Henry Kissinger is considered by many to be America’s most consequential Secretary of State. Kissinger died on November 29th, 2023, in Connecticut at the age of 100. He was revered by some and hated by others. His power peaked in the 1970s when he served as Ricard Nixon and then Gerald Ford’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. During these eight years from 1969-1977, Kissinger was credited with handling major international conflicts for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
But despite this, why was Henry Kissinger regarded as a war criminal? In this edition of the Political Affairs Column, we take you back in time to understand the enigma of Henry Kissinger.  Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1923. At 15, his family fled the Nazis and came to New York. During World War II, he served as a German Interpreter for the US Army and became a naturalized US citizen. After the war, he used the GI Bill to attend Harvard University earning a BA in 1950 and a PhD in 1954. Following this, he became the Associate Director of Harvard’s Department of Government and Center for International Affairs. Many thought he was one of the foremost thinkers in the field of international relations. During his tenure at Harvard, he consulted for several government agencies, including the State Department. In 1969, he was appointed National Security Advisor by then-President-Elect Richard Nixon. Then in 1973, Nixon appointed him Secretary of State as well. However, in 1975, Nixon’s replacement following the Watergate scandal, Gerald R Ford, removed him from the office of National Security Advisor. He remained Secretary of State until the end of Ford’s term in 1977. As previously stated, this eight-year period made Henry Kissinger internationally recognized for many reasons. However, Yale Professor Greg Gandin asserts that the same time resulted in 3 to 4 million deaths. So, let’s take a look at his work in the following regions: Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, and the Americas.  “In Africa, Kissinger Was Known for his Failures,” was the headline of a New York Times piece published one day after his death. The diplomat was consistently unsuccessful in Africa. One of the reasons why might be his belief that all State Department Africa experts were “missionaries” and “do-gooders.” This opinion underscored his own ignorance of Africa. Kissinger believed that “whites are here to stay” in Africa, writing it in a report for the CIA and other US agencies. He also constantly underestimated the public support for liberation movements and believed that his style of classic diplomacy, with some under-the-table backstabbing, would work for post-colonialist nations that had long dealt with Western interference in their affairs. Specifically in Angola, Kissinger enlisted the apartheid government of South Africa and the Dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, to quash the socialist rebellion against the Portuguese. However, he didn’t anticipate the Cuban intervention and the support from Angolans for a free, liberal country. Similarly, when Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) came up in discussion, Kissinger’s ignorance about Africa continued, even saying, “who’s that,” when Robert Mugabe’s name was mentioned. This constant ignorance, coupled with his lack of trust in his African advisors made him inept as a diplomat on the continent. But, it wasn’t just his incompetence that made him unpopular in Africa; it was his support for white-supremacist, apartheid regimes in South Africa, and his backing of coups across the region. He was the first US Secretary of State to visit South Africa in three decades. He did so in the early 1970s, following the Soweto Massacre, signaling his support for the government. From Ethiopia to Cote D’Ivoire, he and his allies intervened in several countries’ affairs in major and minor ways, supposedly to stop Soviet influence from entering the region. That being said, Africa still wasn’t the region Henry Kissinger impacted most.
In the Middle East, Kissinger’s impact mostly pertained to the greenlighting of right-wing military actions and “shuttle diplomacy.” In the Middle East, Kissinger traveled across the region to help create a peaceful solution to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He is considered by some the first to use the Kurds (an ethnic minority in Türkiye, Iraq, Syria, and Iran) to cause instability in the countries they live in. This legacy has resulted in numerous Kurdish deaths, both civilian and military, three attempted genocides in Iraq, and endless suppression by the governments in their home countries. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, he greenlit the Pakistani military actions in Bangladesh to stop their independence, which according to Bangladeshi authorities, killed anywhere between 500,000 and 3 million people. In the 2013 book The Blood Telegram, Gary J. Bass wrote Kissinger had called Indians “bastards,” and Nixon had said they deserved “a mass famine.” However, it was in Asia at large that he had the most impact.  In the rest of Asia and Oceania, his trend of greenlighting continued along with Vietnam War-related crimes. In 1975, he greenlit the Indonesian invasion of Timor Leste by Indonesia’s dictator Suharto. This invasion resulted in the occupation, genocide, and famine of the small Pacific island nation; all three of these actions killed anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people on both sides. In Laos and Cambodia, his illegal bombing of trade routes used by the North Vietnamese killed an estimated 275,000–310,000 civilians in Cambodia alone. The operation used 540,000 bombs over one year (more than the Allies dropped during World War II). In the two countries, especially Laos, millions of cluster bombs and mines cause hazards to civilians to this day, with children frequently being attracted to the shiny munitions. These mines have killed roughly 20,000 people between 1979 and August 2023. The bombings and other actions in Cambodia are considered by most international relations experts and historians as one of the main causes of the Khmer Rouge’s rise and eventually, the genocide of millions of innocent civilians. In Vietnam, he and Nixon intentionally targeted civilians with their bombing campaigns, leading to tens of thousands of more casualties. Though even earlier, it was confirmed Kissinger sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks of 1968 while advising the President at the time, Lyndon B. Johnson, by passing confidential intelligence to the South Vietnamese government. This action is a violation of the Logan Act of 1799, which would make his moves treason. Lastly, he also contributed to the normalization of China by visiting the country on multiple occasions and paving the way for Nixon’s visit. He is still highly regarded by the Chinese government and others for helping to create China’s role in the world order as it is.
In Latin America, Kissinger’s backing of dictators, as long as they weren’t communist, was very standard. In Chile, he backed the military coup of the socialist President Salvador Allende and then declined to take into account the human rights transgressions, nullifying of elections, restricting the media, suppressing labor unions, and disbanding political parties of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. In Argentina, Kissinger again ignored human rights violations and supported the military junta since they were going after “leftist subversives.” Both regimes killed an estimated 33,000 people. He was also a supporter of Operation Condor, “a clandestine program that allowed military regimes in that part of the world to illegally pursue, detain, torture, and assassinate political dissidents who fled their countries.”
Overall, Kissinger caused immense harm to people across the world. His lack of understanding of world issues, his unnerving hatred of leftists, and his absence of empathy for people made him an entirely evil person. He was a man who had no qualms about letting hundreds of thousands die so long as his vision for the world occurred, and for the most part, it has. Kissinger’s policies have shaped the last fifty years of American and allied foreign policy, with even some effect on the responding policies of adversaries like China and Russia. Nonetheless, Kissinger’s legacy of violence haunts the world. In my opinion, his part in the deaths of 3-4 million people elevates him to a certain kind of war criminal, or in other words, a mass murderer.