The documentary in question so severely overstates its case that even sensible critics of Kissinger ought to question its intellectual honesty and integrity just through earnest inquiry and the counsel of other sources. Nonetheless, rather than concede a kernel of truth to its argument, I hope to use this space to demonstrate that there really are two sides to every story.
For all of you Communists out there, then, I'd like to set the record straight:
-The Vietnam War killed about 2 million individuals from 1955-73. As Kissinger himself said, "it is scarcely conceivable that there are people who like war." No one denies the scale of this human tragedy. The fact remains that the Communists were the aggressor in the war, were responsible for all of those who died during it, and killed more than twice as many people as died during it after American defeat. The renewed offensive from 73-75 killed 300,000 individuals, the Khmer Rouge 2.2 million in three years, the Vietnamese puppet regime in Cambodia and allied troops there over a million, the North Vietnamese Communists over a million South Vietnamese and over a million of their own people, the Pathet Lao 200,000 people, the Sino-Vietnamese War hundreds of thousands. The North Vietnamese had already killed nearly 2 million of their own people from 1945-75. All in all; the North killed 3 million of its own people and almost 5 million South Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians after the exit of the Americans.
-We all know that 2 million Indochinese were killed by all sides over the course of the war. But how many civilians were actually killed DIRECTLY BY THE AMERICAN MILITARY? It is estimated that Nixon’s bombing and invasion of Cambodia from 70-75 killed only 30,000 Cambodian civilians, while more than 200,000 were killed by the Khmer Rouge insurgents over roughly the same time. Only about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians were killed by the Americans. Losses in Laos were similarly slight.
-Kissinger toiled demiurgically for the war’s end without a disaster. The geopolitical complexities of the war were monumental and, though you may have trouble comprehending them, Kissinger worked through them day and night for years and he prevailed. As it happens, we met our objectives in Vietnam. By the time the Paris Peace Accords were signed; the War was won. We tested the waters in 1972, when the North launched its great offensive against the South. The South overwhelmingly defeated the North—without any American ground troops, but with American air support. It was almost 4 years later when the North prevailed. Why did this happen? It’s fairly simple. The commanders of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong—their own generals—have been very upfront about it for decades whenever they’ve been asked. According to the Viet Cong’s top Commander, the offensive of ‘75 was the North’s “last chance” to overwhelm the South before it would be self-sufficiently able to defend itself. Without the logistical support they acquired via the Ho Chi Minh trail, the offensive would have been simply impossible and would have failed. The reason that they had been so long unable to launch such an attack was, well, because the Americans had been relentlessly bombing all of their positions along the trail. With ongoing American bombing, air support, and aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia; any attempt by the North to violate its agreements would have been unthinkable. The Paris Peace Accords, in fact, committed America to indefinitely continue with such support to enforce the agreement. There’s really no room for doubt here: The war was won. The North could not overrun its neighbors. Its grand offensive was thwarted. The US bombing and aid made any further aggression militarily and logistically impossible, and South Vietnam would be able to defend itself without such aid in a matter of a couple years (like South Korea). Russia had been “snickered” by Kissinger’s diplomacy into supporting the Accords and stopping all support for the North. The North cut off all aid to the Khmer Rouge, and the Chinese were now America’s friends. The North Koreans, who had fought for the Communists, packed their bags and went home. Communists around the world despaired at the defeat, and for months, the peace was undisturbed. Kissinger won a Nobel Prize for his bake-breaking labor and diplomacy, which had saved millions of lives and prevented a mass genocide with an absolute minimum of bloodshed (he richly deserved the honor). What happened? Well—the Democrats had called the war “unwinnable,” and just as they tried to do in Iraq (and they could still succeed with their efforts in Iraq, although it’s extraordinarily unlikely), they made their prophecy self-fulfilling. The Watergate scandal (which Kissinger, as you must note, had absolutely nothing to do with) was transformed into a coup against the American President. The American people, who had so strongly supported Nixon’s righteous attempts to find a just peace, now turned against him with a ferocity unprecedented in the history of this country. He was driven from office in disgrace. The good-natured but politically weak Ford, unelected to either the Presidency or the Vice Presidency, enjoyed almost no support after the pardon of his predecessor, so much so that even Jimmy Carter could defeat him. The Congress was taken over by radical, America-hating leftists. The Congress then proceeded to tear up every last agreement the Americans had signed in Paris and had promised the South Vietnamese there (as well as promised Lon Nol in Pnohm Penh). The threat of military intervention should the North renew its invasion was discarded, and without Nixon, the North could likely not have been deterred anyway. Any further US military involvement was made formally illegal. The North was allowed to resume support for the deranged Khmer Rouge fanatics (who had themselves been unwilling to negotiate in Paris, or anywhere else, period, with any party at any time under any circumstances whatever). The US broke off much of its close ties with Lon Nol. All US military aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia was outlawed, in a move that our allies in Saigon viewed as the equivalent of sanctions against them due to their “human rights violations” (not sanctions in the sense of an intervention, but the explicit refusal to intervene with even minor military aid does fit the literal definition of the word “sanctions”—measures designed to alter a countries behavior. Refusing to intervene to assist it in any way was indeed a measure that altered its behavior, and it was at least ostensibly passed by the Congress due to the “immoral” nature of the Saigon regime. Is making any US military aid formally illegal not an intervention as well, one might ask?). All air support ceased immediately. Not one dime of the aid we had promised in Paris materialized. As the North began testing the waters with a series of increasingly frequent attacks, President Ford explicitly told the North we would not interfere in Indochina ever again, saying that “the Vietnam debate is over and done with.” So much for that. Ford despised the Communists, but knew that any attempt to stop them militarily would now be politically impossible. Ford and Kissinger did tirelessly lobby the Congress for months to resume the aid and repeal the ban making it formally illegal. Years passed as the South pleaded with us for support. The South Vietnamese President burst into tears, begging the Americans to provide the aid they had promised. “What is America’s word worth anymore?” he asked. Increasingly paranoid and desperate, he accused America of deliberately lying when it agreed to the terms it did in Paris, claiming that America never intended to enforce its own agreements and that it had only pretended to do so in order to manipulate him into sacrificing his country’s security. When a vote for the resumption of American bombing in Cambodia failed in Congress, as one newspaper reported at the time, “panic and a sense of doom filled the capital [Phnom Penh].” Even with the supply of humanitarian goods via USAID, the Indochinese non-Communists now knew that they were doomed. So did Ford, telling Congress that their decision to abandon Cambodia would result in “horror and tragedy.” As Kissinger said: “We did meet our objectives in Vietnam. But then the Congress refused to enforce the agreement. If we had done the same in Korea that would have collapsed as well.” The Americans pulled out, ended all military aid, stopped the bombing and air support, dramatically reduced the scale of nonmilitary aid, made further intervention impossible, refused to enforce its own agreements, made any future military aid from the US government formally illegal, very nearly abolished the CIA and got rid of Nixon (and soon Kissinger and Ford). In short, the left got what it wanted. We gave peace a chance. Unfortunately, the Communists proceeded to slaughter 6 million people. The “bloodbath” Johnson, Nixon, and Ford had predicted came true in precise detail. Kissinger’s anger over this treasonous betrayal of the cause, by the very Democrats who had got us into the war in the first place, is real and earned. To detract from his immense achievements by mocking the failure of the Peace Treaty the Congress refused to support is simply offensive, depraved, and utterly outrageous. Kissinger really did deserve his Peace Prize, and Nixon’s only real fault was that, in the end, the reason his peace failed was because he destroyed himself. One might even mention that Kennedy was the one who got us into Vietnam and backed the catastrophic coup against Diem—had Nixon won in 1960, the entire war might have been avoided.
-In case you didn’t get the message: Vietnam was surely among the most just wars in history.
-Chile’s more complex. To be brief, however: Nixon did authorize the CIA to remove Allende or to prevent him from coming to power in 1970. But what this fails to emphasize is what Nixon DID NOT authorize them to do, as a matter of public record. Sure, he said get rid of this guy, preferably before he comes to power. But he didn’t say to replace him, to set up a dictatorship, to kill other Chileans, to change Chile’s governmental system, or anything else of the kind. When he first gave the order, Allende was not even part of Chile’s government yet. Suppose the operation succeeded, and Allende was disappeared, exiled, kidnapped, murdered or forced to leave or not accept the Presidency. The CIA was not authorized to intervene in any way, shape, or form in the internal political affairs of Chile after Allende (one man in a country of millions) was eliminated, as a factual matter of public record. Nixon told the CIA to remove him. But he did not authorize the CIA to do anything—anything at all—except to simply sit back and let the Chileans go on voting for the next 20 years as if nothing major had happened after Allende had been eliminated, and the CIA never in any of the records of its plans even considers doing otherwise at any point even one single time (the records are all open and declassified—they were released by Clinton—so if they did indeed consider such actions, show me the documents in which they plot to establish a military dictatorship and show me their candidates for military dictator and their deliberations over who to select, not to mention their plans. But you can’t, because there are no such documents and because nothing of the sort was ever even considered, much less authorized, attempted, or successfully implemented). The real question we need to ask is: Why kill the leader and let them elect a new one? The answer’s too obvious for the America-haters to recognize: Because they were afraid Allende’s election might mean the end of elections in Chile. Nixon believed that Allende would turn the country into a dictatorship. Was he right? Sure: 1) Allende’s economic policies, continued indefinitely, would have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chileans due to lack of development. 2) Allende’s un-free economic policies, which violated the property rights of Chileans and very nearly brought about unnecessary mass death via natural disasters and disease, were modeled on those of the Cuban gulag that has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people en masse. 3) Allende’s policies plunged the country into a massive depression, brought about Zimbabwe-like inflation, caused massive civil unrest and utter social chaos, and nearly plunged the country into the anarchy of rioting civil war. 4) As a direct result of the conditions created by his policies; Chile did indeed turn into a brutal dictatorship that slaughtered hundreds of people, including countless Americans, and that carried out terrorist attacks and assassinations against Americans on American soil, in 1973.
-Nixon’s unsuccessful attempt to depose Allende was intended to remove him and then let the people of Chile go on voting for the next 20 years—if they chose to do so—as if nothing much had happened—as a matter of public record and as an indisputable fact confirmed by all of the evidence we have (which is considerable, given Nixon’s penchant for wire-taping all of the private conversations in the White House over long periods of time for the enjoyment of future generations). If it had succeeded, Chile would have remained a free and democratic nation for those 20 years; Chile would not have been ruled by a brutal military dictatorship for 17 of those years; hundreds of Chilean lives would have been saved; and countless American lives as well as American property, territory and geo-political/strategic interest would have been preserved. The unsuccessful operation to remove, if necessary by assassination, the deranged demagogue Allende, did not result in his death—given that it was unsuccessful—or in any other casualties. No Chileans were killed in the operation, no Chileans were wounded, and the operation was not undertaken in any spirit of hostility towards Chile or its people. Likewise, no Americans were killed, and none were wounded. Both American and Chilean lives would have been saved had it succeeded. The weighted argument used in this video is that, if Kissinger did not “turn off” the Operation prior to the death of the General in charge of Allende’s security; then the Operation was a contributing factor in his death. The reason the film only implies this but never dares to explicitly state as much is because it has already been proven as a matter of public record that this is not the case by the Church investigation, which found that the Americans themselves never attempted to orchestrate his kidnapping; did not know about his murder in advance; and did not supply the weapons, ammo, or training which was actually used in the politically motivated attack. If you don’t believe me, or Haig, read the report. As I say, it is a matter of public record. The Congress conducted the investigation. The case is closed. His killing would have happened anyway; our arms were not used in the attack. The most that anyone can allege is that the CIA might have considered drawing up contingency plans to kidnap him which they never went ahead with or received approval for, prior to his death. No cause for indictment. It is true that the CIA offered money to those involved as a “diplomatic” gesture showing our support for the killing after it had already occurred--even though it would have happened anyway-- but the Church Committee did not charge for criminal offenses those responsible for implicitly expressing support for the act after it had already taken place, nor should they have. And the simple fact is that the House appropriates all of the funds used in CIA operations.
-I hope none of you were mislead by the video into thinking that the US had anything to do with Pinochet’s seizure of dictatorial powers in 1973. Even the video doesn’t make that claim. The US did offer him support after he took over, but by making the support dependant on human rights we gained leverage over him. As a result, we dramatically decreased the scale of his democide and helped protect the lives of our citizens (though not very well, since he still killed many of them). In fact, by assisting his economic policies and giving aid to Chile, we helped to save the lives of thousands upon thousands of Chileans. The complexities of foreign affairs require a deftness and nuance that those who follow this video clearly lack, but it must be said that economic freedom is often a precondition to political freedom and that the US efforts to develop Chile were crucial in enabling an otherwise much less likely transition to sustainable democratic rule in that country. The US also helped convince Pinochet to step down and has monitored Chile’s elections ever since. The extraordinarily delicate situation in Chile was handled with impeccable tact by Kissinger, though I would agree that the US should not make a point of killing elected leaders like Allende unless they assume dictatorial powers. In this instance, Allende really did turn his country into a dictatorship, and Nixon—whose decision to try and oust the man and then let Chile go on voting was exceptionally gutsy and bold—was proven right to that extent. But I would not grant the President such powers because one cannot assume that just because Nixon was proven to be correct, all future Presidents would use such power prudently.
-Kissinger was a great statesmen, a star for four decades, and a political memoirist surpassed in his era (if at all) only by Winston Churchill and Charles De Gaulle. He drafted the peace treaty between Iraq and Iran in 1975, deterred the Soviets from their ambitions in Afghanistan (so much so that Moscow viewed going into that country as unthinkable during the Nixon years), stepped up aid to Pakistan, established relations with China, attempted to overthrow Saddam Hussein, pursued detente with the USSR, helped draft the SALT Treaty, envisioned the Sino-US collaboration that would destroy the Soviet Union under President Reagan, won the Vietnam War, forced Egypt to concede everything it formally agreed to at Camp David in 1978 (thus forcing Jordan to sign a similar treaty, thus preventing another Arab/Israeli war from breaking out ever again). His efforts enabled hundreds of millions of Chinese to be lifted out of poverty in a triumph of the American-led international order. He was the visionary who first conceived of the balance of power in today's world, one of American hegemony that has brought about an age of peace and prosperity without any precedent in all of human history. He continues to offer his advice to all Presidents who ask for it, and remains as lucid as ever in his old age.
-On Indonesia, his position was quite simple. Indonesia had already decided to invade East Timor and slaughter tens of thousands of its people. Indonesia could have bought all of the weapons that it needed to do so from almost any country. Only the US, of all nations, would feel any guilt about assisting them. Only the US would even consider using the leverage such military aid would enable it to have over the Indonesian regime to reduce the scale of its slaughter and pressure it to ease its human rights violations. The use of hi-tech US arms would actually diminish the number of Timorese civilians killed in the war. It may sound overly cynical, but his position really was that those who advocated the US cut off aid to Indonesia were not motivated by any desire to help the people of East Timor or Indonesia, and that it would not help those people in any way if such pleas were heeded. To Kissinger, snubbing Indonesia had nothing to do with saving Timorese lives and would not save Timorese lives if it was done. Therefore, he thought, the call to end the US support was not really about what its advocates said it was about. Instead, the notion that the US "should kick the Indonesians in the teeth"--despite Indonesia being up there with China, India, the US and Russia with regard to its population size, Indonesia's record as an integral Cold War ally and a moderate Muslim nation, Indonesia’s rich oil wealth, Indonesia's strategic significance in the Post-Vietnam world and America's declining influence in the region--was all about undermining America's interests for the sheer sake of it.
