Quantifying Kissinger: Contrasting Dimensions of US Foreign Policy, 1968–77

"Everything on Paper Will Be Used Against Me: Quantifying Kissinger" is an historical text, data and network analysis of the National Security Archive's Kissinger Collection, a curated set of transcripts comprising over 18,600 telephone conversations and memoranda from 1968-1977. In contrast to the usual problem facing many historians (a scarcity of archival material), the deluge of material confronting scholars of the Nixon and Ford administrations poses an 'information overload' problem, one that ‘Quantifying Kissinger’ attempts to overcome using computational text analysis in conjunction with rich and multidimensional data visualization. Combining thousands of the Collection's document content and archival metadata points, the project uses data visualizations in 2- and 3-dimensional space, as well as additional dimensions including archival time and real time, to attempt to overcome limitations of scale and legibility imposed by the sheer complexity of the data. Engaging with the primary source material through a series of computationally-derived interfaces, the project surfaces Kissinger's activities regarding the Vietnam War, triangular diplomacy, internal bureaucracy and the Middle East (as well as his interpersonal relationships with President Nixon and the Soviet Union's Senior Ambassador). The project adds a new dimension to our understanding of Dr. Henry A. Kissinger - conceived, analyzed and rendered in digital form – using visual design, animation and interactivity in multiple dimensions.