Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/26/23 Nick Turse on the Crimes of Henry Kissinger

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Scott talks with journalist Nick Turse about a series of articles he wrote to mark Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday. Scott and Turse reflect on all the destructive policies Kissinger helped enact during his long career in government and try to determine how many deaths he is responsible for. Turse also reveals some new information he discovered about the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia and talks about the time he confronted Kissinger directly about his war crimes. Discussed on the show: “Blood on his Hands: Survivors of Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings” (The Intercept) “Notorious 1973 Attack Killed Many More Than Previously Known” (The Intercept) “U.S. Blamed the Press for Military Looting in Cambodia” (The Intercept) “Transcripts of Kissinger’s Calls Reveal His Culpability” (The Intercept) Nick Turse is a contributing writer for The Intercept. He is the author most recently of Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan and of the bestselling Kill Anything That Moves. Follow him on Twitter @nickturse This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show hey you guys on the line again the first time and quite some time i've got our old friend nick ters he of course is the author of kill anything that moves about the war in vietnam and he has his really important new series at the Intercept about Henry Kissinger called Blood on His Hands. Welcome back to the show. Nick, how are you doing?

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Very happy to have you here. Mr. Hard to get a hold up. I'll tell you what. But man, you do good work and we follow every little bit of it over at anti-war.com. So Henry Kissinger, and you know what, David Rockefeller, his patron, too, lived to be 99. What is it with these guys? Don't tell me. It's some weird thing where they drink children's blood. These people get to live to be 100 years old. It's Henry Kissinger's 100th birthday, huh? And you're reminding everybody that he ain't so nice? Yeah. You know, I've tried to think of a fitting birthday present for Henry and this was the best that I could come up with. Yeah, there you go.

Okay, fair. And now look, sometimes it's hard when you want to catalog all the different people that Henry Kissinger killed that you don't know where to start, right? Yeah, I mean, you can you can take your pick. You know, I asked his biographer, Greg Grandin, to give me, you know, his best guess at how much blood kissed your head on his hands. And when you look at Southeast Asia, you look at Latin America, East Timor, Bangladesh. The number he came up with was about 3 million people. which I think is, you know, it's probably on the order of correct.

So, yeah, it's tough to know where to start. For my work, I went with Cambodia, but, you know, there's a lot of blood on Kissinger's hands. Well, you know, one thing that you point out in this piece is that he was an advisor to Kennedy and Johnson before he became Nixon's right-hand man, huh? That's right. Yeah, he served Democratic presidents, and it looked like. with Nixon's ascendancy. He had been advising Rockefeller.

And, you know, it looked like, you know, his political fortunes might have, you know, come to an end. But Kissinger is the ultimate survivor. I mean, as we can see, clip into 100, but a political survivor as well. And he refashioned himself in the mold of Richard Nixon. And, yeah, so he's served, you know, both parties. All right. Now, before we get to Cambodia, I don't think you wrote about this in your book, but if you know about it, it's worth asking you.

Sorry to put you on the spot, but do you know about the story of Anna Schenalt and the treason of 1968? Yeah, this was the backchannel dealings to deep six the peace talks is what you're talking about, right? Right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, Kissinger has. these contacts with the uh the johnson administration and uh know about these peace talks and and told the the nixon campaign this is really how he made inroads in that campaign and eventually found his way into the nixon white house uh by uh giving the nixon campaign uh you know this inside knowledge of the the peace process and uh you know it allowed the nixon campaign to

make contact and tell the south vietnamese to uh to hold tight to not take any deal. So, you know, Kissinger is responsible for, for widening the war in Indochina, but also for prolonging it for many years. I mean, he made certain that there wouldn't be any kind of peace and, you know, made certain that both more Americans and more people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos would die. Yeah. And this is while Nixon's running on, I have a secret plan to end the war exactly uh achieve peace with honor uh with this this secret plan which uh which really there was nothing in the way of a plan except for expanding the the war and uh and which led to more deaths and there's audio of johnson on the phone with i forget the name of the republican senator

and they're talking about this and johnson says this is treason they should not be doing this but then he still didn't do anything about it or even leak it yeah he he kept quiet about that even though you know as you said he he recognized it as his treason and stepped to see it as anything but uh sabotaging the uh the diplomatic efforts of the white house at the time but uh you know johnson i believe thought it was for the good of the country that you know he couldn't take this public but uh and and uh america and southeast asia uh suffered for it All right. So the war in Vietnam, Johnson really escalates the American role in 64. We'll leave out the antecedents for time's sake here. But Nixon and Kissinger come in in 1969. And at this time, Kissinger's just the national security advisor? Or at what time does he become Secretary of State? Not until the second term, right? That's right. Okay. Yeah. At this time, he's just the National Security Advisor. But I say just, I mean, he wielded more power than any.

national security advisor before or were since. He was really the architect of Nixon's policy in Southeast Asia and really was, you know, something of a co-president in these matters. You know, he's exceptionally powerful and exceptionally hands-on when it came to the war. All right. Now, famously in your book, Kill Anything That Moves, your sourcing is almost entirely, or at least the basis of it all, is, for you. from army investigations of their own guys' war crimes.

And so this is all, you know, this new reporting is very much in that same vein, straight from the documents about the secret war in Cambodia. So can you explain to us, first of all, how it was that the war expanded to Cambodia, when and Kissinger's role in that, and then the consequences for these poor people that you went and met for yourself? Yes. So when Nixon, you know, he won the White House and began his term in 1969 with this secret plan, the idea to achieve peace with honor, basically what Henry Kissinger's plan was, you know, within the first weeks of the administration, he sat down with his military deputy, Alexander Hague, and they hatched a plan. They came up with the operation, code name menu, which was kept secret from the American people, from Congress, even from top Pentagon

officials. It was a bombing campaign in Cambodia that was covered up via this conspiracy of cover stories, coded messages, a dual bookkeeping system that log strikes in that occurred in Cambodia as, you know, or that logged air strikes in Cambodia as occurring in South Vietnam. And You know, Kissinger was assisted in this by a colonel from the Joint Chiefs of Staff named Ray Sitton. And Sitton would bring a list of targets to White House for approval and maps. And Kissinger would tell him, strike here, strike there, very hands-on. So Kissinger was picking where bombs would be dropped in Cambodia, and Sitton would backchannel the coordinates into the field, circumventing the military chain of command. Then the authentic documents that were associated with these strikes were burned.

phony target coordinates and forged data were provided to the Pentagon and to Congress. So this was the beginning of the U.S. or the expansion of the U.S. war in Cambodia. under the Johnson administration, there had been cross-border raids and, you know, smaller scale attacks, but nothing on this order. It was a major expansion of the war. And, you know, we've known for decades about the secret bombing. This came out during the Watergate scandals in 1973, but I found in the National Archives when I was doing my work on war crimes in Vietnam, a subset of records about attacks in Cambodia.

And I dug further, spent hundreds of hours in the archives, finding more records that dealt with U.S. attacks, not just by these B-52 bombers, big strato fortresses, which, which Kissinger was, uh, had had used for the secret bombing, but also, uh, smaller fighter bombers and US helicopter gunships that tore up villages with their, their machine guns. And I had these records. I took them and went to the ground in Cambodia. And, you know, there I spoke with, uh, more than 75 Cambodian witnesses and survivors of U.S. attacks and learned, you know, new details about the long-term trauma that they suffered and was able to document via the records and via these interviews hundreds of civilian casualties that were kept secret during the war

from 1969 and 1973 and that remain almost entirely unknown to the American people. These are deaths in Cambodia that one can tie to the very policies that Henry Kissinger champion. in there and help to bring about. Now, it's interesting, whenever you hear about the bombing of Laos, some part of it is always, you know, involves the use of cluster bombs and the fact that people of Laos still die and are maimed by the hundreds every year by these cluster bomb units, the bombies, they call them, still laying around. Is that the same case in Cambodia? Yeah, very much so. This is something that I always ask people about.

out. And, you know, it was, it was, you know, the American War was still, you know, present for them. There was still, it's often children that would find these bombies. You know, it's a little spherical piece of metal. Sometimes they were even painted a bright yellow. It looked like a toy. And, you know, children find them and, you know, start to play with them. And of course, these are decades old. They're rusted and they can explode in an instant and cause tremendous damage. Also, you know, in Southeast Asia, there's a thriving scrap metal trade. You know, this is seen as a way to boost income. So sometimes children, sometimes it's it's adult men, but there's money to be made. Some people have gotten very good at disarming them. But these are, again, very very, very

very old piece of technology, rusted, and, you know, it's caused catastrophic damage. So sometimes people are just trying to supplement their income and they end up becoming war casualties decades after the fact. Yeah. Hey, guys, Scott here for Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego at Jewelry StoreSD.com. They do business nationwide. They sell jewelry and watches, specializing in engagement rings. you know, in case you're in love with somebody.

They also specialize in one-of-a-kind vintage and antique jewelry, fully serviced pre-owned fine watches, such as Rolex, Patech, Philippe, Cartier, and any high-end brand. Leos also services high-end watches faster and cheaper than going to a factory service center. Leos takes all the stress out of shopping for jewelry and engagement rings, and always at the right price. They deal nationwide over the phone at 619-299-1500.

That's Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego. Go to Jewelry StoreSD.com to check out their fine selection and to find out more. Hey, y'all, you should sign up for my substack. It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com, and if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else, but not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scott Horton'show.substack.com. Hey, y'all, libertosbella.com is where you get Scott Hortonsbela.com is where you get Scott

Horton Show and Libertarian Institute shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs too. That's Libertasbella.com. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size.

Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to camping. This. IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. It's such an important part of the story because, you know, a bunch of bad stuff happened back in the days of black and white TV before I was born, Nick. But no, these people are still being exploded to death all the time. So how about we pull our troops out of everywhere and then send them in civilian, to go clean up these bombs. There's a use for the U.S. Army that you could actually justify right now. You could. And there's no shortage of unexploded ordinance. You know, hundreds of thousands of tons, tons we're talking about, scattered across all of Indochina. So there's plenty of work to be done by EOD technicians. I'm sorry for this tangent, but I just have to mention that. I saw a thing on TV where they have drones with metal detectors.

that go around finding these undettonated bombs and charges of different kinds, they drop a tiny little shape charge on top and then fly away and then detonate it. And for a few billion dollars, we could clean up all Southeast Asia with that. What we need is, you know, you look at all the money we're pouring into Ukraine for drones to kill people with. Here's a good use of civilian drones to clean up this mess in a way that protects human life, you know? Anyway, yeah, it could be done. You know, the people in Cambodia that I spoke with, you know, after after the war and after the Khmer Rouge genocide, when they went back to their fields, found all this unexploded ordinance there. Of course, they didn't have any kind of real technology. They sent young men out with just sticks to, you know, just probe and see if they hit anything. And there are a lot of young men who, you know, who made it through the war, who then became injured afterward, just in an effort to try and clear their farm field so that their families could eat. So it was a tremendous

problem then and remained so today. All right. Now, so part of this war is just the indiscriminate fire. I kill anything that moves is the title of your book. It's about these so-called free fire zones where we told them to leave. So anybody's still within this imaginary line and that imaginary line is is you know free to kill and it's all jungle cover so I have no idea who's really getting bombed down there and you describe just these helicopter gunships and and B-52's coming in just absolutely decimating civilian populations civilian villages when there's not a fighter around for 10 miles or 100 at the time yeah this was the the case again and again and um you know and it really baffled people in Cambodia, even more so than people that I spoke with in Vietnam. In Vietnam, at least people

had an understanding that the war was going on, you know, that they understood the contours of conflict. In Cambodia, these were rural farmfolk in border villages who really, you know, they had no connection to the war. You know, sometimes they saw Vietnamese guerrillas, sometimes they saw American aircraft overhead, but for years it didn't have much impact on their lives. And they were they didn't, you know, the war had nothing to do with them. They were in a neutral country. They were going about their lives. Then they would say aircraft started appearing and hovering over the village. They'd never seen technology like this up close. They didn't know what to make of it. They came out. They stared in awe. Oftentimes they said they had just,

didn't have any frame of reference for it. Very soon, though, those same helicopters started opening up on them with machine guns, firing rockets, incendiary rockets at their homes. And, you know, they learned to fear this machinery. And, you know, the question they had for me again and again was, why did they bomb here? Why was it done? They had no idea that the architect of their agony was Henry Kissinger. they didn't understand, you know, what caused Americans to come and why Americans came and killed

their relatives and neighbors. Now, you confronted Henry Kissinger about the civilian deaths, Nick, huh? I did. I did. I did. I did my best to confront him. He's very slippery. And, you know, I was, yeah, it, it took a lot to try and, try and track him down, but I, I found him at a State Department conference on the Vietnam War. And, you know, he opened up after he gave a keynote address, he opened up the Florida questions. And, you know, I tried to hold him to account using his, his own words. And, you know, they, they took my mic. away and allowed him to answer and he basically threw up a wall of words to you know confuse the audience and confused the question and you know but i followed up after the talk uh i sort of ran down

and got into a scrum of people uh mostly kissinger sycophants who were there who wanted to shake his hand and take pictures with him and um you know but i i got in front of him and i i asked him that question and I just mentioned that I was asked by so many of the people I interviewed in Cambodia, but there's one woman, Miss Lorne, you know, she lost two relatives to, to air strikes, and she asked me, why did they drop bombs here? And I asked that to Henry Kissinger. And, you know, he responded with sarcasm and said that, you know, I lack your intelligence and moral quality. and he also said something. It was so strange. I've confronted a lot of people about war crimes over the years, but I never had a response like this. He also told me to play with it, which I thought was very odd. What does that mean exactly? I still don't know. He said, play with it. Have a good time. And it was very, very strange. And then he stomped his cane on the floor and he stalked off. And over the next. two days of the conference, I never saw him again. Yeah, he had a very easy escape from me,

but the people in the villages that I went to in Cambodia didn't have the luxury of such an easy escape. Yeah, for real. So, man, I'm sorry, we're running so short on time here, but can you talk real quick about what any of this has to do with the rise of Pol Pot and the Camer Rouge, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's friends? Yeah. You know, So when the U.S. started the secret bombing in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge was a really a fringe movement, a couple thousand people at the time. But the bombing gave the Khmer Rouge just a tremendous recruiting tool. And they would go around to villages and say, you know, these bombs that are falling on your head, there's only one way that you can save your village, save Cambodia, save this

country, join us, and, you know, we'll be able to fight against the Americans. And, you know, within a couple short years, due to that bombing, the Khmer Rouge was a 200,000 strong force. They were able to take over the country, which they plunged Cambodia into, you know, this campaign of overwork and torture and murder that killed about 20% of the population, about two million people. And, you know, I don't think there's any way that the Khmer Rouge would have taken over without the U.S. expanding the war, without Henry Kissinger's expansion of the war into Cambodia. And, you know, as you say, the Americans, you know, fortunes turned very quickly. By the time the Khmer Rouge took over the country and had begun their genocide, Kissinger, behind closed doors, told the Thai ambassador, or his counterpart, that the United States was willing to extend ties to the Khmer Rouge government.

this was because they were they wanted to basically stick it to vietnam who would who had just won that war against us and he was willing to to court the Khmer Rouge and throw his support behind them back them at the united nations and uh you know so so we backed a genocidal regime again this was for for power politics this is uh know it's it's it's been Henry Kissinger's MO his entire career. He was always willing to sacrifice people, you know, in, you know, for the sake of high level power politics and diplomacy. It's just absolutely incredible. And just for the sake of revenge, I think Noam Shamski, I agree, I think he quite credibly said that Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia was the

only legitimately humanitarian-based aggressive war of one nation invading another that he could find or think of anywhere, where it was simply just because the refugee crisis and because Pol Pot was killing millions of people. And the Vietnamese invaded to finally put an end to this absolute horror show, this complete madhouse, this year zero policy as crazy as anything man when his wife ever came up with. And then America takes Pol Pot. side, just because they hate the Vietnamese for humiliating them, even though the Vietnamese are on the side of the angels in this, you know? It's just unbelievable.

It's just unbelievable, you know? Absolutely sickening. But it's vintage Kissinger. Yep. And then, so that really started under Ford, huh? And then Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan just continued it. Yeah, they continued that policy. It was really, you know, Kissinger pioneered it.

And, yeah, and they took up the mantle. Yeah, but that had started under Fort. And interesting, as you point out, everybody gets Kudetad right out of there during Watergate, except for Kissinger. He gets to stay for the Ford administration for the continuity and foreign policy there. Yeah, Kissinger is the ultimate survivor. I mean, the swirl of Watergate took down almost everyone in the Nixon administration. But Kissinger, I mean, he was always really adept at playing the press. and you know he was he was able to slip free it's it's it's another hallmark of his career and i think

a reason why you know right now you know as as you know i have this report out about about him and his war crimes but most of the coverage you see of kitchens that you're now is uh you know lauding him for you know his longevity uh on his 100th birthday and for being one click to the left of the neocons or whatever war they're trying to start or maybe it's one click to the right now how do you measure that. All right, listen. I'm so sorry that we're out of time, man. Can we talk again about Africa sometime soon?

Yeah, definitely. Let's talk again. Okay, great, man. Well, listen, you're a great journalist. I sure love reading all that you write, and I really appreciate your time on the show, Nick. Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

All right, you guys, that's Nick Turs. He's at The Intercept, and the series is called Kissinger's Killing Fields, and that includes blood on his hands. The notorious 1973 attack killed many more than previously known. U.S. blamed the press for military looting in Cambodia. That's an interesting one there.

Completely ridiculous. And transcripts of Kissinger's calls reveal his culpability. All great stuff there at the Intercept. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org. Thank you.