The follwing quote came up in discussions on Wednesday, and we notice online that it’s being ab/used to support various positions. Because of this, we thought we would shed some light on the quote and let the readers formulate their own opinions.
“The word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”¹ – Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State (‘73 to ‘77) and National Security advisor (‘69 to ‘75) under Nixon and Ford administrations.
While Kissinger must have believed being an ally of the US is better, he was likely talking about the perception in his quote taken over the phone in November 1968 by William Buckley, shortly after Nixon was elected.
The quote was in commentary regading Vietnam’s Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s fate compared to Ngô Đình Diệm fate.
The full quote: “Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”¹
It’s interesting how this quote still applies today, and applies years before Kissinger said it.
Interesting even more is that Kissinger paraphrased Russian Major General Aleksey Efimovich Vandam’s quote, which was published in 1912, so likely stated much earlier than that, before the Soviet era.
Наконец наступает очередь и Китая, который после своих разнообразных опытов с англичанами и американцами смело мог бы сказать теперь — « плохо иметь англосакса врагом, но не дай Бог иметь его другом! »²
Translated: Finally, it is the turn of China, which, after its various experiences with the British and Americans , could safely say now — “it is bad to have an Anglo-Saxon as an enemy, but God forbid to have him as a friend!”
1 Buckley, William F., Jr. United Nations Journal: A Delegate’s Odyssey. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974. pp 56-57.
2 Вандам, Алексей Ефимович. Наше положение. Типография А.С. Суворина, 1912. p123. URL “https://archive.org/details/nashe_polozhenie”