The "Unforgivable" Legacy of Henry Kissinger | The Warning with Steve Schmid

Nov 30, 2023 | Steve Schmidt remembers the legacy of former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. He discusses the many horrors that were inflicted around the world on his watch, especially in the Middle East with the current Israel-Hamas War, and why he will not be remembered fondly.

A wonderful message! Powerful and true! Kudos! Thank you, Steve! – © Mark Alexander

Henry Kissinger - Secrets of a Superpower | DW Documentary

Nov 30, 2023 | For years, Henry Kissinger shaped US foreign policy like no other statesman. As National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under US President Richard Nixon, the German-born politician wielded America’s power with severity.

During his tenure as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under US President Richard M. Nixon, the United States escalated attacks on the enemy Vietcong in the Vietnam War. In the years that followed, the conflict claimed the lives of another 100,000 Vietnamese and more than 25,000 American soldiers. The neighboring and neutral nation of Cambodia was also bombed by US planes in contravention of international law. Kissinger eventually negotiated an end to the Vietnam War in secret talks with North Vietnamese leader Lê Đức Thọ. Both men were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 (an honor accepted by Kissinger but refused by Lê Đức Thọ).

With regard to China, Kissinger was viewed as an architect of détente and a pioneer of rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, a process he paved the way for in secret trips to the Middle Kingdom. When the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973 with the Egyptian and Syrian attack on Israel, Kissinger once again assumed the role of mediator and brought about a cessation of hostilities.

Kissinger’s tenure also witnessed the Chilean army’s coup d’état against President Salvador Allende, supported by the CIA with the full knowledge of the Secretary of State. Kissinger was also criticized for green lighting the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in violation of international law.

Although he left government in 1977, Henry Kissinger was one of the chief advisers to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Now a Harvard professor, Kissinger, who was born in the Bavarian city of Fürth, personally knew almost all the key statesmen and women of the second half of the 20th century and was a close friend of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

In 2007, documentary filmmaker Stephan Lamby had the opportunity to quiz Henry Kissinger on his political life and actions. The outcome was an extraordinary conversation about power and morals. The meticulously researched film also hears the views of many distinguished contemporary witnesses, including George W. Bush, Alexander Haig, James R. Schlesinger, Helmut Schmidt, Norman Mailer and Carl Bernstein. The film makes use of private Super 8 footage and secret wiretaps from the Oval Office providing some unusual insights into the White House of the 1970s. The secrets of superpower America, bombings, CIA operations, undercover missions to infiltrate enemy governments, the wiretapping of employees - all cast in a new light by the recollections of a man at the center of power: Henry Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped Nation’s Cold War History

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The most powerful secretary of state of the postwar era, he was both celebrated and reviled. His complicated legacy still resonates in relations with China, Russia and the Middle East.

Henry A. Kissinger in 1979. He sought to strike and maintain balances of power in a dangerously precarious world. | Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated, via Getty Images
Henry A. Kissinger, the scholar-turned-diplomat who engineered the United States’ opening to China, negotiated its exit from Vietnam, and used cunning, ambition and intellect to remake American power relationships with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so, died on Wednesday at his home in Kent, Conn. He was 100.

His death was announced in a statement by his consulting firm.

Few diplomats have been both celebrated and reviled with such passion as Mr. Kissinger. Considered the most powerful secretary of state in the post-World War II era, he was by turns hailed as an ultrarealist who reshaped diplomacy to reflect American interests and denounced as having abandoned American values, particularly in the arena of human rights, if he thought it served the nation’s purposes.

He advised 12 presidents — more than a quarter of those who have held the office — from John F. Kennedy to Joseph R. Biden Jr. With a scholar’s understanding of diplomatic history, a German-Jewish refugee’s drive to succeed in his adopted land, a deep well of insecurity and a lifelong Bavarian accent that sometimes added an indecipherable element to his pronouncements, he transformed almost every global relationship he touched.

At a critical moment in American history and diplomacy, he was second in power only to President Richard M. Nixon. He joined the Nixon White House in January 1969 as national security adviser and, after his appointment as secretary of state in 1973, kept both titles, a rarity. When Nixon resigned, he stayed on under President Gerald R. Ford. » | David E. Sanger | David E. Sanger covers the White House and national security. He interviewed Dr. Kissinger many times and traveled to Europe, Asia and the Middle East to examine his upbringing and legacy. | Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Henry Kissinger muere a los 100 años, marcó la historia de EE. UU. en la Guerra Fría: Fue el secretario de Estado más poderoso de la posguerra, célebre y vilipendiado a la vez. Su complicado legado aún resuena en las relaciones con China, Rusia y Medio Oriente. »

Read in Simplified Chinese: 阅读简体中文版 »

Read in Traditional Chinese: 閱讀繁體中文版 »

Kissinger’s Long Presence on the Global Stage Was Both Celebrated and Reviled: In a reflection of Henry Kissinger’s complicated legacy, his passing elicited sharply divergent opinions from admirers and critics. »

OPINION – NYT GUEST ESSAY: Henry Kissinger, the Hypocrite: Henry Kissinger, who died on Wednesday, exemplified the gap between the story that America, the superpower, tells and the way that we can act in the world. At turns opportunistic and reactive, his was a foreign policy enamored with the exercise of power and drained of concern for the human beings left in its wake. Precisely because his America was not the airbrushed version of a city on a hill, he never felt irrelevant: Ideas go in and out of style, but power does not. »

Altkanzler Helmut Schmidt über seinen Freund Henry Kissinger | dbate-Interview

World Order: Brexit, Populism and Kissinger with Niall Ferguson - Conversations with History

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution who is the 2016 Underhill Lecturer at Berkeley. After discussing the importance of Anglo-American Studies and the wave of populism sweeping the West, including Brexit and the Trump phenomena, the conversation turns to an in depth look at Ferguson’s recent book, “Kissinger, 1923-1969, The Idealist.” Ferguson details the evolution of Kissinger’s thinking about international affairs up until the time he assumes the position of national security advisor to President Nixon. He chronicles the influence of mentors (Kraemer and Elliot), the impact of experience (service in military intelligence and Harvard education) and the evidence of Kissinger’s writings on international order and on nuclear weapons. The conversation concludes by highlighting the themes that emerge from Kissinger’s intellectual evolution in the period before he assumes power.

Interview - Kissinger on Trump | November 20, 2016

Henry Kissinger says the public shouldn’t just write off Donald Trump, calling him the “most unique” presidential figure in his lifetime. He said “one should not insist on nailing him into positions that he had taken in the campaign.” He says the president-elect is currently undergoing “the transition from being a campaigner to being a national strategist.”

And, who is developing Trump's strategy? You can bet the Israel Lobby, with Kissinger in the background, will influence Trump every step of the way to shape his foreign policy.

What Henry Kissinger Thinks about Obama, Trump and China

At 93, Henry Kissinger is still one of the most influential -- and controversial -- foreign policy figures in America, says Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic editor-in-chief. The former secretary of state recently joined Goldberg for a conversation about the Obama legacy, the president-elect and more. Judy Woodruff reports as part of a collaboration between The Atlanticand the PBS NewsHour.

Henry Kissinger on Donald Trump: 'He Cannot Re-invent History' – BBC Newsnight

The BBC's Andrew Neil speaks to Henry Kissinger about Donald Trump's election.

Should Britain Leave the EU? Niall Ferguson Gives a Kissinger View

Henry Kissinger - Exclusive Interview
Former Secretary of State,Henry Kissinger sits down to discuss foreign policy issues facing the next president in the first of our series, "Unfolding: 2013 Challenges."

Henry Kissinger On The Egypt Crisis
The former Secretary of State talks Egypt

At Last! Somebody Speaks Some Sense!
The former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger has re-floated the idea of containment. This is exactly what I proposed in my book, The Dawning of a New Dark Age. I suggested that an 'Iron Veil' be dropped between our two worlds. This is another way of stating that Islam should be contained.

Naturally, I am very pleased that Henry Kissinger should have come to the same conclusion as I.

Photo courtesy of the BBC

When Tony Blair and George Bush meet at the White House for dinner on Thursday, they will be contemplating the beginning of the end of a relationship that has seen their policies dominate the world scene but which have left them weakened at home for their final years in office.

In one of its perhaps less elegant wordplays, the Economist magazine declared that the two now constituted as "an axis of feeble."

Their common cause in Iraq has not delivered the success they believed was assured.

On this visit, they will seek to justify that cause but they know that some are withholding judgment until events deliver their own verdict.

Others have made their judgment anyway.

And as the curtain prepares to come down, there are already voices being heard offstage calling for an end to the policies of intervention that have characterised the approach of both men.

A return to the past?

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently seemed to be re-floating the old Cold War policy of containment. Final curtain for Bush and Blair by Paul Reynolds

©Mark Alexander