Henry Kissinger on Richard Nixon

“Nixon had the quality that...he thought of himself as acting best in crisis. And there was a lot in that. But it reached the point where one sometimes had the impression that he invited crisis and that he couldn't stand normalcy.”

“Nixon's comments about Jews were sort of — there was a huge disparity between the comments he made about Jews and the large number of Jews he had in his administration. And it is hard to believe in one sense. I don't really think Nixon was anti-Semitic. He had sort of standard phrases.”

“One has to understand the human problem of a man who had spent all of his life trying to become President whose personality really did not lend itself to politics. He didn't like to meet new people. He didn't like to give direct orders. He didn't like face-to-face confrontations—all the things you have to do as President. He made himself do all these things. And just when he had achieved, for the first time, a tremendous electoral victory, everything collapsed on him.”