Henry Kissinger
Encyclopedia
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger (icon; born May 27, 1923)
is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat
, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
. He served as National Security Advisor
and later concurrently as Secretary of State
in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford
. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many following presidents and many world leaders.
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
with the Soviet Union
, orchestrated the opening of relations
with the People's Republic of China
, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords
, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War
. Various American policies of that era, including the bombing of Cambodia
, remain controversial.
Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He was honored as the first recipient of the Ewald von Kleist
Award of the Munich Conference on Security Policy
. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates
, an international consulting firm.
, Bavaria
, Germany
in 1923
during the Weimar Republic
to a family of German Jews. His father, Louis Kissinger (1887–1982) was a schoolteacher. His mother, Paula Stern Kissinger (1901–1998), was a homemaker. Kissinger has a younger brother, Walter Kissinger. The surname Kissinger was adopted in 1817 by his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb, after the Bavaria
n spa town
of Bad Kissingen
. In 1938, fleeing Nazi
persecution, his family moved to New York
.
Kissinger spent his high school years in the Washington Heights
section of upper Manhattan
as part of the German Jewish immigrant community there. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced Frankish
accent
, due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. Following his first year at George Washington High School
, he began attending school at night and worked in a shave brush
factory during the day.
Following high school, Kissinger enrolled in the City College of New York
, studying accounting. He excelled academically as a part-time student, continuing to work while enrolled. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army
.
, where he was naturalized upon arrival. The Army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College
, Pennsylvania
, but the program was cancelled, and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer
, a fellow immigrant from Germany who despite the age difference, noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect, and arranged for him to be assigned to the military intelligence
section of the division. Kissinger saw combat with the division, and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge
.
During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger was assigned to de-Nazify
the city of Krefeld
, owing to a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Kissinger relied on his knowledge of German society to remove the obvious Nazis and restore a working civilian administration, a task he accomplished in 8 days. Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps
, with the rank of Sergeant
. He was given charge of a team in Hanover
assigned to tracking down Gestapo
officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of a CIC detachment in the Bergstraße district of Hesse
, with responsibility for de-Nazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King
, continuing to serve in this role as a civilian employee following his separation from the Army.
degree summa cum laude in political science 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 titled "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 book 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
.
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 alignment. He was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize
for helping to establish a ceasefire
and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam
. The ceasefire, however, was not durable. As National Security Advisor, in 1974 Kissinger directed the much-debated National Security Study Memorandum 200
.
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. The USC U.S.-China Institute has collected documents relating to the diplomatic efforts between 1969 and 1971 that led to this successful trip.
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, because the Watergate scandal
overshadowed the latter years of the Nixon presidency and because the United States continued to recognize the government of Taiwan.
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. Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea. The American bombing of Cambodia killed an estimated 40,000 combatants and civilians. Pol Pot biographer David Chandler argues that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh
," while Christopher Hitchens
asserts that the bombing may have increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge.
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.
in the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 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 USSR, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the USSR) 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 Bangladesh-Pakistan War in which he described then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
as a " bitch" and a "witch". He also said "The Indians are bastards," shortly before the war. Kissinger has since expressed his regret over the comments.
, Nixon "ordered his aides to exclude all Jewish-Americans from policy-making on Israel
," including Kissinger. One note quotes Nixon as saying “get K. [Kissinger] out of the play — Haig
handle it."
In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there
was in the interest of US foreign policy. In conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Golda Meir
on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
and Syria
attacked Israel. Kissinger has published lengthy and dramatic telephone transcripts from this period in the 2002 book Crisis. One week later, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial opposition, the US military conducted the largest military airlift
in history to aid Israel on October 12, 1973. US action contributed to the 1973 oil crisis
in the United States and its Western Europe
an 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 U.S. 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.
'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 Panama
nian control.
Kissinger initially supported the normalization of United States-Cuba relations, broken since 1961 (all U.S.–Cuba
n trade was blocked in February 1962, a few weeks after the exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States
because of 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.
presidential candidate Salvador Allende
was elected by a plurality in 1970, causing serious concern in Washington, D.C.
due to his openly socialist and pro-Cuba
n politics. The Nixon administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to encourage 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.
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. claimed that the Chilean government had greatly undervalued fair compensation for the nationalization
by subtracting what it deemed "excess profits". Therefore, the U.S. considered (but never actually implemented) economic sanctions
against Chile. The CIA also provided funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973.
The CIA, acting under the approval of the 40 committee (which Kissinger chaired), was involved in various covert actions in Chile during this period: it devised what in effect was a constitutional coup, and, when that failed, remained in contact with anti-Allende elements. The CIA learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually worked to prevent several of the more unlikely plots for fear they would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the US would not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.
On September 11, 1973, Allende died 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 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:
In 1976, Kissinger cancelled a letter that was to be sent to Chile
warning them against carrying out any political assassinations. Orlando Letelier
was then assassinated in Washington, D.C.
with a car bomb on September 21, 1976, the day the letter was to be sent. In an Aug. 30, 1976 memo, Shlaudeman discussed the possibility that the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay might be endangered by delivering a warning against assassination. The U.S. ambassador to Chile, David H. Popper
, said that Pinochet might take as an insult any inference that he was connected with assassination plots.
Kissinger has evaded legal summons by investigators in France
, Spain
, Chile
and Argentina
seeking to question him regarding his role in the disappearances of numerous citizens of the US and other nations, in regard to his involvement to Operation Condor
. These included requests in 2001 by Chilean High Court judge Juan Guzmán, and Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba, which were both ignored by Kissinger. On May 28, 2001, police visited Kissinger at the Ritz Hotel, Paris
and handed him a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of 5 French citizens who had disappeared in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger refused, referred the matter to the State Department, and left for Italy the next day, however the summons still stands.
In addition to these summons, two cases against Kissinger were filed and dismissed. On September 10, 2001, the family of General René Schneider, former commander of the Chilean military, initiated a civil action in federal court in Washington, DC, by claiming that Kissinger gave the agreement to murder Schneider because the General had refused to endorse plans for a military coup against Allende. As part of the suit Schneider's two sons attempted to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms
for $3 million. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia
and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
dismissed the case based on sovereign and diplomatic immunity, as well as the political question doctrine. On November 13, 2002, 11 individuals who suffered grave human rights violations following the bloody coup that placed Pinochet in power brought suit against Henry Kissinger, the United States government, and Michael Vernon Townley for crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, and wrongful death. The suit alleged that Henry Kissinger knowingly provided practical assistance and encouragement to the Chilean repressive regime before, during, and after the coup, with reckless disregard for the lives and well-being of the victims and their families. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the case based on the same grounds as Schneider vs. Kissinger.
military, led by Jorge Videla
, toppled the democratic government of Isabel Perón
in 1976 with a process named as "National Reorganization Process" by the military, with which they consolidated power, launching brutal reprisals and "disappearances
" against political opponents. During a meeting with Argentinian 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.
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 Africa
n troops. The FNLA was defeated and UNITA was forced to take its fight into the bush. Only under Reagan's presidency would U.S. support for UNITA return.
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 Rhodesia
n 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.
, which lies within the Indonesia
n archipelago and declared its independence in 1975. Indonesian president Suharto was a strong US ally in Southeast Asia
and began to mobilize the Indonesian army, preparing to annex the nascent state, which had become increasingly dominated by the popular leftist FRETILIN
party. In December 1975, the day before the invasion, 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.
. There was significant student opposition to the appointment, which eventually became a subject of significant media commentary. Columbia cancelled the appointment as a result.
Kissinger was then appointed to Georgetown University's
Center for Strategic and International Studies
. Kissinger published a dialogue with the Japanese religious leader, 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, with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus and Company
, 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
.
In 1978, Kissinger was named chairman of the North American Soccer League
board of directors. 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
.
From 2000 - 2006, Kissinger served as chairman of the board of trustees of Eisenhower Fellowships
. In 2006, upon his departure from Eisenhower Fellowships, he received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service.
, defeated Republican Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. Kissinger continued to participate in policy groups, such as the Trilateral Commission
, and to maintain political consulting, speaking, and writing engagements. Along with David Rockefeller
, he was instrumental in convincing President Carter to allow the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
into the United States to receive medical treatment, "a decision that led directly to the Iranian hostage crisis."
In 2002, President
George W. Bush
appointed Kissinger to chair a committee
to investigate the 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.
, he criticized the United States
' policies in the Balkans
, among other things for the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina
as a sovereign state, which he described as a foolish act. Most importantly he dismissed the notion of Serbs
, and Croats
for that part, being aggressors or separatist, saying that "they can't be separating from something that has never existed".
In addition, he repeatedly warned the West of implicating itself in a conflict that has its roots at least hundreds of years back in time, and said that the West would do better if it allowed the Serbs and Croats to join their respective countries.
This Kissinger position and statements provoked uncounted number of articles and was subjected to criticism in numerous books and studies from prominent authors like Christopher Hitchens, Andras Riedlmayer, Michael A. Sells
, Noel Malcolm
, Norman Cigar, Rabia Ali, Lawrence Lifschultz, to name a few among many others.
Michael A. Sells
, professor of comparative religion at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, is author of several articles on this subject, also wrote a book in which among other he refute Kissinger's assertions about Bosnia and its history and culture. Also in his long article "The U.S., Bosnia, and Henry Kissinger's Lie" professor Sells leave no room for doubt regarding to Kissinger's assertions.
Noel Malcolm
, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University since 2002, English historian, writer, and columnist, he wrote "Bosnia: A Short Historiy".
But most illustrious is comprehensive study of Andras Riedlmayer, Harvard University Documentation Center, study on the War on Bosnian Culture, destruction of Bosnian culture and history in Bosnian War
, describing a meticulously prepared and executed project of erasing of any traces of ancient Bosnian culture and history. (also see, "Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina - Middle East Studies Associations Bulletin, vol. 29 no. 1 (July 1995), pp. 7-11" and "Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and its Destruction" documentary film 41 min. Haverford, PA: Community of Bosnia Foundation, 1994). Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz wrote on this subject in their book "Why Bosnia" (Pampleteer's Press, 1993).
Nonetheless, Kissinger shared similarly critical views on Western involvement in Kosovo
. In particular, he held a disparaging view of the Rambouillet Agreement
:
However, as the Serbs
did not accept the Rambouillet text and NATO bombings started
, he opted for a continuation of the bombing as NATO's credibility was now at stake, but dismissed the usage of ground forces, claiming that it was not worth it.
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 interview at BBC Sunday AM, Kissinger said, when asked whether there is any hope left for a clear military victory in Iraq, "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."
In an April 3, 2008 interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution
, Kissinger re-iterated that even though he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq
he thought that the Bush administration
rested too much of the case for war on Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Robinson noted that Kissinger had criticized the administration
for invading with too few troops, for disbanding the Iraqi Army, and for mishandling relations with certain allies.
, 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.
Kissinger said in April 2008 that "India has parallel objectives to the United States" and he called it an ally
of the U.S.
Kissinger was present at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics
. He was also in the Chinese capital to attend the inauguration of the new US Embassy complex.
In 2011, Kissinger published On China, chronicling the evolution of Sino-American relations and laying out the challenges to a partnership of 'genuine strategic trust' between the U.S. and China.
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."
Since he left office, numerous efforts have been made to charge Kissinger personally for the perceived injustices of American foreign policy during his tenure in office. These charges have at times inconvenienced his travels.
." In the film, a candid Kissinger reveals how close he felt the world was to nuclear war during the 1973 Yom Kippur War
launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel.
In 1990, he appeared in a commercial for "The Economist".
, the British-American journalist and author, is highly critical of Kissinger. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger
, Hitchens calls for the prosecution of Kissinger 'for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture.' A documentary based on Hitchens' book The Trials of Henry Kissinger
was released in 2002.
. They now live in Kent, Connecticut
and New York City
. David was an executive with NBC Universal
before becoming head of Conaco
, Conan O'Brien
's production company. Kissinger described Diplomacy
as his favorite game in an interview published in a games magazine.
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for the Paris Peace Accords
of 1973, "intended to bring about a cease-fire in the Vietnam war
and a withdrawal of the American forces," while serving as the United States Secretary of State
. Unlike Tho, who refused it because Vietnam was still at war, Kissinger accepted it. American singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer
famously quipped that the award ".. makes political satire obsolete", in ironic reference to Kissinger's human-rights record, established or otherwise.
In 1976, Henry Kissinger was officially named to be the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters
.
On January 13, 1977, Kissinger was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
by President Gerald Ford
.
In 1995, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander
of the Order of the British Empire
.
In 1998, Kissinger became an honorary citizen of Fürth
, Germany, his hometown. He has been a life-long supporter of the Spielvereinigung Greuther 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 2000, Kissinger was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.
In 2005, Kissinger was awarded a Gold Medal at the annual Queen Sofia Spanish Institute
Gold Medal Gala.
In April 2006, Kissinger received the 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.
In September 2007, Kissinger was honored as Grand Marshal of the German-American Steuben Parade
in New York City
. He was celebrated by tens of thousands of spectators on Fifth Avenue. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
was supposed to be a co-Grand Marshal, but had to cancel due to health problems. Kohl was represented by Klaus Scharioth
, German Ambassador in Washington, who led the Steuben Parade with Kissinger.
In June 2011, Kissinger was honored by the American Council on Germany with a McCloy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to transatlantic relations.
Kissinger is known to be a member of the following groups:
Other
is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
. He served as National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
and later concurrently as Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many following presidents and many world leaders.
A proponent of Realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, orchestrated the opening of relations
Sino-American relations
For the article on U.S.-Taiwan relations, see Republic of China – United States relations.Sino-American or People's Republic of China–United States relations refers to international relations between the United States of America and the government of People's Republic of China...
with the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Various American policies of that era, including the bombing of Cambodia
Operation Menu
Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia and Laos from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War...
, remain controversial.
Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He was honored as the first recipient of the Ewald von Kleist
Ewald von Kleist
Ewald von Kleist is the name of:*Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist , co-inventor of the Leyden jar*Ewald Christian von Kleist , German poet and soldier*Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist , German Field Marshal...
Award of the Munich Conference on Security Policy
Munich Conference on Security Policy
The Munich Conference on Security Policy is an annual conference on international security policy that is held in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Germany.The 47th Munich Security Conference will be held from February 4th through February 6th 2011....
. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates
Kissinger Associates
Kissinger Associates, Inc., founded in 1982, is a New York City-based international consulting firm, founded and run by Henry Kissinger, and Brent Scowcroft...
, an international consulting firm.
Early life
Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in FürthFürth
The city of Fürth is located in northern Bavaria, Germany in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of the two cities being only 7 km apart....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1923
1923 in Germany
Events in the year 1923 in Germany.-National level:President*Friedrich Ebert Chancellor*Wilhelm Cuno to 12 August, then from 13 August Gustav Stresemann to 30 November, then Wilhelm Marx -Events:* 11 January - French and Belgian troops enter the Ruhr in the Occupation of the Ruhr because of...
during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
to a family of German Jews. His father, Louis Kissinger (1887–1982) was a schoolteacher. His mother, Paula Stern Kissinger (1901–1998), was a homemaker. Kissinger has a younger brother, Walter Kissinger. The surname Kissinger was adopted in 1817 by his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb, after the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n spa town
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
of Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen
Bad Kissingen is a spa town in the Bavarian region of Lower Franconia and is the seat of the district Bad Kissingen. Situated to the south of the Rhön Mountains on the Franconian Saale river, it is a world-famous health resort.- Town structure :...
. In 1938, fleeing Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
persecution, his family moved to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Kissinger spent his high school years in the Washington Heights
Washington Heights, Manhattan
Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
section of upper Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
as part of the German Jewish immigrant community there. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced Frankish
East Franconian German
East Franconian is a dialect which is spoken in northern Bavaria and other areas in Germany around Nuremberg, Bamberg, Coburg, Würzburg, Hof, Bayreuth, Bad Mergentheim, Crailsheim and Suhl...
accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
, due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. Following his first year at George Washington High School
George Washington High School (New York City)
George Washington High School is a public high school located in the Fort George neighborhood of the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, New York....
, he began attending school at night and worked in a shave brush
Shave brush
The term shave brush or shaving brush refers to a small brush with a handle parallel to the bristles used to apply shaving soap or shaving cream to the face when shaving. They are often decorative; the handle is sometimes made from fine materials such as ivory or even gold, though the bristle load...
factory during the day.
Following high school, Kissinger enrolled in the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
, studying accounting. He excelled academically as a part-time student, continuing to work while enrolled. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
.
Army experience
Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South CarolinaSpartanburg, South Carolina
thgSpartanburg is the largest city in and the county seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. It is the second-largest city of the three primary cities in the Upstate region of South Carolina, and is located northwest of Columbia, west of Charlotte, and about northeast of...
, where he was naturalized upon arrival. The Army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private coeducational liberal arts and engineering college located in Easton, Pennsylvania, USA. The school, founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter,son of General Andrew Porter of Norristown and citizens of Easton, first began holding classes in 1832...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, but the program was cancelled, and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer
Fritz G. A. Kraemer
Fritz Gustav Anton Kraemer was a German-American military educator and advisor.Kraemer was born in Essen, Germany, the eldest child of Dr Georg Kraemer and Anna Johanna Kraemer, née Goldschmidt and studied at the famous Arndt Gymnasium in Berlin, the...
, a fellow immigrant from Germany who despite the age difference, noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect, and arranged for him to be assigned to the military intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
section of the division. Kissinger saw combat with the division, and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...
.
During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger was assigned to de-Nazify
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
the city of Krefeld
Krefeld
Krefeld , also known as Crefeld until 1929, is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its centre lying just a few kilometres to the west of the River Rhine; the borough of Uerdingen is situated directly on the Rhine...
, owing to a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Kissinger relied on his knowledge of German society to remove the obvious Nazis and restore a working civilian administration, a task he accomplished in 8 days. Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps
Counter Intelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and, in 1967, by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency...
, with the rank of Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
. He was given charge of a team in Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
assigned to tracking down Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of a CIC detachment in the Bergstraße district of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, with responsibility for de-Nazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King
Camp King
Camp King is a site on the outskirts of Oberursel, Taunus , with a long history. It began as a school for agriculture under the auspices of the University of Frankfurt. During World War II, the lower fields became an interrogation center for the German Air Force. After World War II, the United...
, continuing to serve in this role as a civilian employee following his separation from the Army.
Academic career
Henry Kissinger received his A.B.Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree summa cum laude in political science at Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott
William Yandell Elliott
William Yandell Elliott was an American historian and political advisor to six U.S. presidents.-Biography:Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, he served as an artillery battery commander in World War I. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of the group of poets and literary...
. He received his A.M.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
and Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degrees at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1952 and 1954, respectively. In 1952, while still at Harvard, he served as a consultant to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board
Psychological Strategy Board
The Psychological Strategy Board was a committee of the United States executive formed to coordinate and plan for psychological operations. It was formed on April 4, 1951, during the Truman administration. The board was composed of the Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense,...
. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC , usually known as Lord CastlereaghThe name Castlereagh derives from the baronies of Castlereagh and Ards, in which the manors of Newtownards and Comber were located...
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
National Security Council
A National Security Council is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security...
's Operations Coordinating Board
Operations Coordinating Board
The Operations Coordinating Board was a committee of the United States Executive created in 1953 by President Eisenhower's Executive Order 10483...
. During 1955 and 1956, he was also Study Director in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
. He released his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy the following year. From 1956 to 1958 he worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund , , is an international philanthropic organisation created and run by members of the Rockefeller family. It was set up in New York City in 1940 as the primary philanthropic vehicle of the five famous Rockefeller brothers: John D...
as director of its Special Studies Project
Special Studies Project
The Special Studies Project was a study funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and conceived by its then president, Nelson Rockefeller, to 'define the major problems and opportunities facing the U.S. and clarify national purposes and objectives, and to develop principles which could serve as the...
. 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
Operations Research Office
The Operations Research Office was a civilian military research center founded in 1948 by the United States Army. It was run under contract by Johns Hopkins University. The organization's offices were originally at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. They moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland in 1952...
, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was established as an independent agency of the United States government by the Arms Control and Disarmament Act , September 26, 1961, a bill drafted by presidential adviser John J. McCloy. Its predecessor was the U.S. Disarmament Administration, part...
, and the Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
, 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
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
, Governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
, who sought the Republican nomination for President in 1960, 1964 and 1968. After Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
won the presidency in 1968, he made Kissinger National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
.
Foreign policy
Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
under President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, and continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
.
A proponent of Realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. In that period, he extended the policy of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
. 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
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
. The talks concluded with a rapprochement
Rapprochement
In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word rapprocher , is a re-establishment of cordial relations, as between two countries...
between the United States and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and the formation of a new strategic anti-Soviet Sino-American alignment. He was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
for helping to establish a ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. The ceasefire, however, was not durable. As National Security Advisor, in 1974 Kissinger directed the much-debated National Security Study Memorandum 200
National Security Study Memorandum 200
National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests was completed on December 10, 1974 by the United States National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger....
.
Détente and the opening to China
As National Security Advisor under Nixon, Kissinger pioneered the policy of détenteDétente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, seeking a relaxation in tensions between the two superpowers. As a part of this strategy, he negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT...
(culminating in the SALT I treaty) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was a treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons....
with Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, General Secretary
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
of the Soviet Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. 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
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
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
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
, then in charge of Chinese foreign policy. The USC U.S.-China Institute has collected documents relating to the diplomatic efforts between 1969 and 1971 that led to this successful trip.
This paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou, and Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
Chairman Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
, as well as the formalization of relations
Sino-American relations
For the article on U.S.-Taiwan relations, see Republic of China – United States relations.Sino-American or People's Republic of China–United States relations refers to international relations between the United States of America and the government of People's Republic of China...
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, because the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
overshadowed the latter years of the Nixon presidency and because the United States continued to recognize the government of Taiwan.
Vietnam War
Kissinger's involvement in IndochinaIndochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
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
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
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
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, "...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
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
.
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
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard M. Nixon administration during the Vietnam War, as a result of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S....
that aimed to gradually withdraw US troops while expanding the combat role of the enabling South Vietnamese Army
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the South Vietnamese Army , was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam , which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975...
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
Vietnam People's Army
The Vietnam People's Army is the armed forces of Vietnam. The VPA includes: the Vietnamese People's Ground Forces , the Vietnam People's Navy , the Vietnam People's Air Force, and the Vietnam Marine Police.During the French Indochina War , the VPA was often referred to as the Việt...
or PAVN). Kissinger played a key role in a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia
Operation Menu
Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia and Laos from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War...
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
Ho Chi Minh trail
The Ho Chi Minh trail was a logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia...
and other routes, as well as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion
Cambodian Incursion
The Cambodian Campaign was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during mid-1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. These invasions were a result of policy of President Richard Nixon whose decision it was to invade...
and subsequent widespread bombing of Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. The bombing campaign contributed to the chaos of the Cambodian Civil War
Cambodian Civil War
The Cambodian Civil War was a conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Viet Cong against the government forces of Cambodia , which were supported by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam The Cambodian...
, which saw the forces of dictator Lon Nol
Lon Nol
Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...
unable to retain foreign support to combat the growing Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
insurgency that would overthrow him in 1975. Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea. The American bombing of Cambodia killed an estimated 40,000 combatants and civilians. Pol Pot biographer David Chandler argues that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
," while Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
asserts that the bombing may have increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge.
Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho
Le Duc Tho
Lê Đức Thọ , born Phan Đình Khải in Ha Nam province, was a Vietnamese revolutionary, general, diplomat, and politician, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, although he declined it....
, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
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
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...
in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao
Pathet Lao
The Pathet Lao was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was ultimately successful in assuming political power after the Laotian Civil War. The Pathet Lao were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists...
in Laos towards figurehead status.
1971 India-Pakistan War
Under Kissinger's guidance, the United States government supported PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the USSR, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the USSR) 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 Bangladesh-Pakistan War in which he described then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
as a " bitch" and a "witch". He also said "The Indians are bastards," shortly before the war. Kissinger has since expressed his regret over the comments.
Israeli policy and Soviet Jewry
According to notes taken by H. R. HaldemanH. R. Haldeman
Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon and for his role in events leading to the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate scandal – for which he was found guilty of conspiracy...
, Nixon "ordered his aides to exclude all Jewish-Americans from policy-making on Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
," including Kissinger. One note quotes Nixon as saying “get K. [Kissinger] out of the play — Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
handle it."
In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union
The Russian Revolution overthrew a centuries-old regime of official antisemitism. The Soviet Unions success, during its existence, in struggling with this legacy, and the degree to which its government fought against, or was itself guilty of antisemitism, is a topic of some debate...
was in the interest of US foreign policy. In conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
1973 Yom Kippur War
In 1973, Kissinger negotiated the end to the Yom Kippur War, which had begun on October 6, 1973 when EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
attacked Israel. Kissinger has published lengthy and dramatic telephone transcripts from this period in the 2002 book Crisis. One week later, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial opposition, the US military conducted the largest military airlift
Airlift
Airlift is the act of transporting people or cargo from point to point using aircraft.Airlift may also refer to:*Airlift , a suction device for moving sand and silt underwater-See also:...
in history to aid Israel on October 12, 1973. US action contributed to the 1973 oil crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
in the United States and its Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
an 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
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, 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 U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
mediated the Camp David Accords, during which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...
in exchange for an Egyptian agreement to recognize the state of Israel.
Latin American policy
The United States continued to recognize and maintain relationships with non-left-wing governments, democratic and authoritarian alike. John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's Alliance for Progress
Alliance for Progress
The Alliance for Progress initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961 aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and South America.-Origin and goals:...
was ended in 1973. In 1974, negotiations about new settlement over Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
started. They eventually led to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties
Torrijos-Carter Treaties
The Torrijos–Carter Treaties are two treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 1977, which abrogated the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty of 1903...
and handing the Canal over to Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
nian control.
Kissinger initially supported the normalization of United States-Cuba relations, broken since 1961 (all U.S.–Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n trade was blocked in February 1962, a few weeks after the exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
because of 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
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
and Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Kissinger said that unless Cuba withdrew its forces relations would not be normalized. Cuba refused.
Intervention in Chile
Chilean Socialist PartySocialist Party of Chile
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...
presidential candidate Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
was elected by a plurality in 1970, causing serious concern in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
due to his openly socialist and pro-Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n politics. The Nixon administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) to encourage 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.
United States-Chile relations remained frosty during Salvador Allende's tenure, following the complete nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
of the partially U.S.-owned copper mines and the Chilean subsidiary of the U.S.-based ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...
, as well as other Chilean businesses. The U.S. claimed that the Chilean government had greatly undervalued fair compensation for the nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
by subtracting what it deemed "excess profits". Therefore, the U.S. considered (but never actually implemented) economic sanctions
Economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...
against Chile. The CIA also provided funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973.
The CIA, acting under the approval of the 40 committee (which Kissinger chaired), was involved in various covert actions in Chile during this period: it devised what in effect was a constitutional coup, and, when that failed, remained in contact with anti-Allende elements. The CIA learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually worked to prevent several of the more unlikely plots for fear they would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the US would not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.
On September 11, 1973, Allende died during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, 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
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
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
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses, until Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
challenger Jimmy Carter 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.
In 1976, Kissinger cancelled a letter that was to be sent to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
warning them against carrying out any political assassinations. Orlando Letelier
Orlando Letelier
Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, Socialist politician and diplomat during the presidency of Socialist President Salvador Allende...
was then assassinated in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
with a car bomb on September 21, 1976, the day the letter was to be sent. In an Aug. 30, 1976 memo, Shlaudeman discussed the possibility that the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay might be endangered by delivering a warning against assassination. The U.S. ambassador to Chile, David H. Popper
David H. Popper
David Henry Popper was a diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Cyprus and Chile . He was a member and former President of the American Academy of Diplomacy.-Early Life:...
, said that Pinochet might take as an insult any inference that he was connected with assassination plots.
Kissinger has evaded legal summons by investigators in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
seeking to question him regarding his role in the disappearances of numerous citizens of the US and other nations, in regard to his involvement to Operation Condor
Operation Condor
Operation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...
. These included requests in 2001 by Chilean High Court judge Juan Guzmán, and Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba, which were both ignored by Kissinger. On May 28, 2001, police visited Kissinger at the Ritz Hotel, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and handed him a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of 5 French citizens who had disappeared in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger refused, referred the matter to the State Department, and left for Italy the next day, however the summons still stands.
In addition to these summons, two cases against Kissinger were filed and dismissed. On September 10, 2001, the family of General René Schneider, former commander of the Chilean military, initiated a civil action in federal court in Washington, DC, by claiming that Kissinger gave the agreement to murder Schneider because the General had refused to endorse plans for a military coup against Allende. As part of the suit Schneider's two sons attempted to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...
for $3 million. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal district court. Appeals from the District are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a...
and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
dismissed the case based on sovereign and diplomatic immunity, as well as the political question doctrine. On November 13, 2002, 11 individuals who suffered grave human rights violations following the bloody coup that placed Pinochet in power brought suit against Henry Kissinger, the United States government, and Michael Vernon Townley for crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, and wrongful death. The suit alleged that Henry Kissinger knowingly provided practical assistance and encouragement to the Chilean repressive regime before, during, and after the coup, with reckless disregard for the lives and well-being of the victims and their families. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the case based on the same grounds as Schneider vs. Kissinger.
Intervention in Argentina
Kissinger took a similar line as he had toward Chile when the ArgentinianArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
military, led by Jorge Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo is a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón...
, toppled the democratic government of Isabel Perón
Isabel Martínez de Perón
María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón , better known as Isabel Martínez de Perón or Isabel Perón, is a former President of Argentina. She was also the third wife of another former President, Juan Perón...
in 1976 with a process named as "National Reorganization Process" by the military, with which they consolidated power, launching brutal reprisals and "disappearances
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
" against political opponents. During a meeting with Argentinian foreign minister César Augusto Guzzetti
César Augusto Guzzetti
Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti was President Jorge Rafaél Videla's foreign minister, during Argentina's military government.Guzzetti served as foreign minister from 30 March 1976 until 23 May 1977...
, 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
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
reconvened and had a chance to consider sanctions.
Africa
In 1974 a leftist military coup overthrew the Caetano governmentMarcelo Caetano
Marcelo José das Neves Alves Caetano, GCTE, GCC, also spelled Marcello Caetano , was a Portuguese politician and scholar, who was the last prime minister of the Estado Novo regime, from 1968 until his overthrow in the Carnation Revolution of 1974....
in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
in the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
. The National Salvation Junta
National Salvation Junta
The National Salvation Junta was a group of military officers designated to maintain the government of Portugal in April 1974, after the Carnation Revolution had overthrown the Estado Novo dictatorial regime. This junta functioned between 1974 and 1976, following a communiqué of its president,...
, 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
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the Angolan War for Independence and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war .The war was one...
and FNLA rebels during the Angolan Civil War
Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War was a major civil conflict in the Southern African state of Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken...
(1975–2002). Kissinger supported FNLA, led by Holden Roberto
Holden Roberto
Holden Álvaro Roberto founded and led the National Liberation Front of Angola from 1962 to 1999. His memoirs are unfinished.-Early life:...
, and UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan political leader. He founded and led UNITA, a movement that first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the rival MPLA during the decolonization conflict, 1974/75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling...
, the Mozambican National Resistance
Mozambican National Resistance
The Mozambican National Resistance is a conservative political party in Mozambique led by Afonso Dhlakama. It fought against the FRELIMO in the Mozambican Civil War and against the ZANU movement led by Robert Mugabe from 1975 to 1992....
(RENAMO) insurgencies, as well as the CIA-supported invasion of Angola by South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n troops. The FNLA was defeated and UNITA was forced to take its fight into the bush. Only under Reagan's presidency would U.S. support for UNITA return.
In September 1976 Kissinger was actively involved in negotiations regarding the Rhodesian Bush War
Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War – also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Zimbabwe War of Liberation – was a civil war which took place between July 1964 and December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia...
. Kissinger, along with South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster, pressured Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
n Prime Minister Ian Smith
Ian Smith
Ian Douglas Smith GCLM ID was a politician active in the government of Southern Rhodesia, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe from 1948 to 1987, most notably serving as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 13 April 1964 to 1 June 1979...
to hasten the transition to black majority rule
Majority rule
Majority rule is a decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations...
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
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, 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 TimorEast Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
, which lies within the Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n archipelago and declared its independence in 1975. Indonesian president Suharto was a strong US ally in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
and began to mobilize the Indonesian army, preparing to annex the nascent state, which had become increasingly dominated by the popular leftist FRETILIN
Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor
The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor is a leftist political party in East Timor. They presently hold a plurality of seats in the National Parliament and formed the government in East Timor from independence until 2007...
party. In December 1975, the day before the invasion, Suharto discussed the invasion plans during a meeting with Kissinger and President Ford in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
. Both Ford and Kissinger made clear that US relations with Indonesia would remain strong and that it would not object to the proposed annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
. US arms sales to Indonesia continued, and Suharto went ahead with the annexation plan.
Later roles
Shortly after Kissinger left office in 1977, he was offered an endowed chair at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. There was significant student opposition to the appointment, which eventually became a subject of significant media commentary. Columbia cancelled the appointment as a result.
Kissinger was then appointed to Georgetown University's
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
. Kissinger published a dialogue with the Japanese religious leader, Daisaku Ikeda
Daisaku Ikeda
is president of Sōka Gakkai International , a Nichiren Buddhist lay association which claims 12 million members in 192 countries and territories, and founder of several educational, cultural and peace research institutions.-Life and establishment of SGI:...
, 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, with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus and Company
Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus, LLC is an American private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Asia. It has been a private equity investor since 1966...
, Kissinger founded a consulting firm, Kissinger Associates
Kissinger Associates
Kissinger Associates, Inc., founded in 1982, is a New York City-based international consulting firm, founded and run by Henry Kissinger, and Brent Scowcroft...
, and is a partner in affiliate Kissinger McLarty Associates with Mack McLarty
Mack McLarty
Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III is a prominent Arkansas business and political leader and former White House Chief of Staff for US President Bill Clinton...
, former chief of staff
White House Chief of Staff
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
to President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. He also serves on board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
of Hollinger International, a Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
-based newspaper group, and as of March 1999, he also serves on board of directors of Gulfstream Aerospace
Gulfstream Aerospace
Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation is a producer of several models of jet aircraft. Gulfstream has been a unit of General Dynamics since 1999.The company has produced more than 1,500 aircraft for corporate, government, private, and military customers around the world...
.
In 1978, Kissinger was named chairman of the North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League was a professional soccer league with teams in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984.-History:...
board of directors. From 1995 to 2001, he served on the board of directors for Freeport-McMoRan
Freeport-McMoRan
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., often called simply Freeport, is the world's lowest-cost copper producer and one of the world's largest producers of gold...
, a multinational
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
copper and gold producer with significant mining and milling operations in Papua
Papua (Indonesian province)
Papua comprises most of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands. Its capital is Jayapura. It's the largest and easternmost province of Indonesia. The province originally covered the entire western half of New Guinea...
, Indonesia. In February 2000, then-president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid
Abdurrahman Wahid
Abdurrahman Wahid, born Abdurrahman Addakhil , colloquially known as , was an Indonesian Muslim religious and political leader who served as the President of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001...
appointed Kissinger as a political advisor. He also serves as an honorary advisor to the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
The United States - Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce is a not-for-profit lobbying group aiming to develop long-term business ties between the firms in the United States and Azerbaijan and attract US investment to Azerbaijan Republic.-Mission:...
.
From 2000 - 2006, Kissinger served as chairman of the board of trustees of Eisenhower Fellowships
Eisenhower Fellowships
Eisenhower Fellowships is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization created in 1953 by a group of prominent American citizens to honor President Dwight D. Eisenhower for his contribution to humanity as a soldier, statesman, and world leader...
. In 2006, upon his departure from Eisenhower Fellowships, he received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service.
Role in U.S. foreign policy
Kissinger left office when a Democrat, former Governor of Georgia and "Washington outsider" Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, defeated Republican Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. Kissinger continued to participate in policy groups, such as the Trilateral Commission
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental, non-partisan discussion group founded by David Rockefeller in July 1973 to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan.-History:...
, and to maintain political consulting, speaking, and writing engagements. Along with David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller, Sr. is the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. He is the youngest and only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and the only surviving grandchild of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil. His five siblings were...
, he was instrumental in convincing President Carter to allow the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
into the United States to receive medical treatment, "a decision that led directly to the Iranian hostage crisis."
In 2002, President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
appointed Kissinger to chair a committee
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
to investigate the 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.
The Balkans
In several articles of his and interviews that he gave during the Yugoslav warsYugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
, he criticized the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
' policies in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, among other things for the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
as a sovereign state, which he described as a foolish act. Most importantly he dismissed the notion of Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, and Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
for that part, being aggressors or separatist, saying that "they can't be separating from something that has never existed".
In addition, he repeatedly warned the West of implicating itself in a conflict that has its roots at least hundreds of years back in time, and said that the West would do better if it allowed the Serbs and Croats to join their respective countries.
This Kissinger position and statements provoked uncounted number of articles and was subjected to criticism in numerous books and studies from prominent authors like Christopher Hitchens, Andras Riedlmayer, Michael A. Sells
Michael Sells
Michael Anthony Sells is currently the John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.....
, Noel Malcolm
Noel Malcolm
Noel Robert Malcolm FBA FRSL is a modern English historian, writer, and columnist.-Life:Malcolm was educated at Eton College , read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, wrote his doctorate dissertation at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was for a time Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,...
, Norman Cigar, Rabia Ali, Lawrence Lifschultz, to name a few among many others.
Michael A. Sells
Michael Sells
Michael Anthony Sells is currently the John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.....
, professor of comparative religion at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, is author of several articles on this subject, also wrote a book in which among other he refute Kissinger's assertions about Bosnia and its history and culture. Also in his long article "The U.S., Bosnia, and Henry Kissinger's Lie" professor Sells leave no room for doubt regarding to Kissinger's assertions.
Noel Malcolm
Noel Malcolm
Noel Robert Malcolm FBA FRSL is a modern English historian, writer, and columnist.-Life:Malcolm was educated at Eton College , read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, wrote his doctorate dissertation at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was for a time Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,...
, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University since 2002, English historian, writer, and columnist, he wrote "Bosnia: A Short Historiy".
But most illustrious is comprehensive study of Andras Riedlmayer, Harvard University Documentation Center, study on the War on Bosnian Culture, destruction of Bosnian culture and history in Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
, describing a meticulously prepared and executed project of erasing of any traces of ancient Bosnian culture and history. (also see, "Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina - Middle East Studies Associations Bulletin, vol. 29 no. 1 (July 1995), pp. 7-11" and "Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and its Destruction" documentary film 41 min. Haverford, PA: Community of Bosnia Foundation, 1994). Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz wrote on this subject in their book "Why Bosnia" (Pampleteer's Press, 1993).
Nonetheless, Kissinger shared similarly critical views on Western involvement in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
. In particular, he held a disparaging view of the Rambouillet Agreement
Rambouillet Agreement
The Rambouillet Agreement is the name of a proposed peace agreement between then-Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the ethnic-Albanian majority population of Kosovo. It was drafted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and named for Chateau Rambouillet, where it was initially proposed...
:
However, as the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
did not accept the Rambouillet text and NATO bombings started
1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...
, he opted for a continuation of the bombing as NATO's credibility was now at stake, but dismissed the usage of ground forces, claiming that it was not worth it.
Iraq
In 2006, it was reported in the book State of DenialState of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III is a book by Bob Woodward, originally due to be published October 2, 2006 , that examines how the George W. Bush administration managed the Iraq War after the 2003 invasion...
by Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
that Kissinger was meeting regularly with President George W. Bush and Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
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
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
: "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."
In a November 19, 2006 interview at BBC Sunday AM, Kissinger said, when asked whether there is any hope left for a clear military victory in Iraq, "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."
In an April 3, 2008 interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford....
, Kissinger re-iterated that even though he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
he thought that the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
rested too much of the case for war on Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Robinson noted that Kissinger had criticized the administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
for invading with too few troops, for disbanding the Iraqi Army, and for mishandling relations with certain allies.
Asia
After apologizing for his use of the word 'bitch' in reference to Mrs. Indira GandhiIndira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
, Kissinger met India's main Opposition Leader Lal Krishna Advani
Lal Krishna Advani
Lal Kishanchand Advani known as Lal Krishna Advani is a Veteran Indian politician. A former president of the Bharatiya Janata Party , which is currently the major opposition party in the Indian Parliament. He also served as a Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004...
in early October 2007 and lobbied for the support of his Bharatiya Janata Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
for the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.
Kissinger said in April 2008 that "India has parallel objectives to the United States" and he called it an ally
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
of the U.S.
Kissinger was present at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
. He was also in the Chinese capital to attend the inauguration of the new US Embassy complex.
In 2011, Kissinger published On China, chronicling the evolution of Sino-American relations and laying out the challenges to a partnership of 'genuine strategic trust' between the U.S. and China.
Iran
Kissinger's position on this issue of U.S.-Iran talks was reported by the Tehran TimesTehran Times
Tehran Times began its work in 1979 as a foreign language newspaper to air the voice of the Islamic Revolution. The policy that the newspaper has been following has been based on the guideline set by the revered martyr Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who said: Tehran Times is not state-owned...
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."
Public perception
At the height of Kissinger's prominence, many commented on his wit. In one instance, at the Washington Press Club annual congressional dinner, "Kissinger mocked his reputation as a secret swinger." He was quoted as saying "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."Since he left office, numerous efforts have been made to charge Kissinger personally for the perceived injustices of American foreign policy during his tenure in office. These charges have at times inconvenienced his travels.
In film and television
Kissinger has shied away from mainstream media and cable talk shows. Recently, he granted a rare interview to the producers of a documentary examining the underpinnings of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt entitled "Back Door Channels: The Price of PeaceBack Door Channels: The Price of Peace
Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace, directed by Harry Hunkele,and produced by Arick Wierson, Donald Tanselle, and Matthew Tollin, is an American documentary film about the interplay between the official government channels and the men who acted largely behind the scenes during the course of...
." In the film, a candid Kissinger reveals how close he felt the world was to nuclear war during the 1973 Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel.
In 1990, he appeared in a commercial for "The Economist".
Controversy
Christopher HitchensChristopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, the British-American journalist and author, is highly critical of Kissinger. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
The Trial of Henry Kissinger is Christopher Hitchens' examination of the alleged war crimes of Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State for President Nixon and President Ford...
, Hitchens calls for the prosecution of Kissinger 'for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture.' A documentary based on Hitchens' book The Trials of Henry Kissinger
The Trials of Henry Kissinger
The Trials of Henry Kissinger , is a documentary film inspired by Christopher Hitchens' 2001 book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, examining the alleged war crimes of Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford.The film was directed by...
was released in 2002.
Personal life
Kissinger first married Ann Fleischer, with whom he had two children, Elizabeth and David. They divorced in 1964. Ten years later, he married Nancy MaginnesNancy Kissinger
Nancy Sharon Maginnes Kissinger is a philanthropist, and the second wife of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The couple married on March 31, 1974, in Arlington, VA; a year earlier she had said that speculation that the two would marry was "outrageous."Nancy Kissinger was raised in...
. They now live in Kent, Connecticut
Kent, Connecticut
Kent is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, alongside the border with New York. The population was 2,858 at the 2000 census. The town is home to three New England boarding schools: South Kent School, Kent School and The Marvelwood School. The Schaghticoke Indian Reservation is also located...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. David was an executive with NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
before becoming head of Conaco
Conaco
Conaco is the television production firm owned by entertainer Conan O'Brien. It has produced programs primarily for NBCUniversal, including O'Brien's Late Night and Tonight shows. David Kissinger, former NBCU executive and the son of Henry Kissinger, has been president since 2005.Conaco's first...
, Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....
's production company. Kissinger described Diplomacy
Diplomacy (game)
Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959. Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases and the absence of dice or other game elements that produce random effects...
as his favorite game in an interview published in a games magazine.
Awards, honors and associations
In 1973, Kissinger and Le Duc ThoLe Duc Tho
Lê Đức Thọ , born Phan Đình Khải in Ha Nam province, was a Vietnamese revolutionary, general, diplomat, and politician, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, although he declined it....
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
for the Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
of 1973, "intended to bring about a cease-fire in the Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and a withdrawal of the American forces," while serving as the United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
. Unlike Tho, who refused it because Vietnam was still at war, Kissinger accepted it. American singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
famously quipped that the award ".. makes political satire obsolete", in ironic reference to Kissinger's human-rights record, established or otherwise.
In 1976, Henry Kissinger was officially named to be the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...
.
On January 13, 1977, Kissinger was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
by President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
.
In 1995, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander
Knight Commander
Knight Commander is the second most senior grade of seven British orders of chivalry, three of which are dormant . The rank entails admission into knighthood, allowing the recipient to use the title 'Sir' or 'Dame' before his or her name...
of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
In 1998, Kissinger became an honorary citizen of Fürth
Fürth
The city of Fürth is located in northern Bavaria, Germany in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of the two cities being only 7 km apart....
, Germany, his hometown. He has been a life-long supporter of the Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth
SpVgg Greuther Fürth
SpVgg Greuther Fürth is a German association football club based in Fürth, Bavaria. The club was formed when the senior football side of newcomer Turn- und Sportverein Vestenbergsgreuth joined traditional club Spielvereinigung Fürth on 1 July 1996...
football club and is now an honorary member. He served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
from February 10, 2001 to the summer of 2005.
In 2000, Kissinger was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.
In 2005, Kissinger was awarded a Gold Medal at the annual Queen Sofia Spanish Institute
Queen Sofia Spanish Institute
The Queen Sofía Spanish Institute is an organization in New York City founded to promote the Spanish language and the culture of Spain. It is located on 684 Park Avenue in the former Oliver D. Filley House.- History :...
Gold Medal Gala.
In April 2006, Kissinger received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
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
Nanjing University
Nanjing University , or Nanking University, is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher learning in China...
, Chen Jun, and of Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, 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.
In September 2007, Kissinger was honored as Grand Marshal of the German-American Steuben Parade
German-American Steuben Parade
The German-American Steuben Parade is an annual parade held in various cities across the United States. The New York City parade is held every third Saturday in September. It was founded in 1957 by German-American immigrants who, being part of the largest self -reported ancestral group in the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was celebrated by tens of thousands of spectators on Fifth Avenue. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
was supposed to be a co-Grand Marshal, but had to cancel due to health problems. Kohl was represented by Klaus Scharioth
Klaus Scharioth
Dr. Klaus Scharioth is a German diplomat. From 2006 to 2011 he served as Germany's ambassador to the United States.Scharioth was born in Essen, located in the Ruhr Area in western Germany. He studied law in Bonn, Freiburg and Geneva and political science, sociology and psychology at The College of...
, German Ambassador in Washington, who led the Steuben Parade with Kissinger.
In June 2011, Kissinger was honored by the American Council on Germany with a McCloy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to transatlantic relations.
Kissinger is known to be a member of the following groups:
- Bohemian ClubBohemian ClubThe Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...
- Council on Foreign RelationsCouncil on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
- Aspen InstituteAspen InstituteThe Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...
- Bilderberg GroupBilderberg GroupThe Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...
Memoirs
- 1979. The White House Years. ISBN 0-316-49661-8
- 1982. Years of Upheaval. ISBN 0-316-28591-9
- 1999. Years of Renewal. ISBN 0-684-85571-2
Public policy
- 1957. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. ISBN 0-865-31745-3 (1984 edition)
- 1961. The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy. ISBN 0-06-012410-5
- 1965. The Troubled Partnership: A Re-Appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance. ISBN 0-07-034895-2
- 1969. American Foreign Policy: Three essays. ISBN 0-297-17933-0
- 1973. A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22. ISBN 0-395-17229-2
- 1981. For the Record: Selected Statements 1977-1980. ISBN 0-316-49663-4
- 1985 Observations: Selected Speeches and Essays 1982-1984. ISBN 0-316-49664-2
- 1994. Diplomacy. ISBN 067165991X
- 1999. Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow (Henry Kissinger, William Burr). ISBN 1-56584-480-7
- 2001. Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century. ISBN 0684855674
- 2002. Vietnam: A Personal History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. ISBN 0-7432-1916-3
- 2003. Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises: Based on the Record of Henry Kissinger's Hitherto Secret Telephone Conversations. ISBN 0-7432-4910-0
- 2011. On China (New York: Penguin Press, 2011). ISBN 9781594202711.
Further reading
Biographies- 1973. Graubard, Stephen Richards, Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind. ISBN 0-393-05481-0
- 1974. Kalb, Marvin L. and Kalb, Bernard, Kissenger, ISBN 0-316-48221-8
- 1974. Schlafly, Phyllis, Kissinger on the Couch. Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 0-87000-216-3
- 1983. Hersh, Seymour, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, Summit Books. ISBN 0671506889. (Awards: National Book Critics Circle, General Non-Fiction Award. Best Book of the Year: New York Times Book Review; Newsweek; San Francisco Chronicle)
- 1992. Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York. Simon & Schuster (updated, 2005). ISBN 0-671-66323-2
- 2004. Hanhimäki, Jussi. The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. ISBN 0-19-517221-3
- 2007. Kurz, Evi. Die Kissinger-Saga. ISBN 978-3-940405-70-8
- 2009. Kurz, Evi. The Kissinger-Saga - Walter and Henry Kissinger. Two Brothers from Fuerth, Germany. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-85675-7.
Other
- Avner, YehudaYehuda AvnerYehuda Avner is an Israeli former prime ministerial advisor and diplomat. He served as personal secretary and speechwriter to Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Golda Meir and Levi Eshkol, and as Israeli Ambassador to Australia and the United Kingdom.-Early...
, The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership, 2010. ISBN 9781592642786 - Benedetti, Amedeo, Lezioni di politica di Henry Kissinger. Linguaggio, pensiero ed aforismi del più abile politico di fine Novecento, Genova, Erga, 2005, ISBN 88-8163-391-4
- Berman, Larry, No peace, no honor. Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam, New York, NY u.a.: Free Press, 2001. ISBN 0-684-84968-2.
- Dallek, Robert, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. HarperCollins, 2007. ISBN 0060722304
- Hanhimäki, Jussi M., 'Dr. Kissinger' or 'Mr. Henry'? Kissingerology, Thirty Years and Counting', in: Diplomatic History, Vol. 27, Issue 5, pp. 637–76.
- Hitchens, Christopher, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, 2002. ISBN 1-85984-631-9
- Klitzing, Holger, The Nemesis of Stability. Henry A. Kissinger's Ambivalent Relationship with Germany. Trier: WVT 2007, ISBN 3884769421
- Shannon E. Mohan. "Memorandum for Mr. Bundy": Henry Kissinger as Consultant to the Kennedy National Security Council," Historian, 71,2 (2009), 234-257.
- Morris, Roger, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-013097-0
- Schmidt, Helmut, On Men and Power: A Political Memoir.1990. ISBN 0-224-02715-8
- Schulzinger, Robert D. Henry Kissinger. Doctor of Diplomacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-231-06952-9
- Shawcross, William, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia (Revised edition October 2002) ISBN 0-8154-1224-X.
- Suri, Jeremi, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Harvard, Belknap Press, 2007), ISBN 978-0674025790.
- Thornton, Richard C., The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping of America's Foreign Policy. 1989. ISBN 0-88702-051-8
- Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, Taiwan Expendable? Nixon and Kissinger Go to China, 2005. ISBN 9780231135658
External links
- Annotated Bibliography for Henry Kissinger from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
- Official Website of Henry A. Kissinger
- "Charlie Rose" A conversation with Henry Kissinger, December 16, 2008
- Henry Kissinger speaks at the Asia Society, NYC, February, 2007
- Kissinger's political donations
- NPR: Kissinger Speech at National Press Club. Towards the end [55:55], he responds to Hitchens.
- 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. Summary
- Producer of 'The Kissinger-Saga, Walter and Henry Kissinger - Two Brothers from Fuerth/Germany'
- СССР TV: "In the wake of Kissinger's visit (1976)" (in Russian)
- Linkage and Arms Control. Interview conducted on November 26, 1986 for the War and Peace in the Nuclear AgeWar and Peace in the Nuclear AgeWar and Peace in the Nuclear Age is a 1989 PBS television series focusing on the effect of nuclear weapons development on international relations and warfare during the Cold War. The 13-part series was funded by the Annenberg/CPB Project and produced by WGBH in Boston in association with NHK and...
series. - Henry Kissinger interviewed by Mike WallaceMike Wallace (journalist)Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
on The Mike Wallace Interview July 13, 1958 - Uncommon Knowledge: Henry Kissinger
- Interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria
- Kissinger talks about Vladimir Putin
- "Kissinger Speaks Out On Foreign Policy"
- Henry Kissinger interviewed by Peter Krogh on American Interests, 1981
- "Kissinger interviewed with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Charlie Rose as inaugural episode of Rose's 'Conversations on Diplomacy' series"