World Socionics

  Gore Vidal (Eugene Luther Gore Vidal) was an American writer of novels, essays, stage plays and scripts for television and cinema, active from the 1940s to the 2000s. Towards the end of his life he became better known as a political polemicist in essays, interviews and speeches, mostly denouncing what he called "the national security state" in the US.  He was on occasion a political candidate, running unsuccessfully as a Democrat in 1960 for Congress in what was then New York's 29th District, and in 1982 in the California primaries for the US Senate. During his 1960 campaign, he actually came up with the concept of what would later become the Peace Corps, introduced by President Kennedy. As a writer, Vidal was best known for such bestselling novels as The City and the Pillar (1948), Julian (1964), Myra Breckingridge  (1968), Burr (1973), Creation (1981) and  Lincoln (1984). His last novel was The Golden Age (2000). In his later years he focused increasingly...

Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Kissinger in 1923) is a German-American writer, geopolitical analyst, consultant, and former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State to presidents Richard Nixon ( ESI ) and Gerald Ford ( SLI ), having the distinction of being the only person in history to have held both titles at the same time. Kissinger’s reputation is controversial. He is praised by some for his use of realpolitik , an approach to diplomacy that chooses to eschew ideology or morality in favor of pragmatism. He is also praised by many for his achievements, including his pivotal role in pursuing détente with the Soviet Union, opening negotiations with the diplomatically isolated Maoist China, negotiating a ceasefire to the Yom-Kippur war, setting the stage for long-lasting peace between Israel and Egypt (completed during the Carter administration), and negotiating the end of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. However, Kissinger is also routinely criticized for his ...

Louis XV was King of France and Navarre from 1715, when he was five years old, until his death in 1774 at the age of sixty-four. He was the fourth king of the House of Bourbon, ascending the throne on the death of his great-grandfather, King Louis XIV (LSI) . It was during his reign that France consolidated its present European borders. Unlike his immediate predecessor and successor, Louis XV's reign and legacy are controversial and are often reevaluated. While Louis XIV is easily defined as the king who relentlessly pushed for increasing the power of the monarchy and for wars aiming at expanding French territory and power, and Louis XVI (LII)  is the king who ineptly drifted into revolution and lost his head, Louis XV is far more difficult to assess. He has been considered the king chiefly responsible for the collapse of the prestige of the French monarchy - thus passing on to his successor an impossible legacy - due to the scandal of his private life and the perceived failure...