In the spring of 1983, perhaps bored out of his mind since retiring from his position as gray eminence, Henry Kissinger decided it was time for the United States to host a FIFA World Cup. The 1986 edition of the tournament was supposed to take place in Colombia, but the government in Bogotá was too broke to afford the stadiums it had promised to build and too weak to keep Pablo Escobar in check, and so the country had backed down from its commitment. Securing the vacant seat for the United States would be child’s play: The championship was only three years away and, as the Colombian fiasco had made abundantly clear, the task of organizing the world’s most important sporting event on short notice couldn’t be left to a banana republic. Once again, it was time for America to save the day.

There was only one issue with the United States’ candidacy: “Soccer has never taken hold in the United States,” Kissinger admitted in an op-ed in the Washington Post .…