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Good evening. It's Thursday, November 30.
Tonight: Henry Kissinger – almost certainly the most influential figure shaping post-World War II foreign policy – died yesterday at the age of 100. Kissinger simultaneously served as the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor for two consecutive Presidents – Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford – and in that position exerted immense influence over some of the most defining events of U.S. history in the 20th Century: the Vietnam War, the secret and illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia, the U.S. sponsored-and-engineered coups in multiple countries around the world, and vital support for some of the most savage and brutal pro-U.S. dictatorships on the planet, including various genocides in which they engaged to hold on to their power.
Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures in modern foreign policy history. He is intensely despised in so many countries where he helped spill bloodshed – though he was treated until the day he died as a figure of great honor in China, largely as the result of the key role he played in forging relations between the U.S. and Beijing, culminating in Nixon's 1972 visit to that country, ending 23 years of a complete cold war between the two.
Books have been written with the sole purpose of proving Kissinger is one of the great monsters of the 20th century; one of those was written in 2001 by Christopher Hitchens, entitled "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," Hitchens concluded that Kissinger was unquestionably guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracies to torture, kidnap and murder. The world-traveling and beloved chef Anthony Bourdain famously wrote: "Once you've been to Cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands... Witness what [he] did... and you will never understand why he's not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević."
But for all those crimes, and all the hatred harbored for him around the world, Kissinger was one of the most beloved and revered figures among the bipartisan U.S. foreign party elite. When Hillary Clinton was seeking the 2016 Democratic Party nomination against Bernie Sanders, she heralded Kissinger as her "close friend" and talked about how often she sought his advice and counsel when she was Secretary of State, and how she intended to do again as president. Western leaders from Biden and Blinken to Tony Blair and George W. Bush gushed with praise for him today, as they have many times over the years. Much has been written about Kissinger and while it is worth examining his key moments and policies to understand the underlying ideology that shaped him and the U.S. Government throughout the Cold War and well after, it is far more valuable to take a hard, sustained look at Kissinger to understand that this foreign policy mentality continues to shape U.S. foreign policy to this very day. That's why U.S. foreign policy elites in both parties still revere him, and why anti-American sentiment continues to proliferate around the world in ways that – now that there's a competitor to the U.S. in China – is more threatening to the U.S. than ever.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting now.
