The Kissinger Response is a reply for the featured speaker to a highly thorough introductory speaker. It originates with Henry Kissinger, who formulated it at the podium before some august assembly in the mid-80s (probably at the Council on Foreign Relations). He derived great currency from it, and has since deployed this response at a number of other functions.

With the swell of respect for Dr.Kissinger in the 90s, this anecdote has come into fairly common usage. The preparation for this response is in the hands of the introductory speaker. Therefore, it is not a rejoiner that one can be depended on using. Here, then is the anecdote, to be used following thanking the introductory speaker and giving a brief salutation to the audience.

Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford, was once introduced for a speech by one who said "our speaker tonight is Doctor Henry Kissinger, a man who needs little introduction," and then went on to carefully recount his notable accomplishments and writings. To which Kissinger replied "it is occasionally said that few people need an introduction less than I; but even fewer people enjoy a long introduction more than I do".

Today, some twenty years after the subject of this anecdote first playfully jabbed his colleague in the ribs for a few guffaws from the assembled secret masters of the world, the Kissinger Response has become rather hackneyed. But it remains invoked by speakers with pretensions to diplomatic grandeur.

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