{"id":249478,"date":"2023-12-04T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=249478"},"modified":"2023-12-04T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T09:58:09","slug":"henry-kissinger-27-may-1923-29-nov-2023-war-criminal-finally-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/henry-kissinger-27-may-1923-29-nov-2023-war-criminal-finally-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Kissinger (27 May 1923 – 29 Nov 2023) War Criminal Finally Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

30 Nov 2023<\/em> – Henry Kissinger has died, at the age of 100.<\/p>\n

When a former high government official as well known as Kissinger passes, the conventional response is to say nice things about what they accomplished.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, but I cannot. In my humble opinion, Kissinger should have been considered a war criminal.<\/p>\n

One telling illustration was Kissinger\u2019s role in overthrowing the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and encouraging the mass murder of thousands of innocent Chileans under the Operation Condor (war on Communism).<\/p>\n

On September 12, 1970, eight days after Allende\u2019s election, Kissinger initiated a discussion on the telephone with CIA Director Richard Helms about a preemptive coup in Chile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not let Chile go down the drain,\u201d Kissinger declared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am with you,\u201d Helms responded.<\/p>\n

Three days later, Nixon, in a 15-minute meeting that included Kissinger, ordered the CIA to \u201cmake the [Chilean] economy scream,\u201d and named Kissinger as the supervisor of the covert efforts to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.<\/p>\n

Kissinger ignored a recommendation from his top deputy on the NSC, Viron Vaky, who strongly advised against covert action to undermine Allende.<\/p>\n

On September 14, 1970, Vaky wrote a memo to Kissinger arguing that coup plotting would lead to \u201cwidespread violence and even insurrection.\u201d He also argued that such a policy was immoral: \u201cWhat we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .\u2026 If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.? It is hard to argue this.\u201d<\/p>\n

After U.S. covert operations, which led to the assassination of Chilean Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces General Rene Schneider, failed to stop Allende\u2019s inauguration on November 4, 1970, Kissinger lobbied Nixon to reject the State Department\u2019s recommendation that the U.S. seek a modus vivendi with Allende.<\/p>\n

While Schneider was dying in the Military Hospital in Santiago on October 22, 1970, Kissinger told Nixon that the Chilean military turned out to be \u201ca pretty incompetent bunch.\u201d Nixon replied: \u201cThey are out of practice,\u201d according to documents released in August by the U.S. National Security Archive.<\/p>\n

In an eight-page secret briefing paper that provided Kissinger\u2019s clearest rationale for regime change in Chile, he emphasized to Nixon that \u201cthe election of Allende as president of Chile poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere\u201d and \u201cyour decision as to what to do about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will make this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only were a billion dollars of U.S. investments at stake, Kissinger reported, but so was what he called \u201cthe insidious model effect\u201d of his democratic election.<\/p>\n

There was no way for the U.S. to deny Allende\u2019s legitimacy, Kissinger noted, and if he succeeded in peacefully reallocating resources in Chile in a socialist direction, other countries might follow suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on \u2014 and even precedent value for \u2014 other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day Nixon made it clear to the entire National Security Council that the policy would be to bring Allende down. \u201cOur main concern,\u201d he stated, \u201cis the prospect that he can consolidate himself and the picture projected to the world will be his success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pinochet<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In the days following the September 11, 1973, coup, Kissinger ignored the concerns of his top State Department aides about the massive repression by the new military regime. He sent secret instructions to his ambassador to convey to Pinochet \u201cour strongest desires to cooperate closely and establish firm basis for cordial and most constructive relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kissinger\u2019s assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs asked him what to tell Congress about the reports of hundreds of people being killed in the days following the coup, Kissinger issued these instructions: \u201cI think we should understand our policy \u2014 that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States assisted the Pinochet regime in consolidating, through economic and military aid, diplomatic support, and CIA assistance in creating Chile\u2019s infamous secret police agency, DINA.<\/p>\n

When Nixon complained about the \u201cliberal crap\u201d in the media about Allende\u2019s overthrow, Kissinger advised him: \u201cIn the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the height of Pinochet\u2019s repression in 1975, Kissinger met with the Chilean foreign minister, Admiral Patricio Carvajal.<\/p>\n

Rather than press the military regime to improve its human rights record, Kissinger opened the meeting by disparaging his own staff for putting the issue of human rights on the agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read the briefing paper for this meeting and it was nothing but Human Rights,\u201d Kissinger told Carvajal. \u201cThe State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there are not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kissinger prepared to meet Pinochet in Santiago in June 1976, his top deputy for Latin America, William D. Rogers, advised him to make human rights central to U.S.-Chilean relations and to press the dictator to \u201cimprove human rights practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, a declassified transcript of their conversation reveals, Kissinger told Pinochet that his regime was a victim of leftist propaganda on human rights. \u201cIn the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here,\u201d Kissinger told Pinochet. \u201cWe want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chilean government has formally requested that the Biden administration publish documentation from 1973 and 1974 on what was said in the Oval Office before and after the coup led by Pinochet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still don\u2019t know what President Nixon saw on his desk the morning of the military coup,\u201d Chile\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel Vald\u00e9s, says. \u201cThere are details that remain of interest to [Chileans], that are important for us to reconstruct our own history.\u201d<\/p>\n

An appropriate response to Kissinger\u2019s death would be for the U.S. to own up to the entirety of what Nixon and Kissinger wrought.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which<\/em> Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17 other books, including the best sellers<\/em> Aftershock, The Work of Nations, Beyond Outrage, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few<\/a> and <\/em>The Common Good<\/a>. His new book<\/em>, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It<\/a>, is out now<\/em>.\u00a0 He is a founding editor of the<\/em> American Prospect magazine, founder of<\/em> Inequality Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentaries<\/em> Inequality for All, streaming on YouTube, and<\/em> Saving Capitalism, now streaming on Netflix. <\/em>robertreich.substack.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 robertreich.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 Nov 2023 – Henry Kissinger has died, at the age of 100. In my humble opinion, he should have been considered a war criminal. One telling illustration was Kissinger\u2019s role in overthrowing the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and encouraging the mass murder of thousands of innocent Chileans under the Operation Condor (war on Communism).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":249479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[2136,1142,965],"class_list":["post-249478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-henry-kissinger","tag-obituary","tag-war-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249478"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249746,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249478\/revisions\/249746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}