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  • Spring 2018
  • Article
  • Harvard International Review

Henry Kissinger and Robert Mugabe: The Forgotten Connection via Remarkably Creative Negotiation

By: James K. Sebenius
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

When Robert Mugabe was forced out of office in late 2017 after 37 years of increasingly brutal rule in Zimbabwe, he had been in the job so long that few recall how he got there. Fewer still remember that it was Henry Kissinger, whose complex, if unlikely, negotiations to achieve black majority rule in Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe, helped to facilitate Mugabe's ascent. Tracing this mostly forgotten episode illustrates the potential for creative and strategic negotiation to overcome what many regard as impossibly high barriers—as well as the painful lesson that negotiating virtuosity plus the election of a charismatic leader hardly suffice for a prosperous and democratic outcome.

Keywords

Negotiation; History; Negotiation Style; Outcome or Result; Zimbabwe

Citation

Sebenius, James K. "Henry Kissinger and Robert Mugabe: The Forgotten Connection via Remarkably Creative Negotiation." Harvard International Review 39, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 58–61.
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About The Author

James K. Sebenius

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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