As Amazon’s stunning pullout from New York fades into the news archives, its potent lessons for business negotiators risk being lost. Highly promising deals in diffuse multiparty settings with many potential spoilers, like Amazon’s planned headquarters in Queens, often collapse as a result of negotiating too narrowly with those who have formal power and authority. Negotiation experts have a patriarchal name for a version of this classic—and avoidable—mistake: Decide-Announce-Defend or DAD.

James K. Sebenius, the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author (with R. Nicholas Burns and Robert H. Mnookin) of Kissinger the Negotiator, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about why Kissinger was an effective negotiator, the lessons we can all learn about negotiation, and Trump’s private sector negotiations.

James K. Sebenius, the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author (with R. Nicholas Burns and Robert H. Mnookin) of Kissinger the Negotiator, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about why Kissinger was an effective negotiator, the lessons we can all learn about negotiation, and Trump’s private sector negotiations.

Jonathan Movroydis of the Nixon Now podcast is joined by James Sebenius, co-author of “Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level.

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?

Following a brief summary of Henry A. Kissinger’s career, this paper describes six of his most pivotal negotiations: the historic establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the easing of geopolitical tension with the Soviet Union, symbolized by the signing of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (“SALT I”), the limited success of the SALT II negotiations, the mediation after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war of the agreement on Sinai disengagement between Egypt and Israel and of the Israel-Syria Separation of Forces Agreement, and the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War.

President Richard M. Nixon was elected in 1968 with the widespread expectation that he would bring about an end to the costly and unpopular war in Vietnam. The task largely fell to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. When the negotiations began, North Vietnam appeared to have a winning hand with time on its side. To induce agreement from North Vietnam on acceptable terms, Kissinger orchestrated a complex negotiation campaign with multiple fronts: North Vietnam, the U.S. public and Congress China, the USSR, West Germany, and South Vietnam. Kissinger’s efforts culminated in the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, which held for about two years before collapsing in the wake of Watergate. The account in this working paper carefully describes — but does not analyze nor draw lessons from — core features of these challenging negotiations. Forthcoming papers will provide analysis and derive general insights from this negotiation campaign.

Paul R. Pillar and Robert Reardon respond to James K. Sebenius and Michael K. Singh's Winter 2012/2013 International Security article, "Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible: An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations."