Many outside the US call him a war criminal , so why has George Bush just given him a major job? Julian Borger on Henry Kissinger's comeback
The vastly different reactions on each side of the Atlantic to Henry Kissinger's return to the political centre stage says a lot about the constantly widening gap in political perceptions between the US and Europe.
Those Europeans who were aware that the old, cold warrior was still alive could be forgiven for assuming he was in a cell somewhere awaiting war crimes charges, or living the life of a fugitive, never sleeping in the same bed twice lest human rights investigators track him down.
In the US, the overwhelming response to Kissinger's appointment, at the age of 79, to head the investigation into the catastrophic intelligence failure that led to September 11th has been one of relief mixed with nostalgic affection. For many Americans, he is the avuncular wise man with the funny accent - secretary of state under presidents Nixon and Ford, the only man ever to serve as secretary of state and national security adviser, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner to boot - who is now coming to the rescue, bringing half a century of international experience to bear on fixing the holes in national security.
From the point of view of the average citizen who has taken even a passing interest in international affairs, Kissinger has never really been away. Since September 11th, he has been a regular on television talk shows and in the opinion pages of the major newspapers, holding forth on the "war on terror". His views are held in such high esteem that a row broke out during the summer over the correct interpretation of a commentary he had written on policy towards Iraq. He gave overwhelming approval to the decision to confront Saddam Hussein over weapons of mass destruction, but advised the Bush administration to seek as broad an international consensus as possible before going to war. The New York Times interpreted this note of caution as opposition, and was roundly lambasted on the right for doing so.
While Kissinger's place in the Washington mainstream has never seriously been challenged, his principal detractor, the Washington-based British journalist Christopher Hitchens, who chronicled the legal case against him in his book, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, is generally treated in the US as an oddball curiosity. His arguments receive scant media attention, certainly in comparison with their reception in Europe.
Kissinger has been canny in maintaining his celebrity status, appearing in a string of advertisements, alongside the likes of Woody Allen, intended to bring tourism back to New York. The prophet of realpolitik, who once famously claimed that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, now has a chance to live out his dreams again - a man of ideas whose time has come once more in the harsh light of post-September 11th politics.
In that light, the secret bombing of Cambodia, which he orchestrated with Richard Nixon, could be argued to be the ultimate act of pre-emption, a concept on which the Bush administration's new national security doctrine is based. The same goes for his role in helping to oust Salvador Allende from power in Chile, and his replacement by General Augusto Pinochet.
The prevailing climate in national security circles in the age of terrorism favours early action against potential threats, before they pose direct danger.
It is a climate that makes it politically risky to criticise even such a controversial personality, and the chronically risk-averse Democrats have mostly stood to attention behind Kissinger's nomination. "He brings a stature to it, which is important," Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national security adviser, told the New York Times.
Privately, the Democrats are consoling themselves that their own elder statesman, former senator George Mitchell, will be at Kissinger's side in an attempt to ensure that the inquiry is not a total whitewash.
They realise that Kissinger is such an old-hand at national security policy that he knows it is ultimately subordinate to domestic politics. There is convincing evidence that he played a role in convincing the South Vietnamese to reject a peace deal being negotiated by Lyndon Johnson in the dying months of his administration, which might have saved the Democrats in the 1968 elections. Instead, the collapse of the talks helped to elect Kissinger's man, Nixon.
Kissinger now has another chance to be a player in the great game of international strategy, a game in which truth will inevitably be traded off against perceived national interest, a barter at which the American Machiavelli is a master. At the heart of his deliberations will be the role of Saudi Arabia, and the mysterious relationship between the kingdom's royal family, its intelligence services and the 9/11 hijackers, of whom 15 out of 19 were Saudi nationals.
On the other hand, the Saudi government is a long-term, strategic ally, which has facilities near-essential to a war against Iraq, provides a major source of oil, and is a friend of the Bush family. It is a dilemma few would enjoy as much as Kissinger.
The German-born statesman is also well placed to appreciate the interplay of big money and politics, an alchemy that is at the heart of the Bush administration. At the head of Kissinger Associates since 1982, he has sold his expertise in the workings of the Washington policy machine and his international contacts to corporate clients, who are thought to include Exxon Mobil, Arco and American Express.
Kissinger is also on the "European strategy board" of a Dallas investment company called Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, one of the biggest financial contributors to George Bush's political career. Tom Hicks, one of its partners, purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team, in which the president had a stake, helping to make him a millionaire.
All of the above may help to explain why Kissinger is not a surprising choice for the Bush administration. However, it does not explain the popular acceptance, and even acclaim, his nomination has so far received.
The national mood since September 11th has been defensive for obvious reasons. There is no longer an appetite for the sort of harsh reassessment of the US role in the world that was so prevalent in the 1980s and early 1990s in the form of books and films about Vietnam and Latin America, Kissinger's old stomping ground. In Hollywood's most recent Vietnam movie, the US is the hero once more. Meanwhile, the CIA's adventures in Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua are largely forgotten.
It is worth remembering that Kissinger is not the sole beneficiary of this particular form of national amnesia. Earlier this month, Admiral John Poindexter, one of the central figures in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, was appointed the head of a new Pentagon intelligence service, with Big Brother-style access to the personal information of ordinary Americans.
Poindexter, formerly better-known for destroying data than collecting it, was convicted for his role in Iran-Contra but later won an appeal on a legal technicality. The motto of his new office is scientia est potentia - knowledge is power.
Meanwhile, his celebrated subordinate, Colonel Oliver North, who carried out much of the shredding of embarrassing documents and who took the legal rap for the scandal, is also back on the Washington A list, as a television talk-show host and pundit.
Another Iran-Contra veteran, Elliott Abrams, who as assistant secretary of state under Reagan was convicted of misleading Congress, is now back in the national security council. Otto Reich, who masterminded pro-Contra propaganda, has also risen again, as an assistant secretary of state.
Consider, too, the strange career of G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar who went to jail for breaking into the Democratic Party offices at the behest of Kissinger's boss, Nixon. He emerged from prison a born-again Christian and is now a radio talk-show host with a faithful following.
Like Liddy, Poindexter and North, Kissinger has been helped back from eternal obscurity by a deep desire on the part of the nation's conservatives to avenge past humiliations, when men they saw as heroes were forced to answer to the law, and sometimes go to jail.
Kissinger's second act is sweeter than most - his murky past has not only gone unpunished, it now looks like the unsettling prologue for US policy in years to come.
- Guardian News Service