This book draws on the authors’ extensive interviews with Kissinger as well as careful study of his writings and those of many others, both critical and supportive. In an engaging narrative, it answers several questions that offer valuable lessons for today’s negotiators: How did Kissinger do these deals? What strategies and tactics worked and what failed? Why, how, and under what conditions? What ethical challenges does this approach present?

On March 3, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Harvard University at the invitation of Professors Nicholas Burns (HKS), Robert Mnookin (HLS), and James Sebenius (HBS) in one of her first public engagements since last autumn.

As part of Harvard's American Secretaries of State Project, Clinton shares lessons of her time as secretary of state.

In 1976, United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger conducted a series of intricate, multiparty negotiations in Southern Africa to persuade white Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to accede to black majority rule. Conducted near the end of President Gerald Ford’s term in office, against substantial U.S. domestic opposition, Kissinger’s efforts culminated in Smith’s public announcement that he would accept majority rule within two years. This set the stage for the later Lancaster House negotiations which resulted in the actual transition to black majority rule. The account in this working paper carefully describes — but does not analyze nor draw lessons from — these challenging negotiations. Forthcoming papers will provide analysis and derive general insights from Kissinger’s negotiations to end white minority rule in Rhodesia.

A profound paradox characterizes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: While the outline of a two-state solution that would better serve the interests of most Israelis and most Palestinians is reasonably clear, leaders of both parties are unable to reach agreement across the negotiation table this seemingly intractable, often violent, conflict persists.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply paradoxical: the basic outline of a deal is reasonably clear and yet this violent conflict persists with over 4,000 causalities since the collapse of the last significant effort to bring peace in 2000. The paper suggests that this paradox stems from internal conflicts on each side.