I read part of Kissinger's seminal work Diplomacy in college. I've been reading it recently because his freakishly dense vocabulary and odd sentence structure can really help put you to sleep, especially the parts about 16th century European military alliances. The book get much better and loses its sleep-inducing properties once it hits the Cold War, but even if the topic is interesting, Kissinger remains dry and sterile. And so I almost missed this gem when reading tonight. Behold from chapter 28, page 708: The assurance that America would keep its commitments was boilerplate; like professions of chastity, it has limited plausibility since its abandonment is unlikely to be announced before the event.
Freaking awesome. Henry Kissinger embedded a sexual analogy in the middle of discussing the difficulties of leaving Vietnam. How funny and inappropriate all at the same time. |