Henry Kissinger, how I'm missin' ya...

Today I got a phone call informing me that a spot had opened up at the last minute for a seminar taught by William B. Quandt. At first I didn't really understand what was going on (I had only had 1 cup of coffee...) because I had tried to sign up for it a long time ago. But I figured that if I had willingly tried to sign up for 4 more hours of class per week plus a paper, it must have seemed worth it at the time.

Quandt was part of Henry Kissinger's staff during the 1973 Arab-Israeli crisis (and ensuing shuttle diplomacy) and head Middle East policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. He is now a professor at the University of Virginia. The course is on American Foreign Policy in the Middle East, with a special focus on four key periods in history: 1967, 1973 onwards until the Egyptian-Israeli peace, the Clinton and GW Bush years. This isn't a history course, however, but more of an analytical approach to the decision-making process within each case. Quandt had just entered the political world when he became part of Kissinger's team, but he was the note-taker at all the important meetings, so his first-hand accounts of the negociations are fascinating. Not to mention, the man is a veritable encyclopedia of anecdotes. Say what you will about Carlyle's "Great man theory", but in diplomacy, so much is dependent on personalities and relationships. If Nixon hadn't spent most of 1973 in a drunken haze, and had not been forbidden to answer phonecalls and make important policy decisions, would Kissinger's impact during the crisis have been diferent? We'll call that Essay topic Plan B...

Oh and I'll buy you a drink if you tell me where this entry's title is from...