The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Although Hitchens wrote this book in order to expose the criminality of Henry Kissinger, it is of utmost importance to Library of Congress employees (as well as other librarians) to see how the institution was misused and [bad]. Really, just how can a government employee hide government papers as his own personal papers?A bit out of date, Hitchens details on page 76 how this was done: "On leaving the State Department, Kissinger made an extraordinary bargain whereby (having first hastily trucked them for safekeeping on the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills, New York) he gifted his papers to the Library of Congress, on the sole condition that they remained under seal until after his demise. However, Kissinger's friend Manuel Contreras made a mistake when he killed a United States citizen, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in the Washington car bomb which also murdered Orlando Letelier in 1976. by late 2000, the FBI had finally sought and received subpoena power to review the Library of Congress papers, a subpoena with which Kissinger dealt only through his attorneys." I am also assuming one of Kissinger's attorneys could be listed as the General Counsel of the Library, Elizabeth Pugh.Left out is the story of the man who took the papers under a [tricked] Deed of Gift, signed on Christmas Eve no less, between then Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin and Kissinger. Boorstin, a highly duplicitous man in his own right, is a former communist who named names at the McCarthy hearings. The current Librarian of Congress, right-winger James Billington, is the man who fought the FBI subpoena. Maybe that is because he later named an endowed Library of Congress chair after Kissinger?I particularly liked Hitchens summary of just who Kissinger is on page 16: "The signature qualities were there from the [Nixon] inaugural moment: the sycophancy and the duplicity, the power worship and the absence of scruple; the empty trading of old non-friends for new non-friends. And the distinctive effects were also present: the uncounted and expendable corpses; the official and unofficial lying about the cost; the heavy and pompous pseudo-indignation when unwelcome questions were asked...It debauched the American republic and American democracy, and it levied a hideous toll of casualties on weaker and more vulnerable societies." This description goes for a lot of people in power in Washington.One bit of work that needs to be done is to be found on page 110 and concerns the attempted assassination attempt Kissinger helped plan against Greek journalist Elias Demtracopoulos. The journalist had been very critical of the junta of generals who had taken over Greece, engaging in suppression of democracy as well as murder (and tied to Nixon and Kissinger). The index for Kissinger's papers at the Library of Congress gives this tanalizing hint about Kissinger's role: "keywords acknowledging sens moss burdick gravel re mr demetracopoulos death in athens prison due 701218." It would be nice for t

One of the most memorable scenes in the original "Godfather' movie was a sequence in which Michael (played by Al Pacino), now firmly insinuated in the evil machinations of the family business, travels to rural New England to try to attempt to persuade Kate (played by Diane Keaton) to marry him. When she complains about his father's business and the violence associated with it, Michael says that his father is no different than any other powerful men, like a governor or senator. Kate looks at him with surprise and contempt, claiming governors and senators don't have people killed. With those cold dark eyes, Michael says, "Now Kate, who is being naive?" Such a cynical recognition of the motives and methods of some of our leaders informs this insightful book by journalist Christopher Hitchens, who does the reader a yeoman's service in detailing the evidence mounting against Henry Kissinger for crimes against humanity. Chief and foremost of these many such incidents involves Kissinger's willful disregard for the welfare of American soldiers in harm's way in Vietnam, where his actions and policies served to both derail a possible settlement in the fall of 1968 (thereby condemning an additional 40,000 servicemen to unnecessary death in the fields and jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), and also extended a state of war over additional areas such as Cambodia and Laos for strictly political purposes, thus creating the conditions for millions of unnecessary and unfruitful deaths as well as unimaginable destruction for Americans, Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese over the next several years. Yet Hitchens' indictments of Kissinger's malice and misdeeds do not end here, but extend to many other situations and sets of circumstances, such as the involvement in the overthrow of Chile and the murder of Chile's elected President, Allende, as well as the sponsorship of murder and mayhem on the part of a plethora of indigenous dictators and potentates, ranging from Indonesia's Suharto to the Greek Cypriots, from Bangladesh to Angola. Everywhere Hitchens peered beneath the neatly papered-over official record, Kissinger's bloody fingerprints emerged, staining the truth with his personal brand of Realpolitik, extending his malevolence toward innocent bystanders who got in the way of his global ambitions. And the irony of all this is that despite all the evidence indicating there is more than adequate evidence of Kissinger's culpability and participation in many acts of genocide and murder, Kissinger is still held in such high esteem by so many unsuspecting Americans. Of course, in point of fact, Kissinger is not alone. Others belong to this select group of indictable Americans culpable for their participation in crimes against humanity, including Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland, and William Rogers, along with many others who operated more anonymously in service to the bloody policies of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Yet among these people, no one

... It is particularly surprising that the claim arousing the most incredulity is the alleged sabotage of the pre-Nixon peace talks, which is almost certainly true. The far-more-moderate Larry Berman makes exactly the same claim (with a different analysis)in No Peace, No Honor a book which even conservatives (like former Reagan lackey Jack Matlock, writing recently in the New York Times Review of Books) find entirely credible.As to Hitchens as character assassin: Certain characters, like Kissinger's, are in great need of reassessment. When one's life consists largely of extremely bad deeds done secretly in service of no good higher than one's own ambition and greed, a thorough assessment won't look very nice. Short of outright lying, there is no pretty spin one can put on secret carpet bombings, kidnapping, assassination (the murdering kind), overthrow of democratically elected leaders and a lifetime of making cozy with ruthless dicatators the world over. The book is clearly not intended as a legal brief. As Hitchens recently stated: it is the case for the case for the prosecution, not the case itself. As such, it contains more than ample evidence to warrant further investigation. Indeed, Kissinger has already been served a summons in Paris to be a witness regarding crimes perpetrated in Chile. Summons have been issued in Argentina and Chile as well. So far Dr. K, with the assistance of the US State Dept., has assiduously resisted taking the stand, even though he is not even on trial. What is he so afraid of?For those still making up their minds about the book, you should notice that those who dimiss Hitchens claims make no factual counter-claims, but instead offer puffy pseudo-expert dismissal. This is even true of Kissinger himself, who has yet to say publicly that anything in the book is untrue. Instead he resorted to calling Hitchens a "Holocaust denier" a claim for which Hitchens recently threatened to sue, and for which which Kissinger, by way of his lawyer, has issued a qualified retraction.... By their reckoning, a president is good and progressive if bad, regressive people dislike him. By extension, Hitchens is a bad writer and a bad person because he dislikes a good president who is good because, well, see above...That the likes of Pinochet and Kissinger can no longer hide entirely from justice is perhaps the most civilizing trend in our uncivilized times. And we are indebted to anyone adding fuel to this particular fire.Hitchens is, for all his faults, one of the all-time great living essayists (up there with Gore Vidal) and a dyed in the wool truth-teller. We should listen.