In this WNYC broadcast from 1958, a young Henry Kissinger discusses ways to correct the United States' loss of stature in the international community.

At the time of this recording, Kissinger, only 34, was the Director of Special Studies for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which had just published a report pointing to the United States' diminishing influence abroad and recommending steps to be taken to correct its position. In this program, Kissinger explains the report and outlines the causes of difficulties the government was then confronting in foreign policy.

This speech aired on WNYC as part of the New York Herald Tribune Books and Authors Luncheon, which is currently being transferred from the original lacquer transcription discs as part of the WNYC Archives project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Keep up with the project on the Archives blog Annotations.

Fifty-three years later, Mr. Kissinger was interviewed on The Takeaway. Listen to those segments here.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives collection.