Words are the tools of diplomacy.
Words are the tools of diplomacy. When done well, high-flung rhetoric can help define an era. With a foreign policy doyen like Henry Kissinger, the stakes were even higher, as he viewed speeches as not just a means to enunciate existing policy, but an opportunity to create new policy.
Mark Palmer discusses in an interview with ADST in 1994 what it was like toiling in the crucible that was Kissinger's State Department.
Read the entire account on ADST.org. This account was edited by C. Bradley.
PALMER: I said to [Assistant to Kissinger at the NSC; later Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Larry] Eagleburger that I wanted a chance to be Kissinger's speechwriter. Larry said no, that Henry had already hired some journalist who he knew to be his speechwriter as Secretary. I said, nonetheless, I wanted to meet him and make my case.