Today, Explained - Kissinger’s long goodbye

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Noted American diplomat and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is revered by few, reviled by many, and now he’s dead. Vox’s Jonathan Guyer explains why the world was fixated on him for decades after he left the White House. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Isabel Angell with help from Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Hady Mawajdeh, engineered by David Herman, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jonathan Geyer, you were the first person I thought of when I heard that Henry Kissinger died. Is that a compliment, John? I don't know if it's a compliment. You spend an inordinate amount of time for a reporter in 2023 thinking and writing about Henry Kissinger. What is that, like a fixation? It might look like that from the outside.

I have, you know, seen him speak or attend events with him three, four, five times the last six months. But it turns out the world is fixated with Henry Kissinger. He's been celebrated by Biden's cabinet. Xi Jinping threw a four-hour banquet for him. In September, Kissinger met with Zelensky. He met with Netanyahu. Basically, I'm going to try to understand why is Washington, Wall Street, so many world leaders fixated with Henry Kissinger, a man who was 100 years old. That's coming up on Today Explained. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas.

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Jonathan Geyer, senior foreign policy writer at Vox. Jonathan, how does Henry Kissinger become Henry Kissinger? First of all, there's so much depth to this man's story. I think he's so tied up with a legacy of Vietnam and war, but we really have to start a lot earlier. Born in,

you know, 100 years ago, 1923, born in Germany, comes to America as an immigrant. It's sort of an amazing Jewish immigrant story, goes back to fight in World War II, you know, is an intelligence officer, has some role in liberating the camps, and sort of is on the front lines of American power, so to speak, from the very earliest moments of his career. And what does he do when he gets back to the United States? So, you know, it's 1957. He's got those signature plastic glasses that he becomes, you know, kind of known for his whole life.

Young Jewish professor at Harvard at a time where there's not a lot of, you know, Jewish people at that kind of high level of academia. And he kind of picks apart, which was kind of the major doctrine of nuclear strategy at the time that Eisenhower was putting forward. He picks apart what's called massive retaliation. And he argues for something called limited nuclear war, which is that you can kind of win a little nuclear war using smaller nuclear weapons. These weren't called tactical nuclear weapons at the time. But that was kind of, you know, where he made his name was nuclear strategy.

You know, being an early pioneer in this field. This is the moment where Henry Kissinger ends up defining some of the strategies that about 10 years later he's implementing within the White House. When does he finally become Secretary of State and then give us some idea of how he focuses his energy. Within the Watergate scandal, obviously a lot of the Nixon administration is implicated. And Bill Rogers, the Secretary of State, was a really good friend of Nixon's, ends up resigning within the tumult of Watergate. I know all of you will want to hear from the new Secretary of State speaking for the first time in that capacity.

There is no country in the world where it is conceivable that a man of my origins could be standing here next to the President of the United States. And what Kissinger becomes, which is, I think, unique in U.S. history, is he serves as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, kind of the closest advisor to Nixon. And I believe that had never been done before, that one person had held both of those titles. Exactly. So, and I don't think anyone's done it since. Just kind of shows the tremendous amount of energy that this gentleman had. And

what he does with that, you know, is it's a really complicated, huge ledger sheet. I mean, I think when you talk to strategists and defense experts, they will emphasize the opening up with China. You have to imagine China in the 60s and early 70s is even more closed than North Korea is today. I mean, this is a country that the U.S. really did not have any connection with, any diplomatic relations, as far as I understand, and economically next to nothing. And, you know, Henry Kissinger, together with Nixon, is the architect of this new policy, this opening up to China. I have undertaken initiatives in several areas to open the door for more normal relations between our two countries. In pursuance of that goal, I sent Dr. Kissinger, my assistant for

national security affairs, to Peking during his recent world tour for the purpose of having talks with Premier Zhou Enlai. And just, I should say, you know, the strategy here was Cold War, pretty dangerous time for the U.S. The idea is you could pull away Russia from China, these two communist powers, and if the U.S. could, you know, develop a friendly relationship with China, it would, in effect, weaken Russia's power in the world. Literally a really similar conversation to what we're having today. At some point in here, I think he wins a Nobel Peace Prize. I think Gallup ranks him America's most admired man. What is going on with Henry Kissinger? Well, he does this kind of amazing thing that you can't really do in 2023, which is, you know, shuttle diplomacy. He spends a lot of time on planes, and he's able to kind of show up in countries and lay the ground

work for this opening with China, able to do all this kind of back-channeling in the Middle East. There's this surprise Arab war on Israel in 1973. Secretary Kissinger had planned to spend a quiet private weekend in New York, but the Middle East crisis forced him to rush back to Washington. He spoke briefly with newsmen as he left. We've told you everything that we can say. I'm in close touch with the president. You know, complex legacy of a Middle East peace process is something Henry is also responsible for. But in that moment, he's putting pressure on the different parties. He's shuttling between Israel and other Arab capitals. He's getting to know Anwar Sadat. He's dealing with some of the most towering kind of figures in 20th century history. And he's kind of a player.

And because he has the confidence of Richard Nixon as a diplomat, he's able to kind of do things that some secretaries of state aren't, which is kind of, you know, truly be America's lawyer, America's representative on the world stage. So the opening up of China might be something that he's famous for. Tell me about some of the things he's infamous for. Sean, it's a very long list. I think most closely associated with the Vietnam War, even, you know, the peace movement at the time in the late 60s, early 70s would be calling him out by name in protests in the United States. And, you know, it's pretty tremendous and tragic, the scale of the Vietnam War. It's actually the Southeast Asia wars. And Henry Kissinger, historians say, is responsible for expanding and prolonging those wars into Cambodia, into Laos, with indiscriminate bombing, as historians and journalists have documented.

And some of those bombs, for example, in Cambodia are still going off. So there's this kind of terrifying thing where his living legacy is this ongoing death. The war may have ended here in Laos 40 plus years ago, but the casualties of war continue on places like this soccer field where some kids just two weeks ago found a little bomblet. They thought it was a ball and took it home to play with it. About 270 million were originally dropped of the cluster munitions, and an estimate of 80 million still remain on the land.

One part of Henry Kissinger's foreign policy legacy is sort of the overt participation in some of these wars. Another version of this is kind of giving a wink or a kind of tacit approval to something horrible. And I think that's what happens with the Khmer Rouge, where, you know, he basically told them, according to records, these are murderous thugs, but I'm not going to stand in their way. Something that happened in other countries when generals took over Pakistan and East Timor, and then also with Pinochet in Chile and in Argentina. It's a record of not just doing things that historians call atrocities or war crimes, but kind of not using U.S. power to stop war crimes, as it were.

What is the overarching strategy, be it in Chile with Pinochet or in carpet bombing Cambodia or in Pakistan and Bangladesh? What is he trying to do? So I think, in fairness to Henry Kissinger, what he would say and his supporters would say is, this is realism. This is standing up for American interests in the world. And that means making some really messy, dirty decisions because what comes first are American interests. Now, I think that doesn't hold up. Based on my reporting, I think usually a human rights-driven foreign policy can be a really good thing for American interests.

But what we see in all these different contexts is Henry Kissinger kind of not thinking about people in these countries, not thinking about long-term effects, but thinking about what is good for America in the middle of this Cold War moment. And so you do have some historians that say he navigated this stuff pretty well. This was a superpower crisis, a world on the verge of nuclear war. And other journalists and historians who say millions of dead, two million dead in Cambodia, a long list of countries throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia, that were subject to bombardment and coups and political violence that, you know, at the very least, Henry Kissinger didn't do anything about. And at the most, he was a participant.

And this is why, you know, Christopher Hitchens, you know, the kind of firebrand author, wrote this famous book that was accusing Henry Kissinger of war crimes. And this has become almost a meme or a longstanding criticism that, you know, in all these different contexts, all these different countries from Pinochet in Chile all the way to Southeast Asia, Henry Kissinger had a role in alleged war crimes. Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes, lady. And it's, you know, something he was never really held accountable for. And I'm not saying by, you know, the criminal court. I'm saying in kind of seminars and the kind of polite foreign policy circles in which I circulate,

he's never really had to answer for this really dirty history that is front of mind to many people of the world. and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, r-a-m-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC.

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Today Explained is back with Jonathan Geyer, who is a senior Kissinger correspondent at Vox. Jonathan, Henry Kissinger does not go away after the White House. Instead, he becomes, I think, maybe one of the most successful influencers of all time? I think Henry Kissinger, in the last 50 years of his career, you know, kind of senior statesperson diplomat essentially sells out and decides that he is going to serve as a fixer, essentially, to companies like Coca-Cola, defense contractors, big banks, financial institutions. He's going to use all those contacts and expertise and that kind of revolving door power that he had gained in the 60s and 70s to help corporations make money in places like China, where he's very much associated with the opening up. He was going to profit from it. And it's sort of, I dare to say, funny that he was most known for his really large fees. $250,000, I think,

was the retainer, according to a New York Times report from the 80s. A huge amount of money at the time. And so what Henry Kissinger does is he pioneers what's called strategic consulting, that he is going to be a kind of on-call think tank diplomat for the world's biggest corporate titans, solve their problems, or at least take their phone calls when they want to talk to Henry Kissinger, and just get paid tremendously handsomely for that. And he does this into his second century of life. Right. And he's been having a lot of 100th birthday parties this year. Several times that I've heard him get sung happy birthday.

Because you were invited to these birthday parties? Well, let's say I was more of a party crasher. But I saw one line in Secretary of State Tony Blinken's schedule that he was going to Henry Kissinger's birthday party in New York, not open to the press. But, you know, you can't really close press outside the New York Public Library where this was being held. So I thought, hey, it's a good schtick.

I'll show up. I'll see who's on the red carpet for Henry Kissinger. Mr. Secretary, Jonathan Geyer with Vox. What is there to celebrate about Henry Kissinger? And it wasn't just Tony Blinken. It was CIA Director Bill Burns, Samantha Power, Robert Kraft, who owns the Patriots, Mike Bloomberg, Jim Baker, who's another former Secretary of State who's, you know, into his 90s. And just a ton of A-listers. I was sort of

surrounded by Bentleys and limos and really beefy security guards and just watching the kind of foreign policy celebrities in action. Nerd Brom. But it wasn't just that, Sean. It kept going. There have been birthday celebrations for him basically up until the day he died. It's sort of a remarkable feat, the amount of birthday. I mean, the Pentagon gave him a birthday cake. The New York Economic Club sang him happy birthday.

And then I was at the Al Smith dinner, this very famous Catholic fundraiser, Elite Affair in New York. And they also sang him happy birthday last month. Happy birthday, Dr. Kissinger. Happy birthday to you. So when I saw Henry Kissinger at this Al Smith dinner, he was coming from a meeting with Xi Jinping in China. Xi had hosted a four-hour banquet for him earlier in the year.

I mean, he's just regularly meeting with world leaders, Netanyahu and Zelensky. He was at this banquet for Modi, the Indian prime minister, over the summer at the State Department. It's just sort of everywhere I looked, my Google alert was blowing up. And, you know, as one banker said, this guy, Henry Kissinger at 100, had a more robust social calendar than a whole lot of us. I mean, basically took up a lot of my past six months just attending lectures, conferences, and birthday parties. And what did you learn, Jonathan, at these lectures, conferences,

birthday parties, functions that you were not invited to, about why the world still wants to celebrate and revere Henry Kissinger? So, first of all, I think it's important to say that he still wielded power until the day he died. It wasn't like just history incarnate. It wasn't just a throwback. His protégés were in power, his networks. He still served on an influential Pentagon advisory board. He was very much, you know, well through this year connected and influencing policies on Russia and China to a great degree. But I think the more interesting thing I learned is, and I called up Larry Summers and interviewed other people who are at these

birthday parties, no one wants to talk about the alleged war crimes. No one wants to talk about the dark underbelly. No one wants to talk about what Henry Kissinger represented in terms of American empire and sort of what violence and war can do to a country. They just want to focus on the kind of diplomacy as a fun hobby, as far as I could tell. How come? I mean, you've got allegations of war criminal, you've got receipts, you know, but it sounds like this guy is basically like the Paris Hilton of foreign policy. You would think Tony Blinken and Larry Summers and Samantha Power would want to stay as far away as possible from Kissinger's messy legacy. I think President Obama has spoken to that, how much time he spent trying to clean up after Henry Kissinger's messy legacy. I think President Obama has spoken to that, how much time he spent trying to clean up

after Henry Kissinger. Well, and I think Bernie Sanders probably said it best, you know, in one of the debates with Hillary Clinton, where he said, I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. I think that was an iconic moment because even after he left office in this past 50 years, he somehow is still beloved. In part because, you know, some of the smart strategic policies, which we can debate over China, Russia, arms control.

And in part, just because I think Americans love power. People like to be close to it. And that's what he represented, I think, to New York, why 850 people would show up to a gala that costs $5,000 a head. Henry's very famous for saying, you know, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And I think we saw this playing out with the kind of throngs of lawyers and investors and bankers and former policymakers and current opinion shapers lining up to see him. He keynoted three events in October, three weeks in a row. So I kind of had my Thursdays with Henry, seeing him speak at length. And, you know, he was lucid. He was on. And it was sort of fascinating to see

this preview of the gerontocracy. You know, obviously, America's leaders and politicians are getting older into their 80s and 90s. And I think this was a bit of a preview, watching Henry at 100 hold court at a think tank as recently as last month. What did he have to say at all your Thursdays with Henry? Did he still have super pressing, compelling, cogent things to say about America's place in the world? I mean, in my humble estimation, it was a little basic. I mean, he said the biggest threats to the world are Russia, China, artificial intelligence. And it was a very pessimistic tone about these dangers. We cannot afford a divided nation in a world in which nuclear power is matched by the growth of artificial intelligence.

What I didn't hear from Henry Kissinger in all these keynotes that I attended and speeches was, I didn't hear the answer. I mean, it's sort of this thing where you have Israel reportedly indiscriminately bombing Gaza, and it seems really familiar if you're looking into Henry Kissinger's history of what Lao and Cambodia experienced. And it's almost like I wanted Henry to have an answer of, here's how we crack the nut that is Israel-Palestine in the Middle East. Here's how we solve these ongoing geopolitical superpower wars that he'd had a hand in for almost his entire career. And he didn't have that.

You know, it seems like from a lot of your reporting that a lot of power players in US and even international politics wanted to be in the room with Henry Kissinger because Henry Kissinger was powerful. He had access. He had experience. We live in a world that he helped shape. Now that he's gone, do you think people will remember him differently? I doubt it. I mean, I did try to ask him, by the way, about Pinochet in Laos and Cambodia. You know, he didn't comment, he didn't respond. His handlers kind of shooed me away when I tried to ask about that last month. But I think the bigger picture thing is Henry Kissinger was literally advising the Biden

administration up until recently. He was on this advisory board to the Pentagon. His protégés like Mike Bloomberg and Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, are very important close connectors to Biden world. And Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, was on a study group with Henry between the know, between the Trump and Biden administrations. I think his influence will endure and what he represents will endure, which is you can do things that are well documented, that are well understood, that are vastly more destructive than any policy before. And you're probably not going to be held to account. If I had to do it over again,

I would do it again substantially the same way, which may make me unreconstructed. It may be one reason why I'm at peace with myself. Thank you.