“The Most Interesting Place in the World Is Where You Are Right Now” – A Talk with Stephen Kinzer

By Olivia O’Sullivan

Stephen Kinzer did not like the lectern. Occasionally he would lean against it, casually, as if relating a story among friends, but mostly he walked around, away from, to the side of it – anywhere but neatly in front of it. Similarly, his hands didn’t want to stay still either, gesturing to the sunny outside world as part of a point about journalism, miming gun-shots while telling an anecdote from his time as a foreign correspondent, twirling near his head to demonstrate American policymakers’ mental cogs slowly turning. Instead of delivering a prepared speech, he spoke energetically and extemporaneously to the assembled Oxy students as part of an engaging addition to this semester’s Diplomacy and World Affairslecture series.

In contrast to the lively, staccato nature of his delivery, though, his arguments and stories counselled, above all, patience and thoughtfulness. Threaded through tales from his career was an emphasis on the need to take the long, historical view of world events, viewing and engaging other countries with empathy, commitment and honest interest. Kinzer related what he had learned from his professor, Howard Zinn as a student – history is not static, but an ever-changing narrative, as much about who we are now as what was happening then.

He took this engaged and questioning approach into his career as an aspirant foreign correspondent, seeking the untold story by travelling to Central America before Sandinistas, civil wars and the policies of Ronald Reagan made that region front-page material. His genuine interest paid off – soon the New York Times recruited him as one of only two journalists in the country with the requisite familiarity, for their new Central American bureau.

He advised the audience to act along these lines when thinking about their futures – find a gap where people aren’t telling the interesting story. Never believe the newspaper you’re reading has a monopoly on what’s important or useful – go out and find it. Posted to Europe after Central America, he ultimately decided the Times needed an Istanbul bureau. Rather than accepting the current list, and he duly pushed to get one opened. From this vantage point he related covering the ex-Soviet states such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and even reaching beyond his remit to develop an interest in Iran, about which he would eventually write All the Shah’s Men, on the American and British sponsored-coup of 1953.

In explaining how he covered all these places, Kinzer emphasised his passion for taking the historical view – his favourite question always being “how did this country get this way?”. Answering questions both on policy and getting to understand Iran and other countries, he returned time and again to the theme of context and empathy – highlighting the importance of Pakistan’s historical anxiety about India in answering today’s policy questions and explaining the links between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and their thwarted bid to nationalise the oil industry in 1953. On today’s major policy dilemmas, he was optimistic about the democracy movement in Iran, suggesting Iran as a future major American ally, and insistent that American policy could and should be thoughtful and historically informed.

Tellingly, he explained that he avoided trying to learn about countries he visited from US diplomats – America, he said, always has an agenda for the country its in – a script to stick to.  This kind of short-term strategic thinking about the rest of the world clearly isn’t Kinzer’s style. As well as pointing out the problems this approach has caused us over the years, he explained that it’s no fun, either. The talk, and discussion afterwards, was a welcome and passionate argument for considering other peoples not merely in relation to their value for American interests, but as ends in themselves – for viewing other countries with the novel and the conversation as guiding constellations, not the CIA World fact book.

The talk was an invigorating survey as well as something of a gift to the anxious senior. Kinzer called for asking questions, getting interested – for sincere curiosity and simple questions. One sensed a man who views the world as not a scary place awaiting the graduating student, but somewhere filled with interest and detail and surprise.

Stephen Kinzer is a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent who has written extensively on foreign policy and history, covering US-sponsored coups in Guatemala and elsewhere, the rebuilding of Rwanda after the genocide, the Iranian coup in 1953, and the war in Nicaragua. His forthcoming book is ‘Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future’.

Olivia O’Sullivan is a recent graduate of Cambridge University. She is currently studying at Occidental College through a scholarship Pembroke College at Cambridge University. She can be contacted at osullivan@oxy.edu.