in Hamburg, when he was introduced to me as a promising young political leader. I like to think that the difference of opinion arose from the pride we have felt in our relationship: each of us has wanted to take credit for having discovered the other.
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Vatican City - April 28, 2007
I have been a policymaker, and I have been a professor and I have therefore experienced the different perspectives from which to view international affairs. As a professor, I could choose my subjects, and I could work on them for as long as I chose. As a policymaker, I was always pressed for time, and I had to make decisions in a finite time frame.
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Annapolis, Maryland - April 11, 2007
I want you to know how inspiring it is for me to come to this institution and to see the men and women dedicating their careers to service of our country. I live in New York, where people know what's wrong with the country but not where the country ought to go. And so, I'm very grateful to the Naval Academy to give me this opportunity to talk to you.
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Stuttgart, Germany - March 19, 2007
Mr. Minister President, Distinguished Guests, it means a great deal to me to receive this award from the Ministerpräsident of a state with which I have had a warm relationship for many decades and at the hand of a governmental leader whose activities and pronouncements I have followed with great respect. Mr. Ministerpräsident, I shall remember your thoughtful and eloquent speech on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of James Byrnes's seminal speech in Stuttgart as well as the warm hospitality you extended to me then.
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Washington, D.C. - February 23, 2007
Dr. Kissinger, ambassadors.It is a great pleasure to have Dr. Kissinger with us at lunchtime today. You may know the story about Woody Allen, who said that he'd just done a speed reading course and had read War and Peace in fifteen minutes. It's about Russia he says. I think there's a similar danger of ridiculous simplification. And if one tries to summarize Dr. Kissinger's career and achievements.so I won't even begin to try to do that. But I just want to say three things extremely briefly. First of all I'd like to thank Dr. Kissinger for being here when there are so many demands on his time and intelligence. And secondly, we all know that Dr. Kissinger is one of those rare human beings who has not only made history but written extremely good history as well. And I'm sure many things that I shared with the former French foreign minister is that we both thought that your book on diplomacy was the best thing one could conceivably read on the subject. And thirdly, we're very pleased that you're here because as we've been discussing for the last day and half, we face an incredibly complex geopolitical situation in which a lot of old truths seem to be challenged and which is difficult to divide in a Manichean way into good and evil. Maybe we're back to balance of power politics in a post-Westphalian world. Who could tell us better how to handle those problems that you? So thank you very much for being with us and perhaps I can invite you to address us as some of us finish scoffing the pudding. Dr Kissinger.
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