Kissinger: A War Criminal?

Lindsey’s reference to Kissinger as a “war criminal” when we last together threw me for a loop. At the time, I simply thought that the more recent generations use the pejorative as a part of casual debate; whereas in the early Sixties (my only period before retirement in 2013 of serious interest in politics) I watched and participated in vigorous intellectual debates at Harvard between what were called conservatives and liberals where no one even raised their voice during the discussion. Hyperbole or accusation would have horrified those us involved in a political debate.

       Following Lindsey’s comment, I began research of Kissinger with the modern go-to reference – Wikipedia. I was shocked to discover that even in the Seventies some experts had called Kissinger a war criminal. So, had I been an informed participant in the world of politics in the Seventies, Lindsey’s comment should not have been a surprise. The surprise for me was the discovery of how ugly and without a sense of civility we had become in the Seventies. War criminal for me is reserved for Hitler and his henchmen, or genocidal groups in Cambodia or Africa – not for people with whose foreign policy theories you disagree.

       The idea that you would label one of the debaters in the Sixties as a “war criminal” for advocating the value to the U.S. of having oppressive dictatorships in South America, or Latin America, or East Asia -- so long as they were not communistic -- would have been way out of line. Moreover, you would have had to label most of my professors and fellow government majors as war criminals, for if given the chance to serve as Secretary of State, most would have supported oppressive dictators who were not communists as the best policy for the national security of the United States. We were not seeking what might be best for the world as a whole; rather our duty as an officer of the United States was the security and well-being of our citizenry. The so-called benevolent guidance of Plato’s Philosopher King was an interesting distraction, but due for the junkheap of Utopian poppycock.

          We viewed our discussions in the Sixties as a difference of opinion primarily focused on the domestic role of government in the daily lives of a citizenry. Many areas of our lives could better be enhanced by governmental intervention argued the liberal while the conservative argued that we should be left alone in our private lives if what we are doing is not a clear and obvious intrusion on the freedom of our neighbor.

         Using an issue in the forefront today that did not even have a seat at the table of important issues of the Sixties, a liberal would argue that we need to protect the future of the planet using the power of government (i.e., the EPA); whereas, a conservative (me) would have argued that I would rather the species kill off its ability to survive on Earth because those who argued for environmental protective measures had been unable to persuade the overwhelming majority to change their behavior to protect the long-term well-being of the species. For me, it was more important that we each have personal liberty – for example, to kill ourselves as smokers –than to allow an elitist group to dictate (as opposed to persuade) a ban “for our own good and the good of the community within which we lived.” Failure to achieve the optimum life for the citizenry was far preferable to having that optimum life imposed on the citizenry by governmental intervention.

        Unlike today’s environment, both sides would have ended the evening laughing together over beers because we lived in the United States where these competing ideas were expected to clash and some compromise was expected to be reached that left everyone dissatisfied about losing half the argument but pleased with winning the other half. We trusted the swinging pendulum of Hegel to keep us together as a society as we moved through what we hoped would be at least 1000 years – no dominant society had lasted even that long in the known history of our planet. Rome may not have been built in a day, but the seeds of its collapse came over the course of less than 100 years.

           The strongest opinion that I heard during my schooling was from a Government professor who called me in to have a more detailed discussion about something I had said during a class. I had described Kennedy as an inspirational visionary in comparison to Nixon or Lyndon Johnson.

         The professor described a conference he attended at Camp David in which several of Kennedy’s advisors (including the professor and two other Government professors from Harvard) were debating alternatives positions on some issue confronting the U.S. Some were expressing concern during the discussion on how the American people would respond to one of the positions. President Kennedy interrupted the discussion to inform the group about something he had assumed they already understood and that was that “95% of Americans are so stupid that I can convince them that black is white.” He entreated the group not to be concerned with public reaction to the decision because the people were a flock of sheep just waiting to be herded in one direction or another.

        I argued with the professor (and thereby Kennedy) by respectfully disagreeing as it applied to Americans. I argued that the long histories of the cultures elsewhere in the world might tend to make the people there more malleable and predictable in the hands of a strong leader. Most had a history of allowing themselves as a culture to be bullied by either communist dictators, or non-communist dictators, or monarchies.

           On the other hand, I argued, Americans (other than the Indians) immigrated here to escape those cultural restraints and, having substantial land on which to carve out their own individual vision, had developed a cultural genetics of fierce independence that required being convinced by political discourse (even if a “lowly” car mechanic) rather than being easily duped (and thereby herded) into accepting any limitation on that independence simply by the manner in which a political position was presented. That is why the U.S. Constitution sets a high bar of “constitutionality” on any law or rule imposed by the government that limits individual freedom in the so-called interest of the “common welfare.”

      From 1966 through 2012, with the exception of 1976 (when I was introduced to Jimmy Carter at a gathering of 20-25 people), I ignored anything that did not relate to my developing a mastery of my profession or being with my family. (No surprise Nixon did something sneaky during that period – I had voted against him twice, albeit holding my nose at voting for democrats whose stewardship as leaders of the U.S. I held in low regard. Better idiots in charge than a crook was my reasoning.)

           After supporting Carter, a democrat promising to reduce the Federal bureaucracy, only to discover that an outsider to Washington D.C., even a democrat, stood no chance against the entrenched interests of an unelected “elite” allowed to govern without accountability. From that point to retirement in 2012, I basically ignored politics. Other than observing Bill Clinton decide to join forces with republicans to reform welfare (as I had pleaded in college was America’s first and foremost duty) and to balance the budget under the threat of being unpopular (with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” staring him in the face), I continued concentrating on work and family.  

           In any event, as I skimmed the discourse in Wikipedia, I was not surprised by the positions attributed to Kissinger. I took one or more courses with the four Government professors that Kennedy used – all of which concentrated on domestic politics. Kissinger taught International courses, but not the only one in that area that I took – the Soviet Union. No one seemed interested in foreign affairs at the time other than combating communism.

            I attended 12-14 Roundtable discussions (27 students and three professors), but with one exception, sat with the professors from whom I was taking or had taken courses. The one exception when I sat next to Kissinger, I formed the opinion that he would have been a successful standup comedian. He craved attention and made sure it remained centered on him at the table. Generally, at the tables with professors from whom I took classes. the private group discussion was about farm subsidy issues, or how to incentivize Big Oil to do more exploration in the U.S. so we could move away from dependence on Middle Eastern countries. Many spoke and there was rarely any humor exhibited. At Kissinger’s table he talked 90% of the time and there was much laughter as he regaled us with funny stories about the incompetence of actors from various international communities. It was almost like attending a Mel Brooks movie.

        Although I never heard him say it, the Kissinger that I met certainly  would have preferred the impact of an orderly dictatorship in countries he considered irrelevant on the world stage. And there could not have been a more irrelevant region in the early Sixties at Harvard than Central and South America. In that region all anyone cared about (including Kennedy’s advisors) was keeping the Cuban communistic influence from taking hold. As long as you were not a communist, the U.S. would look the other way in that region, or in Africa or in Asia for that matter.

       All the international debate was on keeping the Soviet Union reined in. There were disagreements among the professors about how to accomplish that, but no disagreement that to do so was “numero uno” for our State Department. It was on this topic that I dared to speak during one our Government Roundtables. I posited that communism would fail within the next fifty years in the Soviet Union and therefore the only important thing was for the U.S. not to confront the Soviet Union in a manner that might lead them to overreact in embarrassment.

         When asked why I was sure communism in Russia would fail, I argued that economics would doom it – not the desire for freedom by the people. I argued that the people of the region had willingly submitted to Tsars followed by Communist dictators. Their brief revolt in the 1910s had quickly reverted to acceptance of authoritarianism. However, as much as Utopians would love to see an effective economic system based on the purity of the human spirit, the emphasis on upward mobility to wealth based on creative ideas and hard work (i.e., capitalism) will always win so long as we are normal human beings.

        Kissinger was present at that Roundtable and gave me my first of many thorough intellectual thrashings from across the room. To him, it would be a disaster if the Soviet Union failed because chaos would likely ensue in various regions in the area in ways that could not be controlled. In his view, dictators – whether communist or not – are always best since their actions are more predictable. The fact that the people of a country accept the tyranny of a dictator is just evidence of how weak their spirits are.

         When the USSR broke up and with it, Tito lost control of Yugoslavia, I realized he may have been correct. I had never known how much Serbs hated Croatians and Muslims, or Croatians hated Serbs and Muslims, or how much Muslims hated the other two. Tito’s dictatorship had somehow kept all those crazy animosities at bay – exactly the kind of world Kissinger would have preferred.

        I left Harvard in 1965 with certain beliefs related to politics and international relations. When I reentered the world forty-eight years later in 2013 following my retirement, I discovered that there was no reason to change my views. They were:

1. Russian communistic rule would fail within fifty-years. Well. It only took about twenty-four years. I believed it would be replaced eventually with some form of authoritarian rule since the Russian people had not shown any evidence of a fierce love of individualism. Even their “Revolution” simply replaced a Tsar with a dictator.
2. Communist China had to be recognized by the U.S. as a legitimate government. Once we accomplished that (which we did under my hated President Nixon), we needed to be patient in seeking to introduce them into a global economy. For our economic growth in the 21^st century, the U.S. was going to need access to an expanding consumer market in Asia. China would provide the largest potential market. I argued that we needed to ignore their cultural differences and never expect them to become “democratic” – their people were not trained to be willing to die rather than be bossed by a government as we have been in the U.S.
3. We needed to ensure that Israel had all the arms needed to crush the Arab nations around it. With that in hand, we needed to try to convince the Arab nations that it was in the interest of their people to participate in the global economy in ways beyond oil and that such participation required their recognition of Israel’s right to survive and prosper, and women’s right to participate equally outside the home.
4. The chances for democratic societies to arise within other nations would be rare, so the U.S. should be vigilant in spotting those opportunities and do what it could to assist those seeking to establish governments that follow principles such as those adopted by the U.S. I basically ignored the world until 2013, so I have no knowledge of where we may have missed an opportunity. I am confident that the “Arab Dawn” was not one of them. Far more important than individual freedom, Shias seem to hate Sunnis and vice versa. It reminds me of the Croatians and Serbs. Despite their common genetic base, they hate each other for reasons they probably cannot recall. Reminds me of the hatred between Ohio State and Michigan fans, or Alabama and Auburn fans. If the U.S. survival depended on asking those groups to reconcile their differences, there would be no U.S.

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