Henry Kissinger and George Shultz will not endorse Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, even though the Democratic nominee considers the former to be a close personal friend and mentor.
“We are not making any endorsement in current presidential election. We are dedicated to fostering a bipartisan foreign policy, and we will devote ourselves to this effort now and after the election,” former secretaries of state Kissinger and Shultz said Friday in a joint statement.
Kissinger, 93, served under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Shultz, 95, served under President Ronald Reagan.
Their joint announcement comes after weeks of speculation by media that both former State Department chiefs would eventually throw their support behind former secretary Clinton. As recently as Friday morning, newsrooms were printing headlines that read, “Kissinger, George Schultz (sic) mull Clinton endorsement,” “Henry Kissinger To Endorse Clinton” and “Henry Kissinger may endorse Hillary Clinton. That could lose her more votes than it gains.”
The non-endorsement also comes after Clinton touted her relationship with Kissinger repeatedly during the Democratic presidential primary
“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better — better than anybody had run it in a long time. So I have an idea of what it’s going to take to make our government work more efficiently,” she said at a debate in February.
Her kind words for the former secretary of state go back much further than that. In 2014, she wrote in a review of his book, New World Order, that he was a good friend, and that she “relied on” his advice when she worked the top spot at Foggy Bottom.
Earlier than that, in 2009, Clinton said that Kissinger is, “the expert on theory and doctrine. I’m someone who thinks that it could help provide a framework and direction and lessons from history.”
Kissinger reciprocated in 2014, and said in an interview with USA Today, “I’ve known her for many years now, and I respect her intellect. And she ran the State Department in the most effective way that I’ve ever seen.”
