Introduction: Leadership in History… 9
The Axis of Leadership | The Essence of Leadership Decisions | Six Leaders in Different Contexts | Archetypes of Leadership: Politicians and Prophets | Individuals in History

1 Konrad Adenauer: The Strategy of Humility… 26

The Need for Reform | From Early Life to Internal Exile | The Path to Leadership | Restoring Public Order and the Chancellorship | The Path to a New National Identity | The Soviet Threat and Rearmament | The Inescapable Past: Reparations for the Jews | Two Crises: Suez and Berlin | Three Conversations with Adenauer | October 1957 | May 1961, A Flexible Response | February 1962, Kennedy and Adenauer | German Unification: The Agonizing Wait | The Last Conversation | The Adenauer Tradition

2 Charles de Gaulle: The Strategy of Will … 84

A Chance Encounter｜The Beginning of a Journey｜The Origin and Goal of the Path｜De Gaulle in French History｜De Gaulle and World War II｜The North African Conflict｜The Acquisition of Political Power｜A Visit to Moscow｜De Gaulle and the Provisional Government｜The Wilderness｜Failure in Indochina and Frustration in the Middle East｜Algeria and De Gaulle's Return｜The Fifth Republic｜The End of the Algerian Conflict｜Germany as the Key to French Policy: De Gaulle and Adenauer｜De Gaulle and the Atlantic Alliance｜The Nuclear Control Agency｜Flexible Response and Nuclear Strategy｜What is an Alliance｜The End of the Presidential Term｜The Essence of De Gaulle's Political Power｜De Gaulle and Churchill｜Beyond the Mystery

3 Richard Nixon: A Strategy of Equilibrium… 176

The World at the Time of Nixon's Appearance | An Unexpected Proposal | Security-Related Decisions in the Nixon White House | Nixon's Worldview | Connections with Diplomacy | Visit to Europe | The Vietnam War and Its Consequences | Great Power Diplomacy and Arms Control | Immigration from the Soviet Union | Establishment of Diplomatic Relations with China | The Middle East in Chaos | The 1973 Middle East War | The Diplomacy of Armistice | The Peace Negotiation Process in the Middle East | The Cold War Intertwined with Bangladesh | Nixon and the Crisis in the United States

4 Anwar Sadat: A Strategy of Transcendence … 274

Sadat's Special Qualities | The Influence of History | Early Life | Thoughts in Prison | Egyptian Independence | A Spokesman of the Revolution | Nasser and Sadat | Sadat's Perspective | Corrective Revolution | Strategic Patience | The 1973 War | Meir and Sadat | The Tara Palace Conference | From Geneva to the Withdrawal | The Syrian Perspective | Another Step Toward Peace: Sinai Accord II | A Visit to Jerusalem | The Thorny Road to Peace | Stranding | Assassination | Epilogue: An Unrealized Legacy

5 Lee Kuan Yew: A Strategy of Superiority… 368

A Visit to Harvard | A Giant from the Land of Lilliputians | Childhood under Imperialism | The Formation of a Nation | The Formation of a Nation | “Judgment is left to history” | The Formation of an Economy | Lee Kuan Yew and the United States | Lee Kuan Yew and China | Between the United States and China | Lee Kuan Yew's Legacy | The Man Lee Kuan Yew

6 Margaret Thatcher: A Strategy of Faith … 424

The Most Unexpected Leader | Thatcher and the British System | The Challenges Ahead: Britain in the 1970s | Rising from Grantham | Leadership Systems | Economic Reformers | Protecting Sovereignty: The Falklands Dispute | The Hong Kong Negotiations | Inherited Violence and Confrontation: Northern Ireland | Fundamental Truths: The “Special Relationship” and the Cold War | The Grenada Question | Strategic Change: East-West Exchange | Protecting Kuwait’s Sovereignty: The Gulf Crisis | The Limits of Leadership: The Future of Europe and Germany | The Eternal Challenge of Europe | Fall | Epilogue

Conclusion: The Evolution of Leadership… 515
From Aristocracy to Meritocracy | The Cold Reality | The Shaken Meritocracy | Deep Literacy and Visual Culture | Fundamental Values ​​| Leadership and World Order | The Future of Leadership

Acknowledgments … 543
Week … 547
Search … 592

The Legend of Diplomacy: Kissinger Meets Six Leaders of the Century
Adenauer, de Gaulle, Nixon, Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew, Thatcher
What strategic leadership is needed to address the challenges we face today?

● Leadership that grew up in the middle class and meritocracy rather than hereditary succession and aristocracy

The six leaders we meet in this book were all builders during turbulent times in history, developing their respective societies and international order in the postwar period.
Kissinger worked with them when they were at the height of their influence, as a Harvard professor, as national security adviser to the U.S. president, or as secretary of state, and he developed friendships with them after retirement.
From the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 to the end of World War II in September 1945, the six leaders who navigated the blazing furnace of the so-called Second Thirty Years' War, each in their own way, grew up in a period of cultural upheaval.
In the West's political and social structures, the foundation of the leadership model was irreversibly shifting from hereditary and aristocratic to middle-class and meritocratic.
None of them came from the upper class.
Adenauer's father was a non-commissioned officer in the Prussian army and later worked as a clerk, and his son followed the standard educational curriculum of the German Empire.
De Gaulle's grandparents were both educated and wealthy, but his father was a teacher and he was the first son in his family to hold a high government position.


Nixon grew up in a lower-middle-class family in Southern California.
Sadat was born the son of a clerk and struggled to find a guarantor when applying to the Egyptian military academy.
Born to Chinese Singaporean parents whose families were declining, Lee Kuan Yew relied on scholarships in Singapore and England to continue his education.
Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer and was the second woman and middle-class leader of the British Conservative Party.
No one could have predicted from the outset that he would become such an outstanding person.
Their backgrounds and experiences away from power gave them a clear understanding of what was in the national interest and a perspective that transcended the conventional wisdom of their time.

● The Qualifications of a True Leader: The Crisis of Leadership Education

According to political thinker Yuval Levin, modern elites with excellent test scores and impressive resumes “believe they have earned their power through their own efforts and want to hold it as a right, not a privilege.”
“Americans are increasingly skeptical of the legitimacy of elite claims not because it is so difficult to enter the upper echelons of American society (if it is at all), but because those in that class seem to be free to do whatever they want.
(……) In other words, the problem is not the entry criteria, but the lack of criteria after entry.
“Our elites do not consider themselves aristocrats, so they do not think there is a need for standards or restrictions.”

While 19th-century aristocrats were well aware of the high expectations placed on them, and 20th-century men of ability pursued the value of service, today's elites are busy talking about self-expression and personal development rather than discussing duty.
The modern world is quietly changing human consciousness, almost imperceptibly.
While this transformation is driven by new technologies that mediate our experiences and information about the world, we have not fully understood the long-term impact of these changes, including their impact on leadership.
In an age dominated by images, what is at risk of being lost? There are many names for this: knowledge, wisdom, serious and independent thinking, but the most appropriate one is "deep literacy."
Critic Adam Garfinkel defined it as “jumping into a long piece of writing in a way that anticipates the author’s direction and meaning.”
In the eras of the six leaders discussed in this book, deep literacy was invisible, like background radiation, yet omnipresent and pervasive.
For those involved in politics, deep literacy gave them what Max Weber called “the faculty of perceptiveness,” that is, “the ability to accept the reality that affects me while maintaining inner calm and composure.”
However, printed matter lost its former authority even before the end of the 20th century.

Leaders who have influenced the world and history have benefited from a rigorous humanistic education.
This type of education begins in a formal setting and continues throughout life through reading and discussion.
Today, few people take this first step, and few universities teach statecraft, either explicitly or implicitly.
Moreover, technological changes have made deep literacy less of a lifelong endeavor.
Therefore, to revive meritocracy, we need to re-emphasize humanistic education, encompassing subjects such as philosophy, political science, human geography, modern languages, history, economic thought, literature, and perhaps even the classical cultures that have long nurtured politicians.

● Leadership that leads to peace and coexistence beyond conflict

Many would agree that the current situation facing humanity is the worst crisis since World War II, both politically and economically.
China has emerged as a powerful competitor to the United States in economic and technological terms, to the point that the US Secretary of State himself called Nixon's foreign policy of normalizing diplomatic relations with China a failure.
And as relations between the two countries change, neighboring countries worry about the uncomfortable situation of having to stand in line.
Moreover, the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has lasted for over a year, has made us realize how close to our daily lives the crises of food, energy, security, and human rights have become.
The recent pandemic we all experienced together has made us realize that not only humanity but all life on Earth is interconnected, regardless of national borders. We must work together to overcome the crisis before us.


In a world where technologies capable of elevating or dismantling human civilization are advancing at an alarming rate, there is no perfect solution, not even in military terms or in competition between great powers.
If everyone becomes convinced that the other harbors malicious intent, ideologizes their foreign policy, and bases it on an unfettered technological competition, we risk a tragic cycle of mutual suspicion that sparked World War I, with consequences far more far-reaching than ever before.

Therefore, all parties must now reexamine their own first principles of international conduct and link them to the possibility of coexistence.
Leaders of high-tech societies, in particular, have a moral and strategic obligation to engage in ongoing discussions, both domestically and with potential adversaries, about how to limit the impact and military applications of technology.
These are topics too important to ignore until a crisis strikes.
Just as the discourse of military control contributed to deterring the nuclear age, exploring the impact of emerging technologies at high levels could foster habits of reflection and reciprocal, strategic self-control.