At 100 years old, Henry Kissinger still retains the attention of world diplomacy and shares his advice on geopoliticsgenerating fascination and controversy alike.
The veteran US diplomat continues to give interviews, write books and attend social events. Just last Tuesday he landed at the very select Economic Club of New York to blow out – in advance – the candles on a chocolate cake on behalf of his 100th birthday, cofficially celebrated this Saturday.
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We reached a point where we achieved our strategic objective. Russia’s military attempt to absorb Ukraine failed.
Who was National Security Advisor to former President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State of the United States between 1973 and 1976 He remains for some a visionary and for others a “war criminal”. Hence, at 100 years old it is considered a myth, although it is increasingly questioned.
This week, in front of his guests, he estimated that he advocates a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that He does not believe “it is all Putin’s fault.”
“We reached a point where we achieved our strategic objective. Russia’s military attempt to absorb Ukraine failed”, added the ‘wise man’ with a hunched silhouette who left his mark on US foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century.
Kissinger made the leap from Harvard University to active politics as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and later as his Secretary of State. Since then, he has not stopped influencing international politics, ”says the Spanish journalist and writer in his column in the newspaper El País Juan Luis Cebrian.
It is not for less. With his particular accent inherited from his German-Jewish origins, Kissinger was an essential player in world diplomacy during the Cold War. and began rapprochement with the Soviet Union and China in the 1970s, with a pragmatic vision of the world, a kind of realpolitik in the American style with which he managed to consolidate peaceful relations.
It was this man who managed the crisis of the Yom Kippur war (Israel-Arab countries, 1973), conceiving a new vision of how to conduct US foreign policy, by placing military intervention as a last resort, this new procedure being the one that led him to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, thanks to the ceasefire in Vietnam.
Even so, his image is not separated from the black pages of American history such as the bombing of Cambodia, the genocide in East Timor and, personally, his support for dictatorships such as those of Chile and Argentina or his role in Operation Condor. to repress left-wing Latin American opponents. Currently, there are numerous initiatives that seek his prosecution before international judicial instances, as well as the withdrawal of his Nobel Prize.
His image is not separated from the black pages of history such as the bombing of Cambodia and, personally, his support for dictatorships such as those of Chile and Argentina or his role in Operation Condor.
“For me, there is no doubt that his policy caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and destroyed democracy in several countries,” said the human rights lawyer. Reed Kalman Brody.
For his part, Cebrián points out that although Kissinger continues to be one of the “most respected intellectuals in the field of world geopolitics, the Latin American and European left have not stopped reproaching him for his support for Pinochet’s coup.” And it is that he is haunted by the fame of having promoted a foreign policy that, being so pragmatic, turned out to be insensitive to moral considerations.
In fact, Kissinger has never been concerned with justice. In 2004 a lawsuit against him was dismissed, although several investigations, such as the one on the website The Intercept claim, based on Pentagon archival documents and testimony from survivors, that the US bombing campaign in Cambodia (1969-1973), which Kissinger was the architect of, was vastly underestimated, having caused far more civilian deaths than previously thought. admitted.
Historian Muntassir Mamoon, from Dhaka University in Bangladesh, stressed that Kissinger “actively supported genocide” in that country in 1971. “I see no reason to praise him,” he said, adding that his point of view was shared by several countries. “The irony is that it is remembered that he made peace, but everything he did to prolong the war is forgotten. not only in Vietnam but in Cambodia and Laos,” adds historian Carolyn Eisenberg, from Hofstra University in the US, to AFP.
a political architect
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923 in Fürth (Germany) into a Jewish family who came to New York fleeing Nazism when he was still a teenager. This Harvard graduate has always denied that his traumatic childhood marked him for life, but many disagree.
University of Texas professor Jeremi Suri, author of Henry Kissinger and the American Century, considers that “being a Jewish refugee, he has always been very concerned about chaos and has wanted to bring order to the world.” “He also believes that the US is a superior nation that has to play a special role,” adds Suri.
Kissinger, who according to his acquaintances does not practice humility, wants to be remembered as the architect of the détente policy towards the Soviet Union that changed the course of the Cold War, as the architect of the normalization of relations with China and as the intellectual that stopped nuclear proliferation. Bypassing everything else.
“Kissinger was not bothered by dictatorships. In fact, he liked them if they sided with the United States and kept communism out of Latin America,” explains Mario Del Pero, a historian at Sciences Po in Paris and author of the biography. The Eccentric Realist.
“In a country that had lost its political and moral north due to the Vietnam War, Kissinger offered a clear and unequivocal message: morality is not made for international relations,” adds the analyst.
Criticism is a reflection of ignorance.
even a bestseller of the journalist Christopher Hitchens accused him in 2001 of war crimes for his actions in Cambodia, East Timor and Chile; criticism unthinkable in the 1970s when Kissinger was the most popular man in the country. He appeared on covers characterized as Superman, dated Hollywood stars and eclipsed the president himself.
“What would happen if Kissinger died? That Richard Nixon would become president”, was joked in Washington.
The teacher thomas schwartz, biography author Henry Kissinger and American Power, explained to Efe that “his personal history made him a very fascinating figure.” “He survived the Watergate scandal and after his time in politics, Kissinger has continued to be omnipresent in editorials, books, talks and interviews to broaden a myth with which many have wanted to be photographed, from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, through Vladimir Putin. or Xi Jinping.”
But he has also spent a lot of time refuting the harsh criticism against him, something he does not tolerate. This was demonstrated in a recent interview with CBS in which he, deeply upset, replied that the war criminal charges “are a reflection of ignorance.”
Despite his stubborn image, his biographers say that he can be charming and that a good way to break the ice is to talk to him about football or opera. Hence, the lucid and active Kissinger, at 100 years old, does not hesitate to continue issuing warnings, especially to his younger contemporaries to whom he insisted that Artificial Intelligence is equated with the danger of nuclear weapons. “This is a totally new problem,” he said.Stephanie Echavarria
International Editor
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