Putin Welcomes Kissinger: ‘Old Friends’ to Talk Shop

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin will meet Friday with former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to discuss world affairs, including elections in Russia and the United States, said Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov. Mr. Peskov said Mr. Kissinger requested the meeting in late November or early December. The two men are “old friends” who have met 8 or 10 times over the years, once dining at Mr. Kissinger’s home in New York, he said. Mr. Peskov said Mr. Putin was interested in Mr. Kissinger’s counsel about domestic politics, among other subjects. “He values everyone’s point of view, and especially such a wise man as Henry Kissinger,” Mr. Peskov said. …. Mr. Putin has cited Mr. Kissinger as a trusted foreign policy adviser. In the book “First Person,” Mr. Putin admiringly recalled a conversation in the early 1990s when, as an aide to the mayor of St. Petersburg, Mr. Putin was asked to pick up Mr. Kissinger at the airport. Mr. Kissinger made a strong impression by saying that he, too, had gotten his start in intelligence, and that he felt Mikhail S. Gorbachev had been too hasty in withdrawing Soviet forces from Eastern Europe. “I had never imagined I might hear something like that from the lips of Henry Kissinger,” Mr. Putin is quoted as saying. “I told him what I thought, and I will repeat it right now: Kissinger was right.” (Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com …