Talk:Henry Kissinger

"Controversial" removed from lead

I don't understand why sourced statements in the lead were removed wholesale with the reason that they're already in the body ([1]). To my understanding, the lead is meant to be representative of the body of the article -- removing these entirely gives the lead a very different tone from the body itself.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 03:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Several Marxist and conservative historians have argued that Kissinger's actions were substantially no different than other U.S. foreign policies.

For instance: read up on Jimmy Carter and the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. KlayCax (talk) 07:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That is my understand of MOS:LEAD. I have restored the text removed from the third paragraph for now. (If more needs to be restored, then feel free to mention what should be and it can be discussed.)

@StardustToStardust: Can you clarify your removal? Is there a reason I am missing for why it should not be mentioned in the lede? It is noted at LEADCITE that information is usually repeated, so I don't understand the problem. --Super Goku V (talk) 09:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @StardustToStardust:'s decision to move this stuff to the body, @Super Goku V:. People are letting their emotions surrounding Kissinger — not unfounded — present WP: WEIGHT issues. His support for these things ranged from "tolerance" to "active support/encouragement" - and often involved other individuals than him (as he was also overruled by Nixon and other figures while in his tenure, et al.) - which is why including it in the lead presents WP: DUE issues. Many of these decisions involved other people than him. The third paragraph already states: condemned for turning a blind eye to war crimes committed by American allies. Reader's should be smart enough to realize that Kissinger is a piece of shit without us explicitly saying so.

We can also explain the situation more in the body. Lead's are supposed to be concise and the present one already mentions his link to war crimes. Listing every individual war crime he was involved in isn't the point of the beginning paragraphs.

Instead, the war crimes allegations should be expanded in the body, as he said. KlayCax (talk) 09:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I seem to have misunderstood your earlier response. I would self revert, but it seems you have already taken care of that for me. I will say that LEAD does say that we should note any prominent controversies, but it is correct that we should leave it out if there are WEIGHT and DUE issues. --Super Goku V (talk) 10:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There has been no consensus for the whitewashed version of this lead. Stop edit-warring and make an actual RFC for these changes. 71.47.59.27 (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The lead's not whitewashed. It mentions war crimes. The only thing that was removed was specific instances. This is because lead's are intended to be concise and historians disagree on what is most notable. (See what David Greenberg wrote in the Politico piece mentioned in the article. There's widespread disagreement on what war crimes should be highlighted.) Wikipedia can't right great wrongs. I agree that Kissinger was morally atrocious. KlayCax (talk) 06:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Then why does the lead list out so many of his positive accomplishments? The early life and education is covered in the body, as are his specific "successes" as SoS. If brevity is the goal, the second and third paragraphs of the lead as they exist now should be deleted as well. 71.47.59.27 (talk) 14:19, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@KlayCax: I've gone ahead and once again reverted the lead change; you summarised your edit as "consensus wording" when, as far as I can see right now, consensus seems fairly against the change you keep making. I'd probably agree with the IP editor's sentiment here—this is probably worth an actual discussion instead of just outright removal. Darling ☔ (talk · contribs) 21:53, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Consensus means status quo in this case. (Before his death was announced.) Of course controversy should be mentioned in the lead.

However, it was turning into a biographical coatrack. KlayCax (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree with IP user and Darling, the lead only mentions specific actions and policies that portray him in a positive light ("negotiated the Paris Peace Accords", shuttle diplomacy to "end the Yom Kippur War", sino-soviet split and opening relations with China). There absolutely needs to be mentions of at least some of the actions in the edit that KlayCax keeps reverting (U.S. bombing of Cambodia,Operation Condor, U.S. involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup, East Timor Genocide and Bangladesh liberation war. KlayCax you are the only user in this thread who doesn't want any of these policies to be mentioned, there is a consensus that they are as notable/important and that it's important to include policies he has received the most criticism for, instead of giving undue weight to a more favorable view. Ekcrisp (talk) 20:56, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

None are those things are necessarily positive or negative. A lot of historians, political scientists, and diplomats have argued that opening relations with China hurt U.S. interests in the long run, for instance.

Beyond this, all of the forementioned are covered in the lead by the sentence: However, he was also widely denounced as "having abandoned American values" due to his adherence to Realpolitik, which included overlooking human rights violations by allies—including those involved in war crimes—if it was judged to be geopolitically advantageous. Different historians place different emphasis on which particular instances of this are notable. For instance, other administrations (including Carter) also supported/funded Indonesia during their actions in East Timor, and other historians have placed more emphasis on his actions apparently sabotaging the Vietnam Peace Accords. (Through double playing LBJ to help Nixon obtain the presidency.) That's why choosing a select group of cases would be difficult to do; including everything turns the lead into a coatrack.

If you read the above, @Super Goku V: and several other editors agree with me. KlayCax (talk) 07:34, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Why is your argument here that since there isn't a consensus on which ones are considered the most significant among the criticised polices, no examples should be included at all? Providing specific examples for one side but not the other does not a good article make. 92.63.69.13 (talk) 19:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@KlayCax: I need to clarify the claim that I agreed with you. The closest I believe I came to agreeing was the if there are WEIGHT and DUE issues line. But I did not agree or disagree that there were any WEIGHT or DUE isses, just that if there are issues we should remove the content. --Super Goku V (talk) 20:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, apologies. @Super Goku V:. I assumed you agreed with me. KlayCax (talk) 05:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I have to ask: why do you think the status quo before his death matters at all? There are so many new sources since his death, of course the status quo has changed.

Like, look, here's the Washington Post seriously entertaining the argument that the only reason he wasn't charged for war crimes is that the International Criminal Court didn't exist when he was Secretary of State. Here's an opinion piece in Al Jazeera which openly accuses him of being a war criminal. Same with Teen Vogue. Here's Reuters, The Intercept, CBS, NBC, Politico, all at least mentioning and in some cases also seriously entertaining the idea that Kissinger was a war criminal.

And all these were published since Kissinger's death. So the idea that we have to go by the consensus of the page as of November 28th is just absurd. Right now we have all sorts of major newsorgs using the phrase "war criminal" to describe Kissinger, so not at least saying that people have made that accusation using those words would be an obvious violation of WP:NPOV. Loki (talk) 08:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The specific instances were, in fact, included in the lead before his death [2], and have been there for years according to the article history (for example, [3] is the article in July 2021). The status quo is clearly to include the material. Malerisch (talk) 08:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The thing is, @LokiTheLiar:. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Nixon and other American political figures have also been accused of committing war crimes to a similar or greater amount than Kissinger. Yet their articles uniformly exclude it from mention in the lead. Generally, Wikipedia doesn't call anyone "war criminals" in their respective leads, even if they committed actions generally considered to be as such. The exceptions being individuals like Vladimir Putin (who the ICC charged.). Kissinger never met this criteria. I sympathize with editors who want to add it. I just believe that this is a clear case of WP: RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS.

@Malerisch:. Whether it was in the article or not seems to have gone back and forth. It didn't seem to be a hard consensus - from what I can tell. Several others such as Goku have also objected to the editions.

Hopefully that makes sense. KlayCax (talk) 08:42, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

This seems, for one, like a clear WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and even then a very bad one.

The reason we mention Kissinger's war crimes is that every newsorg mentioned the allegations of war crimes in their obituaries of the man at least briefly. Like, I list them below. Some of the left-leaning ones, like Huffpost, Rolling Stone, and Teen Vogue, call him a war criminal in the article voice. Others at least take the allegations very seriously.

Needless to say, this is very unusual, even for people who have been credibily accused of war crimes. I'm not saying we should call him a war criminal in Wikivoice, because I agree we'd need extremely high levels of sourcing to do that, but we need to at least mention the allegations in the lead to satisfy WP:NPOV. Loki (talk) 09:01, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Goku didn't actually object. Goku said it should be excluded if there were weight issues, after having added it themselves. Loki (talk) 09:03, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

...after having added it themselves. The only thing I have edited regarding the article was the second paragraph, which was to restore the removed sentences. Should I take that to mean that the restored text in this edit is a weight issue? --Super Goku V (talk) 10:39, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I support the restoration of the text and think there would be a WP:WEIGHT issue with not including it. Loki (talk) 05:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, then I misunderstood entirely. Sorry about that. (I should have read the comment prior.)

If that is the case, then we should follow LEAD and mention them in some manner as you suggested earlier. (Personally, I am okay with it either way, so long as a decision or some form of consensus is reached.) --Super Goku V (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you cite evidence for any significant back and forth? From what I see, the status quo is to include it. I arbitrarily scrolled through the article history 250 edits at a time, and the article as of November 2022 [4], July 2021 [5], March 2020 [6], September 2019 [7], and October 2018 [8] all include the specific instances. Malerisch (talk) 09:03, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 November 2023

I hold a Masters degree in linguistics and TESOL, and I take issue with the Henry Kissinger article where it states that he was never able to lose his German accent because he was shy and afraid to speak English as a youth. The real reason he was never able to lose his accent is because he didn’t immigrate to the U.S. until he was 15. When a person begins to learn a language post-puberty, it is virtually impossible to speak that second language, in this case English, with out the accent of one’s first language, in this case German. So even if he hadn’t been shy to speak English while learning it, he’d speak English with a German accent. Demelzabunny (talk) 07:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done. Demelzabunny, nobody cares about your anonymous claims of expertise here. You would need to provide several impeccably reliable sources for the extraordinary claim that it is virtually impossible for a 15 year old German speaking immigrant to learn to speak English without an obvious accent. There are countless people, after all, who have accomplished that feat within a few years. Cullen328 (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe Demelzabunny's analysis is entirely correct here. However we need a source for this take that can be cited.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:18, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

have some experience with TESOL as well, agree with demelzabunny. also agree sources are needed, however i do think it is important to note that both learner anxiety (shyness) and age could play a role in accent retaining. I would also like to point out that demelzabunny said "an" accent, not an obvious accent; especially because many phonetic things are similar between English and German, it seems quite possible to "erase" one's accent, but there will still be some (albeit subtle) accent markers left behind 35.20.125.61 (talk) 21:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Henry Kissinger lived for 85 years in the United States. That's more than most humans in history have lived, period. Here is a video of Héctor Bellerín, a Spaniard who moved to London when he was 16 (one year older than Kissinger to America). He's 20 in the video, 80 years younger than Kissinger was when he died. Still think people can't pick up a new accent in 85 years? [9] Anyway, wiki policy, WP:V verify your claims, WP:OR no original research, and On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, we have no way of verifying your supposed credentials. Unknown Temptation (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Abbreviation in infobox

Hi! The infobox on this page uses the abbreviations AB and AM for Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, respectively, although this is not the abbreviation form used in other comparable articles.

Yes, Harvard, where Kissigner went, does use the AB/AM form of the abbreviations, but should the college's stylistic decision come in front of consistency with other articles?

Similar articles of American politicians, which are all good articles, such as Sonia Sotomayor, Woodrow Wilson, and Pete Buttigieg, all abbreviate them as BA/MA, even if they went to schools that use the AB/AM form. BhamBoi (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I am for using the abbreviations used by the institutions from where the education comes from. Since we use sources to verify all the information given, it almost seems like WP:SYNTH to change the details of a cited source. MaximusEditor (talk) 03:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Sources from Harvard or any other outlet that use AB/AM are not the only sources we can attribute his qualifications to. In fact, his own website says he received "his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University." BhamBoi (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2023

photograph of Henry Kissinger as a boy with his brother Walter with their grandparents' cat Tinyenn123 (talk) 18:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Also, you need to show us this supposed photograph, if it even exists. The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1^{(The Garage)} 23:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a book by Niall Ferguson. It is called Kissinger, The Idealist 1923-1968. Inside the book, the photograph is there Tinyenn123 (talk) 17:29, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected notice outdated

When I mouse over the small lock icon in the upper right corner indicating the article is semi-protected, it says that it's semi-protected "to promote compliance with the policy on biographies of living persons." Given that Kissinger is no longer a living person, I believe this language should be changed. Kilroy Was Here 1856 (talk) 20:17, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Kilroy Was Here 1856: Despite its name, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons also applies to people who have recently died (§ Recently dead or probably dead), so the semi-protection template is still valid for now. Malerisch (talk) 23:52, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Malerisch I did not expect that, that came as a surprise to me! Thanks for the information. Kilroy Was Here 1856 (talk) 07:31, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2023

Photograph of Henry Kissinger with Richard Nixon at the Pierre Hotel,New York City, on the day of his nomination as national security adviser Tinyenn123 (talk) 01:51, 8 December 2023 (UTC) Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist, Niall Ferguson

 Not done Please make your edit request in a clear Change X to Y format. Loafiewa (talk) 01:52, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

There is book by Niall Ferguson. It is called Kissinger, The Idealist: 1923-1968. In the book, you will find the photograph there. Tinyenn123 (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2023 (2)

K Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist, Niall Ferguson In the early life section, add photograph of "Fourteen-year old Heinz Kissinger (bottom left) and other students at the Jewish Realschule in Furth,1938" Tinyenn123 (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: Please make your request for a new image to be uploaded to Files For Upload. Once the file has been properly uploaded, feel free to reactivate this request to have the new image used. Liu1126 (talk) 17:24, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a book by Niall Ferguson. It is called Kissinger, The Idealist:1926-1968. In the book, you will find the photograph there. Tinyenn123 (talk) 17:40, 8 December 2023 (UTC)