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Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923) is a German-born American Jewish political scientist, bureaucrat, diplomat, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the Nixon administration.
A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente. He negotiated a settlement ending the Vietnam war, but due to a combination of causes, the cease-fire proved unstable; no lasting peace resulted beyond the retreat of US troops.
In the Nixon and Ford administrations he cut a flamboyant figure, or the telegenicity of his companions made it seem so.
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Quotations
Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.
cited in Max Frisch, Sketchbook 1966-1971 (Werke VI/277)
Stephen, it is time to rock.
Kissinger officialy declaring the start of The Shred Off on the Colbert Report December 20, 2006.
In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.
"The Vietnam Negotiations", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2 (January 1969), p. 214
In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.
Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days, chapter 14
Encyclopedia
Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923) is a German-born American Jewish political scientist, bureaucrat, diplomat, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the Nixon administration.
A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente. He negotiated a settlement ending the Vietnam war, but due to a combination of causes, the cease-fire proved unstable; no lasting peace resulted beyond the retreat of US troops.
In the Nixon and Ford administrations he cut a flamboyant figure, or the telegenicity of his companions made it seem so. He described himself as perhaps the only National Security Advisor to have a fan club. His foreign policy record made him a nemesis to the anti-war left (see the Operation Condor section below).
Kissinger's political involvement continues—he was the "most frequent visitor" to the George W. Bush White House as an unofficial political advisor on Israel and the Middle East—including the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Personal background
Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, to Jewish parents Louis Kissinger (1887-1982), a schoolteacher, and Paula Stern (1901-1998). His surname was first taken by his great-great-grandfather, Meyer Löb, in 1817 after the city of Bad Kissingen. In 1938, fleeing Nazi persecution, his family moved to New York. Here he (or maybe his parents) changed his name to Henry because Heinz sounded too German. Kissinger was naturalized a U.S. citizen on June 19, 1943, while in military training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He was 20.
He spent his high school years in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan, but never lost his pronounced German accent, perhaps due to childhood shyness which made him hesitant to speak. Henry Kissinger attended George Washington High School at night and worked in a shaving-brush factory during the day. While attending City College of New York, in 1943, he was drafted into the US Army, trained at Clemson College in South Carolina, and became a German interpreter for the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps. He thus achieved the rank of sergeant. Following the war, he remained in Europe as a civilian instructor at the European Command Intelligence School, Camp King.
Henry Kissinger received his A.B. degree summa cum laude at Harvard College in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott. He received his A.M. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University in 1952 and 1954, respectively. In 1952, while still at Harvard, he served as a consultant to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board. His doctoral dissertation was "Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich)."
Kissinger remained at Harvard as a member of the faculty in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs. He became Associate Director of the latter in 1957. In 1955, he was a consultant to the National Security Council's Operations Coordinating Board. During 1955 and 1956, he was also Study Director in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He released his Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy the following year. From 1956 to 1958 he worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project. He was Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971. He was also Director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971. Outside of academia, he served as a consultant to several government agencies, including the Operations Research Office, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Department of State, and the Rand Corporation, a think-tank.
Keen to have a greater influence on US foreign policy, Kissinger became a supporter of, and advisor to, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, who sought the Republican nomination for President in 1960, 1964 and 1968. After Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968, he made Kissinger National Security Advisor.
With his first wife, Ann Fleischer, he had two children, Elizabeth and David. Henry and Ann divorced in 1964. He married Nancy Maginnes in 1973. They live in Kent, Connecticut. He is the head of Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm. During the years in between the end of his first marriage and his second, Kissinger was linked to a number of high-profile women, including Barbara Walters, Gina Lollobrigida, Joanna Barnes, Marlo Thomas, Persis Khambatta, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Candice Bergen, Samantha Eggar, and Jill St. John.
He had triple coronary bypass heart surgery in May 1982.
He has a brother, Walter, who is one year younger.
Kissinger is a fan of the New York Yankees baseball team. A life long soccer fan, Kissinger is a supporter and honorary member of the German soccer club Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth from his hometown, of which he was a member in his youth. During the 1970s, Kissinger was among the many celebrity fans of the New York Cosmos. He was proclaimed an honorary Harlem Globetrotter in 1976.
Foreign policy
Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, and continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford.
A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. In that period, he extended the policy of détente. This policy led to a significant relaxation in U.S.-Soviet tensions and played a crucial role in 1971 talks with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The talks concluded with a rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China, and the formation of a new strategic anti-Soviet Sino-American alliance. He was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to establish a ceasefire in and US withdrawal from Vietnam. The ceasefire, however, was not durable.
Kissinger favored the maintenance of friendly diplomatic relationships with right-wing military dictatorships in the Southern Cone and elsewhere in Latin America.
Détente and the opening to China
As National Security Advisor under Nixon, Kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, seeking a relaxation in tensions between the two superpowers. As a part of this strategy, he negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (culminating in the SALT I treaty) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Negotiations about strategic disarmament were originally supposed to start under the Johnson Administration but were postponed in protest to the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
Kissinger sought to place diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union. He made two trips to the People's Republic of China in July and October, 1971 (the first of which was made in secret) to confer with Premier Zhou Enlai, then in charge of Chinese foreign policy. This paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou, and Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong, as well as the formalization of relations between the two countries, ending 23 years of diplomatic isolation and mutual hostility. The result was the formation of a tacit strategic anti-Soviet alliance between China and the United States. While Kissinger's diplomacy led to economic and cultural exchanges between the two sides and the establishment of Liaison Offices in the Chinese and American capitals, with serious implications for Indochinese matters, full normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China would not occur until 1979, for reasons including the following: Watergate (see article) overshadowed the latter years of the Nixon presidency. Second, the United States also continued to recognize the Republic of China government on Taiwan. Nevertheless, the idea of opening to China is often cited as Kissinger's international masterstroke, and the ultimate reward for his faith in realpolitik.
Vietnam War
Kissinger's involvement in Indochina started prior to his appointment as National Security Adviser to Nixon. While still at Harvard, he had worked as a consultant on foreign policy to both the White House and State Department. Kissinger says that "In August 1965...Henry Cabot Lodge, an old friend serving as Ambassador to Saigon, had asked me to visit Vietnam as his consultant. I toured Vietnam first for two weeks in October and November 1965, again for about ten days in July 1966, and a third time for a few days in October 1966...Lodge gave me a free hand to look into any subject of my choice". He became convinced of the meaninglessness of military victories in Vietnam, "...unless they brought about a political reality that could survive our ultimate withdrawal." In a 1967 peace initiative, he would mediate between Washington and Hanoi.
Nixon had been elected in 1968 on the promise of achieving "peace with honor" and ending the Vietnam War. In office, and assisted by Kissinger, Nixon implemented a policy of Vietnamization that aimed to gradually withdraw US troops while expanding the combat role of the enabling South Vietnamese Army so that it would be capable of independently defending its regime against the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a Communist guerrilla organization, and North Vietnamese army (Vietnam People's Army or PAVN). Kissinger played a key role in a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia to disrupt PAVN and Viet Cong units launching raids into South Vietnam from within Cambodia's borders and resupplying their forces by using the Ho Chi Minh trail and other routes, as well as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion and subsequent widespread bombing of Cambodia. The bombing campaign contributed to the chaos of the Cambodian Civil War, which saw the forces of dictator Lon Nol unable to retain foreign support to combat the growing Khmer Rouge insurgency that would overthrow him in 1975.
Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed the January previous. Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam. Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility." The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in a North Vietnamese victory in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao in Laos towards figurehead status, and the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Then Kissinger returned the money portion of the Nobel Prize, the Nobel committee just as readily returning his return.
1971 Indo-Pakistani War
Under Kissinger's guidance, the United States government supported Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in South Asia as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the Soviet Union, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the Soviet Union) the value of a tacit alliance with the United States.
In recent years, Kissinger has come under fire for private comments he made to Nixon during the Indo-Pakistan War in which he described then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a "bitch." Kissinger has since expressed his regret over the comments.
1973 Yom Kippur War
In 1973, Kissinger negotiated the end to the Yom Kippur War, which had begun with an attack against Israel by Egyptian and Syrian forces. Kissinger has published lengthy and dramatic telephone transcripts from this period in the 2002 book Crisis. Under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial opposition , the US military conducted the largest military airlift in history. US action contributed to the 1973 oil crisis in the United States and its Western European allies, which ended in March 1974.
Israel regained the territory it lost in the early fighting and gained new territories from Syria and Egypt, including land in Syria east of the previously captured Golan Heights, and additionally on the western bank of the Suez Canal, although they did lose some territory on the eastern side of the Suez Canal that had been in Israeli hands since the end of the Six Day War. Kissinger pressured the Israelis to cede some of the newly captured land back to its Arab neighbours, contributing to the first phases of Israeli-Egyptian non-aggression. The move saw a warming in US–Egyptian relations, bitter since the 1950s, as the country moved away from its former independent stance and into a close partnership with the United States. The peace was finalized in 1978 when US president Jimmy Carter mediated the Camp David Accords, during which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for an Egyptian agreement to recognize the state of Israel.
1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
In 1974 the junta which then ruled Greece staged a supportive coup with the Cypriot president Archbishop Makarios III and Turkey launched an America endorsed invasion "to restore constitutional order on Cyprus, which has established Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that only recognized by itself , this suited American foreign policy as Makarios was leaning toward the Soviets and possibly communism.
In a White House memorandum of a conversation from February 20, 1975, Kissinger said: “In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid.” According to The Raw Story, the context and the time period suggests Kissinger had supported illegal financial and military aid to Turkey for the 1974 Cyprus invasion.
Latin American policy
The United States continued to recognize and maintain relationships with non-left-wing governments, democratic and authoritarian alike. John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress was ended in 1973. In 1974, negotiations about new settlement over Panama Canal started. They eventually led to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties and handing the Canal over to Panamanian control.
Kissinger initially supported the normalization of United States-Cuba relations, broken since 1961 (all U.S.–Cuban trade was blocked in February 1962, a few weeks after the exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States because US pressure). However, he quickly changed his mind and followed Kennedy's policy. After the involvement of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces in the liberation struggles in Angola and Mozambique, Kissinger said that unless Cuba withdrew its forces relations would not be normalized. Cuba refused.
Intervention in Chile
Chilean Socialist presidential candidate Salvador Allende was elected by a majority in 1970, causing serious concern in Washington due to his openly socialist and pro-Cuban politics. The Nixon administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to instigate a military coup that would prevent Allende's inauguration, but the plan was not successful. The extent of Kissinger's involvement in or support of these plans is a subject of controversy. Yet it is proven fact that he was involved in what turned into the murder of a Chilean General, René Schneider, who was opposed to and stood in the way of a military coup.
United States-Chile relations remained frosty during Salvador Allende's tenure; following the complete nationalization of the partially U.S.-owned copper mines and the Chilean subsidiary of the U.S.-based ITT Corporation, as well as other Chilean businesses. The U.S. implemented economic sanctions, claiming that the Chilean government had greatly undervalued fair compensation for the nationalization by subtracting what it deemed "excess profits." The CIA, directly instigated by Kissinger, provided formation and education for the military officers directly involved in the coup against Allende, and funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973; during this period, Kissinger made several controversial statements regarding Chile's government, stating that "the issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves" and "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." These remarks sparked outrage among many commentators, who considered them patronizing and disparaging of both Chile's sovereignty and democracy.
In September 1973, Allende committed suicide during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, who became President.
A document released by the CIA in 2000 titled "CIA Activities in Chile" revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or US military, even though many were known to be involved in notorious human rights abuses, until Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter, who was less tolerant of open human rights abuses, defeated President Gerald Ford in 1976.
On September 16, 1973, five days after Pinochet had assumed power, the following exchange about the coup took place between Kissinger and President Nixon:
- Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there?
- Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.
- Nixon: Isn't that something. Isn't that something.
- Kissinger: I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.
- Nixon: Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one though.
- Kissinger: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. [garbled] created the conditions as great as possible.
- Nixon: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played.
Intervention in Argentina
Kissinger took a similar line as he had toward Chile when the Argentine military, led by Jorge Videla, toppled the democratic government of Isabel Perón in 1976 and consolidated power, launching brutal reprisals and "disappearances" against political opponents. During a meeting with Argentine foreign minister César Augusto Guzzetti, Kissinger assured him that the United States was an ally, but urged him to "get back to normal procedures" quickly before the U.S. Congress reconvened and had a chance to consider sanctions.
Africa
In 1974 a leftist military coup overthrew the Caetano government in Portugal in the Carnation Revolution. The National Salvation Junta, the new government, quickly granted Portugal's colonies independence. Cuban troops in Angola supported the left-wing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in its fight against right-wing UNITA and FNLA rebels during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002). Kissinger supported FNLA, led by Holden Roberto, and UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) insurgencies, as well as the CIA-supported invasion of Angola by South African troops. In 1976 South African troops withdrew due to US Congressional opposition.
In September 1976 Kissinger was actively involved in negotiations regarding the Rhodesian Bush War. Kissinger, along with South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster, pressured Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith to hasten the transition to black majority rule in Rhodesia. With FRELIMO in control of Mozambique and even South Africa withdrawing its support, Rhodesia's isolation was nearly complete. According to Smith's autobiography, Kissinger told Smith of Mrs. Kissinger's admiration for him, but Smith stated that he thought Kissinger was asking him to sign Rhodesia's "death certificate." Kissinger, bringing the weight of the United States, and corralling other relevant parties to put pressure on Rhodesia, hastened the end of minority-rule.
East Timor
The Portuguese decolonization process brought US attention to the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, which lies within the Indonesian archipelago and declared its independence in 1975. Indonesian president Suharto was a strong US ally in Southeast Asia and began to mobilize his army, preparing to annex the nascent state, which had become increasingly dominated by the popular leftist FRETILIN party. In December 1975, Suharto discussed the invasion plans during a meeting with Kissinger and President Ford in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Both Ford and Kissinger made clear that US relations with Indonesia would remain strong and that it would not object to the proposed annexation. US arms sales to Indonesia continued, and Suharto went ahead with the annexation plan, meeting strong resistance from the East Timorese. The Indonesian army responded with indiscriminate massacres; the 2005 report of the UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor reports a figure of at least 102,800 deaths during the occupation: 18,600 unlawful executions and 84,200 starvation deaths, roughly 10% of the whole population of around one million. The Indonesian government's annexation of East Timor as its 27th province was not accepted by the United Nations or the majority of countries. Much later, Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the twenty-first century on May 20, 2002.
Portugal
Kissinger is believed to also have wanted the US to work against the 1974 Carnation Revolution, a left-wing military coup that led to Portugal's democracy after decades of right-wing dictatorship.
Accusations of war crimes and legal difficulties
Columbia University Students Reject Kissinger's Appointment to Endowed Chair at the University
Shortly after Kissinger left office, he was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University (in 1977). The position came with considerable funding and would have given Kissinger his first platform for rehabilitating his then shattered reputation. When news of the proposed chair leaked out, a small group of students immediately began collecting signatures for a petition opposing his appointment. The petition charged Kissinger with illegal actions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, and in ordering domestic wiretaps of National Security Council staff.
The petition effort sparked wider organizing and the quickly formed "Ad Hoc Committee to Oppose Kissinger's Appointment" offered detailed substantiation of each of the charges in flyers widely distributed on campus. Kissinger's initial classes and meetings held on campus were dogged by protesters at every step.
The spectacle of the former secretary hounded and humiliated by his students was picked up in the popular comic strip Doonesbury by Trudeau. The continuing strips detailed students attempt to challenge Kissinger in the street and in the classroom.
Columnists such as Anthony Lewis of the New York Times and Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice chimed in with opinions that denying Kissinger the chair would not be a violation of academic freedom and within weeks the story had become national news, breaking in Newsweek and on the front page of the Washington Post. Many of the news stories included a litany of the offenses Kissinger was alleged to have committed. Rather than a stepping stone toward rehabilitation, the appointment was spreading knowledge about Kissinger's actual record and rekindling student activism on the Columbia campus. After several months of pressure, the University and Kissinger mutually agreed that it was not the time to undertake such an appointment. Kissinger went to Georgetown University, where the students were less confrontational, to take a less prestigious and less permanent teaching and researching assignment.
The Trial of Henry Kissinger (book and movie)
A revival of interest in Henry Kissinger came in 2001, when journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote The Trial of Henry Kissinger, a scathing critique of Kissinger's policy that accused him of war crimes, particularly for his policy toward Vietnam, Cyprus, Cambodia, Chile and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). Kissinger became a focal point of criticism from the political left and certain human rights NGOs. According to the book, his foreign policy was chiefly concerned with attaining allies that had valuable geographical and strategic locations, such as Turkey and Pakistan, and turned a blind eye when these allies attacked democracies and murdered countless innocent people.
The book was later adapted into a documentary entitled The Trials of Henry Kissinger. The film focused on Kissinger's policies towards Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Chile.
Involvement in Operation Condor
On May 31, 2001, French judge Roger Le Loire requested a summons served on Kissinger while he was staying at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Loire wanted to question Kissinger for alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor—a mid-1970s campaign of kidnapping and murder coordinated among the intelligence and security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—as well as the death of five French nationals under the Chilean junta. Kissinger fled Paris that evening, and Loire's inquiries were directed to the U.S. State Department.
In August 2001, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba sent a letter rogatory to the U.S. State Department, in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), requesting a deposition by Kissinger to aid the judge's investigation of Operation Condor.
On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, DC, federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he had refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Schneider was killed by coup-plotters loyal to General Roberto Viaux in a botched kidnapping attempt, As a part of the suit, Schneider’s two sons are attempting to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for US$3 million.
On September 11, 2001, the 28th commemorations of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet, former Bolivian general and president Hugo Banzer, former Argentine general and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner for alleged involvement in Operation Condor. The case was brought on behalf of some fifteen victims of Operation Condor, ten of whom were Chilean.
In late 2001, the Brazilian government cancelled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in Săo Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity from judicial action.
Kenneth Maxwell's review, in Foreign Affairs November/December 2003, of Peter Kornbluh's book The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, discussed Kissinger's relationship with Augusto Pinochet's regime, in particular concerning operation Condor and Orlando Letelier's assassination, in Washington, DC, in 1976.
A 1978 cable released in 2000 shows that the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor "[kept] in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which [covered] all of Latin America". Robert E. White, the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, was concerned that the U.S. connection to Condor might be revealed during the then ongoing investigation into the 1976 assassination of Letelier. Kornbluh and Maxwell both draw the conclusion, from this and other materials, that the U.S. State Department, on Kissinger's watch, had foreknowledge of the assassination.
Asia
In 2002, during a brief visit to the UK, a petition for Kissinger's arrest was filed in the High Court in London based on Indochinese civilian casualties and environmental damage resulting from U.S. bombing campaigns in North Vietnam and Cambodia in the period between 1969 and 1975.
show Kissinger receiving his orders from President Nixon:
- PRESIDENT: The second thing is as I have put on here now I want [sic] you to get a hold of [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Thomas H.] Moorer tonight and I want a plan where every goddamn thing that can fly goes into Cambodia and hits every target that is open.
- KISSINGER: Right.
- PRESIDENT: That's to be done tomorrow. Tomorrow. Is that clear?
- KISSINGER: That is right
- PRESIDENT: I want this done. ... I want them to hit everything. I want them to use the big planes, the small planes, everything they can that will help out here and let's start giving them a little shock ... let me tell you on this business on Cambodia - I want something done tonight, I don't want any screwing around...
A few minutes later, Kissinger transmits Nixon's orders to military assistant Alexander Haig:
- KISSINGER: Two, [Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn't want to hear anything. It's an order, it's to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves. You got that?
- HAIG:
...sounded like Haig laughing...
Simultaneously, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who had engaged in a failed attempt to get Pinochet extradited from the United Kingdom for questioning, requested that Interpol detain Kissinger for questioning. British authorities refused his request.
East Timor Action Network (ETAN) activists have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours for his role in the Ford administration in supporting Suharto and the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. Transcripts of Ford and Kissinger's endorsement of the invasion are available on the National Security Archive.
Public perception
Kissinger, like the rest of the Nixon administration, was unpopular with the anti-war political left, extremely so after the congressionally-unauthorized US bombing of Cambodia was revealed. However, few doubted his intellect and diplomatic skill, and he became one of the better-liked members of the Nixon administration, though many Americans came to view Kissinger's talents as increasingly cynical and self-serving. Kissinger was not connected with the Watergate scandal that would eventually ruin Nixon and many of his closest aides, and this greatly improved Kissinger's reputation as he became known as the "clean man" of the bunch.
At the height of Kissinger's prominence, he was even regarded as something of a sex symbol due to his prominent dating life. He was quoted as saying "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac".
In 1992 Jornal do Brasil published an unflattering photo of Henry Kissinger on the front page. Kissinger's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter threatening to sue them if they sold the photo. The newspaper refused and one of the buyers was the advertising agency Woolward & Partners who were also threatened with legal action, after using it in an advertisement for computer equipment. The photo was featured in the 1996 book Washington Babylon by Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein.
The musical satirist Tom Lehrer says that "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize."
Monty Python satirized Kissinger in the Henry Kissinger Song.
Kissinger appears in the Simpsons episode $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling).
In a 1999 radio interview with BBC news presenter Jeremy Paxman, ostensibly to promote the latest volume of his memoirs, Dr. Kissinger reportedly walked out after being asked some tough questions about the U.S. role in the bombing of Cambodia. However, BBC sources claim he was late for another appointment and merely had to leave early.
Later roles
Business interests and public service
In 1977, Kissinger was appointed to Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kissinger published a dialogue with the Japanese philosopher, Daisaku Ikeda, On Peace, Life and Philosophy. He taught at Georgetown's Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service for several years in the late 1970s.
In 1982, Kissinger founded a consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, and is a partner in affiliate Kissinger McLarty Associates with Mack McLarty, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. He also serves on board of directors of Hollinger International, a Chicago-based newspaper group, and as of March 1999, he also serves on board of directors of Gulfstream Aerospace.
From 1995 to 2001, he served on the board of directors for Freeport-McMoRan, a multinational copper and gold producer with significant mining and milling operations in Papua, Indonesia. In February 2000, then-president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid appointed Kissinger as a political advisor. He also serves as an honorary advisor to the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.
's 'India Economic Summit', November, 2008, New Delhi.]]
Kissinger served for many years as a director of Hollinger International, the chief executive officer of which was disgraced media tycoon Conrad Black. Hollinger's board is widely viewed to have not exercised sufficient oversight, enabling Black and other senior executives to defraud the company.
In 1998, Kissinger became an honorary citizen of Fürth, Germany, his hometown. He has been a life-long supporter of the Spielvereinigung Fürth football club and is now an honorary member.
He served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary from February 10, 2001 to the Summer of 2005.
In April 2006, Kissinger received the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution.
In June 2007, Kissinger received the Hopkins-Nanjing Award for his contributions to reestablishing Sino–American relations. This award was presented by the presidents of Nanjing University, Chen Jun, and of Johns Hopkins University, William Brody, during the 20th anniversary celebration of The Johns Hopkins University--Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies also known as the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.
Role in U.S. foreign policy
Kissinger left office when a Democrat, former Governor of Georgia and "Washington outsider" Jimmy Carter, defeated Republican, Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. During the campaign, Carter criticized Kissinger, arguing he was "single-handedly" managing all of the US' foreign relations. Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Kissinger's role in US government and policy was minimized, as the neoconservatives who rose to prominence in the Republican Party under the Reagan administration began to consider Nixonian détente to be a policy of unwise accommodation with the Soviet Union. Kissinger continued to participate in policy groups, such as the Trilateral Commission, and to maintain political consulting, speaking, and writing engagements.
In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Kissinger to chair a committee to investigate the terrorist attacks of September 11 attacks. Kissinger stepped down as chairman on December 13, 2002 rather than reveal his client list, when queried about potential conflicts of interest.
Kissinger and Iraq
In 2006, it was reported in the book State of Denial by Bob Woodward that Kissinger was meeting regularly with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice on the Iraq War. Kissinger confirmed in recorded interviews with Woodward that the advice was the same as he had given in an August 12, 2005 column in The Washington Post: "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."
In a November 19, 2006 BBC Sunday AM interview, when asked whether there is any hope left for a clear military victory in Iraq, Kissinger said, "If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi Government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible... I think we have to redefine the course. But I don't believe that the alternative is between military victory as it had been defined previously, or total withdrawal."
Kissinger endorsed Senator John McCain in his bid for the presidency in 2008.
After Apologising for his use of word 'Bitch' in reference to Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Kissinger met India's main Opposition Leader Lal Krishna Advani in early October 2007 and lobbied for the support of his Bharatiya Janata Party for the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement
. This shows the growing power of India and as well be seen as the exact reason for the president Nixon and Mr. Kissinger's behaviour in the past in context of India's Growth and Self Reliance.
Kissinger was present at the opening ceremony of the controversial Beijing Summer Olympics. He was also in the Chinese capital to attend the inauguaration of the new US Embassy complex.
Kissinger and Iran
Kissinger's position on this issue of U.S.-Iran talks was reported by The Tehran Times to be that "Any direct talks between the U.S. and Iran on issues such as the nuclear dispute would be most likely to succeed if they first involved only diplomatic staff and progressed to the level of secretary of state before the heads of state meet."
Quotes
- (Soldiers are) dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.
- Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.
- The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
- I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
- Even a paranoid has some real enemies.
- I watched myself on German television, so that I could finally speak without an accent. And I heard myself speaking with a Swedish accent!
- Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
- Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.
Footnotes
Further reading
Taiwan Expendable? Nixon and Kissinger Go to China by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (2005) Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne by Andrew F. Smith, Henry A. Kissinger (2002) ISBN 0791453790Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (2001) ISBN 0684855674Diplomacy (1994) ISBN 067165991XOn Men and Power: A Political Memoir by Helmut Schmidt, Henry Kissinger (1990) ISBN 0-224-02715-8Observations: Selected Speeches and Essays 1982-1984 (1985) ISBN 0-316-49664-2The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, by Seymour Hersh, 1983, Summit Books, ISBN 0671506889.For the Record: Selected Statements 1977-1980 (1981) ISBN 0-316-49663-4Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, by Roger Morris (American writer).A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (1973) ISBN 0-395-17229-2American Foreign Policy: Three essays, (1969) ISBN 0-297-17933-0The Troubled Partnership: A Re-Appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance (1965) ISBN 0-07-034895-2The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy (1961) ISBN 0-06-012410-5Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) (ISBN 0-865-31745-3 (1984 edition))MemoirsCrisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises: Based on the Record of Henry Kissinger's Hitherto Secret Telephone Conversations (2003) ISBN 0-7432-4910-0Vietnam: A Personal History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (2002) ISBN 0-7432-1916-3Years of Renewal (1999) ISBN 0-684-85571-2Years of Upheaval (1982) ISBN 0-316-28591-9The White House Years (1979) ISBN 0-316-49661-8BiographiesKissinger: A Biography, by Walter Isaacson, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, (updated, 2005), ISBN 0-671-66323-2The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, by Jussi M. Hanhimaki (2004) ISBN 0-19-517221-3The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping of America's Foreign Policy, by Richard C. Thornton (1989) ISBN 0-88702-051-8The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, by Seymour Hersh (1983) ISBN 0-671-44760-2Kissinger, by Marvin L. Kalb, Bernard Kalb (1974) ISBN 0-316-48221-8Kissinger on the Couch, by Phyllis Schlafly (1974) ISBN 0-87000-216-3Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind, by Stephen Richards Graubard (1973) ISBN 0-393-05481-0The Trial of Henry Kissinger, by Christopher Hitchens (2002) ISBN 1-85984-631-9Die Kissinger-Saga, by Evi Kurz (2007) ISBN 973-3-940405-70-8HistoriographyNo peace, no honor. Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam New York, NY u.a.: Free Press 2001. ISBN 0-684-84968-2. Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Dr. Kissinger' or 'Mr. Henry'? Kissingerology, Thirty Years and Counting, in: Diplomatic History Vol. 27, Issue 5, pp. 637-76. Holger Klitzing: The Nemesis of Stability. Henry A. Kissinger's Ambivalent Relationship with Germany. Trier: WVT 2007, ISBN 3-88476-942-3. Robert D. Schulzinger: Henry Kissinger. Doctor of diplomacy. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr. 1989, ISBN 0-231-06952-9.Other- Amedeo Benedetti, Lezioni di politica di Henry Kissinger. Linguaggio, pensiero ed aforismi del piů abile politico di fine Novecento, Genova, Erga, 2005, ISBN 88-8163-391-4
- Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow by Henry Kissinger, William Burr (1999) ISBN 1-56584-480-7
- Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia by William Shawcross, (Revised edition October 25, 2002) ISBN 0-8154-1224-X
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External links
- . Interview conducted on November 26, 1986 for the War and Peace in the Nuclear Age series.
- *. Towards the end [55:55], he responds to Hitchens.
- (International Herald Tribune) June 18, 2007.
- A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, December 1992 102d Congress 2d Session Senate Print 102-140.
- Henry B. Gonzalez speech in Congress, May 2, 1991.
- Marcus Gee. , Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada), June 11, 2002.
- The Kissinger Saga. Henry and Walter: Two Brothers from Fuerth/Germany. Documentary, 90 min. (unabridged version), first time aired: Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting Network), January 21, 2007.
- : an article in the by Niall Ferguson, May 28, 2008
- by Jeremi Suri, , Summer 2008.
- A conversation with Henry Kissinger, December 16, 2008
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