Last words from Kissinger
“Diplomacy is the art of hope.” Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger quoted Pope Benedict XVI in what must have been the final public address he made, just weeks before his death. Kissinger was speaking at the annual Al Smith Dinner for charity in New York, an event he’d regularly attended for decades.
For a myriad of reasons, Kissinger being the keynote speaker was important.
Kissinger titled his speech “The Leadership of Reconciliation.” He paid tribute to the dinner’s namesake, Al Smith, the former governor of New York, who was the first Catholic nominated by a major party for the presidency.
“Al Smith was an utterly pragmatic politician who understood the virtues of compromise because he believed in the virtues of America,” Kissinger said. “He knew the difference between giving a speech and making life better for ordinary Americans.” He went on: “His was a city and a nation of endeavor, which transcended the divisions of the old world in a new land of achievement.”
Talking about civility is always a worthy cause. Kissinger was a Jew born in Germany. Members of his family were killed in the Holocaust, so he knows something about the weight of evil and the difficulty of atonement.
The speaker before Kissinger at the event, Rob Speyer, CEO of Tishman Speyer, acknowledged the current troubled international situation, in part continuing repercussions of the Holocaust.
“It feels incredibly vulnerable to be a Jew right now, but the Al Smith dinner has always been a secure and safe home filled with love and laughter,” he said. In recent weeks since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, I know way too many Jewish families who feel like they must take security precautions they would have never previously considered — and these are people the New York metropolitan area.
It was quite the unplanned and welcome statement to have Kissinger and Speyer as the honorees at a Catholic event during these times.
But Kissinger characteristically did not give way to despair: “National renewal in our time requires leaders who can channel the crosscurrents of America as Al Smith did. In that spirit, let me say a few words about leadership. Leadership lifts people from where they are to where they have never been.
On that quest, the leader must harmonize society’s past and its future, its experiences and its aspirations.
“The first stage on that journey is for the leader to seek to fulfill a society’s best sense of itself,” he said. “No people can remain great that concentrates on impugning its own historical self-image. Smith’s was not a policy of grievance but of achievement and prospect.”
Besides talking about Russia, China and the war in Israel, Kissinger also discussed artificial intelligence.
He warned: “Our technology has outrun our understanding. … Just as the printing press spawned the Enlightenment that enabled universal literacy, AI upends analytical reasoning by providing instantaneous answers to questions in search of explanation. But while AI promises many benefits, its application to advanced weapons creates a dangerous disjunction between the power of modern arms and the purposes of nations.”
Don’t wait, he said. To paraphrase, he urged leaders to make AI more human. “Transformational times require statesmen with the vision to build toward a better future,” he said.
They were final words worth heeding.