Henry Kissinger, the Man, the Myth, the War Criminal

Henry Kissinger Dead

On November 29th, 2023, Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State and diplomat, passed away in his Connecticut home. Following his death he was praised by global leaders across the world including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Notably Chinese President Xi Jinping stated in a message to American President Joe Biden that,

“Kissinger's name will always be associated with China-U.S. relations. Dr. Kissinger will always be remembered and missed by the Chinese people.”
- Xi Jinping, November 2023

Henry Kissinger was a very influential man who had a large impact on global politics and international relations, so much in fact that even after he left office as Secretary of State he still met with world leaders to discuss international relations. Such as when in July of this year, he met high ranking Chinese politicians including Xi Jinping, Defence Minister Li Shangfu, and senior diplomat Wang Yi. He is especially notable for his role in negotiating the opening up of China to diplomatic relations with the U.S. under the Nixon administration, and for negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, the latter of which he won a Nobel Peace Prize for. During his award ceremony he stated,

“I am deeply moved by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, which I regard as the highest honor one could hope to achieve in the pursuit of peace on this earth. When I consider the list of those who have been so honored before me, I can only accept this award with humility.

The people of the United States, and indeed of the whole world, share the hope expressed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that all parties to this conflict will feel morally responsible for turning the ceasefire in Vietnam into a lasting peace for the suffering peoples of Indochina. Certainly my Government, for its part, intends to continue to conduct its policies in such a way as to turn this hope into reality.”
- Henry Kissinger, 1973 Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony Speech

Cambodia

What the international representatives of the Bourgeoisie are not telling you is that Henry Kissinger was in fact, a war criminal who did anything but “bring peace to the suffering of the people of Indochina”. Henry Kissinger played a significant role in orchestrating the carpet bombing of Cambodia, which he directed between the years of 1969-1973. Under Kissinger, 500,000 bombs were dropped on Cambodia, killing an estimated 150,000 civilians. Not only that, he personally approved 3,875 bombing raids in Cambodia. But that does not even scratch the surface of this “man’s” complete and utter hypocrisy.

Chile

Declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency also show that not only was Kissinger named supervisor of “covert efforts to keep Allende from being inaugurated”, but that he was also a major architect of the Pinochet Coup, in which the Chilean military under the leadership of Augusto Pinochet bombed the Chilean presidential palace, and overthrew the democratically elected Salvadore Allende to establish a military dictatorship.

The imperialist that he was, when discussing the election of Salvadore Allende in Chile with Richard Helms, former CIA director, he said that,

“We will not let Chile go down the drain.”
- Henry Kissinger, September 12th 1970, Helms/Kissinger Telephone Conference

Kissinger later in a memorandum to Nixon acknowledged that Salvadore Allende was legitimately elected,

“Allende was elected legally, the first Marxist government ever to come to power by free elections. He has legitimacy in the eyes of Chileans and most of the world;. there is nothing we can do to deny him that. legitimacy or claim he does not have it.”
- Henry Kissinger, November 5th 1970, Memorandum for the President

Yet caring little for democracy, that did not stop Kissinger from rapaciously backing up the military dictatorship in Chile.

In 1975 Kissinger showed his complete and utter lack of regard for human rights when he met the Foreign Minister of Chile’s Pinochet Regime, and rather than criticize Pinochet’s government for human rights abuses he had this to say,

“Well, I read the Briefing Paper for this meeting and it was nothing but Human Rights. The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there were not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State.”
- Henry Kissinger, September 29th 1975, Secretary's Meeting with Foreign Minister Carvajal

In 1976 he said to Pinochet that,

“My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world

[...]

“As you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward Communism. We wish your government well.”
- Henry Kissinger, June 8th 1976 , Memorandum of Conversation

How could you get more transparently disgusting than that?

Bangladesh

During the Bangladesh Liberation war of 1971, the war in which Bangladesh fought to achieve its independence from Pakistan, Pakistan employed brutal repression and genocide against Bangladeshis, in which 200,000-400,000 Bengali women were raped, 500,000-3,000,000 Bengalis were murdered, and 1,500,000 Bengalis were forced to seek asylum in India. How did Kissinger, then U.S. Secretary of State respond? Alongside president Richard Nixon, Kissinger infamously supported Pakistan, pushing for an unprecedented and sharp turn towards friendly relations with Pakistan as Kissinger saw Pakistan as conduit for friendly relations with China.

Beyond just words, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon used the United States Navy to support Pakistan. On December 10th, 1971, Kissinger and Nixon sent the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet from VIetnam to Sri Lanka, led by the USS Enterprise, the then world's largest nuclear powered aircraft carrier. He also facilitated the export of military supplies to Pakistan from Jordan, Iran, and Turkey. To showcase the full moral depravity of Kissinger in regards to the Bangladesh Liberation War, the following is an excerpt from a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger.

“Nixon bitterly said, “‘The Indians need what they need really is a-’ Kissinger interjected, ‘They're such bastards.’ Nixon finished his thought: ‘A mass famine.’”
- Gary J. Bass, "The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide"

Israel

During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Kissinger was still Secretary of State. Kissinger however did not approach this war from the perspective of principles or morals, for if he did he would have recognised the right of the Palestinians to all of Palestine, as Israel was (and still is) a settler-colonial state constructed entirely upon land stolen from Palestinians, that was (and still is) conducting an active genocide against the Palestinian nation. Rather he, the opportunist he was, viewed it through the lens of the imperialist interests of the United States. In his words,

“We were determined from the beginning to prevent an Arab victory, which we looked at as a Soviet victory.”
- Henry Kissinger, September 24th 2023, Exclusive Jerusalem Post Interview

Kissinger was in fact against a ceasefire during the Yom Kippur war. The deranged gambler that he was, betting with blood and iron, he was unwilling to allow the war to end while the Zionist’s were down in material. In other words, he only opposed the ceasefire to double down in support for the genocidal army of Israel, feeding it tanks, bombs, guns, tanks, anti aircraft, all to double down in support for Israel with the ruthlessness of a mafioso and the bloodlust of a depraved sadist. Somehow the Soviet Union justly sending equipment to the Arab-Palestinian coalition is justification to support a genocidal army, but with criminals like Kissinger this heartlessness is to be expected.

“I was very opposed to reaching a ceasefire while the battle was going in favor of the offensive. We looked at it in part also as the impact on the international system of Soviet-armed countries gaining diplomatic benefits from military action.”
- Henry Kissinger, September 24th 2023, Exclusive Jerusalem Post Interview

Kissinger did not respect the rights of the Palestinians, rather he took a dehumanizing view of them. His criticism of Israel did not include the forceful expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine, the Israeli annexations of Palestinian land, or the brutality of Israeli settler colonialism. Instead, his contention was that Israel’s level of brutality and adventurism would set back Israeli strategic interests. This is because he sought to isolate the Palestinians from the Arab coalition, divide and conquer. Perhaps Kissinger simply prefers the practical and sensible genocide?

"But I have left the Palestinian question alone in order to work on frontier questions hoping eventually to isolate the Palestinians. And this could work. We could have split the Palestinians from the Syrians for only a few more kilometers on the Golan, but the Israelis insisted on moving the settlements right up to the line. My feeling now is that the Syrians will be driven to toward even greater radicalism. Israel must realize that it must deal with the Arab governments if it does not want to deal with the Palestinians. But you know, Israel is a lot like Germany before the First World War in that there is this tendency to produce what it most fears."
- Henry Kissinger, May/June 1981, "To Isolate the Palestinians"

During the Yom Kippur war the United States airlifted 22,318 tons of material to Israel. This included weapons and military equipment including “155mm howitzers, 175mm cannons, M-60 and M-48 battle tanks, Sikorsky CH-53D helicopters, and McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk aircraft fuselages” This airlift undoubtedly played a major role in the Israeli victory over the Palestinian people. Kissinger with no shame admitted to playing a major role in the U.S. airlift of these supplies to Israel. To quote Kissinger himself,

"When it became apparent that the civilian airlift could not be organized as quickly as we had originally thought, I went to Nixon and told him we needed another level of airlift to affect the situation, that we needed a military airlift. And then Nixon, in his characteristic way, which was that once the decision was made he did the full-scale of it to the extent that it could be done. He ordered the immediate airlift for the Israelis and we began a major military airlift on Friday evening and at full scale on Saturday morning."
- Henry Kissinger, September 24th 2023, Exclusive Jerusalem Post Interview

In summary, Kissinger armed the Israeli Occupation Army against Palestine, sought to delay a ceasefire in order to strengthen Israel against the Soviet backed PLO and Arab Coalition, and acted opportunistically along US Imperialist interests in Israel as opposed to justice. Had Kissinger and the Nixon government he represented not intervened in Israel in the way that it did, an Israeli victory could have been prevented, the genocide and colonisation of Palestinans could have been ended, and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in which Israel has murdered 17,400+ (as of writing) Palestinians could have been prevented.

East Timor

Henry Kissinger, during the years of the Gerald Ford administration, also played a role in greenlighting the Indonesian invasion of East Timor which resulted in the East Timor genocide and 200,000+ deaths. When Indonesian dictator Suharto in a 1975 meeting with Kissinger and Ford asked the United States to build a factory to manufacture M-16 rifles for the Indonesian military to use, Kissinger said that,

"We would favor this as a government because of its indication of wider cooperation."
- Henry Kissinger, December 1975, Ford-Suharto Meeting

Kissinger in fact knew that the Indonesian government was planning action in East Timor, yet instead of warning the dictator against an invasion of East Timor, or declaring a principled U.S. stance against Indonesian aggression, he in fact encouraged the Indonesian dictator, with the caveat being that he only wished the dictator to wait till the President returns home on opportunistic grounds so as to manipulate American public opinion in favor of Suharto!. Kissinger could have even chosen to say and do nothing, merely ignoring it, but instead he actively encouraged Suharto to act quickly, becoming complicit in Suharto’s crimes.

See,

"It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly, we would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. This way there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorized way."
- Henry Kissinger, December 1975, Ford-Suharto Meeting

And,

"If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home."
- Henry Kissinger, December 1975, Ford-Suharto Meeting

As is consistent with Kissinger, he acted in the interests of the big bourgeoisie and private companies, and in few places does he make that as abundantly clear as when he personally spoke with Suharto.

See Kissinger here,

"Kissinger - Our main concern is that whatever you do does not create a climate that discourages investment. Basically the matter is between you and the companies. We are not involved in such problems.

Suharto - We have taken these views into account and everything that we do will be based on existing laws. We want to find a way of obtaining revenue which will not jeopardize fair profits for companies.

Kissinger - We appreciate your clarification of this matter.”
- Henry Kissinger & Suharto, December 1975, Ford-Suharto Meeting

Kissinger is a warmongering profiteer, and the highest crimes in all the land, even genocide, is acceptable to him so long as it is in the interests of big business. Had Kissinger objected here, had Kissinger supported the East Timor people, then perhaps the East Timor genocide could have been prevented or alleviated. But no, Kissinger has no qualms with covering for genocide as long as it is in the interests of American Imperialism.

Argentina

In 1976 there was a military coup in Argentina, which established a dictatorial military junta. The Argentinian dictatorship, in an effort to repress political dissent, murdered or “disappeared” 30,000 people. They would keep pregnant prisoners under arrest until they gave birth just to murder the mother and abduct their child. It was a horrible period in Argentina characterized by political repression and fear.

So naturally of course it comes as no surprise that Kissinger supported and encouraged the Argentinian government in the conduction of these repressions! At this point it is hardly surprising but in 1976 Kissinger blatantly stated to the Argentine Foreign Minister that,

> "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you should get back quickly to normal procedures."
- Henry Kissinger, June 6th 1976, Memorandum of Conversation

And,

"We are aware you are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear separation. We understand you must establish authority."
- Henry Kissinger, June 6th 1976, Memorandum of Conversation

Kissinger even made it clear that he knew that the government was violating human rights, and that the American public would be opposed to U.S. support for Argentina. Yet of course Kissinger once again makes it clear that he does not care about that when he says,

"In the United States we have strong domestic pressures to do something on human rights… We want you to succeed. We do not want to harrass you. I will do what I can…."
- Henry Kissinger, June 6th 1976, Memorandum of Conversation

A CIA document transcribing Kissinger's briefing before this meeting shows that Kissinger was aware that Argentina was attempting to use the “Chilean method” when he said these things, but considering that Kissinger was an architect behind the Chilean fascist coup against the democratically elected Salvadore Allende it is no surprise that this would be of no concern to him. The innocent people of Argentina are just one more on the long list of the many lives that Kissinger has helped to ruin.

Apartheid South Africa and Apartheid Rhodesia

In regards to Africa in general, Kissinger had a very typical racist and white supremacist perspective on the continent. For example, here is an excerpt from a conversation between Kissinger and Nixon.

"Kissinger: They’ve been going to put into Roger’s speech at the U.N. some stuff that we want more self-determination in Africa. And I said, 'absolute nonsense.'

Nixon: More self-determination would mean more nations.

Kissinger: That applies--they’ll apply that to Mozambique and South Africa. They won’t apply it to black [unclear].

Nixon: Yeah. Goddamn. Just think, 42 countries in Africa. 42 countries. That’s ridiculous."
- Henry Kissinger & Richard Nixon, September 23rd 1972, Conversation Between Nixon and His Assistant for National Security Affairs

Neither Kissinger nor Nixon respected the right of the African peoples to self determination, which is typical for chauvinists like them. For context, and this is a fact that makes this all the more sad, is that today there are actually 54 United Nations recognised nations in Africa. Nixon and Kissinger however did not seem to think then, that these states have a right to exist.

After the 1976 Sowoto Massacre, in which the Apartheid South African government murdered 1,102 students and injured over 2000, Henry Kissinger visited South Africa, becoming the first Secretary of State to do so in three decades. Kissinger also supported South Africa in the Angolan War, and even Rhodesia.

In a meeting with a South African Diplomat, Kissinger demonstrated that he either believed that the Apartheid government of South Africa either wasn’t racist/reactionary, or that he at least wished the government could hide it better. When the diplomat became concerned that Kissinger was seeking South Africa to reform and share power with Black Africans, Kissinger outright stated that he was not trying to reform the Apartheid government of South Africa into giving political power to the Black majority, but rather that he was trying to prevent Apartheid South Africa from being forced to face a coalition of 46 African states, the Cubans, North Koreans, and Vietnamese.

“Botha - I have asked my Foreign Minister to make a statement supporting some elements of your speech and trip.

Kissinger - If he could say something which would show that you are not a totally reactionary, racist state.

Botha - We have never shared power. Smith --in the Constitution-- has. We are for majority rule but through separate states. We are for the same goal.

Kissinger - We are not trying to reform you. We are trying to prevent the radicalization of Black Africa and a race war. We want to avoid your having to face a coalition of 46 African states -- supported by the Cubans, North Koreans, North Vietnamese, or whatever.”
- Henry Kissinger & Pik Botha, May 19th 1976, Memorandum of Conversation

Kissinger in a report about South Africa wrote that he wanted to relax political isolation and economic restrictions on white states without openly taking that stance, and that the U.S. government would be flexible in its attitude towards the apartheid Smith regime.

“The whites are here to stay and the only way that constructive change can come about is through them.”
- Henry Kissinger, December 9th 1979, Study in Response to National Security Study Memorandum

And,

"We would maintain public opposition to racial repression but relax political isolation and economic restrictions on the white states. We would begin by modest indications of this relaxation, broadening the scope of our relations and contacts gradually and to some degree in response to tangible—albeit small and gradual—moderation of white policies. Without openly taking a position undermining the U.K. and the UN on Rhodesia, we would be more flexible in our attitude toward the Smith regime."
- Henry Kissinger, December 9th 1979, Study in Response to National Security Study Memorandum

For those who do not know, Ian Smith was the Prime Minister of Apartheid Rhodesia, and these are the sort of people and governments that Kissinger saw it opportune to relax relations with and be flexible towards. Scoundrel.

Conclusion

There is much that could be said about Henry Kissinger, much that should be said. What I wrote about in this article only scratches the surface of Kissinger's complete and utter depravity. Leaving a trail of bodies wherever he rests his hand, from Cyprus, Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Argentina, South Africa, to Palestine, the list goes on and on; Kissinger has consistently prioritized the imperialist interests of the American bourgeoisie over democracy and human rights at every turn. The press about Kissinger the legendary diplomat as a great man of history is a complete lie. Henry Kissinger is no more than an especially rapacious war criminal, who ought to serve as an example for what evil is.

Kissinger never received punishment for the crimes he commited, and now that he is dead he never will. His victims will never receive justice. Kissinger was allowed to live to the ripe old age of 100, honored by the United States government, with his name intact and his back free against the wind. Henry Kissinger is a good example of how in the United States, any crime is acceptable, so long as it is done on the behalf of the bourgeois government. Because for as much culpability as Kissinger has for his own actions, he was just one cog in the machine of the U.S. Bureaucratic-Military-Industrial complex.

Workers of the World Unite!

Citations

Attributions

World Economic Forum, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons