{"id":996,"date":"2025-08-08T08:44:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nscoesn-35e6c713fd-cxd2fma2bbh6g4df.z01.azurefd.net\/?p=996"},"modified":"2025-11-28T15:12:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:12:42","slug":"it-may-be-dangerous-to-be-americas-enemy-but-to-be-americas-friend-is-fatal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/archives\/996","title":{"rendered":"“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The follwing quote came up in discussions on Wednesday, and we notice online that it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d\u00b9 – Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State (\u201873 to \u201877) and National Security advisor (\u201869 to \u201875) under Nixon and Ford administrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quote was in commentary regading Vietnam\u2019s Nguy\u1ec5n V\u0103n Thi\u1ec7u\u2019s fate compared to Ng\u00f4 \u0110\u00ecnh Di\u1ec7m fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full quote: \u201cWord 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.\u201d\u00b9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting how this quote still applies today, and applies years before Kissinger said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting even more is that Kissinger paraphrased Russian Major General Aleksey Efimovich Vandam\u2019s quote, which was published in 1912, so likely stated much earlier than that, before the Soviet era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

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Translated: Finally, it is the turn of China, which, after its various experiences with the British and Americans , could safely say now \u2014 “it is bad to have an Anglo-Saxon as an enemy, but God forbid to have him as a friend!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 Buckley, William F., Jr. United Nations Journal: A Delegate’s Odyssey. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974. pp 56-57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 \u0412\u0430\u043d\u0434\u0430\u043c, \u0410\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0441\u0435\u0439 \u0415\u0444\u0438\u043c\u043e\u0432\u0438\u0447. \u041d\u0430\u0448\u0435 \u043f\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0436\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0435. \u0422\u0438\u043f\u043e\u0433\u0440\u0430\u0444\u0438\u044f \u0410.\u0421. \u0421\u0443\u0432\u043e\u0440\u0438\u043d\u0430, 1912. p123. URL \u201chttps:\/\/archive.org\/details\/nashe_polozhenie<\/a>\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The follwing quote came up in discussions on Wednesday, and we notice online that it\u2019s 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. \u201cThe word will go out to the nations of the world that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-english-anglais","category-politics-politiques"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nscoesn.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}