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At least during the first half of the year, Henry Kissinger again seemed a candidate for Man of the Year. He remained a pre-eminent world figure. In the spring, his prolonged painstaking negotiations won an Arab-Israeli disengagement. But the Middle East has proved itself less susceptible than ever to peacemakers; today, Kissinger's patented, step-by-step approach seems to have bogged down. Détente proceeded fitfully; the U.S. and Russia agreed broadly on limitations of offensive nuclear weapons, but it was uncertain how effective these ceilings might ultimately be in preserving peace. After months of controversy about Soviet policy toward Jews wishing to emigrate, Congress passed a trade bill granting Russians most-favored-nation status.
A kind of Kissinger revisionism has set in, much of it for petty reasons, some of it for more serious ones. Among other things, he came under strong attack for complicity hi the CIA'S efforts to "destabilize" the regime of Chile's Salvador Allende. But there was a broader, more basic criticism: to many it seemed that Kissinger has dangerously concentrated and personalized the nation's capacity for making foreign policy. Yet he still held the unique esteem of the powers he had to deal with, including the Soviet Union and the Middle Eastern nations; in the U.S. he faced perhaps not a real decline, but simply a more realistic appraisal contrasted with the earlier, exaggerated view of him as a miracle worker.
Out
Other figures might have been chosen as Man or Woman of the Year. Yasser Arafat led the Palestine Liberation Organization to a position of power that has radically changed the circumstances of war and peace in the Middle East. Some might regard Alexander Solzhenitsyn as the Man of the Year for his extraordinary defiance in the Soviet Union and his exile from his homeland. Yet none could match the changes and the problems that the men from the oil powers brought to the world.
Elsewhere, leaders hardly stayed in place long enough to be in the running as Men of the Year. Governments changed with what seemed a manic rapidity. Israel's Golda Meir left office, replaced by Yitzhak Rabin. Japan's Kakuei Tanaka resigned amid scandal, with Takeo Miki succeeding him. Western Europe seemed beset by Fraktionspolitik. Great Britain deposed Edward Heath and reinstated Harold Wilson. France's Georges Pompidou died in April and was replaced by the progressive conservative Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. West Germany's Willy Brandt resigned in the shadow of a spy scandal, and was succeeded by moderate Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt. Italy lost its 31st government of the postwar era. Portugal deposed Marcello Caetano, the dictatorial heir of Salazar. Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie was stripped of hereditary power going back 2,500 years and trundled off to house arrest by a military junta.
All summer, the Greeks and Turks fought over Cyprus; the best that could be said for the island war was that it brought down the seven-year-old regime of the junta in Athens that was led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides. Former Premier Constantine Caramanlis was summoned back from self-imposed exile to form a new government.