[Richard Nixon] would have been a great, great man had somebody loved him.

Kissinger’s remark frames Richard Nixon’s political and personal failings as rooted less in intellect or strategic capacity than in emotional deprivation. The line suggests a counterfactual: with secure affection and affirmation, Nixon’s well-known insecurity, suspicion, and defensiveness might have softened, allowing his considerable talents—discipline, geopolitical imagination, and resilience—to express themselves without the self-sabotaging impulses that culminated in Watergate. It also reflects a common post-presidential reassessment of Nixon that separates “statesmanlike” achievements (e.g., détente, opening to China) from character-driven ethical collapse, implying that private wounds can distort public power.