It should not be surprising that the head of state of the American republic Richard Nixon elevated to high office the German-born Ashkenazi Jew Henry Kissinger. It was a brilliant partnership, the two men. I do not know enough about the details, as I was not there, but it seems to me, from my distance, that they worked well to bring down the tensions with the Soviet Union and to end the disastrous war in Vietnam. I was a teenager in high school, at Saratoga High School in Saratoga California [1972-1976], and although I was young, I was pretty nerdy and very interested in what was going on in Washington DC and also around the world. Watergate and the war in Vietnam were particularly captivating to me. Also the Cold War got me going, I was particularly fascinated by it. So Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were part of my life, at that time. I remember it pretty well. I used to leave Saratoga High School classes and come home and tune into PBS on the family room television and watch the congressional hearings on Watergate. I was also something of an expert on what was going on in Vietnam.

I would come to meet an Ashkenazi Jewish professor at University of California [Berkeley] named Franz Schurmann. This is after I started publishing World Affairs Monthly. Schurmann spoke some 12 languages, including Mandarin Chinese. To say we were friends is a stretch but we were friendly. I was also friends with his wife Sandy Close. Schurmann and Close were really journalists, like me. They wanted me to write for their Pacific News Service, based in San Francisco, they were a nice couple. I never did, and the reason is I do not work for anyone. I had World Affairs Monthly. He died of dementia and because of this he angrily called me an “anti-Semite” not long before his death of the disease in 2010. So why do I mention Schurmann?

As I said, we met in 2002 or so and we were on friendly terms, he told me he had written a book on Richard Nixon, an obscure work. Usually I know what is out there, but I had not heard of Schurmann and his book on Nixon. The Foreign Politics of Richard Nixon: The Grand Design. University of California Press, 1987. It is quite impressive, and there are a few reasons why no one has heard of it. I doubt it was widely read. Schurmann told me that it was his opinion, based on his research, that it was really only Richard Nixon who pushed for all this – end the war in Indochina and open diplomatic relations with China and cool tensions with the Soviet Union. Schurmann figured I would take a similar view, which I did of course. I just come to these conclusions, after observation and analysis. Schurmann told me that Henry Kissinger was credited with too much influence. Kissinger was not, Schumann told me, the driving force for the brilliant foreign policies. Nixon was.

OK I have now established the purpose of this obituary of Henry Kissinger. Actually, Kissinger was a friendly guy, gregarious, an Ashkenazi Jew fully aware of the dubiousness of Zionism and Israel. Kissinger authored many books, most of them impressive. I have not read all of them, scrutinized them, but they are good. His book on leadership is particularly impressive. Young people should read it. I have not read it really carefully but have become familiar with its argument. It is quite good, it is inspiring. I have a feeling that Kissinger was thinking of me when he wrote it, actually inspired by me to write it.

Kissinger called my writing brilliant. One time he called me [on my mobile telephone] when I was meeting with Moammar Gaddafi's ambassador at the United Nations in New York City. This was about 20 years ago. Gaddafi's top diplomat at the United Nations was a funny guy and we both laughed. Our discussion was interrupted by the Kissinger call.

Left-wing folks are correct to criticize the excesses of the Nixon-Kissinger partnership. They were not perfect, they would have benefited from me being around but I was just a kid. Bombing North Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and killing millions of innocents in Indochina was stupid. I was opposed to the war in Indochina as was Schurmann. But this is international politics, and it can obviously be a nasty business. I am certain Nixon and Kissinger were great friends, trusted each other, and always confided in each other. Yet I think it is obvious that Nixon was the real force, the real brain. What Henry Kissinger was doing was providing Nixon the statesman the trusted assistance that a man like that requires. Kissinger was an exceptionally honest Jew – which is rare. I assure everyone that he was a good and honorable man. Ashklenazi Jewish culture does not feature this often.

I was friends with Fritz Gustav Anton Kraemer (1908-2003). He is considered the mentor of Henry Kissinger. Kraemer once told me that Kissinger told him that he was really just kissing up to the establishment in New York City and Washington DC because he was just an ordinary Jewish kid from Germany, his parents were not wealthy. Kraemer told me that he told Kissinger that Kissinger's 1957 book on nuclear war Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy was nonsense, that it was ludicrous. Kissinger conceded that he did not really believe in its thesis – that limited nuclear war might be useful and actually winnable – but that he wrote it to advance his career and be a foreign policy star in the Republican Party. Kissinger was just an ordinary Jewish kid and had to kiss the butt of the Rockefeller family, who controlled the New York City-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

The opening to China was great and Henry Kissinger enthusiastically embraced the task and mission. He was a hard-working guy, totally devoted to America and also believing in America and its powerful role in the world. Cooling things down with the Soviet Union was also great, and Kissinger believed that Russia would be a partner of the United States – as I do. I am not an expert on Henry Kissinger but based on what I know he was a fine man and a dedicated scholar and talented diplomat. By the way, my friend Samuel Pisar (1929-2015) asserted to me in 1983 that the idea of detente with the Soviet Union came from him, that it was not Nixon's and Kissinger's idea but his. I know, this is funny. Well, I did happen to believe Pisar. The Ashkenazi Jew Pisar did not get credit for that idea. It is a nasty world, that's for sure.