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John Bolton’s long summer got even longer just before Labor Day weekend.
In May, President Donald Trump publicly and privately distanced himself from his hawkish national security adviser, particularly on Iran and North Korea. Every few weeks since then, the media have documented someone else—a TV personality, a retired general, a senator or two—who has the president’s ear on foreign policy and wondered why Trump has kept Bolton around at all. Then, last week, the Washington Post reported Bolton had been cut out of a briefing on the U.S. plan to end the war in Afghanistan by way of a peace deal he has opposed.
As a cruel summer turns to autumn, Bolton can take heart that many of his predecessors have spent time in the president‘s harsh glare. Some might be surprised to learn that even Henry Kissinger, who made the title “national security adviser” a household name, was in the doghouse with Richard Nixon 50 years ago.
Kissinger, as Bolton has, sought to shake up the national security bureaucracy by doing away with formal processes and developing a close partnership with the president. But when Nixon grew annoyed with Kissinger, the national security adviser struggled to refind his footing. Unfortunately, as I discovered researching for a new book on the National Security Council, the obsequious path Kissinger took on his way to getting back in Nixon’s good graces—indulging the president’s penchant for surveillance and desire to escalate the war in Vietnam—helped lead the United States down a dark and divisive path.
Bolton, who has both a longer government résumé than Kissinger and bigger policy differences with his president, now must decide what, if anything, he can do to earn Trump’s approval again. As he considers his options—and, perhaps more importantly, the fate of the country—Kissinger’s return from the cold is a cautionary tale.
