Henry Kissinger Stated, 'Who Controls the Meals, Controls the Individuals'?

For years, web customers have attributed a saying about controlling nations by controlling their meals provide to Henry Kissinger, the U.S. diplomat who served as secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.

A number of variations of the quote have circulated. One, studying “Who controls the meals, controls the individuals,” has appeared in posts on X (archived) and Instagram (archived).

One other version (archived) that has popped up in social media posts (archived), in addition to on the quote meme web site Quotefancy, was: “Who controls the meals provide controls the individuals; who controls the power can management complete continents; who controls cash can management the world.”

(Quotefancy)

A 3rd model, which conspiracy theorist Alex Jones attributed to Kissinger in his 2022 book “The Nice Reset,” learn: “Management the Meals, management the Individuals. Management the Power, management the Continents. Management the Cash, management the World.”

Some web customers have puzzled whether or not Kissinger was actually the quote’s writer. For instance, in 2022, a Reddit person posted (archived) a model of the quote to the r/NoStupidQuestions subreddit, asking: “The place was Henry Kissinger and who was he talking to on the time? What was the context behind this assertion?” The 2 Reddit customers who responded to the submit each reported not having the ability to discover a main supply, and recommended the attribution is likely to be incorrect.

Did Kissinger Say the Quote?

A seemingly definitive reply got here in February 2023, lower than a yr earlier than the diplomat died at age 100. Requested concerning the authenticity of the quote, Kissinger’s press officer told (archived) Reuters that the diplomat “has by no means mentioned that citation or something prefer it on any social media or wherever else.”

Nevertheless, our investigation into the origin of the quote turned up two separate situations of the Kissinger attribution courting to 1985 — suggesting there is likely to be extra to the story. Each 1985 examples appeared in reader letters printed in newspapers. One ran within the Solar-Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) on Oct. 9, and gave the next model of the quote: “For those who management meals, you management individuals; in case you management oil, you management nations, in case you management cash, you management the world.”

The opposite 1985 instance appeared within the Speedy Metropolis (South Dakota) Journal on Oct. 30 and skim: “Once we management meals, we management individuals. Controlling power controls nations, however management of cash controls the world.”

Trying to find variations on the 2 1985 examples of the quote led us to what seems to have been the unique supply for the quote’s affiliation with Kissinger. In an article for the Washington Information Intelligence Syndicate, which might be seen under because it appeared within the Fort Lauderdale Information on Sept. 24, 1974, the reporter Paul Scott wrote: “It’s Kissinger’s perception, in keeping with aides, that by controlling meals one can management individuals, and by controlling power, particularly oil, one can management nations and monetary methods.”

https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-lauderdale-news/159435030/

Article from Sep 24, 1974 Fort Lauderdale Information (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) 

As a result of the reporter cited Kissinger’s aides somewhat than straight quoting Kissinger himself, this text doesn’t technically qualify as a main supply. Proving for sure that Kissinger was the unique supply for the quote would require demonstrable proof of him saying the phrases, resembling a video or printed transcript of a speech or interview.

Nevertheless, the existence of the 1974 article through which Kissinger’s aides attributed the saying to him suggests there’s some fact to the quote’s persistent affiliation with the diplomat, regardless of his press officer’s 2023 denial that Kissinger had ever mentioned something alongside these traces.

Earlier Examples

That mentioned, variations of the primary a part of the quote — regarding meals — appeared in a variety of earlier publications, elevating the chance that Kissinger might have been riffing on a beforehand current saying, if he did certainly say these phrases to his aides.

In 1945, for instance, the lawyer and poet Thomas Lomax-Hunter wrote in a Richmond (Virginia) Instances-Dispatch article: “Whosoever controls the individuals’s meals controls the individuals.”

In a 1944 speech recorded within the Congressional File, Alexander Wiley, a senator from Wisconsin, attributed the phrase “The one who controls the meals of a nation controls the nation” to Karl Marx. (We discovered no evidence to help Wiley’s declare that Marx — a frequent subject of false quote attributions — was the quote’s authentic writer.)

And in 1914, 9 years earlier than Kissinger’s start, the writer William Leavitt Stoddard started an article within the usually left-leaning Pearson’s Journal with: “Those that management the individuals’s meals management the lifetime of the individuals.”

In abstract, regardless of the absence of a main supply definitively proving Kissinger mentioned “Who controls the meals provide controls the individuals,” a 1974 syndicated newspaper article reported that Kissinger’s aides related the phrase — or a minimum of the gist of it — with their boss. Nevertheless, the existence of printed examples of variations of the quote courting as early as 1914 trace that Kissinger might need been referencing an current saying that had circulated for greater than half a century, somewhat than expressing a completely authentic sentiment. In consequence, we have rated this declare a combination of fact and fiction.

Sources