You say this ironically, but there are several relatively recent U.S. presidents or people in their administration who have said things that would get them branded tankies today.

I’m thinking specifically of a speech Jimmy Carter gave where he said it’s no wonder North Korea ended up the way it had, considering we bombed every building over two stories into the ground.

Kissinger is also obviously evil but only because of his realpolitik - by modern ideological standards where any anti-Western power is treated as worse than Hitler by even social Democrats, his dispassionate readings would get him labeled a Marxist.