Henry Kissinger died last tear and finally got round to watch this 2002 film which was made about 25 years after the height of his prominence. After watching this in many respects it's perhaps not surprising that Henry Kissinger would still receive criticism in his obituary in 2023. Yet his record needs to be reexamined in the light of the disastrous three decades of US foreign policy (much of it promoted by 21stC internationalists including Christopher Hitchens) nearly 25 years after this documentary was made.
However, any historical event around the Nixon years isn't just a nostalgic trip down memory lane, moreover it's because the US media regard Watergate as the blue-ribbon event of journalism as the scrutiny and investigation of the Nixon administration eventually led to the criminal prosecution of government official's impeachment hearings and the eventual resignation of a sitting President. Henry Kissinger was around during that turbulent period, so it's perhaps one last opportunity to revisit those times as everybody else that was in Nixon's inner circle has long since gone.
Ardent critics who were Kissinger's contemporaries never accused him of being involved in Watergate, but it was his role in shaping US foreign policy, particularly the later years of the Vietnam war that they were concerned with, so Kissinger's presence over the next 50 years or so only served to encapsulate a feeling that he alone tiptoed away accountability for an administration that many historians have argued was secretive and corrupt.
Richard Nixon the only sitting president forced to resign in the 20th century was not somebody who fell from the lofty heights of popularity within the media. He wasn't particularly liked by them and made no secret of his disdain for the press. It might go some way to explain why the Vietnam war is today hung around his neck when it was first President Kennedy (1961-1963) and later President Johnson (1963-1969) that got the United States firmly enmeshed in Vietnam. By the time Richard Nixon and then national security adviser Henry Kissinger inherited the war there were over 500,000 US military personnel in the region. Kissinger is accused of being at the very heart of the decision making that expanded and unnecessarily prolonged the war in Indochina and embarked on a balance of power foreign policy that took little consideration of human rights.
Amongst some of grievances is that in 1973 Kissinger was behind a military coup in Chile that resulted in an elected government being ousted as well as providing aid to Argentina's military government in 1976. They were an anti-Marxist Junta that took a heavy-handed approach to their political opponents which was known as "the dirty war" which led to the disappearance of thousands of people. Foreign policy in the Nixon and Ford administrations under Kissinger's stewardship were purely for the benefit of the USA, "the ends justify the means", which is something the American left despised. Kissinger laid the groundwork for the overture to China which was known as "triangulation". Critics on the left viewed this as a cynical maneuver purely for domestic political gain, that only took advantage of the tensions between China and the USSR, and the conservatives saw it as abandoning its anti-communist policy.
There is a charge that Nixon while a candidate tried to sabotage a peace deal in Vietnam seems on the surface weak. It's unclear what this would have entailed and how as a candidate what he could have been done. Nevertheless, it was reported that this happened and if it did, Henry Kissinger wouldn't have been far behind. Although it is only fair to point out that any peace proposals by Johnson were running on a timeline for the presidential election in November of that year. As a candidate for that election there was every justification to be concerned at what the landscape would have looked like with a rushed peace deal or even a bad one had been offered. Not only for Richard Nixon but for Hubert Humphry Johnsons vice president who was the democratic party nomination.
What is overlooked was that any peace overtures by the USA via South Vietnam were meaningless. The war was unpopular at home and the and the North Vietnamese were in a much stronger bargaining position. The USA knew this, as so did the North Vietnamese. One of the biggest crimes he was accused of was the secret bombing of Cambodia that critics point out violated its neutrality. If North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were using it as a staging area for attacks on ARVN and US forces, the USA and South Vietnam could regard Cambodia as a legitimate target. If a country is unwilling or unable to repel combatants that are operating in a state that has declared its neutrality, then under international law neutrality becomes null and void.
However, Kissinger should get top grades for his efforts during the Yon Kippur war, he's credited for helping Israel from being overwhelmed and then restraining Israel as they turned tables on Egypt and Syria. This "shuttle diplomacy" stopped the conflict from escalating and kept the soviet union's influence at bay and led to a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1977.
After the Carter administration (1977-1981) a new republican presidency led by President Reagan embarked on the theme of national renewal which among other things involved a massive military buildup after the malaise of the post-Vietnam years and a determination to confront the USSR and communism at every opportunity. The doctrine of being able to fight two major conflicts, Korea, Europe and a smaller conflict in the middle east was as much as a reemphasis of the Truman doctrine after the democratic party abandoned it in 1972. Also, there was a more proactive and aggressive assertion of the Monroe doctrine in Latin America with particular emphasis on confronting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Reagan administration, while also very anticommunist regarded the USSR as the evil empire and pursued a different approach to Kissinger on global affairs. This was a decisive break from Kissinger's balance of power politics and co-existence with the USSR. Therefore, it's no accident that during the republican presidencies of the 1980's under both Reagan and Bush, Kissinger played no active role. Although often courted by presidents and other secretary of state's, his most influential days were well behind him.
Henry Kissinger first as national security advisor then as the higher profiled position of secretary of state nobody comes under greater criticism decades after leaving office.m Warren Christopher doesn't get called out over his failures to prevent the Rwanda genocide or the massacres in Bosnia, neither do Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice for their initial roles in the decisions about Afghanistan and Iraq any more than Hillary Clintons pushing for the war in Libya and Syria that destabilized that region. Millions of people have been killed, maimed and displaced over the last two decades. It exposes the fact that if your face fits, any mistakes or shortcomings can be overlooked. I wonder what historians and journalists will be saying about some of the officials I've named 30 years from now. In a way it's ironic that he outlived all his contemporaries, reaching 100 in a way only reinforces the view that in some respects he had the last word on them, much to the chagrin of hostile Journalists, many of them who are now deceased.
However, any historical event around the Nixon years isn't just a nostalgic trip down memory lane, moreover it's because the US media regard Watergate as the blue-ribbon event of journalism as the scrutiny and investigation of the Nixon administration eventually led to the criminal prosecution of government official's impeachment hearings and the eventual resignation of a sitting President. Henry Kissinger was around during that turbulent period, so it's perhaps one last opportunity to revisit those times as everybody else that was in Nixon's inner circle has long since gone.
Ardent critics who were Kissinger's contemporaries never accused him of being involved in Watergate, but it was his role in shaping US foreign policy, particularly the later years of the Vietnam war that they were concerned with, so Kissinger's presence over the next 50 years or so only served to encapsulate a feeling that he alone tiptoed away accountability for an administration that many historians have argued was secretive and corrupt.
Richard Nixon the only sitting president forced to resign in the 20th century was not somebody who fell from the lofty heights of popularity within the media. He wasn't particularly liked by them and made no secret of his disdain for the press. It might go some way to explain why the Vietnam war is today hung around his neck when it was first President Kennedy (1961-1963) and later President Johnson (1963-1969) that got the United States firmly enmeshed in Vietnam. By the time Richard Nixon and then national security adviser Henry Kissinger inherited the war there were over 500,000 US military personnel in the region. Kissinger is accused of being at the very heart of the decision making that expanded and unnecessarily prolonged the war in Indochina and embarked on a balance of power foreign policy that took little consideration of human rights.
Amongst some of grievances is that in 1973 Kissinger was behind a military coup in Chile that resulted in an elected government being ousted as well as providing aid to Argentina's military government in 1976. They were an anti-Marxist Junta that took a heavy-handed approach to their political opponents which was known as "the dirty war" which led to the disappearance of thousands of people. Foreign policy in the Nixon and Ford administrations under Kissinger's stewardship were purely for the benefit of the USA, "the ends justify the means", which is something the American left despised. Kissinger laid the groundwork for the overture to China which was known as "triangulation". Critics on the left viewed this as a cynical maneuver purely for domestic political gain, that only took advantage of the tensions between China and the USSR, and the conservatives saw it as abandoning its anti-communist policy.
There is a charge that Nixon while a candidate tried to sabotage a peace deal in Vietnam seems on the surface weak. It's unclear what this would have entailed and how as a candidate what he could have been done. Nevertheless, it was reported that this happened and if it did, Henry Kissinger wouldn't have been far behind. Although it is only fair to point out that any peace proposals by Johnson were running on a timeline for the presidential election in November of that year. As a candidate for that election there was every justification to be concerned at what the landscape would have looked like with a rushed peace deal or even a bad one had been offered. Not only for Richard Nixon but for Hubert Humphry Johnsons vice president who was the democratic party nomination.
What is overlooked was that any peace overtures by the USA via South Vietnam were meaningless. The war was unpopular at home and the and the North Vietnamese were in a much stronger bargaining position. The USA knew this, as so did the North Vietnamese. One of the biggest crimes he was accused of was the secret bombing of Cambodia that critics point out violated its neutrality. If North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were using it as a staging area for attacks on ARVN and US forces, the USA and South Vietnam could regard Cambodia as a legitimate target. If a country is unwilling or unable to repel combatants that are operating in a state that has declared its neutrality, then under international law neutrality becomes null and void.
However, Kissinger should get top grades for his efforts during the Yon Kippur war, he's credited for helping Israel from being overwhelmed and then restraining Israel as they turned tables on Egypt and Syria. This "shuttle diplomacy" stopped the conflict from escalating and kept the soviet union's influence at bay and led to a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1977.
After the Carter administration (1977-1981) a new republican presidency led by President Reagan embarked on the theme of national renewal which among other things involved a massive military buildup after the malaise of the post-Vietnam years and a determination to confront the USSR and communism at every opportunity. The doctrine of being able to fight two major conflicts, Korea, Europe and a smaller conflict in the middle east was as much as a reemphasis of the Truman doctrine after the democratic party abandoned it in 1972. Also, there was a more proactive and aggressive assertion of the Monroe doctrine in Latin America with particular emphasis on confronting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Reagan administration, while also very anticommunist regarded the USSR as the evil empire and pursued a different approach to Kissinger on global affairs. This was a decisive break from Kissinger's balance of power politics and co-existence with the USSR. Therefore, it's no accident that during the republican presidencies of the 1980's under both Reagan and Bush, Kissinger played no active role. Although often courted by presidents and other secretary of state's, his most influential days were well behind him.
Henry Kissinger first as national security advisor then as the higher profiled position of secretary of state nobody comes under greater criticism decades after leaving office.m Warren Christopher doesn't get called out over his failures to prevent the Rwanda genocide or the massacres in Bosnia, neither do Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice for their initial roles in the decisions about Afghanistan and Iraq any more than Hillary Clintons pushing for the war in Libya and Syria that destabilized that region. Millions of people have been killed, maimed and displaced over the last two decades. It exposes the fact that if your face fits, any mistakes or shortcomings can be overlooked. I wonder what historians and journalists will be saying about some of the officials I've named 30 years from now. In a way it's ironic that he outlived all his contemporaries, reaching 100 in a way only reinforces the view that in some respects he had the last word on them, much to the chagrin of hostile Journalists, many of them who are now deceased.