“Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt's time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it's different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.”

American diplomat, political scientist, and politician

Henry Kissinger was an American diplomat, political scientist, and politician. Born in 1923 and active in the Republican Party, he served in senior U.S. foreign policy posts under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was national security advisor from 1969 to 1975 and secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. His public life is tied to American diplomacy and strategy, and to the debates those roles continue to provoke.