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基辛格:我们处在一个“非常危急的时期”

2018-08-02来源:和谐英语

It was not hard to entice Henry Kissinger to meet for lunch. Though he is 95, and moves very slowly, the grand consigliere of American diplomacy is keen to talk. He hops on and off planes to see the likes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping with as much zeal as when he played the global chess game as Richard Nixon’s diplomatic maestro. He loves to be in the thick of things. Persuading him to say what he actually thinks is another matter. Kissinger is to geopolitical clarity what Alan Greenspan was to monetary communication — an oracle whose insight is matched only by his indecipherability. It is my mission to push him out of his comfort zone. I want to know what he really thinks of Donald Trump.

邀请亨利基辛格共进午餐并不难。虽已95岁高龄,身体移动十分缓慢,但这位美国外交界的“大军师”非常健谈。曾为理查德尼克松总统在国际上纵横捭阖的这位外交大师,如今仍以同样的热情频频飞赴海外,与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔普京、中国国家主席习近平等大国领导人会晤。他喜欢置身于风口浪尖。但是,要说服他说出自己的心里话是另一回事。基辛格在地缘政治方面的清晰思维能力,就像艾伦格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)在货币政策上的沟通——大师级的洞察力,但是要破译他们的真知灼见并不容易。我的任务就是把他推出自己的舒适区。我想知道他对唐纳德特朗普到底怎么看。

The timing is perfect. We are having lunch the day after Trump met Putin in Helsinki — a summit that America’s foreign-policy establishment believes will go down as a low point in US diplomacy. Trump had done the unthinkable by endorsing Putin’s protestations of innocence of electoral sabotage over the word of America’s intelligence agencies. Later today Trump will unconvincingly try to undo what he said in Helsinki by insisting he meant “wouldn’t” instead of “would”. But it is too late for that. The New York Daily News has the screaming headline: “Open Treason” next to a cartoon of Trump shooting Uncle Sam in the head while holding Putin’s hand. There could be no better moment to jolt Kissinger off his Delphic perch.

时机堪称完美。我们在特朗普与普京在赫尔辛基会面后的次日共进午餐。美国外交政策的体制内人士相信,此次峰会将成为美国外交的一个低点。特朗普做出了不堪设想的表态:接受普京有关他与破坏美国大选无关的说法,而否定美国情报机构得出的结论。那天晚些时候,特朗普将难以让人信服地试图改口,坚称他想说的是“wouldn’t”,而非“would”(即他的本意是使用双重否定句式,表示他看不出任何不是俄罗斯在搞鬼的理由——译者注)。但为时已晚。《纽约每日新闻》(New York Daily News)使用了戏剧性的标题:《公然叛国》(Open Treason),并配发一幅特朗普一只手牵着普京的手、另一只手拿枪向山姆大叔(Uncle Sam)开枪的漫画。要让基辛格吐露真言,没有比这更好的时机了。

I arrive with a minute or two to spare. Kissinger is already seated. He cuts a gnomish figure at a corner table in a half-empty dining room. A large walking cane is propped against the side wall. (He tore a ligament a few years ago.) “Forgive me if I don’t get up,” says Kissinger in his gravelly German accent. We are at the Jubilee, a cosy French restaurant just around the corner from Kissinger’s Midtown Manhattan apartment. It is only a few blocks from Kissinger Associates, the geopolitical consultancy that charges clients princely sums to hear what I assume are his unvarnished thoughts. My only inducement is a nice lunch. When we order, Kissinger checks whether he is my guest.

我提前一两分钟来到餐厅。基辛格已经落座。他坐在这个半空着的餐厅角落里的一张桌子旁,显得很矮小。一根大大的手杖靠墙支着(几年前他撕裂了一根韧带)。基辛格用低沉沙哑的德国口音说道:“请见谅,我不方便起身。”午餐地点选在Jubilee,这是一家气氛温馨的法式餐厅,就在基辛格位于曼哈顿中城的公寓的拐角处。这里距基辛格顾问公司(Kissinger Associates)只有几个街区,这家地缘政治咨询公司向客户收取巨额费用,想必只有这些客户才能听到他的真实想法。我唯一给他的诱惑是一顿不错的午餐。我们点单时,基辛格想确认一下他是不是我的客人。

“Ah yes,” he says, chortling after I insist he is. “Otherwise that would be corruption.” He eats here often. “I had dinner here just last night with my daughter,” he says. On two or three occasions, someone comes over to shake his hand.

“啊,是呀,”在我确认之后他开心地笑着说,“否则就是腐败了。”(指媒体记者在采访时不能让对方买单请客——译者注)他经常在这里用餐。他说:“我昨晚还和女儿在这里共进晚餐。”不时有几个人走过来跟他握手。

“We’re in a very, very grave period,” said Kissinger. Something like a biblical storm has descended since we sat down. One umbrella literally flew past the window. I help Kissinger through the soaking whiplash to his car. The driver takes his other arm. He is unsteady. I realise that I have been ungraciously interrogating a man almost twice my age. “Dr Kissinger has been looking forward to this lunch for days,” says the server after I return to borrow an umbrella. That is nice, I think — though I fear my Trump questions may have depressed his appetite.

基辛格说,“我们处在一个非常危急的时期”。在我们坐下后,一场暴雨就开始了。此时,一把雨伞从窗外掠过。我扶着基辛格在雨中走向他的汽车。司机扶起他另一旁的胳膊。他站不太稳。我意识到,我一直在不礼貌地审问一个年龄几乎是我两倍大的男子。“基辛格博士几天前就开始期待这顿午餐了。”我回到餐厅借雨伞时服务员对我说。我感觉不错——尽管我担心我提出的关于特朗普的问题可能让他失去了胃口。