12 1 23 3 31 PM Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy - GZERO Media Subscribe everything is political Newsletters TV Videos Podcasts Events Ian Bremmer About GZERO Blue Circle New GZERO AI Global S Home › GZERO North › Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy GZERO Daily the newsletter for people who love global politics Subscribe Now https www gzeromedia com gzero-north negotiating-with-henry-kissinger-and-his-legacy 1 20 12 1 23 3 31 PM Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy - GZERO Media Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy November 30 2023 Evan Solomon Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at age 100 Credit Jonathan Ernst Reuters I was writing my column today about the Israel-Hamas cease-fire when I heard the news that Henry Kissinger had died at the age of 100 For a media company like ours which focuses on geopolitics Kissinger is one of the most defining controversial and complicated figures of the last century It is hard to find anyone who has worked seriously on politics or studied foreign affairs who has not had an encounter with or held a view of Henry Kissinger Statesman War criminal Genius Failure You name it the allegations have been thrown at him Kissinger embodied the possibilities and the perils of power You will hear the debate over his legacy play out – as it has been playing out for decades – in the days and weeks to come But the first thing you have to know about him is this Everything and every moment with Kissinger was a negotiation Including his legacy I experienced this the first time I met him Daily theI newsletter forYork at Dr Kissinger’s office to interview him for the weekly It was GZERO April 2003 and was in New Subscribe Now people who love global politics CBC TV show I hosted at the time “Hot Type ” I would do hour-long sit-down interviews with hi k i dl d O h d i d h i i i h Ki i f https www gzeromedia com gzero-north negotiating-with-henry-kissinger-and-his-legacy 2 20 12 1 23 3 31 PM Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy - GZERO Media thinkers writers and leaders Our team had tried to get the interview with Kissinger for two years first because he had much to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were then raging but also to get him to respond to the best-selling eviscerating critique of his life written by Christopher Hitchens in the book “The Trial of Henry Kissinger ” It demanded a response Hitchens a brilliant writer who marshaled language as a weapon to combat Kissinger’s bombs was a regular on my show who argued strenuously that Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal “I have never been more serious ” he said as he took a drink We always had a drink handy during Hitchens interviews because he insisted on having a Scotch and an ashtray before deploying his thoughts “We have the evidence ” Hitch went on to present it all from the illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia to what he said was one of Kissinger’s worst but almost ignored alleged crimes “In his capacity as national security adviser Henry Kissinger arranged for the murder of a military officer in Chile Raul Schneider head of the Chilean armed forces general staff ” Hitch took a puff of smoke and went on “You may have heard this expression lately in America that there should be a proper orderly transition of power Well because of Nixon people didn’t want an orderly transition of power and it fell to Kissinger to have Schneider removed so he commissioned a hit on him ” The events Hitch described bear repeating On Oct 22 1970 CIA-backed militants shot Schneider point blank as he traveled to work They didn’t kill him immediately but Schneider died three days later Declassified documents from the National Security Archive make it impossible to overestimate how involved Kissinger and the CIA were in this assassination and the subsequent coup that overthrew the democratically elected Chilean leader Salvador Allende It was part of the secret CIA plan called “Operation FUBELT ” which irrefutably laid out everything Hitch argued read more about it here if you want In 2001 Schneider’s family actually brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Kissinger but it was tossed out of court because the Official Act protected Kissinger from legal liability In any case you can see why Kissinger was not keen on a sit-down His legacy was even then so long and so vast that both supporters and detractors like Hitchens had much to put on display Supporters often pointed to his ending the Vietnam War and the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1973 or the “shuttle diplomacy” he did in the Middle East or the critical role he played in bringing China into the global community They argue – as did Kissinger in his memoirs – that he was a man of his time a time when the fight against Communism was the dominant threat to democracy Add in the existential threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and Kissinger believed that the US had a critical if sometimes bloody role to play that it could not ignore That is the very essence of realpolitik as he defined it Maybe But even his most ardent supporters – and there were many – knew that the US role in Cambodia Chile and Indonesia left behind hard-to-remove immoral tattoos Still this was the world in which Kissinger lived and eventually he agreed to talk to us and we went toGZERO his office were setting Daily As thewe newsletter for up Kissinger walked by and popped his head into the room people who love global politics Subscribe Now He looked at me in that languorous predatory manner of his and said “You will have 20 minutes ” https www gzeromedia com gzero-north negotiating-with-henry-kissinger-and-his-legacy 3 20 12 1 23 3 31 PM g pNegotiating ywith Henry Kissinger and his legacy - GZERO Media I knew immediately that he was testing me seeing how I would react and I was prepared That was his way with everyone “Dr Kissinger ” I said “you like to negotiate and I think you can do a lot better than that ” He paused but I could not discern any reaction “You have 20 minutes ” he repeated his deep bouldery voice falling another impossible octave as he trundled off When he finally sat down he stayed for an hour We went through as much of his career as we could – he would not talk much about the Schneider case as it was in court but he focused a fair bit on Hitchens’ critique trying to bat it away “I’m not going to go through my life answering charges that are always almost always out of context ” he said “I have written three volumes of memoirs which people can read and which I think will stand the test of documents becoming available And if there is an important discussion of an issue I may participate in it but I’m not going to spend my life answering Hitchens ” I pressed him on the illegal bombing of Cambodia which was a stain he would never erase How did he justify the bombings His response is something that has stayed with me ever since Remember from 1969 to 1973 Kissinger worked with President Richard Nixon as both national security adviser and secretary of state and to contain the Vietcong Kissinger orchestrated the illegal bombing of Cambodia In those years the US dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs on Cambodia causing what scholars have estimated to be 150 000 deaths or more As the Washington Post wrote today “The scale of this bombing campaign internally called Operation Menu was kept secret from the American public for many decades though leaked and declassified records have revealed that Kissinger personally 'approved each of the 3 875 Cambodia bombing raids '” Not only that the bombing eventually led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the genocide that took place there But when I asked Kissinger about it he simply said “There were no people in those villages ” No people The line haunts me Of course there were people there What did he mean – that his end-justifiesthe-means calculator didn’t count numbers below 150 000 Or worse that Communist sympathizers were not considered people We debated the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan – he was 80 then and an adviser to George W Bush – and we talked about his opening up of China and many other more celebrated aspects of his career until I finally asked him a more fundamental question Do you have any regrets I wanted to turn back to the terrible costs of war GZERO Daily the newsletter for people who love global politics Subscribe Now “You know on the question of regret ” he said “I – one of these days I’m going to learn a good t th t b ” https www gzeromedia com gzero-north negotiating-with-henry-kissinger-and-his-legacy 4 20 12 1 23 3 31 PM Negotiating with Henry Kissinger and his legacy - GZERO Media answer to that because …” “You don’t have any regrets ” I interrupted still a bit incredulous And now he smiled “No I have many ” he admitted “But what you mean by that is moral regret You don’t mean tactical regrets So we tried to think through my associates and I where America was back then We wrote annual long reports we spent much time I think on the basic strategies we developed and … I have no…I have no regrets ” The last time I saw Kissinger was a few months ago in New York I was at the launch of a new book on artificial intelligence by Mustafa Suleyman and the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt was giving the opening remarks Schmidt had co-written a book with Kissinger in 2021 called “The Age of AI And Our Human Future” and suddenly as I was walking in out walked Dr Kissinger “Dr Kissinger ” I said but he passed silently surrounded by people He was 100 and still attending book launches writing about AI and politics and the future advising politicians from both sides of the aisle and right up to the very end trundling forward pushing ideas and flexing his influence … with no regrets  Filed Under henry kissinger diplomacy GZERO Daily the newsletter for people who love global politics vietnam evan solomon kissinger  nixon  cambodia hitchens Subscribe Now https www gzeromedia com gzero-north negotiating-with-henry-kissinger-and-his-legacy 5 20