November 16, 2003

Henry Kissinger is a master at creating a sense of crisis. His latest memoirs are based on the record of his hitherto secret telephone conversations. The major portion of his book delves into the Middle East crisis of 1973 involving Egypt, Israel and Syria on one side, against the two cold war antagonists the US and the Soviet Union. The second crisis involved panicky withdrawal from Vietnam, which he terms a humanitarian story. He claims to be the pivotal actor in solving the crisis.

The Americans with a short history and ambitions of a long memory of small events tend to overlook the dynamics of historical events. What looks to be grandeur today, could be considered as villainous in future. Kissinger wants a dominant place in history. How he would be remembered — as a diplomat or the instigator of mass murders — is recorded in the book The Trial of Henry Kissinger and many scattered articles on him.

The question is how a German refugee to the US became part of the inner circle and was proclaimed to be a godfather of the American foreign policy.

The American military power has always been ahead of intellectual or scholarly inputs. Consequently the US foreign policy has been in crisis. The Pentagon, a military organ of the nation without cost-benefits analysis, dictates adventures overseas. The policies in Vietnam, Afghanistan and recently Iraq have thrown the world into deep crisis. The Middle East remains in shambles, because there is no coherent policy, which ties down the US national interest without antagonizing the oil-trade partners.

This is where Kissinger cashes in, becoming the architect of the US foreign policy with chitchats around the world, and conducting foreign policy by telephonic conversations. Crisis can be equated to a ‘rebellious’ situation, and in the long run it does not solve the structural problems, which need revolutionary acts. Kissinger relishes in small gimmicks and complicates the volatile situations engulfing lives of millions.

His output of ‘memoirs’ is phenomenal, considering the limited time he was attached to the two half-termed Presidents: Nixon and Ford. He was the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, the only person to have held both jobs simultaneously — Powell and Rice in one. Did he represent the worst or best of the two ideologues of the Bush administration today? After Ford’s defeat, he never returned to the central stage, but established Consultant Company, for prophecy and profits. His associates are also the spokespeople doing the groundwork for him.

The National Security Archive’s press release of October 7, 2003, from the declassified documents revealed:

“Kissinger gave green light for Israeli offensive violating 1973 ceasefire; US-Israeli decisions touched off crisis leading to 1973 US Nuclear Alert”; Emphasizing “New documents correct previous accounts in Kissinger books”.

Nixon was an old cold-war antagonist, seemingly in command of foreign affairs and so Kissinger had to depend on Nixon’s nodding. For Ford, the case was different. He could just inform the President what decisions were undertaken.

Kissinger gained prominence in 1973/74, during the US constitutional crisis. Nixon was embroiled with his Vice President Agnew’s resignation, and later the Watergate, which led to his own resignation. In the name of US presidents, Kissinger took charge of foreign policy with his own twists.

The genesis of his book Crisis is the taped telephone conversations between him and a variety of actors: Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Ambassador Dinitz, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed el-Azayyat, Soviet Ambassador, Dobrynin, UN Secretary General Waldheim, and two US presidents with General Haig and other insiders of the US government. He recorded conversations with these people, without their knowledge.

In a mysterious way, on Saturday October 6, 1973 at 6:40 early morning, he was recording the conversations with the Soviet ambassador, speculating the impending attack by the Egyptian and Syrian forces to regain their 1967 lost territories. From his perspectives, the Middle East was crucial for the American national interest in 1973 and for many years to come. In the introductory two pages, he pontificates that the US should cultivate close relationship with moderate Arab leaders (pro-American), which is needed to strengthen them against the radicals, associated with the Soviet Union. Out of 544 text pages, only twenty three describes the Indo-Chinese crisis of 1975 when the US had to evacuate hurriedly its own personnel plus the South Vietnamese proteges. Why is Kissinger so obsessed with writing his memoirs in doses recalling foreign policy decisions during his tenure as the Secretary of State? There are two possible reasons.

Michael Beschloss, an astute US historian, analyzing Kissinger through the records of his memoirs, noted: “He was the master diplomat of his time. Now he’s got his eye on history’s verdict.” He observed that in the recent Middle East and Iraqi crisis, the crown jewels of Ford’s presidential advisors, Rumsfield, Cheney, Bush Senior, and CIA’s director were present but conspicuously Kissinger was not there. Kissinger’s revenge is in digging his old files from 1973, which he had originally surrendered to the Library of Congress, to be published as a book, to show his statecraft in the Middle East crisis of 1973. Then he poignantly adds:

“As one of the most controversial public officials in recent history, Kissinger has followed Winston Churchill’s fabled dictum that to secure your historical standing, be sure you are the first to write about it.”

Kissinger reveals with great glee, how he played double with the Arabs and received the Nobel peace prize for the negotiations which ended the Vietnam war. His conversations and reflections in the twenty pages covering the Vietnam withdrawal crisis do not provide a pretty picture, deserving the peace prize. Nixon was sad for not receiving the Nobel prize. Kissinger records consoling words to Nixon that everything was done under his directions.

Secondly, during 1973 many events were happening overseas, in which Kissinger was allegedly involved, especially the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Allende in September 1973, prior to the October War in the Middle East.

He never talks about his darker side; if anything by writing self-serving memoirs diverts attention to some kind of shadow boxing of trivial conversations, when the big agenda was playing in the background.

In his acknowledgements, Kissinger plays shrewd. He includes the present National Security Advisor for the cooperation of her office in clearing documents for publication, alluding as if she is a part of his selections of the telephonic conversation.

Coyly he says: “I want to thank Dr Condileesa Rice for the meticulous review of her staff”.

The significance of Kissinger’s memoirs Crisis is that it has exposed him in a most undiplomatic manner, when his intentions were to be the master of diplomacy. When intentions are suspect, the hero becomes a villain after historical records are unfolded.

Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises
By Henry Kissinger
Simon Schuster. Available with Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar, Karachi. Tel: 021-5683026
Email: libooks@cyber.net.pk
Website: www.libertybooks.com
ISBN 0-7432-4910-0
564pp. $30 Rs895

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