• In his book What’s So Great About America (2002) Dinesh D'Souza attributes it to Kissinger, citing p. 54-70 in Kissingers book The White House Years (1979). However, there is no such sentence in said section nor something to that effect.
• Kissinger spoke of no permanent enemies, but without the no friends, only interests part: "We have always made it clear that we have no permanent enemies and that we will judge other countries, including Communist countries, and specifically countries like Communist China, on the basis of their actions and not on the basis of their domestic ideology". Link
• It echoes an actual quote by former british Prime Minister Lord Palmerston who said in a speech in the House of Commons in 1848: Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
• Kissinger once used Palmerston's quote to describe the foreign policy of Joseph Stalin. In his Book Diplomacy (1994) he writes on page 398: Cooperation with Hitler had made him no more sympathetic to Nazism than his subsequent alliance with the democracies impelled him to appreciate the virtues of free institutions. He would take from each temporary partner whatever was possible through diplomacy, and seize by force whatever had not been granted to him freely — as long as he could do so without risking war. His lodestar remained the Soviet national interest as refracted through the prism of communist ideology. To paraphrase Palmerston, he had no friends, only interests.
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." in the context of "There is no evidence that Kissinger said this.
• In his book What’s So Great About America (2002) Dinesh D'Souza attributes it to Kissinger, citing p. 54-70 in Kissingers book The White House Years (1979). However, there is no such sentence in said section nor something to that effect.
• Kissinger spoke of no permanent enemies, but without the no friends, only interests part: "We have always made it clear that we have no permanent enemies and that we will judge other countries, including Communist countries, and specifically countries like Communist China, on the basis of their actions and not on the basis of their domestic ideology". Link
• It echoes an actual quote by former british Prime Minister Lord Palmerston who said in a speech in the House of Commons in 1848: Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
• Kissinger once used Palmerston's quote to describe the foreign policy of Joseph Stalin. In his Book Diplomacy (1994) he writes on page 398: Cooperation with Hitler had made him no more sympathetic to Nazism than his subsequent alliance with the democracies impelled him to appreciate the virtues of free institutions. He would take from each temporary partner whatever was possible through diplomacy, and seize by force whatever had not been granted to him freely — as long as he could do so without risking war. His lodestar remained the Soviet national interest as refracted through the prism of communist ideology. To paraphrase Palmerston, he had no friends, only interests." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About Henry Kissinger