Frankfurt School philosopher and the pre-eminent theorist of the 1960s New Left
'In its advanced positions, it is the Great Refusal — the protest against that which is' — One-Dimensional Man (1964)
Herbert Marcuse was a central philosopher of the Frankfurt School who fused Marxism with Freudian psychoanalysis to develop a critical theory of modern capitalist society. In Eros and Civilization (1955) he analyzed the repressive structures of capitalist society and explored the utopian potential of liberated Eros, while in One-Dimensional Man (1964) he diagnosed advanced industrial society as a 'one-dimensional' order where technological abundance erodes critical consciousness, introducing the concept of repressive desublimation. A German-Jewish émigré who fled Nazism for the United States, he served in the OSS during the war and later taught at Brandeis and UC San Diego, becoming the intellectual pillar of the 1960s student movements and the New Left. His radical thought, crystallized in the 'Great Refusal,' has had a lasting impact on critical theory and emancipatory politics.
Career timeline
- 1932Joined Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) in exile, Geneva
- 1934–1942Researcher, Institute for Social Research, Columbia University, New York
- 1942–1951Analyst, OSS and State Department; head of Central European Section
- 1954–1965Professor of political theory, Brandeis University
- 1965–1970Professor of philosophy, UC San Diego
The architect of détente who used 'linkage' to build the first framework for superpower arms control, the face of American realism
In his notorious 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci, he declared: 'Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse. This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely.' The comment infuriated Nixon.
A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany at fifteen, Kissinger rose through Harvard's academic ranks to become the most consequential American foreign-policy maker of the Cold War. As National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under Nixon and Ford, he pioneered détente with the Soviet Union, devising the 'linkage' strategy that tied arms control and trade to Soviet restraint and conducting the secret backchannel with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that broke the deadlock over SALT I and the ABM Treaty at the 1972 Moscow Summit. He opened relations with Mao's China through clandestine diplomacy, mediated the Paris Peace Accords to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but also presided over the bombing of Cambodia and covert interventions that earned him lasting accusations of war crimes.
Career timeline
- 1938–1943Fled Nazi Germany for the U.S.; studied accounting at CCNY, then drafted into the U.S. Army
- 1943–1949Served in U.S. Army intelligence in Europe, Battle of the Bulge; CIC agent tracking Gestapo and administering denazification
- 1950–1969Harvard professor of government, director of the Defense Studies Program; foreign-policy advisor to Rockefeller and Nixon campaigns
- 1969–1975National Security Advisor: led détente, China opening, SALT I negotiations; managed the secret Dobrynin backchannel
- 1971–1972Secret trips to Beijing, meeting Zhou Enlai; paved the way for Nixon's 1972 China visit
- 1973–1977Secretary of State: Paris Peace Accords, Nobel Peace Prize (1973), Middle East shuttle diplomacy; implicated in 1973 Chilean coup
- 1977–2023Founded Kissinger Associates; authored books and advised twelve U.S. presidents
A journalist-historian of Cold War crises
In his Berlin 1961, Kempe records General Lucius Clay's retort to President Kennedy at the height of the Checkpoint Charlie tank standoff: "Mr. President, we're not worried about our nerves. We're worrying about those of you people in Washington."
Frederick Kempe is an American journalist and author whose German family background and European reporting shaped his work on Cold War politics and transatlantic affairs. His major book, Berlin 1961, combines newly declassified American, Soviet, and German documents with interviews to reconstruct the building of the Berlin Wall and the October tank confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie. The book interprets Kennedy's crisis management as weakness and places Khrushchev's decisions within their political constraints, an asymmetry that an independent review challenged and made part of the work's historiographical significance.
Career timeline
- 1977Graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism
- 1981Joined The Wall Street Journal as a London correspondent
- 1984Opened The Wall Street Journal's Vienna bureau
- 1990Became The Wall Street Journal's Berlin bureau chief
- 1992–1997Senior editor at The Wall Street Journal; founded Central European Economic Review
- 2002–2005European editor of the global Wall Street Journal
- 2007–President and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council
- 2011Published Berlin 1961
