Henry Kissinger (cc photo: Brandon)
On September 22, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer had a long interview with Henry Kissinger.
Take a look at the intro:
In the long history of America, few men have had the influence of Henry Kissinger. For at least 60 years, powerful people have asked: “What does Henry think?” And he has never been shy about telling them….
Kissinger would go on to be Richard Nixon’s national security adviser. He received the Nobel Prize for getting peace talks started on Vietnam, was point man for the opening to China, and guided the effort to forge new arms agreements with the Soviet Union. The media loved him. He became secretary of State and as Watergate exploded, kept American foreign policy together at a time when America had never been more vulnerable.
One part about this–“the media loved him”–is undeniably true. And it’s certainly true that powerful people ask Kissinger for advice.
But the idea that Kissinger “kept American foreign policy together at a time when America had never been more vulnerable” deserves a rebuttal.
The war crimes arrest Kissinger was discussing on MSNBC was Ratko Mladic’s–not his own.
A more apt description of Kissinger’s record might skip the part about bringing peace to Vietnam and instead reference the massive aerial bombardment of Cambodia–“a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies or anything that moves,” as he himself put it (New York Times, 5/27/04)–in addition to the heavy bombings of Vietnam and Laos.
Kissinger’s tenure including support for the military coup that overthrew the Allende government in Chile and support for the murderous Indonesian dictator Suharto’s policies in East Timor (FAIR Action Alert, 9/1/99).
One could go on, and in much greater detail, but you see the point.
Kissinger’s record haunts him; every so often there are reports about how it interrupts his international travel plans, like in 2001 when a French magistrate sent Kissinger a summons at a Paris hotel, inquiring about Kissinger’s role in the notorious Operation Condor programs of the 1970s. Kissinger promptly left town–and did a series of high-profile media interviews, none of which mentioned the French attempt to question him about human rights abuses (Extra!, 8/01).
Kissinger counts on his friends in the elite media to not bother him with questions about his past. At a 2001 National Press Club event, journalists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman wondered why Kissinger was not asked about these very relevant controversies. The event moderator, Richard Koonce, told them that there was, in fact, an agreement not to entertain audience questions about certain subjects (CommonDreams.org, 6/22/01):
“Was there an agreement with Dr. Kissinger not to ask questions related to Christopher Hitchens and allegations of war crimes?”
To our surprise, Koonce did not deny it.
“There was a definite sensitivity to that,” Koonce said. “He [Kissinger] was afraid that if we got into a discussion of that, for the vast majority of people that, it would take so much time to explain all of the context, that you know, he preferred to avoid that, and so….”
And so Kissinger’s wishes were accommodated and the questions were avoided.
It’s hard to know what Schieffer means when he says that Kissinger “kept American foreign policy together” at a difficult time. But it’s clear that he, like so many others in the media, greatly admires Kissinger. There’s no doubt they are aware of his record. Either they find that record laudable, or they think it’s best not to talk about. Neither option is journalistically defensible.
“It’s hard to know what Schieffer means when he says that Kissinger “kept American foreign policy together” at a difficult time.”
Is it?
I’ll take a guess, and say that Schieffer meant that this bloody bipartisan bastard kept the imperial project on track by engaging in business as usual
And the pile of bodies would attest to that.
That is the “foreign policy” the corpress has cheered – and rationalized when necessary – since its inception, isn’t it?
So I’ll put my money on that interpretation.
Any takers?
Weren’t the Paris peace talks sort of a joke? The U.S. had grown tired of destroying Vietnam, just as it now is in Afghanistan, and wanted a “peace with honor” fig leaf, but the conflict continued until the puppets the U.S. abandoned were defeated. I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a warlike character in many respects, but he got his Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an actual peace. (This isn’t even considering the allegations that Kissinger helped sabotage peace talks during the Johnson administration.)
“It’s hard to know what Schieffer means when he says that Kissinger “kept American foreign policy together” at a difficult time.”
This may help – fabulous keyword-searchable database of State Dept cables during the time Kissinger was Secretary of State; database created by Wikileaks:
http://wikileaks.org/plusd/index.php
Cables searchable under lots of other criteria too; To, From, Traffic Analysis, Classification, Handling Restrictions, etc. Oh, and Wikileaks threw in the Cablegate cables too, so they’re all keyword-searchable now.
for more information on Kissinger’s sordid role in okaying and backing the illegal Indonesian invasion of East Timor (now independent Timor-Leste) see http://etan.org/news/kissinger/default.htm
“Kissinger’s tenure including support for the military coup that overthrew the Allende government in Chile and support for the murderous Indonesian dictator Suharto’s policies in East Timor” … is a rather soft-spoken way of describing his crimes.
The Nixon Tapes and other records make clear that K was an engineer of the CIA-backed fascist coup against an elected government. “support” is an inadequate descriptor.
Similarly “policies” doesn’t quite describe Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor that ended up killing an estimated third of its 750,000 people. As Wikipedia says,
“In December 1975, Suharto discussed the invasion plans during a meeting with Kissinger and President Ford in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Both Ford and Kissinger made clear that US relations with Indonesia would remain strong and that it would not object to the proposed annexation. They only wanted it done ‘fast’ and proposed to delay the invasion until they had returned to Washington.[52] Accordingly Suharto delayed the operation for one day.”
Even as Hitchens endorsed Bush’s aggressive invasion of Iraq, he never repudiated his denunciations of Kissinger. There’s no need to use milque-toast language in describing this war criminal.
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kissinger. A troop of twentieth century mass murderers.
coincidently, I have just viewed on youtube, “the trials of henry Kissinger” based on hitchens’ book.
I thought the way Kissinger “left” nelson Rockefeller to work with Richard Nixon, who had just beaten Rockefeller in the presidential election, was possibly Kissinger’s first coup d’état.
the movie covers from where Nixon and kissinger took over from Johnson in Vietnam, into Cambodia, Indonesia, and 1973 with chile.
All along Kissinger is apparently the lead liar and a sexy celebrity, too. he’s the mastermind and controller. near the end he’s at ground zero with Giuliani, smiling even, and praising the mayor’s good job and the ability of the country to adjust and survive. ( !!! have we really ?)
the paris “peace talks” are in there. duplicity reigns!
hersh is in the film, too, and he has a great and relevant article out just this week, about the very same corporate-owned press which helped give us all these years of Kissinger-love and his terrible genocidal war plans – SO good for big business-only and helping to pay bob schieffer’s salary, I think.
Brown noser Schieffer never misses an opportunity to libel patriot Edward Snowden while sucking up to war crimminal Kissinger. YUK!
The Paris “peace talks” was a ruse, to continue Nixon’s uninteruppted carte blanche for ‘carpet bombing’ innocent civilians. It took month’s to determine ‘the shape’ of the goddamn table. Kissinger is the epitome of evil. Just a horrible – disgusting waste of skin.
Kissinger certainly has the face he deserves, and now that I think about it, so does Bob Schieffer.
I agreed and very good artilce .
Henry Kissinger was no Saint and he can do Nothing for Peace anywhere. Why bother interviewing a man that is so despised and hated in so many countries? No one cares to hear about Henry Kissinger’s opinion.
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