Kissinger celebrates 100 years of spreading the busted myth

From an intellectual, statesman, brilliant negotiator and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to a cynical, arrogant, egotistical and war criminal. Or maybe all at once. Henry Kissinger, the man who was almost everything in the United Stateson Saturday it celebrates its 100th anniversary, increasing its own myth, although it is increasingly questioned.

The man who was national security adviser and secretary of state for Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and Gerald Ford (1974-1977) did not hold a government post for decades, but the long shadow of the most famous diplomat of the 20th century continues to this day.

Whether it’s the war in Ukraine or artificial intelligence, 100-year-old Kissinger continues to express his opinions with enviable lucidity because many ask him to, because he likes light bulbs, and maybe cleaning. a legacy full of chiaroscuro.

And that is that he is haunted by the fame of having promoted a foreign policy that was so pragmatic insensitive to moral considerations.

“Fifty years ago, on his fiftieth birthday, he was hailed as one of the most respected Americans,” recalls Professor Thomas Schwartz. “But that is no longer the case, history and historians were not very kind to him,” adds the author of the biography. Henry Kissinger and American Power.

Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923 in Fürth (Germany) in a Jewish family that came to New York. fleeing Nazism when I was still a teenager.

With a strong German accent when he speaks English, this Harvard graduate has always denied that his traumatic childhood marked him for life, but many disagree.

Professor at the University of Texas Jeremi Suri, author of the book Henry Kissinger and the American Centurybelieves that “as a Jewish refugee he has always been very concerned about chaos and he wanted to bring order to the world».

“He also believes that the United States is a superior nation that has a special role to play,” Suri says.

From China to Chile

Kissinger, who according to his acquaintances does not practice humility, he wants to be remembered as the architect of the policy of detente towards the Soviet Union who changed the course of the Cold War, as an architect of the normalization of relations with China and as an intellectual who stopped nuclear proliferation.

Do you want to go down in history as the great mediator of the Middle Eastas well as the Nobel Peace Prize, which ended the Vietnam War.

But he doesn’t want him to remember or to be reminded that, unlike him, he is his prize partner, Vietnamese Le Duc Thoreturned the Nobel because his country continued conflicts after the Paris Agreements.

I’d also like to see his support for dictatorships like those in Chile, Argentina and Spain remain in the fine print, his role in Operation Condor for the repression of left-wing Latin American opponents or who, for many, has bloody hands because of his support for the coup Salvador Allende. “We cannot let Chile go down the drain,” he went so far as to say in 1970.

«Kissinger did not mind 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 the author of the biography. An eccentric realist.

“In a country that had lost its political and moral north to the Vietnam War, Kissinger offered a clear and unequivocal message: morality is not made for international relations“, he adds.

even best seller journalist Christopher Hitchens accused him in 2001 war crimes for their performances in Cambodia, East Timor or Chile; criticism unthinkable in the 70s when Kissinger was the most popular man in the country.

Myth construction

appeared on the front pages characterized as Superman, he dated Hollywood stars without being particularly attractive, and dwarfed the president himself. “What would happen if Kissinger died? That Richard Nixon will become president,” they joked in Washington.

Schwartz says that “his personal history made him a very fascinating figure. The media coverage at the time was similar to that of Barack Obama in 2008.

Survived the Watergate scandal and, after his time in politics, Kissinger continued to be omnipresent in editorials, books, talks and interviews to spread the myth that many wanted to be photographed with, from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, to Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping.

But he also invested a lot of time in refutes harsh criticism of him, something he can’t stand. He was always said to have the “thinnest skin” in the Administration.

This was also shown in a recent interview with the American channel CBS, in which, deeply disturbed, he replied that the war criminal’s accusations “are a reflection of ignorance».

Despite his stubborn image, his biographers claim that he can be charming in person and is a good way to break the ice Talk to him about football or opera.

What doesn’t disappear over short distances are his unmistakable horn-rimmed glasses and his huge ego. “He wants to be remembered like Mandela or Gorbachev, but I think he will be remembered for a more ambiguous legacy,” says Suri.