Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Robert Evans here. It's the end of the year.
Speaker 2: A couple of big, heavy hitter holidays coming in a row,
Speaker 2: and we have them off both with the company and
Speaker 2: as a team. So since there's not a new Bastard's
Speaker 2: episode this week, and also since Henry Kissinger just died,
Speaker 2: we figured this would be a nice time to rerun
Speaker 2: the original six Henry Kissinger episodes. These are great, I
Speaker 2: think are a useful introduction if you, or perhaps your
Speaker 2: friends and family don't know why a lot of people
Speaker 2: are happy that Henry's no longer in the world. I
Speaker 2: want to thank again the doll up guys, Dave Anthony
Speaker 2: and Gareth Reynolds for being wonderful guests for this. I
Speaker 2: checked in with them before we did this, just to
Speaker 2: see if they had anything to plug. Dave Anthony has
Speaker 2: an album out that you can find. It's a hot
Speaker 2: Head by Dave Anthony. You can go to Dave Anthony
Speaker 2: dot bandcamp dot com. I probably don't need a spell
Speaker 2: Dave Anthony for you, right enough one. And then we've
Speaker 2: got Gareth Reynolds, who is going to be touring quote
Speaker 2: all over the place in February and March of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. They have too many links to promote as one.
Speaker 2: But if you go to Gareth Reynolds dot com that's
Speaker 2: g A R E T h R E y n
Speaker 2: O l d s dot com you can find their
Speaker 2: schedule for live shows. Gareth is wonderful. Check those out too, Anyway,
Speaker 2: nothing else to say. Here are the episodes. Oh Sophie,
Speaker 2: this plate of Behind the Bastards is so heavy as
Speaker 2: we walk through this hallway. Oh my gosh, is that
Speaker 2: David Anthony and Gareth Reynolds with a heavy plate of
Speaker 2: the doll up? Oh no, oh no, I'm losing control.
Speaker 2: Oh god, you guys are slipping too. How was that?
Speaker 3: I couldn't disagree more?
Speaker 4: That was the most organic, just real thing I think
Speaker 4: I've ever heard that.
Speaker 3: It was, yeah, like, you're really the only thing I'm
Speaker 3: noticing is you didn't have plates. So I'm wondering how.
Speaker 2: I was wondering as I started it, are they going
Speaker 2: to join in? Or am I going to just have
Speaker 2: to commit fully to this?
Speaker 4: And now that's something where if it's me, I just
Speaker 4: let you go and then let.
Speaker 3: You have inside. I was a dog in a yard
Speaker 3: that wanted to leave it. But I was like, I'll
Speaker 3: get it. I'm not supposed to leave, so I was
Speaker 3: I wanted to join that.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, well this is this is just a wonderful time. Obviously.
Speaker 2: Again you are Dave Anthony Gareth Reynolds, hosts of The
Speaker 2: Doll Up, the podcast that invented being funny about history
Speaker 2: on the Internet. Thank you so much for for sitting
Speaker 2: down with us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: We've always for a long time, I've wanted to do
Speaker 4: something with you so and we've talked about this, but yeah.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 2: This has been like bouncing back and forth for a
Speaker 2: while and it was just one of those things where
Speaker 2: it's like, well, when we finally do our six part
Speaker 2: series on Henry Kissinger, it's going to be the worst
Speaker 2: thing we've ever had to do.
Speaker 4: They have a therapy session setup right afterwards.
Speaker 3: Dave married a therapist in preparation.
Speaker 2: That's good, really putting in the deep work to make this,
Speaker 2: to make this series of success.
Speaker 3: So my working.
Speaker 2: Title for this, which they probably won't let us use,
Speaker 2: is Henry Kissinger comma a big sack of donkey balls before?
Speaker 3: Can we do that? So fun perfectly finds that what
Speaker 3: are you talking about.
Speaker 2: What do you guys know, Like I kind of think
Speaker 2: we maybe it's a good idea to start with, like
Speaker 2: what's your your cliffs notes, we'll have We'll have you
Speaker 2: do it, Dave, because because you're the one who reads
Speaker 2: things normally Kissinger, Yeah, you know, a Kissinger.
Speaker 4: The thing that you know obviously stands out as Vietnam
Speaker 4: and Camp and Camp Boda, and you know that's.
Speaker 5: Just reprehensible beyond all words.
Speaker 4: But he's really been a part of just so many
Speaker 4: horrific foreign policy decisions and had his He's always getting
Speaker 4: in there.
Speaker 3: He's always a part of the business. Really was.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he is now, but for a
Speaker 4: long time he was always a guy who would come
Speaker 4: in and go, why don't you do the worst thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And that's that's the thing that's that's interesting and even
Speaker 2: a little bit difficult about talking about him because he's
Speaker 2: not one of these guys. He's not like you can't
Speaker 2: say with him like you can with an Asaddam husseaying
Speaker 2: like oh, he ordered he started this war on this date,
Speaker 2: you know, or he he ordered this man. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can actually, but he's he's not like a he's
Speaker 2: not on paper supposed to be a warlord or an
Speaker 2: elected leader. The thing that he is good at doing
Speaker 2: is getting the ability to do stuff that warlords and
Speaker 2: dictators do by sitting in the back rooms with people
Speaker 2: who are the ones who on paper hold the power
Speaker 2: and convincing them to let him do stuff. And he's
Speaker 2: the best at that there's ever been.
Speaker 3: We've had a couple figures on our podcast who I
Speaker 3: would relate to like, and I would say, maybe Kissinger
Speaker 3: is like the War Crimes Forrest Gump, where yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like yes, kind of you're like, oh, yeah, he was there,
Speaker 3: He's invented shit happens. I don't know, he invented that phrase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's incredibly that's that might. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: honestly a better title than the one I came up.
Speaker 3: This is the favorite title.
Speaker 2: I mean, And obviously Forrest Gump is blameless and Kissinger
Speaker 2: is not, but it does get it. The fact that
Speaker 2: he's just like, he's just there. He's just in every
Speaker 2: fucking photo of like guys doing a war crime like
Speaker 2: it is baffling the number of things he's connected to.
Speaker 2: I should probably just start stop selling it, but I
Speaker 2: do kind of want to talk about the fact that
Speaker 2: he is. He is this kind of back room figure
Speaker 2: in a lot of the worst things that happened in
Speaker 2: the twentieth century. Because we're gonna spend episode one. By
Speaker 2: the time this episode's over, he's not, you know, in
Speaker 2: the White House, He's not running shit. This is an
Speaker 2: episode where we talk about like his early life and
Speaker 2: his ideological roots, because that's that's what underpins all of
Speaker 2: the things that he does. He's not a guy people
Speaker 2: talk about like what Kissinger believes, and Kissinger himself has
Speaker 2: written a bunch of books about what he believes. My opinion,
Speaker 2: as an amateur guy studying this dude, is that I
Speaker 2: don't think he believes things as much as he beliefs
Speaker 2: and ideas are weapons that he uses in order to
Speaker 2: get people to let him do horrible things. And he
Speaker 2: is the master of using beliefs and moving between different
Speaker 2: groups of people who on paper are ideologically opposed and
Speaker 2: getting them all to agree with whatever bullshit he wants
Speaker 2: to do, because he's really good at talking about ideas
Speaker 2: like a fucking philosopher, Like that's his superpower.
Speaker 3: They might just have trouble understanding him. I know, I have.
Speaker 2: Whatever what did we agree to Oh god, I was
Speaker 2: going to ask Gareth before we get started. Here is
Speaker 2: your German accent locked and loaded? Ah, I mean, listens
Speaker 2: to the disgust of the German people.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: That's fine, that's fine they I think we can all agree.
Speaker 2: After the twentieth century, the Germans lost the right to
Speaker 2: be angry when people.
Speaker 3: That's how It's like Texans. You know, everyone can do
Speaker 3: a Texan. Yeah, that's how.
Speaker 5: I sure, I don't.
Speaker 3: Think I can.
Speaker 4: I can make any accent sound kind of English and
Speaker 4: sort of Spanish.
Speaker 3: And you can't do English. It's really just sort of
Speaker 3: this amazing ability to.
Speaker 2: See whenever I do a non American accent, it just
Speaker 2: drifts Russian at some point, like one hundred percent of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god, Well this is your time. Now
Speaker 4: you can shine with what's going on.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I'm ready to just yuck it
Speaker 2: up over. Speaking of which, there's a number of roots
Speaker 2: of what's happening between Ukraine and Russia right now that
Speaker 2: you can type action. I mean that that's a little
Speaker 2: bit less his his the area that he fucked around in,
Speaker 2: But he did some fucking around there, Like one of
Speaker 2: the things. We are spending six episodes talking about Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger and we're leaving some shit out.
Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, you have to. I mean, he's been around
Speaker 5: so many years.
Speaker 4: I mean, just the fact that he was still powering
Speaker 4: around Hillary Clinton in the election, and you're like.
Speaker 5: What is that guy doing there?
Speaker 3: Don't you know? He's bad and he's.
Speaker 2: The thing that is so interesting about Kissinger is that
Speaker 2: he does have this equal He's equally good at talking
Speaker 2: to like people who would call themselves liberals and progressives
Speaker 2: as he is to like far right neo cons like
Speaker 2: he's he's he's I mean, you could I think you
Speaker 2: could say that. Part of what that reveals is that
Speaker 2: the ruling class in this country are all in agreement
Speaker 2: about things more often than they disagree about things. But
Speaker 2: part of it is just that, like he is so charming.
Speaker 2: We will be talking a bit about Kissinger as a
Speaker 2: sex symbol, which is a thing that happens, and I
Speaker 2: am so sorry that we have to discuss it.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 4: I was hoping he would say this because I've wanted
Speaker 4: to fuck him for so long, Like that's one of
Speaker 4: the main things he's hot.
Speaker 3: I call it henryone Fuckinger. I've always wanted. The kiss
Speaker 3: is not enough kiss. That's just a taste of what
Speaker 3: I'm after.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, well, ab test the Forest, Gump and the
Speaker 2: Fuckinger title. Yeah, we'll just see what plays best in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 2: So Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born on May twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three, in the city of Firth, Germany. The
Speaker 2: Kissingers were a Jewish family, And so given that this
Speaker 2: is Germany in the early twenties, you can tell we're
Speaker 2: not off to a great start already, right, this is
Speaker 2: this is not going to be a story that begins
Speaker 2: in a particularly pleasant place. He was born in a
Speaker 2: very chaotic world. The Great Year was like five years
Speaker 2: past when he comes onto the planet. Everything is falling
Speaker 2: apart in Germany and a lot of other places. The
Speaker 2: year he's born, Primo di Rivera seized power as the
Speaker 2: dictator of Spain. Mustafa Kamal took power. In Turkey, the
Speaker 2: Bulgarian prime minister was assassinated in a coup. Like it
Speaker 2: was a troubling time to be a baby. But Heinz's
Speaker 2: mother and father had some reasons for optimism. While Firth
Speaker 2: was not an attractive city, in fact, one contemporary described
Speaker 2: it as stifling in its narrow, dreariness. Are ungardened city,
Speaker 2: city of soot. You know, it's it's a city. It's city.
Speaker 2: It's city. It's a working class factory town. But because
Speaker 2: of that, and this is the period in which the
Speaker 2: working class is a lot more left wing than you know,
Speaker 2: folks tend to give it credit for being today. It's
Speaker 2: a very it's like a haven for democrats, not like
Speaker 2: our democrats, but people who support democracy as opposed to
Speaker 2: want to go back to having a kaiser, you know,
Speaker 2: so Firth is.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't want to go back to having a kaiser.
Speaker 3: He was so we're so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I want to have a king who gets
Speaker 2: us into World War One and like whaps off about
Speaker 2: his mom's hands.
Speaker 3: That sounds great again. Well, now that I know what
Speaker 3: we're talking about, let's dance. I'm in I want a kaiser.
Speaker 2: So Firth is. In some ways, you could see it.
Speaker 2: It's rep in Germany as being kind of like Portland today.
Speaker 2: It's a very left wing town. It's seen as a
Speaker 2: haven for socialists. But it's also kind of like Selma,
Speaker 2: Alabama during the Civil rights era. Because Firth has a
Speaker 2: very large Jewish population, and the period in like the
Speaker 2: late eighteen hundreds is when a lot of there's essentially
Speaker 2: apartheid against Jewish people in Germany for a long time.
Speaker 2: So Firth is the city that has Germany's first Jewish lawyer,
Speaker 2: and it has a bunch of their other first Jewish
Speaker 2: you know, exes person who does this job because it's
Speaker 2: this very progressive city with a very integrated Jewish community.
Speaker 2: So it's this mix of the Nazis aren't going to
Speaker 2: like this town, right, Yeah, Like Cortland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Partland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got some similarities between a couple of things.
Speaker 2: So Heinz's parents, Paula and Lewis, had grown up in
Speaker 2: Imperial Germany, where Jews were restricted from holding certain jobs,
Speaker 2: going to certain schools, living in certain homes, and this
Speaker 2: had ended by the time the Kaiser had so Lewis Kissinger,
Speaker 2: Henry's dad, kime of age in a period in which
Speaker 2: a Jewish boy could actually build a professional life for
Speaker 2: the first in mainstream German society. He was a member
Speaker 2: of the first and almost the last generation that this
Speaker 2: would be true of why what happens oh day, we
Speaker 2: may need to do it a separate podcast seriesly.
Speaker 3: I never read any German history. Oh my god, it's
Speaker 3: so exciting. So he starts work.
Speaker 2: Lewis as a teacher in a secular private school when
Speaker 2: he's eighteen, and he holds the job for fourteen years.
Speaker 2: And he was a very patriotic person. He's also like,
Speaker 2: he is an Orthodox Jew, so he's very religious, but
Speaker 2: he considers himself a German first and foremost, and his
Speaker 2: family is very patriotic. His brother fights in World War One,
Speaker 2: so does his wife's dad. Two of his cousins die
Speaker 2: fighting for the Kaiser, and when the war ends, German defeat.
Speaker 2: You know, there's all these rumors spread throughout the far
Speaker 2: right that the nation's been stabbed in the back by
Speaker 2: an alliance of Jewish boogeyman Heinz or sorry, Lewis kind
Speaker 2: of he sees this as happening, but he doesn't think
Speaker 2: that it's ever going to like take hold. Henry would
Speaker 2: later recall that his father would regularly say, we live
Speaker 2: in an age of tolerance, So his dad is not right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Are you talking about America twenty two or are you
Speaker 4: talking about Germany?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are talking about this on the day that
Speaker 2: Texas just announced a fun new law. Yeah, this is
Speaker 2: this is like, you know, Henry's wrong about a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff. His father is also wrong, but for a
Speaker 2: much sadder resent.
Speaker 3: I guess there's a psychic gene in the family. I
Speaker 3: see us being tolerant for generation. Germany will be a
Speaker 3: watchword for tolerance. We will be a bastard for all types. Oh,
Speaker 3: poor buddy. Yeah, so he's Uh.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because like the Zionist movement is rising in
Speaker 2: this time, and Kissinger's family rejects this wholeheartedly because they're
Speaker 2: so German right, like, they don't they don't want to
Speaker 2: ever leave. So obviously the Nazi party rises consistently through
Speaker 2: Henry's childhood. Firth was initially safe from this. Just a
Speaker 2: few months after Hines is born. In September of twenty three,
Speaker 2: the Nazis and other far right organizations hold a German
Speaker 2: Day in Nuremberg. Several caravans of them passed through Firth,
Speaker 2: sort of like Nazis do today in a lot of places.
Speaker 2: And you know, they were looking for a fight when
Speaker 2: they drove through. They went through first because it's the
Speaker 2: town where you can get a fight, and they got one.
Speaker 2: This is like right after Hintonary is born, a mob
Speaker 2: of brown Shirts are assaulted by a hundred strong crowd screaming,
Speaker 2: killed him and down with Hitler, which is prenny.
Speaker 3: Let's end the story there.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's a great and it's the tale of Henry Kissinger,
Speaker 2: a kid who was a baby when some dudes did
Speaker 2: some rad stuff. So Firth was integrated enough that heines
Speaker 2: initially attended a public school with Christian classmates, which was
Speaker 2: not common for Jewish kids in this time. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: like going to school with other like kids who are
Speaker 2: not Jewish. Eventually his dad puts him in his private school,
Speaker 2: but that's also an integrated private school. So while his
Speaker 2: education is secular, his family's very strict Orthodox and did
Speaker 2: Hebrew school, which he hated. I found a quote from
Speaker 2: another Jewish guy who grew up in Firth at the
Speaker 2: same time that gives an idea as to why Henry
Speaker 2: was not a big fan of his early religious education.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Religion was a study and not a pleasant one, a
Speaker 2: lesson taught soullessly by a soulless old man. Even the
Speaker 2: day I see his evil conceited old face in my dreams.
Speaker 2: He thrashed formulas into us antiquated Hebrew prayers that we
Speaker 2: translated mechanically without any actual knowledge of the language. What
Speaker 2: he taught was paltry, dead, mummified, and that I think
Speaker 2: is broadly in line with how Henry feels. Because he's
Speaker 2: not well, doesn't grow up very religious. So Henry is
Speaker 2: is a little kid, you know, he does a lot
Speaker 2: of religion stuff, but as he grows older, he rejects
Speaker 2: his father's passion for faith and his dad's interests in
Speaker 2: classical music and theater. Instead, Henry Kissinger falls in love
Speaker 2: with soccer. He is a huge soccer head.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, happening.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Firth has like a locally renowned team. They're one of
Speaker 2: the best teams in jury many and so like their kids' teams,
Speaker 2: which are feeders into this whatever team are very competitive too.
Speaker 2: Henry starts playing in a youth league when he's six
Speaker 2: years old, and he later recalled quote, I wasn't really
Speaker 2: very good, though I took the game seriously.
Speaker 3: But now what about soccer? We should talk about that?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 2: So his real prowess early on was in strategy, as
Speaker 2: this quote from Niall Ferguson's Kissinger, a book named Kissinger
Speaker 2: like the guy makes clear. Though no great athlete, Heinz
Speaker 2: Kissinger was already a shrewd tactician, devising for his team
Speaker 2: a system that, as as it turns out, is the
Speaker 2: way the Italians play soccer. The system was to drive
Speaker 2: the other team nuts by not letting them score by
Speaker 2: keeping so many people back as defenders. It's very hard
Speaker 2: to score when ten players are lined up in front
Speaker 2: of the goal. So immediately Henry Kissinger, as a kid,
Speaker 2: is like, you know what will help us win and
Speaker 2: also make this game no fun at all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need to poison Henry, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Firebombs the holmes. We know what to do. Keeper. I
Speaker 3: know we are.
Speaker 5: Six, but we will park the bus. There will be
Speaker 5: no joy in soccer.
Speaker 3: It remove the keeper's hands. He is.
Speaker 2: He is, as a six year old, doing the soccer
Speaker 2: equivalent of carpet bombing. So he gets so into soccer
Speaker 2: that he starts to neglect his studies and his father
Speaker 2: actually bans him from playing for a while. The older
Speaker 2: he gets, Henry has more and more conflicts with his dad,
Speaker 2: a thing that no one else has ever experienced. And yeah,
Speaker 2: he would regularly, after fighting with his father, bicycle over
Speaker 2: to the home of a friend who later recalled he
Speaker 2: liked being with us. It seems to me he had
Speaker 2: a problem with his father, if I'm not mistaken, he
Speaker 2: was afraid of him because he was a very pedantic man.
Speaker 2: His father was always checking Hines's homework and kept a
Speaker 2: close watch on him. Heines told me more than once
Speaker 2: that he couldn't discuss anything with his father, especially not girls.
Speaker 2: So his dad's not like hitting him or anything. He's
Speaker 2: just like really really annoying to him and.
Speaker 3: Just like a bit and just like pay attention to
Speaker 3: your studies beyond anything else. Yeah, I think I like
Speaker 3: this girl, Like, well, she doesn't. She's not going to
Speaker 3: the same school the focus Henry Focus.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, and he's clearly a dick who's like, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't be a professional soccer player at eight, you
Speaker 4: have to go to school.
Speaker 3: Like he's clearly an asshole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean he's definitely the villain of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: So Henry is magnetic to women from a well girls
Speaker 2: at this point from a very young age.
Speaker 3: What in the fuck is happening I know, it's really weird.
Speaker 3: It's weird.
Speaker 2: And this is the quotes about you know, girls really
Speaker 2: liking him at this age come from his father. But
Speaker 2: like this also happens when he's in his forties and
Speaker 2: the secretary of State. So I'm going to say his
Speaker 2: father's probably telling the truth.
Speaker 3: I mean, at no point have I seen any version
Speaker 3: of Henry Kissinger. We're like, man, I mean, it is
Speaker 3: weird that got memory hold because there were there were
Speaker 3: New York Times stories about how much women like Henry
Speaker 3: Kissinger because he looks like a lump of clay you
Speaker 3: could mold into anything potentially that would be looked good.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, no, but.
Speaker 2: It's it's weird. I mean, yeah, he's the guy. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about some of the things he said about
Speaker 2: sexuality later. I know you're all getting real excited for
Speaker 2: that episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: At one point, one of his friends was actually ordered
Speaker 2: not to hang out with him because he had quote
Speaker 2: earned a reputation as a skirt chaser. And this is
Speaker 2: like when he's nine. Wow, early little Henry cum Rocket Kissinger.
Speaker 7: The first time sex was nine, So you know, like
Speaker 7: at this point he's rebelling against the family religion, he's
Speaker 7: hanging out with girls, he's playing a hell of a
Speaker 7: lot of soccer.
Speaker 2: Which seems like a decent childhood. But obviously you know
Speaker 2: the Nazis. So in the mid twenties, the German nation
Speaker 2: goes on strike against some shit. France was doing Versailles stuff.
Speaker 2: We don't need to get into it. Inflation goes crazy, right,
Speaker 2: this is the wheel arrows full of cash time. This
Speaker 2: hurts the Kissinger family badly because if you're like, if
Speaker 2: you're a private laborer, if you're working for a private company,
Speaker 2: you can generally like strike and organize to get your
Speaker 2: salary adjusted to deal with inflation somewhat like, it's still bad,
Speaker 2: but it's less bad. If you're a public servant, you
Speaker 2: don't get shit. Your salary stays the same while inflation
Speaker 2: jumps up. So this is really a disaster for the
Speaker 2: Kissinger family, and of course economic trouble coincides with a
Speaker 2: constant acceleration of far right violence. Later, as an adult,
Speaker 2: Kissinger would note without emotion that he was somewhat regularly
Speaker 2: chased through the streets and beaten up by Nazi thugs
Speaker 2: as a child. Yeah, that's tough. No punch lines no,
Speaker 2: no punchlines. But there is something weird about that because
Speaker 2: he's talked about this a few times, but every time
Speaker 2: he talks about this, it is so that he can
Speaker 2: emphatically state that this part of his life had no
Speaker 2: impact on him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're really weird, it's very strong literal impact
Speaker 3: of fists had no impact upon him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty eight, he declared, quote, my life in
Speaker 2: Firth seems to have passed without leaving any deeper impressions.
Speaker 2: You don't get to say that, by the way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like you don't like. I feel like you don't.
Speaker 3: I feel like I said that to a shrink once
Speaker 3: about my parents' divorce and then wept. Yeah. I didn't
Speaker 3: do anything anything. I mean, what's this, what's his flood
Speaker 3: coming out of it? And it's like Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, when discussing the times he was
Speaker 2: beaten in the streets by Nazis, he insisted to a
Speaker 2: reporter quote that part of my childhood was not a
Speaker 2: key to anything. I was not consciously unhappy. I was
Speaker 2: not acutely aware of what was going on for children.
Speaker 2: These things are not that serious. It is fashionable now
Speaker 2: to explain everything psychoanalytically. But let me tell you, the
Speaker 2: political persecutions of my childhood are not what control my life,
Speaker 2: which is really interesting, right So I know.
Speaker 3: Right, like I'm sure the reporters like, I'm ready to
Speaker 3: ask follow ups whatever. He stops talking. Yeah, you're not
Speaker 3: supposed to remember from before ten anyway. I mean, I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: That's how I can kill I went not at nine.
Speaker 5: I don't feel anything.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, I got assaulted by a Nazi
Speaker 2: when I was thirty three, and it left a mark here.
Speaker 4: But anytime it just growing up in that environment without
Speaker 4: being assaulted is going to leave psychological damage.
Speaker 2: If your parents kick you completely safe from street violence,
Speaker 2: it would it could not. Yeah, And it's like, Henry,
Speaker 2: this is the only time I'm going to speak sympathetically
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: But it's fine. If being beaten by Nazis as a
Speaker 3: child left a mark on it's the only time you
Speaker 3: want to Matt damon him what Robin Williams are Yeah,
Speaker 3: like it's okay, man, Okay, it happened.
Speaker 2: It's interesting the way he the ways he explains why
Speaker 2: this didn't leave any mark on him are very interesting,
Speaker 2: and I want to quote from Henry Kissinger in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four. Now, I experienced the impact of Nazism,
Speaker 2: and it was very unpleasant, but it did not interfere
Speaker 2: in my friendship with Jewish people of my age, so
Speaker 2: that I did not find it traumatic. I have resisted
Speaker 2: the psychiatric explanations which argue that I developed a passion
Speaker 2: for order over justice and that I translated it into
Speaker 2: profound interpretations of the international system. I wasn't concerned with
Speaker 2: the international system. I was concerned with the standing of
Speaker 2: the football team of the town in which I lived.
Speaker 3: Which you can't do both.
Speaker 2: You can't pay attention yeah, soccer, obviously, as no one thinks,
Speaker 2: Henry that as an eight year old, you were like, well,
Speaker 2: this is going to impact the way that I believe
Speaker 2: state power should be used when I'm Secretary of State in.
Speaker 3: Several decades an advised addiction.
Speaker 2: Just like if you have a car accident as a kid,
Speaker 2: You're not thinking, well, this is going to make me
Speaker 2: unable to let other people touch me when I'm thirty three.
Speaker 3: Right, you know I'll hate freeway merging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like obviously, man, and I don't know, like there's
Speaker 2: a degree to which in terms of this is the
Speaker 2: period in which you can be sympathetic to him. I
Speaker 2: do think there's probably something to be said that if
Speaker 2: you have this childhood, maybe you don't want to give
Speaker 2: the Nazis anything, you know, even the car like this
Speaker 2: left an impact on me, right, because like, fuck him,
Speaker 2: I don't want to say that it had an influence
Speaker 2: on me, which I get.
Speaker 4: No. Having grown up in a traumatic, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of childhood, you can shut it down and tell yourself
Speaker 4: that you're fine.
Speaker 5: Like you he The way he survived it.
Speaker 4: Was to to shut his emotions down a little bit
Speaker 4: and tell himself that he was fine when it actually
Speaker 4: is by far probably the most traumatic thing there, and
Speaker 4: and created a fucking monster because he didn't get any
Speaker 4: psychological help.
Speaker 3: I'm like, naturally, it is not nature versus nurture. I
Speaker 3: would have killed just as many people, been a despicable
Speaker 3: piece of shit either the way. I don't judge my mity.
Speaker 2: So as the twenties rolled to an end, the political
Speaker 2: situation in the Weimar Republic gets correspondingly more dire. In
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, during a Nazi rally in Firth, Hitler
Speaker 2: himself had called it the citadel of the Jews. The
Speaker 2: local response at that point in twenty five is overwhelmingly negative,
Speaker 2: and in nineteen twenty seven only two hundred people in
Speaker 2: Firth were members of the Nazi Party. Hitler visited the
Speaker 2: city again in nineteen twenty eight, to little effect. The
Speaker 2: party just got six point six percent of the vote
Speaker 2: in local elections that year. But the Great Depression rescues
Speaker 2: the end of the twenties rescues the Nazis flagging poll members.
Speaker 2: As firsts economy collapses, people grow more willing to listen
Speaker 2: to the fascists. In the nineteen thirty elections, Nazis surged
Speaker 2: from two point six percent of the vote nationwide to
Speaker 2: eighteen point three percent. In Firth, they won twenty three
Speaker 2: point six percent of the vote, which is four times
Speaker 2: better than they'd done two years earlier and very frightening
Speaker 2: for a lot of relevant reasons to today. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Nazi electoral successes continue to pace the next year, and
Speaker 2: by nineteen thirty three, more than twenty two thousand Firthers
Speaker 2: were Nazi voters. I want to quote from Niall Ferguson's
Speaker 2: book again. On April ninth, nineteen thirty two, fifteen SA
Speaker 2: men were set upon by Iron Front members as they
Speaker 2: left the pro not Yellow Lion pub. Two months later,
Speaker 2: Nazi supporter Fritz Reinngruber was beaten up for being a swastikist.
Speaker 2: The same fate befell another Nazi caught selling the NSDAP
Speaker 2: newspaper the volkas Schebeobacter. The police watched helplessly on the
Speaker 2: evening of July thirtieth as a mob threw potatoes and
Speaker 2: stones at a Nazi motorcade going from the Firth Airport
Speaker 2: to the Nuremberg Stadium. The car carrying Hitler himself was
Speaker 2: among the vehicles. But just a year after, Hitler's car
Speaker 2: gets pelted. After the Nazis begin to consolidate power, when
Speaker 2: Hitler's the chancellor, the mood is very different. On March third,
Speaker 2: there's another torchlit parade by the Nazis through Firth, and
Speaker 2: on the evening of March ninth a crowd of between
Speaker 2: ten and twelve thousand people's gathers outside one of the
Speaker 2: bars there to watch the raising of the red Nazi flag.
Speaker 2: So you know it gets bad pretty fast.
Speaker 3: Can I just flag the person who brought the potatoes
Speaker 3: to the rock throwing event. Yeah, I feel like he
Speaker 3: turned first. Yeah, how were doing rocks? Oh?
Speaker 2: I know that was a drag of rock? Those look
Speaker 2: like potatoes. Now, lord, you know what I'm going to
Speaker 2: say it right now. If that guy had brought rocks,
Speaker 2: he might have killed Hitler. Could we kind have avoided.
Speaker 3: Right the guy? Yeah, for want of a rock? World
Speaker 3: War two? Oh you guys, see my potato hit that car?
Speaker 3: It really smushed it.
Speaker 2: I look, mas, I do left the idea that he
Speaker 2: also boiled it before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well I don't want to look weird.
Speaker 2: So Lewis Kissinger lost his job teaching once the Nazis
Speaker 2: came to power. Henry again, who'd never gotten along with
Speaker 2: his dad, watches his father collapse into what biographer Thomas
Speaker 2: Allen Schwartz describes as a quote state of immobility and
Speaker 2: psychological depression. Lewis withdrew into his study. According to Henry's
Speaker 2: brother Walter, while the world outside veered closer to nightmare.
Speaker 2: In his book Henry Kissinger and American Power Schwartz, Kissinger
Speaker 2: and his brothers saw the progressive segregation, isolation, and humiliation
Speaker 2: the Jews of Firth experienced, even their attempt to watch
Speaker 2: soccer games came with the risk of their being beaten
Speaker 2: by young Nazi thugs. The world of Heinz's childhood rapidly collapsed,
Speaker 2: and his parents and the older generation of Firth's Jews
Speaker 2: could not protect their young from the hatred around them.
Speaker 2: After the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: Kissinger's mother began to look for a way to leave Germany.
Speaker 2: A cousin in the United States was willing to provide
Speaker 2: the financial support that would allow the Kissingers to immigrate.
Speaker 2: In August and of nineteen thirty eight, after a last
Speaker 2: visit with Paula's elderly parents in Ludershausen, where Heines saw
Speaker 2: his father cry for the first time, the family headed
Speaker 2: to New York. Only three months later, during Christalnacht, the
Speaker 2: synagogue and Firth, like hundreds of others throughout Germany, burned
Speaker 2: to the ground and a knight of orchestrated violence.
Speaker 3: Free so months, yeah, I mean that is crazy.
Speaker 2: When Henry Leive's Firth there are two thousand Jews in
Speaker 2: the Jewish community at the end of World War Two,
Speaker 2: there are forty Oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 3: And three months is so? I mean that is barely meanly.
Speaker 3: That's like they stay as late as they possibly care. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: at least.
Speaker 2: Thirteen members of Kissinger's family would perish in the Holocaust. Obviously,
Speaker 2: it being what it is. I don't know that you
Speaker 2: can it's not super easy to get exact numbers. But like,
Speaker 2: his family is as devastated as you would expect of
Speaker 2: a German Jewish family. And he does acknowledge for the
Speaker 2: first time, he admits that like some part of this
Speaker 2: had an influence on him. It was moving away from
Speaker 2: Germany and like going across the world to the United States,
Speaker 2: and he says, and this is I think him being
Speaker 2: somewhat honest, that the deepest impact of all this was quote,
Speaker 2: all the things that had seemed secure and stable collapsed,
Speaker 2: and many of the people that once had that one
Speaker 2: had considered the steady examples suddenly were thrown into enormous
Speaker 2: turmoil themselves and into fantastic insecurities. People will say, we'll
Speaker 2: talk about this later. He's very much an order obsessed guy,
Speaker 2: and like, okay, yeah, I get it, Like I get
Speaker 2: where that came from, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's very common for that happened in you know, Chile,
Speaker 4: in other places where it all falls apart into authoritarianism.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people who are like, I just
Speaker 4: want it to be the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, you hear that all the time here too.
Speaker 3: I mean, not like that. Obviously, it's far it was
Speaker 3: far more dire. But there are a lot of people
Speaker 3: I know who keep saying that shit here, who keep
Speaker 3: being like, I just wanted to go back to normal.
Speaker 3: And you're just like, that ship is fucking sailed.
Speaker 2: That is not you know, yeah, it never does, it
Speaker 2: never can, but we all do it. Like even the
Speaker 2: kind of like obsession with nineties nostalgia is evidence of that,
Speaker 2: and not because the nineties were like a perfect time,
Speaker 2: but because like, yeah, you didn't. You weren't aware of
Speaker 2: how fucked like like Henry, like your dad hadn't collapsed
Speaker 2: into like an unable to handle him.
Speaker 3: You're just likes too aggressive and yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 3: we don't have money.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you went from oh my gosh, you know,
Speaker 2: the OJ Simpson trial, what a mess too? Well, now
Speaker 2: what plague has killed him?
Speaker 3: And people, oh my god, it's better give me that
Speaker 3: time capsule.
Speaker 4: It's it's so funny that parallels because I'm i literally
Speaker 4: am writing a dollar right now, and and the guy
Speaker 4: turns into an authoritarian and his dad shut himself in
Speaker 4: his house and isolated.
Speaker 3: It's it's so weird how these things.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you I mean, just to continue off
Speaker 2: of that, Dave Hitler's dad dies when he's a little kid,
Speaker 2: pledges the family finances and situation into insecurity and chaos. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's when when something that seemed stable from your early
Speaker 2: childhood collapses. Perhaps it has an.
Speaker 3: Influence, yes, by what Kissinger said, by what Kissinger said,
Speaker 3: But you know what, Henry Kissinger loves the products and
Speaker 3: services that support this podcast.
Speaker 2: Look, Henry is one of the few VIPs on It's
Speaker 2: Island where you can hunt children anytime he wants. He
Speaker 2: gets a free three bedroom apartment on the child hunting Island. Sophie.
Speaker 1: That yeah, because for some fucking reason, he is still alive.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, let's be honest here. This is essentially as
Speaker 4: eulogy because when we finish this podcast and it's published,
Speaker 4: Kissingers should die.
Speaker 2: It's possible. I'm planning a dark occult ritual using my
Speaker 2: own blood and a candle I bought in Mexico to deal,
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I'm not gonna say I'm not doing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's anyway.
Speaker 2: Here's here's some ads. Oh we're back. Have you guys
Speaker 2: gone to the island where you can hunt little kids
Speaker 2: for sport?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's amazing. It's also fresh. It's very the brisk,
Speaker 3: expect to be that fresh. So good.
Speaker 2: So Kissinger today has i Kissinger today has idyllic recollections
Speaker 2: of his early years in the United States. He often
Speaker 2: talks about walking down the streets of his new neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: seeing a group of boys walking towards him and crossing
Speaker 2: the street because he's you know, he's afraid he's going
Speaker 2: to get beat. Yeah, and then he would realize like, oh,
Speaker 2: that doesn't happen here, which obviously it did.
Speaker 3: Those boys. Yeah, they're just wearing brown shirts because they
Speaker 3: like brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Henry, this is a country where some people
Speaker 2: who wear brown aren't Nazis. Some of them are, some
Speaker 2: of them are, Henry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Different did not mean easy. Though the Kissinger spent their
Speaker 2: first years in a crowded Bronx apartment living with family.
Speaker 2: Lewis got sick and even more depressed. Paula had to
Speaker 2: take control of the family and handle shit. She became
Speaker 2: a caterer and started a business that became the family's lifeline.
Speaker 2: The neighborhood they lived in was dominated by Orthodox Jewish
Speaker 2: families with a familiar background. A lot of them were
Speaker 2: from other parts of Germany, and so the Kissingers benefited
Speaker 2: from the help of several community organizations and getting back
Speaker 2: on their feet. He benefits a lot from the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's not really a government support network, but
Speaker 2: the other Jewish refugees who have come over from Europe
Speaker 2: have built support networks to make it easier for new
Speaker 2: folks coming. Henry's teen years were a mix of school
Speaker 2: in synagogue. He failed his first driving test but excelled
Speaker 2: at soccer, and he grew to admire many aspects of
Speaker 2: his new home, including quote American technology, the American tempo
Speaker 2: of work, and American freedom, which I might say is
Speaker 2: in direct opposition to the American tempo of work.
Speaker 3: But whatever.
Speaker 2: Kissinger was frustrated to though by the casual approach to
Speaker 2: life that he saw in his new peers. He thought
Speaker 2: they were superficial. He wrote at the time that quote
Speaker 2: no youth my age has any kind of spiritual problem
Speaker 2: that he seriously concerns himself with which, well, yeah, okay, Henry,
Speaker 2: all right, Hank fair I you come over from Nazi
Speaker 2: Germany and you're like people here seem carefree and.
Speaker 8: Shallow and yeah, and your schooling was basically like some
Speaker 8: old dude being like you did, right, you know, like
Speaker 8: you're gonna be like geez, these guys are really not
Speaker 8: focused on what matters.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, I don't want to I don't want to be
Speaker 4: too critical, but New York used a little bit of Nazism,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's a little loose, good lord.
Speaker 2: So because of all of this, this is this is
Speaker 2: why one of his biographers, Schwartz, describes young Henry as
Speaker 2: socially inept. He's not not great at talking to it's
Speaker 2: not great at dealing with his new peers. He did
Speaker 2: start dating again, though, first a girl who was a
Speaker 2: refugee from nearby Nuremberg, but most of his focus was
Speaker 2: on schoolwork in soccer. Because you graduated George Washington High
Speaker 2: School and started at the City College of New York.
Speaker 2: He took classes at night so he could work during
Speaker 2: the day at a brush cleaning factory. Some of his
Speaker 2: cousins owned the.
Speaker 3: Brushes failth they boys keep going. It's the most amazing
Speaker 3: like old timey job ever. I mean, it's basically like
Speaker 3: all I can picture is just like the jobs are
Speaker 3: either like pressing sheets or washing brushes. These brushes I'm
Speaker 3: not going to clear themselves, gentlemen, how many times do
Speaker 3: I have to tell you?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: In the corollary is some mom being like, Billy, you
Speaker 2: didn't take your sister's brushes to the cleaning shop. Now,
Speaker 2: it's very funny. Everything old timey is funny. People are
Speaker 2: going to think this in the future about I don't know,
Speaker 2: having water. So at this point Himry's ambition in life
Speaker 2: was to get quote a nice job, likely in accounting.
Speaker 2: One biographer noted, quote nothing that happened to Kissinger during
Speaker 2: those years encouraged him to read more widely. His historical
Speaker 2: interests were as underdeveloped when he was twenty as when
Speaker 2: he arrived in New York as a boy of fifteen,
Speaker 2: which is the first normal thing about him that like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, like he's a kid. Yeah, we're about
Speaker 2: to get to the studio. Fifty four years. Yes, so
Speaker 2: World War II happens, starts for the United States, at
Speaker 2: least it started elsewhere a bit earlier, but for the US,
Speaker 2: it's right, we'll do it when Henry is twenty one.
Speaker 2: He did not initially feel called to volunteer for service,
Speaker 2: but when he got his draft notice in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 2: he complied and joined the roughly sixteen million Americans who
Speaker 2: became soldiers during this period.
Speaker 3: And if it.
Speaker 2: Weren't for this, Henry Kissinger probably never would have been
Speaker 2: a figure of historical importance. Again, he just kind of
Speaker 2: wanted to be an accountant, but being drafted successfully disrupted
Speaker 2: his plans for a quiet, boring life and thrust him
Speaker 2: into the world that says it all. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: maybe don't draft this guy.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, don't right care right? I could be like
Speaker 3: you don't. I did not actually see your venmo this year,
Speaker 3: so the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a future where he just has really strong
Speaker 2: opinions on W two's.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly ten ninety nine. But I feel like it
Speaker 3: was actually more like W four mm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or he does like a Bernie madeoff thing. But
Speaker 2: either way, it's a much better future than the one
Speaker 2: we got. I will take the madoff ending for him
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fine, So we have.
Speaker 2: Letters that Henry sent to his brother Walter during training.
Speaker 2: He purported to like the quote middle Americans he met there,
Speaker 2: but warned his sibling, don't become too friendly with the
Speaker 2: scum you invariably meet there.
Speaker 3: Hell, hell he did.
Speaker 5: He did pick up all something from the Nazis.
Speaker 3: He's a little bit right.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He also he also advised against having sex with the
Speaker 2: quote filthy syphilis infected camp followers, which is too specific
Speaker 2: to have been random. I think the Kissinger had a
Speaker 2: bad experience with the camp follow.
Speaker 3: Like everyone that's camp has syphilis.
Speaker 5: Every girl I fucked had syphilis.
Speaker 3: I thought one girl one of them has it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what the notation zero of the syphilis epidemic. Surrounded
Speaker 3: by counselors.
Speaker 2: So the Army administered a series of tests, which Kissinger
Speaker 2: excelled at, and he earned entrance into a special training
Speaker 2: program that sent particularly bright soldiers to college. He received
Speaker 2: his American citizenship in nineteen forty three while he was
Speaker 2: at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. The program lasted just six months,
Speaker 2: and Henry finished twelve engineering classes. During his off hours,
Speaker 2: he would hitch hike home and see his girlfriend. He
Speaker 2: was a brilliant student, recognized by his roommates as the
Speaker 2: quote brainiest of a very intelligent class. One classmate recalled
Speaker 2: he didn't read books. He ate them with his eyes,
Speaker 2: his fingers, and with his squirming in the chair or bed,
Speaker 2: and with his mumbling criticism.
Speaker 3: He was more as salt if I've been other than
Speaker 3: he sounds like a book. This is really a weird
Speaker 3: way to describe it. Dude. It's kind of what but
Speaker 3: the way he looks now is like he eats books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of had like a visual like oh reaction
Speaker 1: to that, to that line, like, oh, cringe.
Speaker 2: I now kind of want the story of that classmate, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: caused you to describe a dude reading books that way?
Speaker 3: Well, in my college, I hate analogies. I just would
Speaker 3: just just devour them. I need them like a synonym.
Speaker 2: You know, His professors would use Henry to explain complicated
Speaker 2: concepts to the other soldiers, and for a brief period
Speaker 2: of time, he had status and respect, which he'd begun
Speaker 2: to crave as a young man. His time in this
Speaker 2: program was cut short because you know, d day we
Speaker 2: decide America is like we're going to do us a
Speaker 2: normandy landing, and the army is like, well, we probably
Speaker 2: don't need smart people for that, so let's police kids
Speaker 2: out of the class and show how to get shot
Speaker 2: by you guys.
Speaker 3: We actually want to talk to you over here about
Speaker 3: something totally different. Guy. No, no, not you, not you, Chad,
Speaker 3: you stay right there, Jed, talk about these other guys.
Speaker 3: Thank you, good luck.
Speaker 2: So Henry and his classmates get sent back to basic training,
Speaker 2: where the drill sergeants, according to Henry took glee and
Speaker 2: tormenting the college kids, which I don't know, probably true,
Speaker 2: while he was preparing to go overseas. And this is
Speaker 2: what my grandpa was doing in World War Two. And
Speaker 2: I hope he bullied Henry Kissinger. I hope my grandpa
Speaker 2: got a chance to give Henry Kissinger some shit fingers.
Speaker 3: He did, right, he did, but he did absolutely so
Speaker 3: while he was preparing to go overseas.
Speaker 2: His biographer Schwartz writes, even in the misery of Camp Claiborne, however,
Speaker 2: Kissinger stood out, selected by his commanders to provide soldiers
Speaker 2: with a weekly briefing on war news. Although he did
Speaker 2: the job well, Kissinger was more impressed with another older
Speaker 2: German refugee in an American uniform Fritz Kramer, who came
Speaker 2: to Camp Claiborne in May nineteen forty four to speak
Speaker 2: about the meaning of war. After Kramer's impassion talk, kiss
Speaker 2: wrote him a note, Dear Private Kramer, I heard like
Speaker 2: sorry basically yeah, yeah, he literally like it's like I
Speaker 2: liked what you had to say.
Speaker 3: Can I help you? Like, that's literally what the note is. Scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Kramer responded almost immediately to the simple fan letter,
Speaker 2: returning a few days later to seek Kissinger out for
Speaker 2: conversation in dinner, insistingly speak in German, not English. The
Speaker 2: Lutheran Kramer later said that he was taken with this
Speaker 2: quote little Jewish refugee he had met, who he believed
Speaker 2: as yet knows nothing, but already he understands everything. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's an interesting way to describe him.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, and this guy Kramer is Kramer
Speaker 3: is a Prussian, which I don't know the degree to
Speaker 3: which that that means anything to a lot of people,
Speaker 3: the Prussians.
Speaker 2: So there was most of the resistance to the Nazis
Speaker 2: was from the left. Once the Nazis got into power,
Speaker 2: the resistance to the Nazis that meant anything was Prussian
Speaker 2: not because they were good dudes, but because they were
Speaker 2: way too conservative for Hitler. They were like, well, we
Speaker 2: want to fight on takeover all of Europe, but like
Speaker 2: with a kaiser who has royal blood, not this like
Speaker 2: gross little corporal and stuff. And it's complicated because like
Speaker 2: a lot of those Prussians got murdered by the Nazis,
Speaker 2: And as a general rule, your sympathy is with the
Speaker 2: people who get murdered by the Nazis, but it's also like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you got murdered by the Rai Nazis for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 3: Right right, yeah right. They were like we have one
Speaker 3: small note, but everything else is working great for it.
Speaker 2: They were the guys who were like Hitler's bad because
Speaker 2: he's not going to win the war against Russia, right wow, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Fritz Kramer would be, in Henry's words quote,
Speaker 2: the greatest single influence on my formative years, since Fritz
Speaker 2: was a Prussian conservative. So for an idea of how
Speaker 2: fucking German Fritz Kramer is, he wears a monocle to
Speaker 2: make his wow I work harder to make his weak
Speaker 2: eye wow, Like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm the craziest asshole ever.
Speaker 2: Wow, And you know, Fritz hated the Nazis, which good good.
Speaker 2: He also hated the Communists, which you have to think
Speaker 2: there is some some some suss stuff there. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: Communists in a mixed bag like everybody. But I don't
Speaker 2: think he's very nuanced about it. Schwartz also credits Fritz
Speaker 2: with expressing quote a respect for international law and emphasis
Speaker 2: on the moral basis of civilization. And what Fritz Kramer
Speaker 2: means by the moral basis of civilization is not the
Speaker 2: same as what.
Speaker 3: I think maybe you or I might need. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: now that Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the most important influence Kramer had was he's
Speaker 2: Kramer is very conservative, and he Henry is kind of
Speaker 2: a natural conservative. And Kramer really reinforces this feeling in Henry,
Speaker 2: which is expressed by a growing sort of revulsion in
Speaker 2: Kissinger towards any ideas outside of the political median right,
Speaker 2: which you get why he has a tendency towards this.
Speaker 2: If your life, if your childhood is this like battle
Speaker 2: of ex streams in your hometown, I get why you
Speaker 2: would kind of veer towards the middle. And this guy
Speaker 2: Kramer really turns that up to eleven in him. One
Speaker 2: write up in The New Yorker notes quote he warn't
Speaker 2: Kissinger not to emulate cleverling intellectuals and their bloodless cost
Speaker 2: benefit analyzes. Believing Kissinger to be musically attuned to history,
Speaker 2: he told him, only if you do not calculate, will
Speaker 2: you really have the freedom which distinguishes you from the
Speaker 2: little people.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's bad. So that's gonna go really bad.
Speaker 3: I mean you really are like, I mean, this is
Speaker 3: his Morpheus. We're just starting to be like, Okay, this
Speaker 3: is And by the way, have you thought about maybe
Speaker 3: just losing the glasses and just going with the Wand
Speaker 3: that is so much like punish your weak eye. You
Speaker 3: much punished a week, even when it comes to your eyes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he is.
Speaker 2: He has found a kid who like has a problematic
Speaker 2: history of starting fires and is now teaching him how
Speaker 2: to build a fertilizer boss. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a bad influence. Yeah, and it matches us
Speaker 3: so so but have you ever seen a zippo?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Great.
Speaker 2: So Kissinger finishes training and is deployed with the eighty
Speaker 2: fourth entrant for Infantry Division as it moves towards Nazi Europe.
Speaker 2: His division sees a decent amount of combat.
Speaker 3: He does not.
Speaker 2: He's a back ranker. He handles administrative and management tasks,
Speaker 2: and he finds the power and authority he gets through
Speaker 2: his time in the service intoxicating. Though he never again
Speaker 2: he doesn't fight directly, he does earn a bronze star
Speaker 2: for a valor because he helps catch and take out
Speaker 2: a Gestapo sleeper cell, primarily due to the fact that like,
Speaker 2: he's just you know, a very observant dude. In nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five, he participates in the liberation of a concentration camp.
Speaker 2: Alam ahl em, I'm not one hundred percent sean how
Speaker 2: to pronounce it. One prisoner at the camp remembered him
Speaker 2: as the young American who announced you are free. For Kissinger,
Speaker 2: the overwhelming memory of this experience with seeing inmates he
Speaker 2: described as being barely recognizable as humans and feeling the
Speaker 2: instinct to feed them before learning that some were so
Speaker 2: starved that solid food would kill them shortly thereafter. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, one thing you gotta say, he does not like,
Speaker 2: he's not a sheltered upbringing, and you, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, like you would be like, oh, maybe that could
Speaker 3: be the influence that made him be like oh, you
Speaker 3: know you can. There's good you can provide, like provide
Speaker 3: the people who are tortured and starved.
Speaker 2: Some you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you could take away from this like, my god,
Speaker 4: war is evil and we should do everything we can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, as opposed to yeah maybe, well, let's see
Speaker 3: how it plays out, Dave.
Speaker 2: Maybe this is the sixth part behind the Bastards episode
Speaker 2: about a cool dude who does nice things. I just
Speaker 2: brought you guys here to talk about a chill guy.
Speaker 2: So shortly after liberating this concentration camp, Kissinger writes an
Speaker 2: essay on his experience where he asks quote who was
Speaker 2: lucky the man who draws circles in the sand and
Speaker 2: mumbles I am free? Or the bones that are interred
Speaker 2: in the hillside. He concludes from the experience that this
Speaker 2: is humanity in the twentieth century. So, I mean an
Speaker 2: understandably bleak take from liberating a concentration cam. Yeah that's fair.
Speaker 2: You know, what is a bad time to move to
Speaker 2: an ad plug.
Speaker 3: I didn't think you're gonna be brave enough to do this,
Speaker 3: but fair enough?
Speaker 6: Boy?
Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, you know what makes me hungry.
Speaker 3: Probably shouldn't go too far down that road. Let the
Speaker 3: ads do the talk. Let the ads do the talking.
Speaker 5: The ads are going to come and win the same
Speaker 5: way the Soviet Union did.
Speaker 2: Wave after wave of men into Nazi trenches. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: think we lost it. We had it for a minute,
Speaker 2: and there I took it too far, you know, I
Speaker 2: took it there.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 2: Oh we're back. So when the war ends, World War two,
Speaker 2: you know that is uh. Sergeant Henry Kissinger finds himself
Speaker 2: as quote the absolute ruler of a small village named Binsheim.
Speaker 3: He enjoys this experience. He really starts to like having power.
Speaker 3: One thing that we're.
Speaker 4: Getting here is that he adores having power over people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really likes it.
Speaker 2: In his letters, he celebrates repeatedly to his family that
Speaker 2: he has quote absolute authority to arrest people.
Speaker 3: And it's this is this is problematic because of what
Speaker 3: he does later.
Speaker 2: I will say, if you are a Jewish kid who
Speaker 2: has to flee Germany and then you come back and
Speaker 2: get made like the military head of a town that's
Speaker 2: full of former Nazis, I get reveling in it a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well for me, I'm having beheading tuesdays, if that's me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, he's not because of what he does later.
Speaker 2: This is unsettling, but like it's understandable in the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he appropriates a luxury home and a fancy car, both
Speaker 2: of which had to have belonged to some Nazi, which
Speaker 2: is like, it's what you do, right.
Speaker 3: He gets a butler.
Speaker 2: He brags back to his family that he's a Nazi butler,
Speaker 2: a fucking Nazi butler.
Speaker 3: For not giving me butter. Yeah, that is that is obvious. Now.
Speaker 2: That said, he's also, to his credit, really aware of
Speaker 2: not wanting the Germans in town to identify this guy
Speaker 2: who is absolute ruler as being Jewish. I think because
Speaker 2: he doesn't want it to make things up problems for
Speaker 2: people whose Jewish people who stay behind in Germany. He
Speaker 2: makes other soldiers refer to him as mister Henry rather
Speaker 2: than by his last name. He's conscious he doesn't want
Speaker 2: them to think quote that the Jews were coming back
Speaker 2: to take revenge. And he had a reputation in general
Speaker 2: as being more objective as a as a ruler in
Speaker 2: this kind of period than most Jewish veterans in similar positions.
Speaker 2: In general, Henry counciled accommodation in rapprochma with one exception Communists.
Speaker 3: The civil of course, fucking like understandable beer, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: the Nazis butmi yeah yeah, And that's literally what happens.
Speaker 2: So the Cold War, you know, early stages in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty six, but already in that period, Kissinger advocates strict
Speaker 2: surveillance of German civilians for left wing sympathies.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's Nazis just doing like did Yeah, the
Speaker 3: left is due, the left is due. He doesn't want them.
Speaker 2: He also wants to ban Communists from teaching at the
Speaker 2: local schools, which.
Speaker 3: Again is what the fuck?
Speaker 2: He went straight Nazi all of a sudden. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: he's definite. Well let's say fascists. Let's let's say fascists. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: fascist now, yeah, he does a bit.
Speaker 3: He does a bit.
Speaker 2: He starts dating a gentile German girl during this period,
Speaker 2: because again he's not very religious. His letters home to
Speaker 2: his parents though, because they don't like this at all.
Speaker 2: They're they're like, you're losing your your faith, and Henry
Speaker 2: gets very combative with them. He sees them as irrational, writing, quote,
Speaker 2: to me, there is not only right or wrong, but
Speaker 2: many shades in between. The Real tragedies in life are
Speaker 2: not choices between right and wrong, real difficulties, bare difficulties
Speaker 2: of the soul, provoking agonies which you and your world
Speaker 2: of black and white can't begin to comprehend.
Speaker 3: How's the dog? How's the dog? Love you, mom? Love
Speaker 3: you mom? Alsopuffs good.
Speaker 2: Is his.
Speaker 3: And his parents. His parents have their reaction real died
Speaker 3: where they're like, hey, how are you? Hey? It seems
Speaker 3: like the war may have effect on you.
Speaker 5: I've said this ever since you met the mono, but
Speaker 5: you're really intense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe maybe all of the things you've seen have
Speaker 2: had an impact on you. And herey response to this
Speaker 2: by getting enraged and saying, not everybody came out of
Speaker 2: this war as a psycho neeurotic.
Speaker 3: Oh, that shows them. That'll teach them that that's exact.
Speaker 3: That's fine, that's fine, that's exactly right. That's the right
Speaker 3: reaction of a non psycho neurotic.
Speaker 5: When you're when you're screaming, I'm not a psycho neurotic.
Speaker 3: In letters, you're a psycho neurotic. I got from Garland Camp.
Speaker 2: If all they're saying is like, hey, Henry, do you
Speaker 2: think maybe seeing a concentration camp has left some mental
Speaker 2: scars that you need to like heal from.
Speaker 3: Hey, maybe I should drive that to the toilet. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, buddy, all right, path We're just we're just
Speaker 3: writing letters here, buddy. We're just writing some letters. That's
Speaker 3: all we're doing. It's one of those things.
Speaker 2: This is a period of time obviously, like every like
Speaker 2: one of the things that causes what happens later in
Speaker 2: American history is that sixteen million Americans go to war
Speaker 2: and a bunch of them get traumatized, and they come
Speaker 2: back to a world where like their dad would always like,
Speaker 2: if you talk about your feelings, I'm going to hit you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hearry's family doesn't seem to be like that. His parents
Speaker 2: are like, hey, do you want to talk about your feelings?
Speaker 2: And he's like, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Obviously, obviously, the fact that this is a time in
Speaker 2: which like men don't fucking do therapy does have an
Speaker 2: impact on it. But I think his family's probably more
Speaker 2: understanding than well.
Speaker 3: He also has no I mean even now, he has
Speaker 3: no acknowledgment of like his trauma. So yeah, even in
Speaker 3: the actual moment, I mean, you're probably even more defensive.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty seven, Kissinger finally decides to leave Germany
Speaker 2: for the second time. On Fritz Kramer's advice. He applies.
Speaker 2: He applies late to Harvard, and he was accepted, winning
Speaker 2: one of the two national scholarships the school gave New
Speaker 2: Yorkers each year.
Speaker 4: Wow, now, chop trap house did a tournament of evil
Speaker 4: people from Harvard.
Speaker 3: It's a and a Kissinger one. So yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Oh bo, the IVY League no good at producing bad people.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should look into that one. So one of
Speaker 2: his classmates recalls, and he obviously he does. Like it's
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger. He's very good at school. One of his
Speaker 2: classmates recalls that he quote worked harder and studied more
Speaker 2: than anybody else on campus.
Speaker 3: He school. He at school.
Speaker 2: He couldn't stop him from shoving pencils.
Speaker 3: In his mouth the campus like Godzilla would have. He
Speaker 3: nearly died.
Speaker 2: He almost died from lead. His studies so absorbed him
Speaker 2: that he ignored the people around him. He made quote
Speaker 2: no lasting friendships with other students. He seemed scarcely aware
Speaker 2: of the extraordinary range of people gathered around him. So
Speaker 2: Kissinger's ideology evolved along the lines Kramer had started him
Speaker 2: off on. He agreed with Girtha I believe, as the
Speaker 2: name of the German philosopher that if he quote had
Speaker 2: to choose between justice and disorder on the one hand,
Speaker 2: an injustice in order on the other, I would always
Speaker 2: choose the latter.
Speaker 1: So, well, there we go.
Speaker 3: He's made his choice very telling, Like we know, we know,
Speaker 3: we get up. Yeah, it's just nice to know where
Speaker 3: like around the time, Like, okay, so he was pretty defined. Okay,
Speaker 3: So Henry, you know some other people who thought that
Speaker 3: order was more important than justice. Yeah, they had an
Speaker 3: impact on your child. Yeah yeah, no shit, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just such a too.
Speaker 4: It's a strange thing that it's so conscious, like he yeah,
Speaker 4: he's so completely aware of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he's like a psychopath. He might be.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think if you're I try to do
Speaker 2: too much like the psychoanalyzing people. But like fucking maybe.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, psychopaths are very good at the stuff you
Speaker 4: talked about winning people over in the room, you know, ladies, man,
Speaker 4: Like there is a they learn how to be a
Speaker 4: human and then they sort of and.
Speaker 3: A lot of you got syphlicid camp and a lot
Speaker 3: of them simplicit camp like Henry Kissingerry Well, Sophie.
Speaker 2: Can we let's green light some Henry kiss some t
Speaker 2: shirts that are just Henry Kissinger with his face riding
Speaker 2: off from syphilis. People are gonna want to wear them.
Speaker 3: He's making the kissy lips and his lips are falling
Speaker 3: off like a Kissinger. Let me French Kissinger you.
Speaker 2: So he meets his second mentor at Harvard. Henry Kissinger
Speaker 2: has a lot of mentors, and this is maybe a
Speaker 2: lesson to never mentor anybody. You never know they might
Speaker 2: become Henry Kissinger. Yeah, don't teach people things. Sabotage them
Speaker 2: at every step. Right next time you drive past a kindergarten,
Speaker 2: throw him a textbook that's all lies, you know, Just
Speaker 2: slow him down. So his second mentor is this guy,
Speaker 2: William yandell Elliott. And Elliott has is a professor at Harvard.
Speaker 2: He's also like very politically connected. He had advised several
Speaker 2: US presidents on international matters. And Kissinger was drawn to
Speaker 2: this guy because not only is he a respected educator,
Speaker 2: but he's really well connected to people with power. And
Speaker 2: Elliott one of the things that like, he is famous
Speaker 2: for being a big advocate of is is what's called
Speaker 2: real politique as embodied by you know, and particularly the
Speaker 2: guys that Kissinger grows up admiring, and that Elliott, you know,
Speaker 2: helps teach him to admire. I'm in like Klauswitz and Bismarck,
Speaker 2: these these these guys who are like Bismarck is the
Speaker 2: dude who makes Germany right, we have it, We get
Speaker 2: a Germany because Bismarck orchestrates, over a period of like
Speaker 2: I think it's decades, gradually he welds all these different
Speaker 2: German principalities and kingships together and then helps to orchestrate
Speaker 2: this war, which out of which emerges Germany. Like that's
Speaker 2: the kind of dude that Auto von Bismarck is, and
Speaker 2: he is kind of the master of the kind of
Speaker 2: politics that Kissinger comes to respect. And he Kissinger calls
Speaker 2: Klauswitz and Bismarck philosophers of history. That's how he sees
Speaker 2: this guy, these guys which is not really what I
Speaker 2: would call out of on Mark, Like he's very good
Speaker 2: at what he does, obviously, but not I wouldn't call
Speaker 2: him a philosopher. I want to quote now from the
Speaker 2: book Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Grandon. From these thinkers, Kissinger
Speaker 2: cobbled together his own view of how history operated. It
Speaker 2: was not a story of liberal progress or of class consciousness,
Speaker 2: or of cycles of history, or of cycles of birth, maturity,
Speaker 2: and decline. Rather, it was a series of meaningless incidents
Speaker 2: fleetingly given shape by the application of human will. As
Speaker 2: a young infantryman, Kissinger had learned that victors ransacked history
Speaker 2: for analogies to gild their triumphs. Well the vanquished sought
Speaker 2: out historical causes of their misfortune. So, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know stuff, it's it's maybe not yeah, yeah, you can
Speaker 2: think about that however you want. So a lot of
Speaker 2: folks who analyze the the Kissinger in this period seize
Speaker 2: on one sentence in Kissinger's undergraduate thesis, and his thesis
Speaker 2: is titled The Meaning of History that they can kind
Speaker 2: of explains a lot of what comes to be going down.
Speaker 3: What an old paper it is, right, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: he's not a dude who makes like little leaps, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: why do we love this is the line.
Speaker 2: The realm of freedom and necessity cannot be reconciled except
Speaker 2: by an inward experience, which is you know, read it again,
Speaker 2: the realm of freedom and necessity cannot be reconciled except
Speaker 2: by an inward experience.
Speaker 3: Wow, and this is this is a.
Speaker 2: Like a heavily influenced by French existentialism. His thesis cites
Speaker 2: Jean Paul Sart a lot, and both Start and Kissinger
Speaker 2: think that morality is not an inward thing. It's determined
Speaker 2: by actions, which is not an unreasonable thing to believe,
Speaker 2: right that, like what matters is what you do. You know,
Speaker 2: there's that line from the Bible. You're not damned by
Speaker 2: what goes into your head, but like what you know
Speaker 2: comes out right, Like, that's not an unreasonable thing to believe.
Speaker 2: Start he believes that like action creates the possibility of intellect,
Speaker 2: individual and collective responsibility. Right, that morality is determined by action,
Speaker 2: but that our actions create this possibility of like individual
Speaker 2: and collective moral responsibility for things. Kissinger does not come
Speaker 2: to that conclusion. Kissinger believes that morality is determined by action,
Speaker 2: but he also thinks that, like you, moral indeterminacy is
Speaker 2: a condition of human freedom.
Speaker 3: It's this idea that you.
Speaker 2: Can't be bound by morality and be free. If you
Speaker 2: want to freely act, you have to be able to
Speaker 2: act above morality, right, Look.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, so that's that's just giving yourself an excuse
Speaker 4: to do heinous acts.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of his intellectual development is him,
Speaker 2: and I'll you know, also a lot of this is
Speaker 2: obviously all of this. One of the things that you
Speaker 2: have to account for is all of this analysis of
Speaker 2: like his development intellectually comes after he does all the
Speaker 2: horrible things like so sure right from him and from
Speaker 2: like the people who are sources who are saying this
Speaker 2: is what he was, like is a kid. There is
Speaker 2: that degree of biasing, right, like that this is after
Speaker 2: he is the person that he is, Because if he
Speaker 2: had gone on to like just be a professor, nobody
Speaker 2: would have given a shit about what Henry.
Speaker 3: Kiss the accountant said that. I'd be like, yeah, look,
Speaker 3: just you what do I owe?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, tell me what the irs gets? Man, don't
Speaker 2: I don't need another lecture on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And Kissinger's the fact that he becomes so kind of.
Speaker 2: Moral relativism is the word of use. I don't even
Speaker 2: know if that's right, but like this idea that like
Speaker 2: freedom and morality are kind of like inherently opposed. This
Speaker 2: upsets a lot of people around him, including people who
Speaker 2: are like his big supporters, including that professor Elliott guy
Speaker 2: at his retirement party, Henry Kissinger. Elliott's retirement party, Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger and a number of students gather to like bid
Speaker 2: him farewell, and journalist David Helberstam wrote that Elliott had
Speaker 2: positive things to say about almost all of his students
Speaker 2: who had gathered there, but when he reached Kissinger, he
Speaker 2: said this, Henry, He began, You're brilliant, but you're arrogant.
Speaker 2: In fact, you're the most arrogant man I've ever met.
Speaker 2: Kissinger became ashen faced. Mark my words. Elliott continued, your
Speaker 2: arrogance is going to get you in real trouble one day.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, that is amazing so many levels, like at
Speaker 3: your retirement party to be like hey and you listen,
Speaker 3: ship bag, chill out, and then for that also to
Speaker 3: be totally incorrect, Like you know, I saw this like
Speaker 3: clip of some some guy in like Atlantic City talking
Speaker 3: to Trump when Trump is going like, well, what is
Speaker 3: what makes a native American? And the guy just goes, sir,
Speaker 3: I'm glad You're never gonna get into any real power.
Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, dude, oh dude, well, and one
Speaker 2: of the things like this, the Professor Elliott is like
Speaker 2: one of the guys who helps get him his first
Speaker 2: big gigs and shit, like he's a major bass and
Speaker 2: I think this is kind of him belatedly being.
Speaker 10: Like, well no ooops boosy, poopsy, poopsy, poopsie.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go patronize a Cambodian restaurant just to make
Speaker 3: myself feel of the more. Yeah right, real well, when
Speaker 3: he went like, dude, just give me the tip slip.
Speaker 3: Don't I know the food, Just give me a tip slip.
Speaker 3: I owe you guys. I'm not going to tell you why.
Speaker 3: Here you go, don't worry about it. Take my take everything.
Speaker 3: Here's my pin hanged. I gotta go. Do you know
Speaker 3: if there's a Bangladeshi restaurant nearby? I'm actually heading a
Speaker 3: lot of spots tonight in not eating. I'll be honest.
Speaker 3: I'm going to a lot of places. No no, not German, No,
Speaker 3: not German, no, no, not German. You know what, They're
Speaker 3: actually fine? I don't think I Yeah.
Speaker 5: So his thesis him, well, that that thing that that
Speaker 5: he says to Kissinger, it it should be what happens.
Speaker 4: But our society rewards psychopaths above anybody else, and.
Speaker 2: To be most societies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what the things should be is the opposite.
Speaker 4: What he's talking about is a just world, which.
Speaker 3: Isn't what this is.
Speaker 2: And it's it's one of those things. This is something
Speaker 2: like that. Get kind of more into anthropological thinking. But like,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons people will say, like why we
Speaker 2: have psychopaths is that if you're in a band of
Speaker 2: seventy people who are like hunter gatherers, starving through the winter,
Speaker 2: it's helpful to have a guy like Henry Kissinger. You
Speaker 2: can say, like, well, these six people are too old
Speaker 2: and sick, and we have to let them die otherwise
Speaker 2: we'll all starve. Right, that's a situation which it's good
Speaker 2: to have a psychopath because you need someone who just
Speaker 2: doesn't give a shit about certain things. When you have
Speaker 2: a society of billions that's global, it becomes a problem
Speaker 2: because that kind of thinking is not so useful and
Speaker 2: tends to just get millions and millions of people killed.
Speaker 2: It's not great anyway. Henry's thesis is published in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty at roughly the same time Harry Truman decides to
Speaker 2: send troops to Korea and to aid French forces in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Professor Elliott told Kissinger that the Korean War was an
Speaker 2: example of the East quote testing the civilization of the West. Yeah,
Speaker 2: people doing their own thing in their own country is
Speaker 2: a test to us, like the Koreans in the Vietnamese
Speaker 2: having completely their own shit going on as a test
Speaker 2: of us in the United States.
Speaker 3: How dare you?
Speaker 2: You know, ho Chi men not wanting to be ruled
Speaker 2: over by the French is really a test of American power.
Speaker 2: It's very sting, I mean, and obviously they see that,
Speaker 2: like the Soviet Union's ormonstrating all this, and the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union is involved too.
Speaker 3: But like they're looking at us in the eyes. They've
Speaker 3: got their own shit going on. Dude, they are on
Speaker 3: the same level. How dare they do this?
Speaker 2: So, as the US increased its commitments to a growing
Speaker 2: series of wars in Southeast Asia, Kissingery got more dedicated
Speaker 2: to the work of a guy named Oswald Spangler. Spangler's
Speaker 2: book The Declient of the West is not something I
Speaker 2: am well equipped to describe or explain in detail, but
Speaker 2: Greg Grandon is, so I'm going to quote from him again.
Speaker 2: Spangler waged a relentless assault on the very idea of reality.
Speaker 2: He insisted that there existed a higher plane of experience
Speaker 2: that was inaccessible to rational thought, a plane where instinct,
Speaker 2: in creativity rain we have, Spengler thought, hardly, yet an
Speaker 2: inkling of how much in our reputedly objective values and
Speaker 2: experiences is only disguise, only image and expression. To get
Speaker 2: behind image and expression, to penetrate perceived material power and interests,
Speaker 2: and grasp what Spinler called destiny, one needed not information
Speaker 2: but intuition, not facts but hunches, not reason but a
Speaker 2: soul sense, a world feeling. Often enough, a statesman does
Speaker 2: not follow, does not know what he is doing, Spengler wrote,
Speaker 2: But that does not prevent him from following with confidence.
Speaker 2: Just the one path that leads to success.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, and that is George W. Bush crawl
Speaker 3: out of a pile of goon now I means for
Speaker 3: our freedom.
Speaker 2: George Bush like pops out of Henry's Kissinger's back, is Apollo's.
Speaker 3: Rumsfeld bush like thing like way now where they are
Speaker 3: there in the east west north and.
Speaker 2: Kissinger finds this logic intoxicating, But he did disagree with
Speaker 2: Spingler about Spengler's primary contention, which is that civilizational decay
Speaker 2: was inevitable. Spengler argued that civilizations had spring, summers, autumns,
Speaker 2: and winters, right, that they proceed through kind of like
Speaker 2: inevitable stages, and there's not really any way to stop
Speaker 2: this procession, right, which is I think a pretty reasonable
Speaker 2: like yeah, and civilization is going to have like a
Speaker 2: life cycle, right, that's a thing like historically you can
Speaker 2: argue pretty well, Kissinger doesn't believe.
Speaker 3: This everything dies. Yeah, well that's actually.
Speaker 2: Not with.
Speaker 3: Of course, the man who is like living way beyond
Speaker 3: his shelf life is like told you so, doesn't die.
Speaker 2: So here's grand and again talking about Kissinger. How Kissinger
Speaker 2: grapples with this aspect of Spangler having lost a sense
Speaker 2: of purpose. Civilizations lurch outward defined, meaning they get caught
Speaker 2: up in a series of disastrous wars, propelled forward to
Speaker 2: doom by history's cosmic beat, power for power's sake, blood
Speaker 2: for blood. Imperialism is the inevitable product of this final stage,
Speaker 2: Kissinger wrote, summing up the decline of the West's argument
Speaker 2: an outward thrust to hide the inner void. Kissinger accepted
Speaker 2: Spengler's critique of past civilizations, but rejected his determinism. Decay
Speaker 2: was not inevitable, Spengler, Kissinger said, merely described a fact
Speaker 2: of decline, and not its necessity. There is a margin,
Speaker 2: he would write in his memoirs, between necessity and accident,
Speaker 2: in which the statesman, by perseverance and intuition, must choose
Speaker 2: and thereby shape the destiny of his people. So Spingler's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it seems like when civilizations lose their purpose and start
Speaker 2: to age, they lurch out what engage in wars of
Speaker 2: imperial conquest and a search for meaning, and that leads
Speaker 2: to disaster, which destroys them. And Kissinger's like, but what
Speaker 2: if you did the War's right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you were well what if I was involved
Speaker 3: in everyone? What if I was like Mickey in the
Speaker 3: corner of Rockie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it isn't amazing, like this guy being like,
Speaker 2: here is what happens to empires every single time there's
Speaker 2: an empire. This is a thing you can go through
Speaker 2: history and see constantly occurs through thousands of years.
Speaker 3: And Kisser's just like, no, I can do it, right,
Speaker 3: But to be like, no, you're pretty you're pretty close.
Speaker 3: You're pretty close. Bah I saw.
Speaker 4: I'm just thinking kill more like I heard what you
Speaker 4: said ups and downs, but I think you wipe everybody.
Speaker 3: Out, you know, if you try to get blood.
Speaker 2: It is the same logic I have seen. Every time
Speaker 2: I've seen more than one person get stuck in the mud,
Speaker 2: it's always either one person gets stuck in the mud
Speaker 2: or fifty two. Because one person gets stuck in the
Speaker 2: mud and the other forty nine go well, I saw
Speaker 2: it happened to that guy. But I think I can
Speaker 2: figure it out. I can get around.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. It's almost like when you enter Congress. I've
Speaker 3: got a plan. I've got a plan. Oh I get money. Oh,
Speaker 3: never mind, I don't have a plan.
Speaker 4: Plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I have a plan, but it's a different one,
Speaker 2: and you are not going to like it a lot.
Speaker 3: More about a pool. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty one, Henry got a gig working as
Speaker 2: a consultant with the Army on psychological war fair while
Speaker 2: he finished his graduate studies. Kissinger's doctoral thesis on the
Speaker 2: Congress of Vienna did not seem overly relevant to politics,
Speaker 2: but its first sentence had discussed nuclear weapons and proposed
Speaker 2: to readers that the efforts of British and Australia, and
Speaker 2: that the efforts the British and Austrians made to contain
Speaker 2: Napoleon might be useful in handling the Soviet Union. I
Speaker 2: might argue, did Napoleon have a way to end all
Speaker 2: life on Earth if things went badly with Containa? Was
Speaker 2: that a factor in Napoleon.
Speaker 3: A sword?
Speaker 2: Kissinger believes he sees that containment is a failure, which
Speaker 2: it is because people do not like being colonies, and
Speaker 2: if the opposition to being a colony is communism, they'll
Speaker 2: be like, well, let's try communism. Being a colony seems
Speaker 2: to suck. So Kissinger sees that containment is a failure.
Speaker 2: But he also believes believes not that like, well, why
Speaker 2: don't we just like let people do things and like
Speaker 2: just take care of our own shit. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: because containment's a failure, war with.
Speaker 3: The Soviet Union is inevitable.
Speaker 2: Now, in Kissinger's view, this has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: the actions of the United States, but as instead quote,
Speaker 2: because of the existence of the United States as a
Speaker 2: symbol of capitalist democracy. It is literally the early extent
Speaker 2: of like, well, they hate us for our freedom, right right, yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like that's that's that's where he's starting down. Obviously a
Speaker 2: lot of people are saying shit like this, right, this
Speaker 2: is not a Kissinger invention. You know, you've got the
Speaker 2: John Birch Society all sorts of shits. Yeah, on this period,
Speaker 2: I don't want to give him too much credit there.
Speaker 2: It's clear by this point that Henry was going to
Speaker 2: get into politics, although law enforcement was a possibility too,
Speaker 2: because when heked on, he gets he starts being a
Speaker 2: professor at Harvard right like after he graduates and stuff.
Speaker 2: He starts like helping out his stuff and teaching some classes.
Speaker 2: And at one point the school hosts an international seminar,
Speaker 2: and when he hears that like a bunch of foreign
Speaker 2: academics are coming to Harvard, he calls the FBI and
Speaker 2: volunteers to spy on people for as.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, it is so amazing with his background
Speaker 3: to be like to have that attitude. It just is,
Speaker 3: it really is. It's hard. It's hard to get there.
Speaker 3: You got to give him credit. The man covers some ground.
Speaker 3: The man is a Batman villain, Yeah, he really is.
Speaker 2: So Yeah, his love of politics and his first attempt
Speaker 2: to build influence at Harvard Is by starting a journal
Speaker 2: named Confluence. Now, this is ostensibly a journal that exists
Speaker 2: to create what he calls an international forum for discussion. Right,
Speaker 2: I just want to get good people talking from all
Speaker 2: around the world, you know, let the ideas fly. It's
Speaker 2: like got Ted talk kind of pitch. Sure, but he's
Speaker 2: really vague about He doesn't really seem to care about
Speaker 2: what particular discussions he encourages, and his critics would later
Speaker 2: claim that this journal was quote a fake, primarily an
Speaker 2: enterprise designed to make Kissinger known to powerful people. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like he's just giving letting powerful people write articles because
Speaker 2: then he gets them in and he gets their their
Speaker 2: phone number. Right, it's they're mainly working. Yeah, he's not working.
Speaker 2: Confluence leads to Henry's first mention in the pages of
Speaker 2: the New York Time Times, and despite what his critics claim,
Speaker 2: which is probably broadly accurate, the journal did also publish
Speaker 2: some really significant figures, including Reinhold Neighbor and Hannah Rint.
Speaker 2: But while he claimed commitment to free discourse, Kissinger had
Speaker 2: a real tendency to publish right wing shitheads, including Enoch Powell,
Speaker 2: a conservative British politician famous for comparing immigration to quote
Speaker 2: rivers of blood.
Speaker 3: Well, that's fair. I mean I've always agreed with that.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is just sovers. I love a blood river. Oh,
Speaker 3: the laziest of rivers. Mm yeah, because you float real good.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, it's molasses.
Speaker 4: That's freedom you can if you can say immigrants are
Speaker 4: like a river of blood, that's the freedom he's talking about.
Speaker 3: That's the freedom.
Speaker 2: You want to know what other kind of freedoms he's interested.
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote from Nil Ferguson from the book
Speaker 2: Kissinger here an article by Ernst von Sullomon, a right
Speaker 2: wing German writer who had been convicted for his role
Speaker 2: the assassination of Walter Rathanow, a German foreign minister in
Speaker 2: the Weimar Republic. The article provoked an angry letter from
Speaker 2: Shepherd Stone of the Ford Foundation, who had provided money
Speaker 2: for both the International Seminar and the journal. So, first note,
Speaker 2: he publishes a guy who's basically pretty close to a Nazi,
Speaker 2: a far right German terrorist in the in the Weimar years,
Speaker 2: and it's so upsetting that a representative of the Ford
Speaker 2: Foundation complaints.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you can upset the you're crossing that line.
Speaker 2: If the Ford Foundation is like your connection to a
Speaker 2: Nazi worries met.
Speaker 3: Hey you have, and that's coming from us who I'm
Speaker 3: really who we are, like tuper find of that look.
Speaker 2: I have the protocols of the Elders of Zion tattooed
Speaker 2: on my chest. But Ford Foundation employees, I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Throw a flag on the play. I'm still a flag
Speaker 3: in the play. And are Carr's coming out the Ford
Speaker 3: Ta yeah, oh man so quote.
Speaker 2: Stone was appalled that Kissinger would publish an article by
Speaker 2: a criminal and a Nazi sympathizer like Solomon. Kissinger told
Speaker 2: Stone he disliked Solomon and opposed what he stood for,
Speaker 2: considering him a damned soul driven by the furies. Demonstrating
Speaker 2: a remarkable self confidence for a graduate student, Kissinger defended
Speaker 2: himself for publishing the article. I may air occasionally on
Speaker 2: the side of two great tolerance, partly because I believe
Speaker 2: our readers sufficiently mature to make their own judgments. Kissinger
Speaker 2: argued that what Solomon represented was a symptom of certain
Speaker 2: tendencies of our age, but that by appearing in a
Speaker 2: liberal journal like Confluence, Solomon was the one who was compromised.
Speaker 2: Kissinger was not simply defending free speech. He had solicited
Speaker 2: the article from Solomon, telling the German about quote, having
Speaker 2: long admired your writing. See, hom I could not share
Speaker 2: your point of view. What so it gets better and
Speaker 2: more relevant to today because when there's an outcry against this,
Speaker 2: Kissinger writes a letter to his friend Kramer and says,
Speaker 2: I have now joined you as the cardinal villain in
Speaker 2: liberal demail analogy.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is he's just doing it. Now,
Speaker 3: he's just doing it. Now, he's got the monicle that too.
Speaker 5: It's like you're Glenn Greenwald talked to Joe Rogan.
Speaker 3: Yes, It's like, what the how?
Speaker 2: How is this still happening? How are you the pioneer
Speaker 2: of this? Henry Kissinger? How are you the pioneer of this?
Speaker 3: Oh? That's his explanation if you're if you're me just
Speaker 3: listening to like, uh okay, okay, I'm not sure what
Speaker 3: he's saying, but all right, okay, So we got to
Speaker 3: hear from this nazi who shot a dude? You okay
Speaker 3: because you all right? Well, is it'll anger the lips
Speaker 3: as light as you said. It's cool.
Speaker 5: And next next month we have ed Gean is doing
Speaker 5: a little.
Speaker 3: Number, and Deane's gonna walk us through lamp workings.
Speaker 2: So and then we're having the Zodiac Killer on to
Speaker 2: teach us about proper parking technique.
Speaker 3: Uh huh pentagram. He'd actually be pretty good at that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, once he had finished his dissertation and graduated, Henry
Speaker 2: found himself in need of like a steady He's doing
Speaker 2: like it wasn't a professor at that point, but he
Speaker 2: was like doing like graduate students, you know, helping to
Speaker 2: teach whatever. I didn't do a college so, but you
Speaker 2: know how grad students teach shit and stuff. But he
Speaker 2: wants like a full on gig. He's trying to get
Speaker 2: an actual full time job as an assistant professor, but
Speaker 2: he's not able to because most people don't like Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: I wonder any reason why a lot of people at
Speaker 3: Harvard not a huge fan loving the Nazi publishing June. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they are. They consider him slightly problematic.
Speaker 2: Drifts for a bit, he's unable to find work, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's still he's still doing some stuff at Harvard,
Speaker 2: but he's like not He's kind of a drift in
Speaker 2: his career until in nineteen fifty four he runs into
Speaker 2: a friend Arthur Slushinger, Junior at Harvard slashing our head
Speaker 2: a letter in his possession from a former Secretary of
Speaker 2: the Air Force defending Eisenhower. The Eisenhower administration standard of
Speaker 2: threatening massive retaliation for the to the Soviets. Now, the
Speaker 2: gist of this idea that the Eisenhower administration really kicked
Speaker 2: off was that if we promise the Soviets that if
Speaker 2: there's ever a confrontation, we will immediately like send out
Speaker 2: a world in inhale of nukes, right, then those lines
Speaker 2: won't get crossed, Right, we won't have any kind of
Speaker 2: fight at all. If like that, if everyone knows those
Speaker 2: are the stakes, then nothing will happen. Right, That's the idea.
Speaker 2: Kissinger disagrees with this take, right, which is reasonable to
Speaker 2: disagree with. Right, there's a lot of problems with the
Speaker 2: we will in the world if there's any kind of issue.
Speaker 3: To take, he's gonna make it worse. He's gonna make
Speaker 3: it worse.
Speaker 2: He shared us that that's exactly what he does, Gareth,
Speaker 2: because because Kissingers, we'll talk about what he does in
Speaker 2: a bit. But he writes a letter kind of writing
Speaker 2: out some critiques to this, and he has his friend
Speaker 2: Nelson Rockefeller send it to Eisenhower. He's friends with Nelson Rockefeller,
Speaker 2: but su everyone is in this period. When the President
Speaker 2: rejects Kissinger's analysis, at the advice of John Foster Dullis,
Speaker 2: Rockefeller resigns and he resigns from his job with the administration,
Speaker 2: which like temporarily closes a door to Henry. But the
Speaker 2: letter that Kissinger had received was well enough, like popular
Speaker 2: enough among other thinkers in Washington that it earns him
Speaker 2: a job offer heading a study group at the Council
Speaker 2: on Foreign Relations studying nuclear weapons and foreign policy. But
Speaker 2: of course, Henry's problem with massive retaliation wasn't that using
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons was unconscionable. It was that the world ending
Speaker 2: nature of the threats the Eisenhower administration was making meant
Speaker 2: they would never knew anybody. And Kissinger thought this was
Speaker 2: a terrible idea. So he thought that nuclear weapons should
Speaker 2: be used tactically to secure battlefield victories against the communists.
Speaker 3: What's happening? He thinks?
Speaker 5: He thinks it's bad to have nukes and not use them.
Speaker 3: He's yeah, that's his answer, that's his angle. What in
Speaker 3: the fuck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild that in this argument between if there's
Speaker 2: a fight, will kill everybody? Or what if we just
Speaker 2: try using nukes a little bit the kill everybody. Guys
Speaker 2: have the more reasonable take.
Speaker 3: I mean, really, you're close, you're close together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we can get off a couple of much faster.
Speaker 2: It's it's incredible. And also but like again, this is
Speaker 2: this he's the people he's arguing with is the Eisenhower administration.
Speaker 2: Nelson Rockefeller is not a right winger who's like, this
Speaker 2: guy's got some shit going on. You know, we should
Speaker 2: listen to him, and like, he's a lot of people
Speaker 2: who are not like, you know, hard right dudes are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe it makes sense we got to be using these
Speaker 2: like tactical nuclear we consider the possibility. You know, he
Speaker 2: makes a good point. He uses smart words and about
Speaker 2: nuking folks words. So that is part one of our
Speaker 2: epic series Henry Kissinger Jesus Christ, dude, maybe become an accountant?
Speaker 6: What a guy.
Speaker 2: In part two we'll talk about how he gets into power.
Speaker 2: So that's going to be a.
Speaker 3: Hoot for everybody.
Speaker 2: But I feel like before we do that, you guys,
Speaker 2: do you guys like do you like them, like like
Speaker 2: like a giant influential popular podcast that maybe this, this
Speaker 2: podcast is heavily influenced by.
Speaker 3: Is that something you guys do are you talking about Rogan?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, you are both Joe Rogan, right, yeah, the
Speaker 2: doll Yes, the dollar it is your podcast, we believe,
Speaker 2: yes that that was your six part series, The Dollups.
Speaker 3: Why we need the nuke PI Go for it.
Speaker 2: Check out The doll Up.
Speaker 3: If you have not already. Just a fucking, very very
Speaker 3: funny podcast.
Speaker 2: You guys want to plug anything else before we roll
Speaker 2: out into part two?
Speaker 3: I mean my ears a couple of times during this,
Speaker 3: but yeah, well you can dot com. We're on tour
Speaker 3: all over the place and domestically soon. That will be
Speaker 3: very exciting. I am excited for tour touring to exist
Speaker 3: again in our lives. Yeah, fingers crossed until part two.
Speaker 2: Go home and read some Oswald Spangler and then disagree
Speaker 2: with it in a way that makes you much much worse.
Speaker 3: Yep, yes, put the monica on the bad eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, Oh, welcome back to what is either
Speaker 2: Behind the doll Up or Dollup the Bastards, a podcast that,
Speaker 2: no matter what name we choose for it is about
Speaker 2: tickling absolutely.
Speaker 3: This finally, is that's how you make us feel at home?
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Do you think anyone has ever tickled Kissinger?
Speaker 2: I can't imagine. I cannot picture it in my head.
Speaker 3: This is the way he would laugh. Stop it, I'm
Speaker 3: going to work with my pants.
Speaker 2: I just try to imagine him whispering into the ears
Speaker 2: of a sexual partner something.
Speaker 3: I'm about I'm going to know. It'd be more like
Speaker 3: I'm going to end this corpse. Only one of us
Speaker 3: makes it out a lie. I actually did.
Speaker 2: While we were taking a break in between episodes, I
Speaker 2: had a moment where I actually did for the first
Speaker 2: time in my life, I felt a profound sense of
Speaker 2: solidarity with Henry Kissinger. My cat is named Saddam Hussein,
Speaker 2: and as I was feeding him during the break, I realized,
Speaker 2: like Kissinger did at one point, he's gotten much bigger.
Speaker 2: Saddam has gotten much larger than I ever thought he would.
Speaker 2: You know this is I did not anticipate this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's because you there's a lot to love what
Speaker 2: you just said. Kissinger wouldn't make the same mistake. Oh
Speaker 2: so yes, let's uh, let's uh, let's get get right
Speaker 2: back down. What is for Kissinger memory Lane and is
Speaker 2: what for everyone else is Nightmare Avenue, because this is
Speaker 2: the story about why Vietnam lasted an extra half decade.
Speaker 2: Good time, We're gonna have a fun one here. So
Speaker 2: one of the mini downsides of an intellectual upbringing like
Speaker 2: the one Henry Kissinger experienced is that he spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time surrounded by people you might call political technologists. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a term I first heard in Ukraine from
Speaker 2: civilians describing Paul Manifort. That's what they called them. Political Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: these like hired guns who come in and help anybody
Speaker 2: who just happens to like have government money, like do
Speaker 2: literally anything. Right. There're guys like his mentor, professor Elliott
Speaker 2: and like Harvard economists Thomas Schnelling, who advised powerful elected leaders,
Speaker 2: and like they all of the way in which they
Speaker 2: think about the mechanisms of government are very mathematic and inhuman.
Speaker 3: Right, those are the.
Speaker 2: People that Kissinger patterns him self off of. Now, Schnelling,
Speaker 2: who are Shelling? Who is just Thomas Shelling, who's a
Speaker 2: Harvard economists we just introduced was one of Kissinger's other mentors,
Speaker 2: and Shelling at the same time as he's he's working
Speaker 2: at Harvard and mentoring Kissinger is advising the Eisenhower administration
Speaker 2: on moral calculus in the early stages of the Cold War.
Speaker 3: Shelling argues, calculus, moral calculus? Have you never have you
Speaker 3: never talked about that with anybody? Is he not a
Speaker 3: common condres now? No? Sorry? No, I mean I was
Speaker 3: terrible at calculus. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well you can't be moral and no calculus, which is
Speaker 2: why you know, like polepot, I'm going to eventually set
Speaker 2: all of my listeners after people who know math.
Speaker 3: That's that's the gold Bobby right there. How did we
Speaker 3: get We're not sure, sir, No idea, No possible to say,
Speaker 3: no way, incalculable. People keep trying to tell us, and
Speaker 3: we just kill them. Adam to the pile. Someone had
Speaker 3: two numbers, but we were unable to We can't negotiate it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so uh.
Speaker 2: Shelling is advising the Eisenhewer administration on moral calculus in
Speaker 2: the Cold War, and Shelling's argument is that whether you
Speaker 2: were quote deterring the Russians or your own children, the
Speaker 2: proper tactic was to figure out the right ratio of
Speaker 2: threat to incentive. So already Shelling might be the quickest
Speaker 2: I've ever described a person and had it be clear like, well,
Speaker 2: that's a bastard.
Speaker 3: That's not okay obviously.
Speaker 5: So since I have no human feelings, I have to
Speaker 5: figure out this. And children and murderers are the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, children in the Soviet government only understand one thing, threats.
Speaker 3: Can I have more ice cream?
Speaker 9: Dad?
Speaker 3: Put your hand in the drawer and find out. Now,
Speaker 3: there you go.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you something, Jimmy. You go for that
Speaker 2: ice cream. I have a loaded thirty eight on the table.
Speaker 2: Now one of the chambers is empty, Jimmy, So if
Speaker 2: you give that ice cream, maybe the hammer goes Stepp.
Speaker 3: I just want to go to bed. I don't like dessert.
Speaker 3: There you go, money, Honey. You just feel like moral
Speaker 3: calculus is not the way to go with the ice cream.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe you could just say no if you don't
Speaker 3: want him to have dessert. Any dad could say no,
Speaker 3: I'm learning.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, while Henry was teaching at Harvard, and this is
Speaker 2: before he gets we ended the last episode him getting
Speaker 2: that gig with the Council on Foreign Relations learning about
Speaker 2: nuclear policy. In the period before that, when like Shelling
Speaker 2: is his mentor, Henry learns a lot from him and
Speaker 2: he walks away from their relationship with the belief that
Speaker 2: quote bargaining power comes from the capacity to hurt, to
Speaker 2: cause quote sheer pain and damage.
Speaker 3: She means, fucking Christ, you're just kind of waiting for
Speaker 3: this person to step into the vacuum essentially, right, like
Speaker 3: you're waiting for someone to be like, you know, there's
Speaker 3: actually a bottom that's under the bottom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh oh my lord, it's like this shit, like
Speaker 2: if that were true. We're all watching this situation unfold
Speaker 2: between Russia and Ukraine where you've got like a lot
Speaker 2: of people with the ability to hurt, a lot of
Speaker 2: people on both sides.
Speaker 3: And you know what, it doesn't seem like negotiations are
Speaker 3: going great. Yeah, not really. Maybe that's not a good
Speaker 3: basis to proceed from anything with. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: just I can't believe that.
Speaker 5: It's it's the craziest fucking idea.
Speaker 11: It's not.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 5: It's not negotiating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you go into negotiations, you're like, I'm probably not
Speaker 4: gonna get what I want.
Speaker 3: We're gonna try and get the best we can.
Speaker 5: And he's just like, how much can I fucking hurt you?
Speaker 2: And usually you give me if you spend enough time
Speaker 2: like I do around like gun culture. People on the
Speaker 2: right in particular, there's these folks who like usually have
Speaker 2: never done anything like in the military themselves, but they
Speaker 2: read a bunch of like books by Navy seals and shit,
Speaker 2: and they'll say shit like you should have a plan
Speaker 2: to kill everyone in every room you walk into, and
Speaker 2: like their frame is that, like the world's dangerous, you
Speaker 2: gotta be ready. And I think any reasonable person is like, well,
Speaker 2: you are someone who should not have a gun.
Speaker 3: Yes, you should not have a gun. You are out
Speaker 3: of your entire damn mind.
Speaker 5: Like this is a guy who should never be negotiating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely not ready to kill someone. Is like, you
Speaker 2: know what, don't go into rooms. That's just going to
Speaker 2: be your thing. You don't stay anywhere, stay in your house.
Speaker 3: You go to one room. Yeah no, I could.
Speaker 5: I could tell your throat.
Speaker 4: I could come reach across the table, tell your throat
Speaker 4: out and stab you in the eyes with ice picks.
Speaker 5: So I'm just we're just talking about what.
Speaker 3: He just wants ice cream, Dan, He just asked you
Speaker 3: for an ice cream, Dan.
Speaker 2: So Henry gets his gig at the at the CFR,
Speaker 2: and so he's the thing he's producing for the Council
Speaker 2: on Foreign Relations for his buddy the Rockefeller It's supposed
Speaker 2: to be like a report on how the US is
Speaker 2: like should use nuclear weapons different ways in which like
Speaker 2: they could approach it right. And while he's writing this report,
Speaker 2: because it's with this thing takes a very very long
Speaker 2: process getting this out, he also starts working privately on
Speaker 2: a book of his own titled Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.
Speaker 2: And this book is a version of the stuff he
Speaker 2: wants to write. And this thing he's like fighting to
Speaker 2: get out with the cspods. Yeah kind of, but also
Speaker 2: it's actually very smart what he does. Well, it'll take
Speaker 2: us a second to get there. So this book that
Speaker 2: Kissinger writes, that's his own project, criticizes US threats of
Speaker 2: full scale nuclear attack and response to Soviet aggression. Nil
Speaker 2: Ferguson sums it up in this way quote with his
Speaker 2: skill for simplifying and expressing complex ideas, Kissinger put the
Speaker 2: issue starkly. The dilemma of the nuclear period can therefore
Speaker 2: be defined as follows. The enormity of modern weapons makes
Speaker 2: the thought of war repugnant, but the refusal to run
Speaker 2: any risks would amount to giving Soviet rulers a blank check.
Speaker 2: Kissinger's conclusions were not original. The study group at the
Speaker 2: Council was almost unanimous in its desire to find some
Speaker 2: alternative to Eisenhower's stated policy, and many defense intellectuals, most
Speaker 2: notably Ard Brodie and Basil little Heart, had also written
Speaker 2: on the subject of limited nuclear war. Kissinger's book demonstrated
Speaker 2: his talent as a creative synthesizer of their ideas, drawing
Speaker 2: out the implications of their work in arguing that for
Speaker 2: America's Cold War diplomacy to have any real substance, the
Speaker 2: US had to accept the possibility of the limited use
Speaker 2: of nuclear weapons. That Kissinger's own solution of limited nuclear
Speaker 2: war was also highly problematic, was less important to many
Speaker 2: contemporary observers than that it broke free from the straight
Speaker 2: jacket of the Eisenhower administration's policy.
Speaker 4: So, but where does he describe like where you would
Speaker 4: use it is like a tactical battlefield book.
Speaker 2: Is it's like to win battlefield victories? To like in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: he will briefly flirt, well, not even all that briefly,
Speaker 2: but he will consider using nuclear weapons to cut off
Speaker 2: train access between Vietnam and China, which.
Speaker 3: Isn't sane, Like as as a layman, you can cut
Speaker 3: off trains in another way, presumably, right. I mean I've
Speaker 3: seen the General with buster keat and you could throw
Speaker 3: some logs on it.
Speaker 5: There there are these other things called bombs, just bombs.
Speaker 3: Kissinger. Yeah, so it really, I mean it is kind
Speaker 3: of just itchy trigger finger, and it is like, if
Speaker 3: you live in the realm of this sort of dark thinking,
Speaker 3: how are you not going to start, you know, thinking
Speaker 3: of ways that are just even more vicious brutal.
Speaker 4: He's basically saying they need to think we're a chained
Speaker 4: mad dog, and if we you let the dog off
Speaker 4: the leash once and he attacks the postman and then
Speaker 4: and then everyone's going to fucking.
Speaker 3: Know then you don't get the mail anymore. Yeah, then
Speaker 3: you start seeing your mail. We've bombed Japan already, like
Speaker 3: everyard gets it already, mind of course, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like it's this theoretical weapon that's never
Speaker 2: been used and.
Speaker 3: It worked pretty well as far as making people be like,
Speaker 3: god damn, they are out of their minds. Yeah, look crazy,
Speaker 3: oh shit.
Speaker 2: But it's all Also there's a there's a factor here
Speaker 2: a part of me wonders if he even really believed
Speaker 2: about this or cared about whether or not nukes should
Speaker 2: be used tactically, and if it was more a matter
Speaker 2: of this is a big debate of the day, and
Speaker 2: if I publicly take the most contrarian thing intellectuals who
Speaker 2: don't really care about what works, but who care about
Speaker 2: who's thinking creatively, Like right, Like that's the thing. He's like, Well,
Speaker 2: it's not about whether or not his plan would work.
Speaker 2: It's about we're getting out of this straight jacket Eisenhower's
Speaker 2: put us in. And it's like, no, that's not all
Speaker 2: that matters.
Speaker 4: Finally, Yeah, you know, it's really funny, Well just ironic
Speaker 4: about this is the funny fun it. Places like the
Speaker 4: Heritage Foundation for years have been have been saying that
Speaker 4: Prutin would use tactical battlefield nukes, and that's why he's unhinged.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons. Yeah, it's I would say,
Speaker 3: anyone who would do that is crazy. Yeah, imagine keep
Speaker 3: him on as an advisor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's my feeling on nuke's. Don't shoot them
Speaker 2: at people ever?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, its bad.
Speaker 2: Maybe an Independence Day kind of situation. I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: when I watch Independence Day, I think, yeah, I might
Speaker 2: shoot some news. I might at that point try a
Speaker 2: nuker too. Yeah, but you have Randy Quaid I do.
Speaker 2: I do hang out with him a lot. That's my
Speaker 2: main plan. If things go wrong, Randy get on the plane.
Speaker 2: He lives in my basement.
Speaker 3: That actually tracks from the Instagram videos I've been seeing.
Speaker 2: So Kissinger's book was published in nineteen fifty seven, and
Speaker 2: it almost immediately sold seventeen thousand copies, which is a
Speaker 2: lot for a wonky book on nuclear warfare. It is
Speaker 2: on the New York Times bestseller list for fourteen weeks.
Speaker 3: Wow, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not great.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: He's timing is perfect. He puts this book out right
Speaker 2: as the Soviets make two big advances in Hungary, there's
Speaker 2: like a revolution that they kind of crush, and then
Speaker 2: in the Suez, where like that brings the British and
Speaker 2: the French are like fucking around in the Suez Canal
Speaker 2: and the Soviets are like stop or we'll do something bad,
Speaker 2: and NATO like backs the fuck off. Right, So the
Speaker 2: Soviets have like two big kind of foreign policy wins
Speaker 2: in this period and Americans can't look at this as like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe the fucking NATO shouldn't have been fucking
Speaker 2: around the Suez, and yeah, that shit in Hungry is
Speaker 2: fucked up, but like maybe we can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: They're like, we should listen to the guy who says,
Speaker 2: what if we nuked them, you.
Speaker 3: Know, don't run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's where people go, right, They don't. They
Speaker 2: they're Americans. They don't take the rational route.
Speaker 3: Now, No, they hate us part nuclear freedom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they listened to the crisiest person in the room
Speaker 2: about this. Right, there's a lot of things that you
Speaker 2: can say about both what happened in Hungary and the
Speaker 2: Suez crisis that are not why don't we use nukes
Speaker 2: more often?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: By God, kissing your noses, audience, you know, Kisody writes
Speaker 2: this book, and The New York Times in their review
Speaker 2: of it. Right, For the first time since President Eisenhower
Speaker 2: took office, officials at the highest government levels are displaying
Speaker 2: interest in the theory of the little or limited war.
Speaker 2: The theory of massive retaliation is re examined. I love
Speaker 2: that those are that those go together, those are the options.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it's like the little war is the
Speaker 3: nuclear war, Like it's the baby war for us.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, hand me out, hear me out, baby nukes,
Speaker 4: little tiny nukes.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, it's like if someone's like, look, we got
Speaker 2: to decide if one of which of these is going
Speaker 2: to be legal Sarah nerve gas bombs for civilians or
Speaker 2: or chlorine gas bombs for civilians. One type of poison
Speaker 2: gas bomb has to be legal, like we all we
Speaker 2: have to have access. Everyone has to be able to
Speaker 2: have one kind of poison gas Two is crazy taste.
Speaker 3: Great?
Speaker 2: What if nobody has those? Oh god, that's not you know,
Speaker 2: that's not where things go here. So President Eisenhower is
Speaker 2: given a summary of Kissinger's book. You know, he's a president.
Speaker 2: They don't they don't read books. Yeah, it's gets Yeah,
Speaker 2: he gets a cliff notes and he recommends it to
Speaker 2: his Secretary of State John Foster Doulas we have talked
Speaker 2: about quite a.
Speaker 3: Lot on God, it was just yeah, I mean, who, like,
Speaker 3: if he's the rational mind.
Speaker 6: If Dulas is being like this, dude seems a little
Speaker 6: out of his mind, big problem, that's yeah, that's not
Speaker 6: great because John Foster Dulas fucking lunatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So the vice president at this point is
Speaker 2: a little dude you might have heard of called Richard
Speaker 2: Millhouse Nixon. He gets photographed with a coffee copy of
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger's book, which is not great. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: actually great, foreshadow, it's just not writing a screenplay.
Speaker 3: This is great.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, this is like season one of the Nixon Show.
Speaker 2: And you just like see him with Kissinger's book, right right, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah right, good television, you know. So the book is
Speaker 2: successful enough that it provokes Rockefeller, who gotten in the
Speaker 2: job at the CFR, to rush out the report that
Speaker 2: Nixon had been or that Kissinger had been making. And yes,
Speaker 2: christ yeah, the report from the CFR concludes, the willingness
Speaker 2: to engage in nuclear war when necessary is part of
Speaker 2: the price of our freedom.
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean the price of our freedom is pretty good.
Speaker 3: Damn price he isn't it? Is it combinsive?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: How can we How can we live if we're not dead?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: How can we live without nuclear fallout?
Speaker 3: It's it's and it's amazing that it like it all
Speaker 3: like I if it was part of his plan or not.
Speaker 3: Like you said, the timing is just pretty remarkable to
Speaker 3: release this book and then it actually shifts the way
Speaker 3: that they view this to me, Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 3: actually he's got a really good point in his best
Speaker 3: selling book about how nukes are cool, how nukes are sweet.
Speaker 3: You know I am.
Speaker 2: I am excited for Ben Shapiro's book on the same
Speaker 2: subject to lead to the annihilation of the whole life.
Speaker 3: Yeah wait, I'm gonna live underground. So that's a good
Speaker 3: idea to you.
Speaker 2: So this report is a weird like weirdly popular like again,
Speaker 2: this is a report from the Center or from the CFR,
Speaker 2: from the Council on Foreign Relations, which is like not
Speaker 2: you don't expect that to go viral?
Speaker 3: Right, you know you read this pamphlet. Have you read
Speaker 3: this study by the CFR.
Speaker 5: I mean, you can never let you down when you're like, oh,
Speaker 5: that won't happen, that won't happen, that won't.
Speaker 3: Go Yeah right it does. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Rockefeller actually goes on the Today Show to talk
Speaker 2: about this report the CFR.
Speaker 3: Wither, I know, it's amazing Macaroni castrole.
Speaker 2: So next, so he gives people of the Today Show
Speaker 2: an address where they can write for a copy of
Speaker 2: this report. No, they get forty five thousand requests the
Speaker 2: first day and.
Speaker 3: The next Hell's post office is over.
Speaker 11: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the media US media called this report quote the
Speaker 2: answer to Sputnik, which is like, hey, the Russian sent
Speaker 2: sent an unarmed ball into space to further exploration. We
Speaker 2: should this book about how everyone should be nuking everyone.
Speaker 2: It's the answer to that.
Speaker 3: We're thinking that this report on nuclear weapons will actually
Speaker 3: show the Russians that to not go to space. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's space. If you get rid of Russias, I can't
Speaker 3: go to space. Do you understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it is it's worth noting because I think,
Speaker 2: like in our popular history, the answer to Sputnik is
Speaker 2: the Apollo missions and its frame beauty, which you know
Speaker 2: did eventually happen. But no, the first answer to Sputnik
Speaker 2: was a report about how we should be nuking each
Speaker 2: other more often.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get they put a ball in the orbit,
Speaker 4: so we should we should blow up SAT.
Speaker 2: We should be ready to drop thirteen nuclear warheads on
Speaker 2: Berlin at a second's notice.
Speaker 3: That's what I showed them.
Speaker 2: So this makes Henry Kissinger famous. He is all over
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 3: This is his This is how we become famous.
Speaker 4: Want some guy, some guys watch the today show when
Speaker 4: he buys the books, so we can tell everybody at the.
Speaker 5: Elks Club that we need to use nukes.
Speaker 3: Someone's happening. Give this accountant a soccer ball. Some people
Speaker 3: get famous because their dad is one of oj Simpson's lawyers.
Speaker 2: Some people get famous because they write a book about
Speaker 2: how nuclear warfare.
Speaker 3: It is not that bad. Uh huh, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just in fame. It's a crapshoot. Absolutely fuck.
Speaker 4: I mean, imagine being an anti nuke person at this point,
Speaker 4: you're just like, wait, what is going on?
Speaker 3: Have you read the report? It's so good. We're gonna
Speaker 3: show them if what they should not be going to space.
Speaker 2: Yeah, next time they put a satellite up, we're gonna
Speaker 2: kill everyone in Paraguay.
Speaker 3: What we need to do is a radiated country.
Speaker 2: So on July fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight, Mike Wallace gives
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger his first big break into the public sphere.
Speaker 3: So many what happened? It really is, it really is
Speaker 3: just fucking disgusting because I go through this all the
Speaker 3: time on our show, where I'm like, it is the
Speaker 3: same shit. But again, it's just media using its plats
Speaker 3: irresponsibly to normalize things. That are fucking batship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's great, Like sixty minutes having a fucking whole
Speaker 4: segment on the havana fucking.
Speaker 3: Sound it's come on, Dave, you know that's real. I
Speaker 3: suffered from that for two years, those crickets. Oh man.
Speaker 2: I will say, like, the stupidest joke that I laugh
Speaker 2: at every time is, yeah, I got havana syndrome. Having
Speaker 2: another beer never doesn't get a chuckle out of me.
Speaker 5: But we've done.
Speaker 4: We've had sixty minutes. Come on, sixty minutes. Did the
Speaker 4: uh the uh satanic scare shit? Well, yeah, they were
Speaker 4: big lots dandles, like they just run with ideas that
Speaker 4: are crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There, I mean because for people who are at the
Speaker 2: level Mike Wallace is, the definition of journalist is not
Speaker 2: afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. It's be a
Speaker 2: giant shithead. Yeah right, be a huge shihead.
Speaker 3: Man. Oh man.
Speaker 2: So Mike Wallace introduces Henry Kissinger, the guy whose one
Speaker 2: achievement is a book about how nukes are cool. By
Speaker 2: saying this, in the field of foreign policy and military affairs,
Speaker 2: doctor Kissinger, you're acknowledged to be one of the most
Speaker 2: penetrating minds in the country.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's penetrating.
Speaker 2: He is penetrating like an Atlas missile penetrates the cloud
Speaker 2: cover above a city full of women and children.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2: Now, during the interview, Kissinger expressed that quote a capitalist society,
Speaker 2: or what is more interesting to me, a free society,
Speaker 2: is a more revolutionary phenomenon than nineteenth century socialism. I
Speaker 2: think we should go on the spiritual offensive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the spiritual with a nuclear extension with Lukes. Yes,
Speaker 3: so he's connecting, he's connecting. You know, the two options
Speaker 3: nineteenth century socialist capitalism or the current day capitalism and nukes.
Speaker 3: Those are the options. Yeah. And Mike Wallace just empty
Speaker 3: headedly sits there and goes like, I really love your property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just smiles in behind his eyes as a dial tone.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So this earns him finally the job at Harvard that
Speaker 2: he'd coveted.
Speaker 3: This is why they give him. Shut, shut the fuck up.
Speaker 3: It was ever simple. I can't I.
Speaker 4: Cannot get over how fucking evil Harvard is. It's so good,
Speaker 4: it is monstrous from it's the best. It is a
Speaker 4: horrific some of us with their asshole.
Speaker 2: Anti Harvard action. So he gets his Harvard job, and
Speaker 2: he keeps writing. In nineteen sixty one, taking a heart.
Speaker 3: What's he doing at Harvard?
Speaker 2: He's like teaching some shit, you know, Kissinger stuff type classes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: talking about Spangler a lot.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Nukes are awesome too, Nukes are awesome. Freedom is requires
Speaker 2: an absence of morality, teaching kids good stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: teaching kids good things. So in nineteen sixty one he
Speaker 2: publishes a book titled The Necessity of Choice, which is
Speaker 2: his manifesto on how the United States should approach foreign
Speaker 2: policy in the nineteen sixties. It is not an optimistic
Speaker 2: piece of writing. Quote, the United States cannot afford another
Speaker 2: decline like the one which has characterized the past decade
Speaker 2: and a half fifteen years of more of a deterioration
Speaker 2: of our position in the world such as we've experienced
Speaker 2: since World War Two, would find us reduced to fortress
Speaker 2: America in a world in which we had become largely irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Our margin of survival has narrowed dangerously.
Speaker 5: What in the fuck is he talking about?
Speaker 2: Well, America influence. No, this is like the high of
Speaker 2: American power. Obviously, yeah to anyone who's not, but Kissinger
Speaker 2: is he knows this is bullshit. He is part of
Speaker 2: a group of people who are pushing Have you guys
Speaker 2: heard the term missile gap?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: In the the early stages of the Kennedy administration, there
Speaker 2: is suddenly this huge and this is both like in
Speaker 2: conversations that people are having in DC and in like
Speaker 2: the media. There's this constant talk of a missile gap,
Speaker 2: this idea that these Soviets have outpaced us in missile
Speaker 2: development and in the number of missiles they have, and
Speaker 2: there's talking about like there's bomber gaps, there's tank gaps,
Speaker 2: there's talk about like these gaps between this idea that
Speaker 2: is totally bullshit. Like not that the Soviets have not
Speaker 2: made a lot of weapons, so he makes plenty of weapons,
Speaker 2: but the United there is no point in the Cold
Speaker 2: War in which the United States is like out fucking
Speaker 2: gunned to any degree that like has it could be
Speaker 2: anyone reasonable could call like a missile gap.
Speaker 3: It just does not happen. It feels like we're still
Speaker 3: responding to that today to be like, do do first
Speaker 3: by a log shot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, it's it's it's this, it's it's this,
Speaker 2: it's not I would say on him, but it's very
Speaker 2: reasonable because the argument comes primarily out of the Defense
Speaker 2: Department and the growing defense industry, who it's great for
Speaker 2: them if everyone thinks there's a missile.
Speaker 3: Gap, like of course, yeah, you got to build a
Speaker 3: lot more weapons. We'll sell them to you. I thought
Speaker 3: it was the place you could get Khaki's on your rockets.
Speaker 3: But you have a missile gap.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, a welcome.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Question. I'm sorry, you know what, Yes,
Speaker 3: actually this is time for an ad break.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you're looking for a way to
Speaker 2: dress up your RNI and X knife missile before firing
Speaker 2: it into some guy's car, check out the missile gap.
Speaker 3: We are back.
Speaker 2: So it's bullshit, the idea of the missile gap. And
Speaker 2: Kissinger is smart enough to know this, but he is
Speaker 2: one of the major proponents. He's not one of the
Speaker 2: there's other guys who are more influential pushing it, like
Speaker 2: actually within the halls of power, right, because he's not
Speaker 2: super within the halls of power yet, but he is.
Speaker 2: He's all over TV and shit, like he's guy that
Speaker 2: you call now, Like once you get in the rolodex
Speaker 2: of media people, you stay there, you.
Speaker 4: Know, he's the nuke guy you want to he's the
Speaker 4: other guy, a positive nuke guy. There's people that you
Speaker 4: gonna get the negative nuke guy in.
Speaker 2: The positive nuke guy, and he's the guy who says
Speaker 2: we don't have enough. You know, the thing, we've ever
Speaker 2: not had enough of nuclear weapons. He is a big
Speaker 2: part of why we have so many fucking nukes and
Speaker 2: why the Russians have so many fucking nukes because once
Speaker 2: the US, like, once you start this, like we have
Speaker 2: to build a lot more nukes, They're gonna build even
Speaker 2: more nukes, and like then you're gonna get to build
Speaker 2: any more nukes because you can say they built so
Speaker 2: many more nukes, we don't have enough nukes now, and
Speaker 2: then you wind up put like twelve thousand of them
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: I have a name for that, I can. I've come
Speaker 3: over right now. Nuclear arms race. That's cool.
Speaker 2: That's that's a neat one. We should finally a term
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 3: We should nuke him. I mean that would just be
Speaker 3: like the one thing I would one made it, just
Speaker 3: nuke him one if the dam Crockett handheld missile watcher
Speaker 3: sweating every wee could do.
Speaker 4: What about just a little a little tiny nuke that
Speaker 4: we shoot into him explodes, But it's just a little guy, Kissinger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're nuclear weapon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he would just ingest it and go I
Speaker 3: am no, I'm bigger and more upset it is.
Speaker 2: It is amazing to think about how seriously this guy
Speaker 2: gets treated by everyone immediately, and how much influence he's
Speaker 2: allowed to have on an incredibly dangerous thing. And this
Speaker 2: is the same guy who got tricked by Farranos, the
Speaker 2: same nude he gets winked by the fake blood lady
Speaker 2: in the turtleneck. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. So uh, Kissinger is is not Again,
Speaker 2: he doesn't come up with the idea of the missile gap,
Speaker 2: but he's like a very influential voice in pushing this idea. Right,
Speaker 2: he's a he's a part of this. So he doesn't
Speaker 2: get there if we could out honestly do a whole
Speaker 2: episode on like why there's so many fucking nukes that
Speaker 2: this would be a part of. But he is, he's
Speaker 2: a factor in this massive arms build up, and he
Speaker 2: also starts, uh, but but he's also like he's he's
Speaker 2: just doing this for careerism. Reasons because it like gets
Speaker 2: him in good with people who are in power. And
Speaker 2: part of how you know that is that Kennedy not
Speaker 2: a guy I'll give a lot of credit to. But
Speaker 2: one of the things Kennedy says is that, like limited
Speaker 2: nuclear war is insane. Like fuck you, Henry Kissinger. He
Speaker 2: doesn't say that, but he it. It gets made clear
Speaker 2: the connections that Kissinger has in the in the Kennedy
Speaker 2: administration make it clear that like JFK does not buy
Speaker 2: your attitudes on limited nuclear war.
Speaker 3: And so he.
Speaker 2: Stops talking about that. He wants to become part He
Speaker 2: doesn't believe in shit, but he wants to be in
Speaker 2: the JFK administration, Right, so he stops pushing this thing
Speaker 2: that makes him famous and saying other shit because he'll
Speaker 2: get it'll get him closer to power. And that's all
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger really cares about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I wonder if, like the Today Show is
Speaker 5: calling up.
Speaker 4: And he's like, you know, I'm not really doing nukes anymore.
Speaker 3: No, he comes on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the quote I'm gonna quote actually from Nia Ferguson
Speaker 2: here he explains like what he starts doing on the
Speaker 2: Today Show. Yeah, Kissinger now advocated a conventional arms build up,
Speaker 2: since the dividing line between conventional and nuclear weapons is
Speaker 2: more familiar and therefore easier to maintain. He continued to
Speaker 2: insist that the United States developed smaller nuclear weapons, but
Speaker 2: he moved his own position to where he thought Kennedy's was.
Speaker 2: In effect, the necessity of choice was something of a
Speaker 2: job application, and Kissinger hoped Kennedy would make an offer. So, like, again,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't really, I mean, it's it's just Marjorie
Speaker 2: Taylor Green.
Speaker 3: I mean it is the same shit essentially, And it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, the sensationalism that gets you the headlines and
Speaker 3: then once you're fail, it's any it's really any form
Speaker 3: of our pop culture entertainment. Now, just get your name
Speaker 3: in the fucking headlines and then define who you are
Speaker 3: and then you can like figure out what you actually
Speaker 3: think and actually believe or how you're going to ride
Speaker 3: that to power. Yeah, just make a bang. It's the
Speaker 3: it is it.
Speaker 2: It is like the political equivalent of a comedian like
Speaker 2: saying a racial slur and then listening to the audience
Speaker 2: to determine whether or not they're joking.
Speaker 3: Like that's what he's doing. He's it's yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean show up to a club, take your dick out,
Speaker 3: and then right your hour. Yeah, it's called it's uh
Speaker 3: luisyk backwards. It's the it's the Casey. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to figure out what.
Speaker 9: The back.
Speaker 2: Casey Casey Sewell yeh. So this he does not get
Speaker 2: exactly what he wants, but he gets part of what
Speaker 2: he wants. His buddy, uh Notlson Rockefeller is able to
Speaker 2: give him a part time consulting gig for the National
Speaker 2: Security Advisor. So it's not but it's not everything he wants,
Speaker 2: but he is now he's he has like he you know,
Speaker 2: like you start your way in and it's unless you
Speaker 2: really fuck up. And by fuck up, I mean don't
Speaker 2: get a lot of people killed. You'll just get closer
Speaker 2: and closer to power because that's how our system works.
Speaker 2: So you know, Kissinger is is obviously very conservative. Rockefeller
Speaker 2: is not. Again, he's part of the Kennedy administration. This
Speaker 2: is what I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I we'll talk.
Speaker 2: We're actually we're going to talk a shitload about that
Speaker 2: over the next couple of episodes, because this is like
Speaker 2: a consistent weird thing about him. But like One of
Speaker 2: the things Kissinger does is he oils Rockefeller with effusive
Speaker 2: claims that Kennedy's inaugural speech, which Rockefeller had helped with,
Speaker 2: was so good he quote might become a registered Democrat, Right,
Speaker 2: that's the kind of shit. He says that, like, I'm
Speaker 2: almost a Democrat now because how good JFK.
Speaker 3: Speech was so good.
Speaker 2: He doesn't believe in ship like I can't overemphasize that
Speaker 2: other than that, Henry Kissinger should be very close to power.
Speaker 2: He believes strongly in that, and he believes in that
Speaker 2: as much as anyone's ever believed in the Bible.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: He does not believe in ideas.
Speaker 3: Birthday to the President. I saw what Maryland did and
Speaker 3: testament sometimes the president.
Speaker 2: Would you like to see where they call me Kissinger? Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm standing over this event and look at what they're
Speaker 2: doing to my book. See that's the fan art. I
Speaker 2: would have him kiss just like trying to fuck JFK
Speaker 2: with every bit of charm in his German body.
Speaker 3: Oh dude, nobody told me Subway go over vent Look
Speaker 3: at this, You're going to see everything goes nuke.
Speaker 2: So JFK is eventually assassinated by Bernard Montgomery s and
Speaker 2: LBJ takes over. Oh yeah, I mean history is a
Speaker 2: read this banquet. I've got a pamphlet for you myself.
Speaker 3: That's my length.
Speaker 2: So LBJ is the president now and and LBJ is
Speaker 2: like between LGMJK. It's like a decade you know that
Speaker 2: the Democrats are in power, and LBJ is very good
Speaker 2: at exercising power. Right, And he's also super into Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 2: He's not against Henry Kissinger either, but Henry kind of
Speaker 2: is kept in this weird like he's on the margins
Speaker 2: of power during this period of time, right finally, which
Speaker 2: is yeah, well not really because while he's there's no breath,
Speaker 2: there's there's no breath, there's good to hear. While he's
Speaker 2: kind of on the not you know, on the margins,
Speaker 2: he's able to build connections with as many Republican lawmakers
Speaker 2: and their aids as he does with Democrats, right, Like
Speaker 2: that's what he's doing while he's doing these like part
Speaker 2: time gigs with the NSC and stuff, is he's he's
Speaker 2: making friends with everybody he can. There is nobody.
Speaker 5: He's just networker, like he is just a supreme networker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, there is so.
Speaker 2: Much when I was a kid in speech and debate,
Speaker 2: one of the other kids in the debate team with
Speaker 2: me was obsessed with Kissinger, like read his books and stuff,
Speaker 2: thought held and this was this thing that I heard
Speaker 2: too from like family members and stuff that like, well
Speaker 2: he was you know, he wasn't always right, but it
Speaker 2: was he was doing the hardest job anyone's ever had,
Speaker 2: and he was just this really genius man and you
Speaker 2: can't really argue with him if you read about what
Speaker 2: he was saying, and it's like, no, he.
Speaker 3: Didn't believe in shit he was.
Speaker 2: He was a genius at making people like him, and
Speaker 2: that allowed him to horrible things. Yeah, which I guess,
Speaker 2: like anyone who's really dangerous in politics is that's as
Speaker 2: a version of that guy, right, Like yeah, like that's
Speaker 2: that's all of them. But he's he's an interesting kind
Speaker 2: of that guy and as a result, probably the most
Speaker 2: toxic kind of that guy we've ever had in the
Speaker 2: United States. Wow, which is saying something really bad, but yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: he makes all these connections, he cultivates them, and he
Speaker 2: keeps his name in the news. Right, That's a big
Speaker 2: part of why he's able to do what he is.
Speaker 2: Later he keeps going on TV, keeps being on the radio,
Speaker 2: He keeps being quoted and like cited and interviewed by
Speaker 2: journalists for articles. Henry makes it known that, like, if
Speaker 2: you're a journalist, I'm easy to reach you. Always give
Speaker 2: you a quote. You can always reach Henry Kissinger for
Speaker 2: like a line or two on this thing, you know,
Speaker 2: which is very smart of him. It's very dumb and
Speaker 2: shameful and uh uh horrible for the journalists.
Speaker 3: Yeah him, but like, yeah, God that they've learned. God,
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen anymore now.
Speaker 2: I turned to the New York Times story published today
Speaker 2: that described Nazis assaulting a book club as men with
Speaker 2: a swastika flag. Someone pointed out, well, the article calls
Speaker 2: them Nazis. It's just all of the social media they
Speaker 2: described them that way. And I was like, oh, I
Speaker 2: can't explain to you why I feel worse about that,
Speaker 2: but I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was not just that. It was not just
Speaker 3: the dumb error. It was calculus. Yeah, yeah, moral calculus.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, moral calculus, right, good, good ship. So the
Speaker 2: professor cultivates connections, Yeah, he gets good. He also he
Speaker 2: goes to Vietnam at one point and he makes connections
Speaker 2: with a bunch of people in Vietnam who were able
Speaker 2: to to not just the South but the North Vietnamese government.
Speaker 2: Like that's the thing he consciously does is like I
Speaker 2: want to be able to like be able to take
Speaker 2: the temperature of like guys, which is not like I
Speaker 2: would say, actually, like the most reasonable thing he does.
Speaker 2: If you think you're going to be in power, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's good you you probably want to be able to
Speaker 2: talk to those guys. Even though we're fighting with him.
Speaker 2: That's not an unreasonable thing. He will use it badly, Right,
Speaker 2: Who's he's doing that on the part of just himself? Yeah,
Speaker 2: what well he is working, he has a gig with
Speaker 2: the guy he's like an advisor to the National Security Council,
Speaker 2: and he's a known academic. You know, he's probably being like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm an academic. I'm trying to understand the
Speaker 2: dimensions of this and like I want to talk to everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm a very fair minded man. I don't let ideology
Speaker 2: get in the way. YadA YadA, YadA. Like one of
Speaker 2: the things about Henry Kissinger too, like he's as good
Speaker 2: he can he's he's fucking his buddies with Mao. Like,
Speaker 2: he's great at talking with people who are communists and stuff.
Speaker 2: As long as you like Henry Kissinger and what he's selling,
Speaker 2: he'll sell it to anybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so crazy. It's wild that like he might
Speaker 3: he must have eyes that just start spinning in h
Speaker 3: Like you just have to get close to notice that
Speaker 3: he's got hypnotic eyes. You're like, oh, he isn't so
Speaker 3: bad now that I'm taking him.
Speaker 2: You know, let's think about Vietnam for a second. Right,
Speaker 2: if you're going to war in Vietnam, Gareth, Right, if
Speaker 2: you decide how to go, Gareth Reynolds, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go to war in Vietnam. How long do you think
Speaker 2: it would take you to realize that was a bad idea?
Speaker 3: It would be I mean, I Gareth Reynolds, it would
Speaker 3: be instantaneous, very quickly, very quickly. I mean it's David. Yeah,
Speaker 3: can I okay?
Speaker 4: Can I just can I ask a question?
Speaker 3: Which side am I fighting on? The not Vietnamese site? Okay?
Speaker 3: Then really quick? Yeah, really quick. I feel like you could.
Speaker 3: I feel like you could. You could take Vietnam, David,
Speaker 3: Dave going to see it the night they're not going
Speaker 3: to see it coming. I would certainly be the guy
Speaker 3: who they'd be like, we broke him. We broke him
Speaker 3: before we even shouted at him. I'm sorry. I didn't
Speaker 3: mean to show up with pants that were already pissed in.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: I know one thing about me, and that's that if
Speaker 4: things got really, really chaotic and bad, that I I
Speaker 4: kind of thrive in that environment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd be like, Dave, we don't have time to
Speaker 3: eat their brains. He'd be like, shut up, I'm figuring
Speaker 3: out what they know. It's like Doctor Manhattan ending the
Speaker 3: Vietnam War.
Speaker 2: Both sides surrendered to Dave in the mid sixties, which
Speaker 2: is fairly early on considering how late the Vietnam War goes.
Speaker 2: It is clear to people, especially a lot of people
Speaker 2: protesting in the United States, they're like, oh shit, this
Speaker 2: ain't going.
Speaker 3: Great, right, Like, it's not hard for people.
Speaker 2: There are people who buy into the US propaganda, but
Speaker 2: like people who are actually privy to information on the
Speaker 2: war are aware that it is not going well. Kissinger
Speaker 2: still decides we should escalate things. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: quote again from Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Brandon. Upon returning
Speaker 2: from his first visit to South Vietnam, and late nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five, Kissinger threw himself into a campaign to build
Speaker 2: public support for ongoing intervention. In early December, he joined
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty nine other scholars from Harvard, Yale,
Speaker 2: and fifteen other New England universities in an open letter
Speaker 2: expressing confidence that Johnson's policies would help quote people South
Speaker 2: Vietnam determine their own destiny. Vietcom victory will spell disasters,
Speaker 2: said the letter. Then later that month, he led a
Speaker 2: Harvard team against a group of Oxford opponents of the war,
Speaker 2: and a debate held in Great Britain and broadcast nationally
Speaker 2: in the United States on CBS. Kissinger passionately defended the
Speaker 2: bombing of northern Vietnam, insisting that it was not a
Speaker 2: violation of international law. He invoked the analogy of World
Speaker 2: War Two, saying Washington's actions in Indo China were as
Speaker 2: righteous and justified as they were in Nazi Germany. Bob Schroum,
Speaker 2: who went on to become a Democratic political consultant, was
Speaker 2: on Kissinger's team and says that when he today watches
Speaker 2: a recording of the of the debate, he is quote
Speaker 2: amazed by two things. How young we look, even Kissinger,
Speaker 2: and how wrong we were. So first off, I bought Kissinger,
Speaker 2: you don't feel bad enough. I don't know how bad
Speaker 2: you feel about this.
Speaker 3: It's not enough. Your first reaction be like, god, we
Speaker 3: were kids, were young, we were young.
Speaker 2: There's like some Vietnam these dude next to him thinking
Speaker 2: about like bomb's race down on the jungle and.
Speaker 3: Cross feedback. We had Kissinger, Oh my god, it's joelous.
Speaker 3: Heck yeah, he's only got one jowl at that time.
Speaker 3: That's before he got the eight Our hair looked so stupid?
Speaker 3: Am I right?
Speaker 4: Am I?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 3: Where did your legs go? By the way, before Henry
Speaker 3: Kissinger looked like weird science.
Speaker 2: After things go wrong, it's amazing, like and it's it's
Speaker 2: there's a lot in that paragraph both like of course,
Speaker 2: when the debate starts to build, like should we escalate
Speaker 2: this nightmarish war? The first thing, one of the first
Speaker 2: things that happens is that a bunch of fucking New
Speaker 2: England universities decided to have a debate about it. Right, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: that's the right, Like, let's let everyone here, let's have
Speaker 2: the best arguments of both.
Speaker 3: Sides about whether or not behinds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, first off, fuck everyone involved in this, even
Speaker 2: the people arguing against the wall a little bit like
Speaker 2: just don't do that's the premist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the premiss it's bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Less so certainly, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe like it made sense, there's a virgins debating which
Speaker 3: position is the best to fucking why is this instead
Speaker 3: of the debate like hey, why are we there? Like
Speaker 3: really why? Sorry, that's we're not we're not debating that,
Speaker 3: we're not asking that. It's not the debate, and it is.
Speaker 2: Again, it's like and you can see just about how
Speaker 2: comprehensively wrong these people are that like number one, this
Speaker 2: idea that this will help the people of South Vietnam
Speaker 2: determine their own destiny, which is, the South Vietnamese government
Speaker 2: was a dictatorship the entire time the war was going on.
Speaker 2: It's not any more democratic in any meaningful sense than
Speaker 2: than the Northern Vietnam. And also like a Vietcong victory
Speaker 2: will spell disasters, Like there's plenty of things to criticize
Speaker 2: the Vietnamese government for, but like broadly on an international level,
Speaker 2: it's fine. The country seems seems to be doing all right,
Speaker 2: like better than a lot of places. It's fine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: did pretty good job at COVID, like you know it did.
Speaker 2: It didn't seem like a disaster. Maybe if we hadn't
Speaker 2: killed five million people, things would be even better. It
Speaker 2: seems like it couldn't hurt.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Again, they're wrong about everything. Like Kissinger in this period,
Speaker 2: everything that he said, like that'sz he has, this reputation
Speaker 2: is such an intellectual titan, and he's like so constantly
Speaker 2: fucking wrong.
Speaker 3: But he didn't bring up there's always like yeah.
Speaker 4: It's the same as today, all of these people that
Speaker 4: are constantly fucking wrong. Just yeah, keep on getting positions
Speaker 4: of power and being media and they're always fucking wrong.
Speaker 2: And there's this shit like people will will bring up
Speaker 2: like whoa, but there's this nuclear arms treaty he helped make,
Speaker 2: and there's this like peace deal he negotiated in the
Speaker 2: Middle East and like all of these things like yeah,
Speaker 2: but that was like two percent of the shit that
Speaker 2: he did, and it was largely because other people that
Speaker 2: he wanted to stay in good with were pushing for
Speaker 2: that kind of shit too, like Henry Kissinger. Whenever he
Speaker 2: has expressed an idea that is his legitimate idea is
Speaker 2: like really really disastrously wrong. Yeah, amazing, Yeah, fuck it,
Speaker 2: nobody cares, Yeah, nobody cares. He's gotta get to invest
Speaker 2: in Therano still as opposed to being the one victory,
Speaker 2: the one victory we want to that's why we should
Speaker 2: pardon her. Yeah, yeah, look, you stole a lot of money,
Speaker 2: but you made Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: We're gonna release you to come up with another scheme
Speaker 3: to take more money from this bag of ship. You
Speaker 3: don't get to.
Speaker 2: Make a company anymore, but we're gonna have cameras fall.
Speaker 2: Think of you, Frank Show. Have you seen punked?
Speaker 3: You can't. It's just every week for a Kissinger.
Speaker 2: You're gonna put on mustaches and like fake wigs, and
Speaker 2: you're just gonna try.
Speaker 3: To find telling me this is a way for me
Speaker 3: to get a longer spine. I mean, popcorn has zero calories.
Speaker 3: I'm here.
Speaker 4: But you know it's about that story. Is that she's
Speaker 4: a younger female kissinger. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. She's
Speaker 4: like blood kissing. Everyone was super into her, and she
Speaker 4: was just saying whatever people wanted to hear, and like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it's amazing because there's there's the good grifters
Speaker 2: and the evil ones. We just finished our four parterre
Speaker 2: on the Tzar and talked about the fact that, like
Speaker 2: before Respute and there was another spiritualist grifter who pretended
Speaker 2: to talk to like ghosts and stuff named Philippe, who
Speaker 2: like got a bunch of money for them, tricked the
Speaker 2: Tsarina into thinking she was pregnant, and then bounced with
Speaker 2: a bunch of their money. And the last thing he
Speaker 2: did before he left was like, I'm gonna come back
Speaker 2: in another form as another spiritual he should trust whatever
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 3: Very funny.
Speaker 2: Took all the money and ran, and when he died,
Speaker 2: it was found out that he had been paying for
Speaker 2: the mortgages and rentals of like fifty two impoverished families.
Speaker 2: Like the perfect guy, like the opposite of Kissing. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: just taking money from the tsar to help pour people out.
Speaker 3: What a dude.
Speaker 2: Great if he showed up again, Yeah yeah, let's put
Speaker 2: that guy in front of Kissinger, see what he can do.
Speaker 2: So in private, Kissinger admitted already, while he is doing
Speaker 2: all this, while he's a part of this big debate,
Speaker 2: you know, while he's taking the side that we should
Speaker 2: escalate in private. In his conversations, he admits to his
Speaker 2: friends that Vietnam is an unwinnable disaster of a war.
Speaker 3: Oh my fucking god. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He defended it in public though, because there was at
Speaker 2: least a fifty percent chance the Democrats were going to
Speaker 2: stay in power after the next election. That is, he
Speaker 2: he didn't want to give up on the chance of
Speaker 2: having a job.
Speaker 3: You know, I think a lot of times you just
Speaker 3: you do. I guess he's a little different because he's
Speaker 3: such a shape shifter. Yeah, you know, there, I think,
Speaker 3: And it's just the way we are. You are, like,
Speaker 3: they can't just be that base evil. Yeah, he sure can.
Speaker 3: He yeah, m hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's something.
Speaker 4: It's something I was thinking about with climate change, is
Speaker 4: that people can't wraps around the fact that there might
Speaker 4: be a significant portion of rich people in control who
Speaker 4: actually want everybody to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, or at least don't care, because what really
Speaker 2: matters is like maintaining their level of relative power to
Speaker 2: everyone else.
Speaker 3: What are they going to do? Call themselves out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cool. So obviously it's one of those things.
Speaker 2: I don't actually know that he really believed that Vietnam
Speaker 2: was a disaster because he may have been lying to
Speaker 2: his friends when he said that because he wants to
Speaker 2: keep like he wants to keep a bridge to the
Speaker 2: other side open, you know, like it's impossible to say
Speaker 2: because he's fucking Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: Is it possible there's two Kissingers? Yes, Okay, what if
Speaker 3: there's six? Am they ever touched Cambodia will be oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the fact that Kissinger in private be like, yeah, Vietnam,
Speaker 2: what a fuck up, and in public would be like,
Speaker 2: let me bing Shapiro about Vietnam tea win. This that
Speaker 2: really pissed off a lot of his friends, including the
Speaker 2: political scientist Hans Morgenthau. Kissinger had admitted to Morgan Thou
Speaker 2: that the or was unwinnable, unwinnable, even while he continued
Speaker 2: to go on in the media and advocate expanded saturation bombing.
Speaker 2: Morgan Thou found this deeply disappointing, but Henry was increasingly
Speaker 2: tailoring his public statements to the ear of a man
Speaker 2: who was already a fan of his work, Richard Millhouse Nixon.
Speaker 2: Can we get like, yeah, some sound effects, A lightning
Speaker 2: whips across the stream and a screen.
Speaker 10: A wolf House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, incomes the.
Speaker 2: Which we will do a whole Nixon episode one of
Speaker 2: these days. A lot of our Kissinger's series will also
Speaker 2: be about Nixon, because you can't unwrap the two men, you.
Speaker 12: Know, you can't.
Speaker 2: So there are two Kissingers. Yeah, one of them is
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon. So by the end of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: as the presidential race between Vice President Hubert Humphrey and
Speaker 2: former Vice President Richard Nixon heats up, Kissinger's profile had
Speaker 2: raised enough that he was seen as the front runner
Speaker 2: for a serious foreign policy job in either potential administration.
Speaker 3: Time went on either Yeah, he's got a gig, no
Speaker 3: matter what, Baby, It's just he's the raytheon of people.
Speaker 2: So as time goes on, though, he increasingly leans towards Nixon,
Speaker 2: which surprises his friends, whom he had told, quote, Richard
Speaker 2: Nixon is the most dangerous of all the men running
Speaker 2: to have his president.
Speaker 3: But I want him to give me a gig. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I need job.
Speaker 2: So he was heartbroken when his friend Rockefeller lost to Nixon,
Speaker 2: and he commented, now the Republican Party is a disaster
Speaker 2: and Nixon is not fit to be president.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, and over and oh this was they
Speaker 4: said about regular about Bush.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, it's always the same calculus. This is true.
Speaker 2: But Kissinger didn't let his complete contempt for Nixon stop
Speaker 2: him from trying to get a job with the man.
Speaker 2: To explain why, here's the New Yorker. It took Kissinger's
Speaker 2: close contemporary, the political theorist Sheldon Wolan, another son of
Speaker 2: Jewish immigras, who fought in the War and studied at
Speaker 2: Harvard with William Yandel Elliott, to fully dissect Kissinger's careerist
Speaker 2: and sincts. On the surface, Wollant observed, Kissinger would have
Speaker 2: appeared a mismatch for the anti elitist Nixon, but the
Speaker 2: pairing was perfect. Nixon needed someone who could elevate his
Speaker 2: opportunism to a higher plane of purpose and make him
Speaker 2: feel like a great figure in the drama of history.
Speaker 2: As Wolan wrote, what could have been more comforting to
Speaker 2: that barren and inarticulate soul than to hear the authoritative
Speaker 2: voice of doctor Kissinger, who spoke so often and knowingly
Speaker 2: about the meaning of history.
Speaker 3: Ugh, I mean, it's just an empty sack and an
Speaker 3: evil sack, and the evil sacks like I can feel you. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: somebody's gonna off. Somebody's gonna load me with something. He's
Speaker 3: not gonna do it. Put all that black pile down astonomy, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Oh boy, Gareth, he doesn't call him Hank, but
Speaker 2: we'll get to that later.
Speaker 3: How come on this panky. It's a lot worse than that, Garethright, So, in.
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty eight, the Johnson administration was carrying out an
Speaker 2: extensive series of negotiations between South and North Vietnam and
Speaker 2: an attempt to secure an end to the war. LBJ
Speaker 2: wants credit for his legacy, right, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: give LBJ credit for like caring about human death and suffering,
Speaker 2: because he's also a monster.
Speaker 9: Yea.
Speaker 2: No, not trying to make him seem good by comparison,
Speaker 2: But he sees ending the war both as a way
Speaker 2: Tolke I want to go out on a good note.
Speaker 2: And also this is going to if he could, if
Speaker 2: he could even secure a significant like ceasefire, that would
Speaker 2: help Humphrey get reelected. Right, because nobody's in the US
Speaker 2: is very pro the Vietnam War, within the majority of
Speaker 2: most voters are very anti its. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: the play that that lbj's making he wants to end
Speaker 2: the war in order to help Humphrey win. Over the
Speaker 2: course of the election year, his Secretary of State, National
Speaker 2: Security Adviser, and his Secretary of Defense, Clark Gifford, became
Speaker 2: aware that something was a miss. Some of the moves
Speaker 2: that the South Vietnamese government made which threatened the negotiation
Speaker 2: seemed bizarre. They would like take these wild changes where
Speaker 2: it's like, suddenly South Vietnam's not willing to negotiate, Like
Speaker 2: what the fuck? We had worked all this out. Why
Speaker 2: are you guys pulling out at the last minute? North Vietnam,
Speaker 2: Noam's willing to come to the table. In the trial
Speaker 2: of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchin's rights quote from his seat
Speaker 2: in the Pentagon, Clifford, who's again the Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 2: had actually been able to read the intelligence transcripts that
Speaker 2: picked up and recorded what he terms a secret personal
Speaker 2: channel between President thw and Saigon. In the Nixon campaign,
Speaker 2: the chief interlocutor at the American end was John Mitchell,
Speaker 2: then Nixon's campaign manager and subsequently Attorney General. He was
Speaker 2: actively assisted by Madame Anna Chanal, known to all as
Speaker 2: the Dragon Lady, a fierce veteran of the Taiwan Lobby
Speaker 2: and all purpose right wing intriguer. She was a social
Speaker 2: and political force in the war Washington of her day.
Speaker 2: So lbj's administration, this is suspicious as fuck. Let's bug
Speaker 2: the Nixon campaign, right, which is not illegal obviously, Like you,
Speaker 2: it is an act of fucking treason to try and
Speaker 2: extend a war by sabotage negotiations. This is one of
Speaker 2: the very few cases where like, yeah, you should wire
Speaker 2: tap those people, you should.
Speaker 3: You should tap the fuck out of those phones.
Speaker 2: But it's also this is they don't want this to
Speaker 2: get LBJ doesn't want this shit to get out at all.
Speaker 2: This would be number one a hanging crime. You get
Speaker 2: executed for doing this kind of shit, like on paper
Speaker 2: at least, right, And so lbj's administration, while they're wired
Speaker 2: tapping Nixon and getting evidence about like this, what increasingly
Speaker 2: becomes clear as a conspiracy, keeps fucking quiet about it
Speaker 2: because they're worried that revealing this would create a crisis
Speaker 2: of confidence in the American government.
Speaker 5: My fucking fucking liberals, the fucking liberals.
Speaker 4: This is how many times, how many fucking times bustool
Speaker 4: two elections this is what they did.
Speaker 3: This is what they fucking did. It's really it really is.
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, it's just it's I mean the I
Speaker 3: that is so fucking crazy to put the clubhouse, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean above it. It is. It is like the
Speaker 3: one time where for president had had his political opponents hanged. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he'd be like, yeah, that's what you should have done,
Speaker 3: and you'd have to that one session of hangings really
Speaker 3: would have gone a long way with this country.
Speaker 2: You would be in so much a better position. They'd
Speaker 2: hung Nixon and several other people were about to talk about.
Speaker 3: And would also given Nixon good posture. Finally, yeah, finally I.
Speaker 4: Knew about that Nixon had done. I did not know
Speaker 4: that the that they knew. I didn't know they knew.
Speaker 3: At the time, like that, Oh yes, David fucking scene
Speaker 3: the liberal mind.
Speaker 4: I always think about this story about when the HUNTA
Speaker 4: took over in Chile before Pinochet got into power, and
Speaker 4: they asked all the they said, we want to have
Speaker 4: interviews with people, and the liberals so believed the government
Speaker 4: that they went and lined up for the secret police
Speaker 4: interviews because they're like, well, this is what we do.
Speaker 4: And they're like, no, they're taking your names down to
Speaker 4: possibly kill you. But they lined up because they're like, well,
Speaker 4: this is we don't want to mess up the system,
Speaker 4: like we're supposed to go to get interviewed by the government. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're like it's a hunta like it just the mindset
Speaker 4: of just this is how our constitution works, and this
Speaker 4: is what we're supposed to do. And you're like, no,
Speaker 4: it's literally not working. The thing isn't working. This is
Speaker 4: a great This is one of the best examples ever.
Speaker 2: Of yeah, like yeah, and this is the germ of
Speaker 2: truth in Kissinger's whole ideology about conflict is that if
Speaker 2: you are in a conflict with someone who is willing
Speaker 2: to throw down and you weren't, they're going to win, right,
Speaker 2: Like that is a truth of history, right, It's a
Speaker 2: truth of fighting fascists. Right. It's not enough to say,
Speaker 2: like punching them isn't the entire of it. But if
Speaker 2: you're not willing to throw down, they will win, right.
Speaker 2: And that is a thing that has often taken exactly
Speaker 2: the wrong way at the geopolitical level. But like you
Speaker 2: see in this that like LBJ was not willing to
Speaker 2: throw down and Nixon was, and everything we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about in the rest of this series happens as
Speaker 2: a result. And it's like LBJ loved throwing down, but yes,
Speaker 2: it's amazing that he doesn't in this I think that's.
Speaker 4: The craziest thing is that, like that was the fucking
Speaker 4: big dick. I'm gonna take a shit and you're gonna
Speaker 4: listen to me guy, Like he gave no fox and
Speaker 4: threw down with everybody.
Speaker 3: You know what I think it is, Dave.
Speaker 2: I think for all of his many many mini flaws
Speaker 2: and evil acts committed, I think LBJ believed in things yeah,
Speaker 2: and Nixon and kissing you downk.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't throw down, but he would throw to ads. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I would.
Speaker 2: Because you know, LBJ was famous for whipping his dick,
Speaker 2: which he called jumbo, out at all times. He wants
Speaker 2: pissed on a Secret Service agent at a party because
Speaker 2: he couldn't get to the bathroom easily enough.
Speaker 3: Like that's the secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of our sponsors are the same, and that
Speaker 2: their dicks are called jumbo and they do piss on
Speaker 2: the Secret Service. Every one of our sponsors pisses on
Speaker 2: the Secret Service. That's a promise.
Speaker 3: So we're back. Oh, boy, good times.
Speaker 2: So South Vietnam pulls out of the negotiations, right, I
Speaker 2: think they're happening in Paris, and I'm being I haven't
Speaker 2: really gotten to detail about what happened up to this
Speaker 2: point because those details are very obscure to the American people.
Speaker 2: What is publicly possible, like known, is that noth Vietnam
Speaker 2: and South Vietnam are supposed to come to the table
Speaker 2: have this big negotiation to try to come to like
Speaker 2: some way in which the war can come to an end,
Speaker 2: and South Vietnam, after a bunch of like throwing a
Speaker 2: bunch of like wrenches in the process, finally just backs
Speaker 2: out entirely, right, and so the negotiations don't happen, and
Speaker 2: the war continues. That's what everybody sees, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're just like a dude paying attention on the news,
Speaker 2: that's what you're aware of happening here. Lbj's administration knows
Speaker 2: something sketchy is going on between Nixon and the South
Speaker 2: Vietnamese government, but even for them, they don't know precisely
Speaker 2: what happened. Here's what happened. As part of the negotiations,
Speaker 2: LBJ offered the North Vietnamese a bombing halt. Now you
Speaker 2: can see why this is very enticing for Hanoi, right,
Speaker 2: because being bombed is not pleasant, and the US was
Speaker 2: doing a lot of it. So this is like what
Speaker 2: Lbj's like, Hey, I will fucking stop bombing Vietnam if
Speaker 2: you guys will come to the table and talk about
Speaker 2: stuff and the North Vietnamese government not being made entirely
Speaker 2: of soulis cockroaches is like, well, okay, Like that's a
Speaker 2: pretty good offer.
Speaker 5: Actually, yeah, we were bombings.
Speaker 3: Are we actually dropped John McCain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did drop John McCain. You guys might have
Speaker 2: caught him. Can keep him for a while. He'll come
Speaker 2: back into the picture. It'll be a big problem. He'll also,
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, be the least objectionable Republican elected leader for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 3: So it's just you guys know, that's our future hero.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Jesse the Body Ventura will be the only
Speaker 2: conservative voices against torture.
Speaker 3: So heads up.
Speaker 2: It is amazing watching that old clip of Jesse Ventura
Speaker 2: on the view being the most reasonable American in fucking
Speaker 2: early two thousands next to Gilbert Godfried. At least.
Speaker 3: It's actually not the Gilbert.
Speaker 2: So Yeah, this is very enticing offer for Hanoi, the
Speaker 2: bombing cessation, and it's good enough if like, if you
Speaker 2: won't bomb us anymore, Yeah, maybe we can concede on
Speaker 2: some stuff if you're not murdering people in mass like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course we'll negotiate with that.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Nixon cannot let this happen. This would be a disaster.
Speaker 2: Vietnam not getting bombed, he sees is like the worst
Speaker 2: case scenario, even though he is campaigning on ending the war.
Speaker 2: By the way, that's promise, I'm gonna get us out
Speaker 2: of that. But yeah, on my watch, it happens before
Speaker 2: what am I campaigning on. So Nixon uses his back
Speaker 2: channel to the South Vietnamese government to get them to torpedo.
Speaker 2: They're end of the negotiations because the government of South
Speaker 2: Vietnam is frightened obviously that the US is going to
Speaker 2: stop bombing North Vietnam. So if you're following along, something
Speaker 2: should be obvious at this point. Since the Johnson administration
Speaker 2: was negotiating secretly with North Vietnam, there should have been
Speaker 2: no way for the government in Saigon to know that
Speaker 2: LBJ had proposed a bombing halt. But obviously Sigon knew,
Speaker 2: which means there was a secret informant within the Johnson
Speaker 2: administration passing information to the Nixon administration and sharing a
Speaker 2: lot of top secret data with Saigon. So the big
Speaker 2: question is who possibly be so deep into both camps
Speaker 2: that he could feed information from one to the forest.
Speaker 4: Oh, oh my god, that's right, baby, should be executed
Speaker 4: for treason.
Speaker 2: Absolutely should be executed for treesa my god. Slowly, yeah,
Speaker 2: slowly executed. Yeah, it should be that incompetent dude who
Speaker 2: hung the Nazis at Nuremberg and like kept sucking up
Speaker 2: and making it worse.
Speaker 3: Bring that dude badry, Can I just do? Let me
Speaker 3: try one more time before you guys get mad.
Speaker 2: We should have frozen that motherfucker in carbonite to break
Speaker 2: out when the nation needed him.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's amazing. Oh you guys waking be up to
Speaker 12: kill me. No, we actually we're huge drunk and do
Speaker 12: another hangar huge fans. We've got you a handle of
Speaker 12: gin here, and this is very kissinger. Shut up, just
Speaker 12: do whatever. You just kill him as fast as you can.
Speaker 12: That's the only note. But I took a lot of
Speaker 12: notes from him back in the day, like he's great,
Speaker 12: he's great.
Speaker 3: Just kill him.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't think he could die, though, I will
Speaker 2: say I don't think that guy could read.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Obviously, Kissinger is the back channel who was spreading this information.
Speaker 2: Now in his own memoirs, Nixon later admitted to hearing
Speaker 2: about the proposed bombing Hall through what he termed as
Speaker 2: a highly unusual channel. Christopher Hitchen continues, it was more
Speaker 2: unusual even than he acknowledged. Kissinger had until then been
Speaker 2: a devoted partisan of Nelson Rockefeller, the matchlessly wealthy prince
Speaker 2: of Liberal Republicanism. His contempt for the person and policies
Speaker 2: of Richard Nixon was undisguised. Indeed, President Johnson's Paris negotiators,
Speaker 2: led by Avril Harriman, considered Kissinger to be almost one
Speaker 2: of themselves. He had made himself helpful as Rockefeller's cheap
Speaker 2: foreign policy advisor by supplying French intermediaries with their own
Speaker 2: contacts in Hanoi. Henry was the only person outside of
Speaker 2: the government that we were authorized to discuss the negotiations with,
Speaker 2: says Richard Holbrook. We trusted him. It is not stretching
Speaker 2: the truth to say that the Nixon campaign had a
Speaker 2: secret source within the US negotiating team, So the likelihood
Speaker 2: of a bombing halt, wrote Nixon, came as no real
Speaker 2: surprise to me. He added, I told Haldeman that Mitchell
Speaker 2: should stay a continuous liaison with Kissinger and that we
Speaker 2: should honor his desire to keep his role completely confidential.
Speaker 2: So this is all in the open now.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also, I mean Nixon really just never shut the
Speaker 3: fuck up. I mean he didn't. He really he was
Speaker 3: like the drunk guy at a party who had just
Speaker 3: sort of tell you whatever.
Speaker 2: Like honestly, he's the guy Donald Trump might put a
Speaker 2: hand on be like, hey man, you're.
Speaker 3: Saying you shouldn't you say some stuff that you probably
Speaker 3: shouldn't right now. I think you might not. I think
Speaker 3: you might regret this. Sxplode. I just take a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff you probably shouldn't. And I'm on Twitter. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that is just so crazy and just says it all,
Speaker 3: you know, And this is and it's gotten worse. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just fucking bonkers. Now.
Speaker 2: The bombing halt was planned for October twenty third, but
Speaker 2: thanks to Kissinger, the Nixon campaign was able to lobby
Speaker 2: South Vietnam to increase their demands suddenly at the bargaining table,
Speaker 2: which wrecked attempted agreements being made with North Vietnam. This,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a process. This happens back and forth
Speaker 2: until the bombing halt is completely scuttled and peace negotiations
Speaker 2: fall apart. Since all this was happening behind closed doors,
Speaker 2: Humphrey never got to present the possibility of a bombing
Speaker 2: halt to the American people. Nixon avoided having to take
Speaker 2: into stance of any kind on the issue because obviously,
Speaker 2: as the peace candidate, he couldn't say you shouldn't do it, right.
Speaker 2: He didn't even want it to come up at all.
Speaker 2: The Johnson administration made one final attempt to push through
Speaker 2: a bombing halt at the end of October, but the
Speaker 2: South Vietnamese government, warned by Kissinger via Nixon, preempted this
Speaker 2: with a surprise boycott of the peace talks. Now, while
Speaker 2: all this is happening, Kissinger is also advising the Humphrey
Speaker 2: campaign and is so respected there that he was considered
Speaker 2: a shoe in for a senior job if they'd managed
Speaker 2: to win.
Speaker 3: There's three of them.
Speaker 5: Sucking Democrats are so fucking stupid, I know, right.
Speaker 3: There's three of them. There's three kiss olers. No, just
Speaker 3: are you walking around buddy Henry's I'm gonna give him
Speaker 3: a good old job. That's our body. You're talking about men, sir.
Speaker 4: And then I can never get over the fact that
Speaker 4: Hilary walked around with him during the fucking campaign.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, really walking to be fair day he fucking is.
Speaker 2: He's like one of those episodes of Fraser where he's
Speaker 2: dating two women at the same time and trying to
Speaker 2: keep it secret. That's the same restaurant Jack Tripper. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very funny, except for all.
Speaker 3: Of the millions and millions. Yes, let me ask you that.
Speaker 5: So do you have the numbers on where the deaths
Speaker 5: were at in Vietnam?
Speaker 2: I'll yeah, I'll get you that in a minute.
Speaker 3: Why did I ask? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Nixon by also like grows convinced of Kissinger's value during
Speaker 2: this period of time too, and he becomes a shoe
Speaker 2: in for a senior job there. He was particularly impressed
Speaker 2: by the skill with which Kissinger protected his identity as
Speaker 2: the leaker from the Humphrey campaign. Nixon later wrote, one
Speaker 2: factor that had almost convinced me of Kissinger's credibility was
Speaker 2: the link to which he went to protect his secrecy.
Speaker 3: What a terrible I mean, that's just not a good
Speaker 3: personality trait. It's really not it's actually not is but
Speaker 3: not this guy.
Speaker 5: This guy is the best double agent. He's so fucking great, he'll.
Speaker 3: Fuck And this guy's an unbelievable ship bag liar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it makes sense that like Nixon
Speaker 2: would be super into that. Oh yeah, wow, this guy's
Speaker 2: a real piece of shit.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm Jick Nixon. This guy can lie to you.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you as a liar.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck, it's fucking amazing.
Speaker 3: It's bad.
Speaker 2: Clark Clifford, who would later was again the Secretary of
Speaker 2: Defense at the time, would later blame the fact that
Speaker 2: the war did not end in nineteen sixty eight and
Speaker 2: the loss of the Humphrey campaign in that election, on
Speaker 2: the school duggery of the Nixon campaign, which was orchestrated
Speaker 2: in part by Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: The activities of the Nixon team went far beyond the
Speaker 2: bounds of justifiable political combat. It constituted direct interference in
Speaker 2: the activities of the executive branch and the responsibilities of
Speaker 2: the chief executive. The only people with authority to negotiate
Speaker 2: on behalf of the nation. The activities of the Nix
Speaker 2: campaign constituted a gross, even potentially illegal interference in the
Speaker 2: security affairs of the nation by private individuals, which is
Speaker 2: the polite political walk way of saying it. In the
Speaker 2: book Kissinger's shadow, Greg Grandon, is even more pointed the
Speaker 2: fact that Kissinger participated in an intrigue that extended the
Speaker 2: war for five pointless years seven if you count the
Speaker 2: fighting between the nineteen seventy three Paris Piece Accords in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy five Fall of Psygone is undeniable. Adding
Speaker 2: to the evidence is Kissinger himself. He's been caught on
Speaker 2: tape twice on recordings recently released admitting he passed on
Speaker 2: useful information to Nixon.
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, my god. It's like killing him isn't enough.
Speaker 5: No, he should be gibbeted.
Speaker 4: I said, so, we need to bring back Gibbeting and
Speaker 4: just hang that motherfucker somewhere in a nice cage box, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: leave him out there.
Speaker 2: Leave him out, Let people pelt him with stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fuck, kill him by throwing potatoes at it, right,
Speaker 3: because he's not that strong anymore. And you want it
Speaker 3: to last a while, tatoes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we'll talk a bit later about how he
Speaker 2: got caught on tape and why we know about all
Speaker 2: of this, because that's a fun story, guys. It involves
Speaker 2: a different series of crimes. But Grandon makes another point
Speaker 2: that's worth acknowledging here. Well, Kissinger definitely had inside information
Speaker 2: from the Johnson campaign, which he passed on. He also
Speaker 2: didn't have as much information as he pretended to know
Speaker 2: when he talked to the Nixon campaign.
Speaker 3: Oh Jesus quote.
Speaker 2: Even with access to Johnson's negotiating instructions, he couldn't have
Speaker 2: had exact information about the decisions being made at the
Speaker 2: White House. He had to have been winging it, at
Speaker 2: least to some degree, guessing at what others knew, imagining
Speaker 2: what others would do with that, guess playing the angle,
Speaker 2: sussing out the chance a well, giving the appearance of
Speaker 2: composure and certainty, he was right winging it.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, what an absolute fucking psychopath on Like,
Speaker 4: that's the kind of shit. Like you said, if you're
Speaker 4: dating two women, you're trying to figure it out and
Speaker 4: get through some sticky situation. But he's doing this with
Speaker 4: fucking Vietnam and two presidential campaigns.
Speaker 13: I don't, yeah, craziness, the absolute lack of a soul
Speaker 13: is oh yeah, he is pure blackness inside.
Speaker 3: M Yeah, Dave, let me push back for a second. God, wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can't. I mean, it's it's it's hard to even
Speaker 3: speak to it because it's like to look, I'll kill
Speaker 3: five people for a job, but at some point you
Speaker 3: have to.
Speaker 2: Be a normal share Yeah that's regular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but but to to let, I mean, to just
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's it is he killed, he killed.
Speaker 5: I mean, how many Vietnamese died after that?
Speaker 3: Like so many?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're talking, you know, was it like a million
Speaker 5: died in the whole wars?
Speaker 4: More than no?
Speaker 2: I mean it is because you also have to include
Speaker 2: the people who died in cam Radia and and in
Speaker 2: in Vietnam. We're gonna get into more of the episode three,
Speaker 2: but conservatively an additional couple of million deaths as a
Speaker 2: result of this, in addition to an additional twenty thousand
Speaker 2: US dead. It's kind of hard the death toll to
Speaker 2: get precisely like a couple million, like in the million,
Speaker 2: A couple of additional dead because this day by the
Speaker 2: way because I was just going.
Speaker 5: To say die because he wanted a job.
Speaker 14: This was he wanted a He's essentially lying in a
Speaker 14: job interview like you would if you were I had
Speaker 14: no fast food experience in where taco except millions of
Speaker 14: people are dying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome, holy crazy, it's the crazy.
Speaker 4: The thing you've done here is you've you've you've humanized
Speaker 4: the situation for me, because, like, I can understand that
Speaker 4: there's evil people out there and they do stuff like
Speaker 4: they want to bomb Camp Cambodia, they want to do
Speaker 4: this other stuff. But when you take it to a
Speaker 4: level where it's a guy winging it in a meeting,
Speaker 4: it takes on a whole different flavor of evil. That
Speaker 4: is something because now that's something we can all understand.
Speaker 4: We've all been a situation where like ah, yeah, this
Speaker 4: guy did a thing, and then I did a thing,
Speaker 4: and you're just trying to get through a situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've all experienced that.
Speaker 4: None of us have experienced given the green light to
Speaker 4: you know, dropping bombs and killing people. But that I
Speaker 4: get and I feel in my bones of like, well,
Speaker 4: holy shit, but you're doing that with millions of people's
Speaker 4: lives on the line.
Speaker 2: It is. It is this thing where the idea I
Speaker 2: had always had before I really got into was that like,
Speaker 2: well he did you know, he was involved in all
Speaker 2: of these horrible things that I knew who was involved in,
Speaker 2: but like I assumed it was from a wonky perspective
Speaker 2: of like he believed strongly in the need to fight
Speaker 2: these wars and that anything was justified, and so he
Speaker 2: did these horrible things because he believed we were in
Speaker 2: this like civilizational struggle and certain things were necessary in that.
Speaker 2: And like he had all of these different kind of
Speaker 2: very complex moral beliefs that he wrote dozens of books
Speaker 2: about explaining why he did the things. At the end
Speaker 2: of the day, no motherfucker wanted a gig.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And by the way, it's not like he would
Speaker 3: have been out of politics, like even in his downtime,
Speaker 3: he was like, you know, he was gigging. Like it's
Speaker 3: just like he would have been patiently waiting for another
Speaker 3: administration or have been working in whatever, like you know,
Speaker 3: he didn't. He didn't want to work at job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he didn't want to work at Uncle Chuckle Fox.
Speaker 4: He wanted the gig at Charlie Good Nights like he
Speaker 4: doesn't want to work at a premier club.
Speaker 2: He literally like did the Like that's the thing. He
Speaker 2: didn't just do this for a job. He did this
Speaker 2: for like one of the two jobs and the one
Speaker 2: he kind of didn't want as much.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the guy. Yeah, I'm un fucking conscionable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really hard to like, it is hard and
Speaker 2: like it's I think it's easier to understand now what
Speaker 2: he did. It's hard to like judge him adequately in
Speaker 2: moral terms that are even like comprehensible because it's so
Speaker 2: much out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to process.
Speaker 2: It really is one of those like say what you
Speaker 2: will about the tenets of nihilism, dude. At least it's
Speaker 2: an ethos moments where it's like I'm thinking about like
Speaker 2: people like fucking Saddam or whatever, where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a piece of ship. There were definitely some
Speaker 2: things he believed though, like yeah, like there's pieces of
Speaker 2: shit out like fucking out there who like there are
Speaker 2: things they believe, and Kissinger just believes he should be
Speaker 2: close to power.
Speaker 3: Kissinger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was like doctrine was Kissinger.
Speaker 4: He's like, I'm really smart, I should be in the
Speaker 4: top game, and yeah, I just want to be there.
Speaker 3: It's awesome. Yeah. I like how he thinks his childhood
Speaker 3: didn't fuck with him. Yeah. Yeah, like dude, bro, yeah what.
Speaker 4: You know, it would be even better if he if
Speaker 4: all of this was happening, and it was just because,
Speaker 4: like he he was like, I know, I can get
Speaker 4: so many more chicks if I'm in the white House. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was the whole reason for it.
Speaker 3: He's just like, I just want to get laid.
Speaker 2: Look, it is not a non factor.
Speaker 3: Wait is he Is he married right now? Or is
Speaker 3: he single? Oh?
Speaker 2: Lord, who knows? He's I mean I think he gets married.
Speaker 2: It's point. But he's also like, you know, well, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Actually, he's kind of like a bachelor dude.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about that later. I'm still working on those
Speaker 2: episodes because there's a whole thing to be said about
Speaker 2: Kissinger and women and sex appeal. He gets he was married, Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: he definitely was married at points, but he's also like
Speaker 2: kind of a playboy.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back in time a little bit
Speaker 2: and talk about some.
Speaker 3: Of that later.
Speaker 1: He was married his first His first marriage was nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine to nineteen sixty four, so I don't think
Speaker 1: he's and that he's not remarried again until seventy four,
Speaker 1: So that sounds right. He's married in this little hall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder why she left him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no idea.
Speaker 5: So he's the only guy who comes black.
Speaker 2: I haven't written the episode yet, but I have several
Speaker 2: pages of people talking about Henry Kissinger's sex appeal on
Speaker 2: the news that are real, real black pilling as the
Speaker 2: kids saying, oh my god, not good. Oh. Nixon wins
Speaker 2: the sixty eight election. Obviously, he gets inaugurated in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine. The Vietnam War continues on for half a
Speaker 2: decade ish. This was an almost incalculable humanitarian tragedy as
Speaker 2: well as disastrous for the future stability and cohesion of
Speaker 2: the United States. But it was dope as hell for
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger, who was swiftly appointed Nixon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like to put out there that my uncle went
Speaker 4: to Vietnam and nutally, you know, he had to kill
Speaker 4: a lot of people and until he fucking runed his
Speaker 4: life and he watched Fastey and stuff.
Speaker 3: So thank you, Richard Nixon. Thank you Richard Nixon.
Speaker 2: Everybody who went to Vietnam after sixty eight, say thank
Speaker 2: you to Richard for Nixon and Kissinger for you know,
Speaker 2: all of the trauma and the trauma that in some
Speaker 2: cases some of you passed on to your family members,
Speaker 2: and the trauma that has been passed on societally based
Speaker 2: on our attitudes towards war because of how Vietnam went
Speaker 2: and the ways in which some people were always looking
Speaker 2: for a rematch, and it got us into other you know,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you, thank you, Yeah, thank you stuff,
Speaker 2: good stuff. Imagine if like that had been the end
Speaker 2: of Vietnam, that like there was actually a president realized,
Speaker 2: you know, the foolishness of a conflict, and we went
Speaker 2: to the table and like negotiations were made and I.
Speaker 4: Don't think I don't think the first Iraquis happens, the
Speaker 4: evasion Panama doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: You would think that for how long Vietnam dragged on,
Speaker 3: that that would have actually been a lesson to not
Speaker 3: go into conflicts, you know, no aimless conflict.
Speaker 2: But no, I guess the problem is we're thinking there's
Speaker 2: people should learn lessons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that war is it anyway like a moral
Speaker 3: decision or like actually comes from a place of actual
Speaker 3: you know, savior mentality, anything like that. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's good stuff.
Speaker 2: Getting disappointment as National Security Advisor required a lot more
Speaker 2: politicking from Kissinger, including spreading rumors to Nixon before his
Speaker 2: inauguration that Johnson planned to either depose or kill the
Speaker 2: president of South Vietnam before he left office. Because you
Speaker 2: pushed this rumor to the pre intellect via regular bastards,
Speaker 2: pods side character and Rhodesia enthusiast enthusiast William F. Buckley,
Speaker 2: Buckley's middleman to lighten Nixon.
Speaker 3: Translator. Yeah, William F.
Speaker 2: Buckley, whose son went on to write, honestly a pretty
Speaker 2: fun book. But we don't need to think too much
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Great Aaron Eckart performance in the movie. So Nixon appreciated
Speaker 2: Kissinger's hutzpa and connections enough that when he put him
Speaker 2: at the head of the National Security Council, he ordered
Speaker 2: the professor to reorganize it in order to take foreign
Speaker 2: policy control away from the State and Defense departments. This
Speaker 2: means that Nixon gave Kissinger it was very close to
Speaker 2: a blank check to take total control of US foreign policy. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Nixon wanted this because he was a paranoid control freak.
Speaker 2: He did not want any kind of separation of powers.
Speaker 2: He certainly did not want to have a Secretary of
Speaker 2: State who could like do things that Nixon might not
Speaker 2: be explicitly or uttering. But the result of this was
Speaker 2: that Kissinger found himself in a position where he could
Speaker 2: exercise near absolute power and foreign policy as long as
Speaker 2: the President kept liking him. Oh, now, Justice Kissinger had
Speaker 2: little love for Nixon. Our buddy Dick Millhouse was not
Speaker 2: particularly warm to his new right hand man. Now you
Speaker 2: had given a couple of spanky hank. Yeah, you want
Speaker 2: to notice real Kissinger was jew boy. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, it is Nixon. But it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: I thought we would be jumping off of the name
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: He's just like, what am I gonna call you? Spanky Hank?
Speaker 3: No little jew boy lord.
Speaker 2: And again it says a lot about Henry Kissinger that
Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, right.
Speaker 11: That's pretty good, funny childhood have no effect on me today,
Speaker 11: not whats.
Speaker 5: So there must have been.
Speaker 4: An element of Nixon then who knew what an ass
Speaker 4: kissing little bitch he was. Oh, because he's belittling him
Speaker 4: to his face oh yeah, and knowing he'll stick around.
Speaker 3: It's why you get hired for these jobs because it's
Speaker 3: just like it's not, you know, an empty vacuum. Who
Speaker 3: is going to be your right hand man is still
Speaker 3: you know, there's security in that, there's there's secrecy in that.
Speaker 2: He's like a vacuum Gareth, and that he'll suck Nixon's dick.
Speaker 2: But he's also like a toilet, and that he'll take
Speaker 2: nixon ship. You know, that's.
Speaker 3: He's a dick.
Speaker 5: He's a human human human.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he's like the Toto toilet is pretty effective.
Speaker 3: But if you ever had a dick sucking toilet, shit
Speaker 3: don't come either way. I'm ready for it, baby, Henry Kissing.
Speaker 2: So can the title be Henry Kissinger dick sucking toilet?
Speaker 4: We got it, draws thinking of dick sucking toilets, It
Speaker 4: is time for a commercial break.
Speaker 2: That is who sponsors our podcast Raitheon's new dick sucking toilet. Well,
Speaker 2: it is going to fire a missile at a busload
Speaker 2: of children. But that's that's just the raytheon. You know,
Speaker 2: we can't avoid it. We'll be obligated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's how it works.
Speaker 2: So Nixon announced Kissinger's appointment as the National Security Advisor
Speaker 2: before he had even picked a Secretary of State, which
Speaker 2: is an unprecedented move. He announced Henry as quote, and
Speaker 2: this is again in his public announcement to the country
Speaker 2: as quote, a man who is known to all people
Speaker 2: who are interested in foreign policy, is perhaps one of
Speaker 2: the major scholars in America and the world in this area.
Speaker 2: And he acknowledged that while Kissinger had never held a
Speaker 2: full time government job before, he had Nixon's confidence to
Speaker 2: bring in a whole new foreign policy team quote, new
Speaker 2: men to develop new ideas. Now, the conservative media of
Speaker 2: the day immediately roared into gear, hailing Henry Kissinger as
Speaker 2: an unprecedented policy genius, the man necessary to get America
Speaker 2: back on track after nearly a decade of disastrous war
Speaker 2: under Democratic presidents.
Speaker 3: William F.
Speaker 2: Buckley wrote, not since Florence Nightingale has any public figure
Speaker 2: received such universal acclamation.
Speaker 3: Ruin her William F. Buckley fantastic. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: But even ostensibly liberal figures were wooed by Kissinger's titanic
Speaker 2: intellect and Henry Kissinger and American power. Thomas Schwartz, writes.
Speaker 2: The liberal historian Arthur Slushinger Junior simply referred to it
Speaker 2: as the best appointment so far. The New York Times
Speaker 2: columnist Tom Wicker noted the collective sigh of relief that
Speaker 2: went up from the liberal Eastern establishment and the Ivy
Speaker 2: League fearing Nixon's cold warrior image, most shared in the
Speaker 2: sentiment of Kissinger's Harvard colleague Adam Yarmolinsky. We'll all sleep
Speaker 2: a little better each night.
Speaker 3: No, mean, Kissinger is down there, you mean, in the toilet,
Speaker 3: getting ready to suck that. You know, it's exactly what
Speaker 3: happened with Trump. Yes, And it's like it's the way
Speaker 3: that I mean again, it's people's natural reaction is normally
Speaker 3: kind of there. It's just this, the fears are assuaged
Speaker 3: by people who they consider to be, you know, the compass,
Speaker 3: and they're just not. And so when you're told that
Speaker 3: there are the good guys inside the bad camp, it's
Speaker 3: like it's just never fucking true. It is rot from
Speaker 3: the core. Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 2: These liberals are also are also impressed by him and
Speaker 2: so comforted by him because they think he's smart, because
Speaker 2: he's good at quoting smart dead people. Right. It is
Speaker 2: the same thing that happened with Mattis. Maddis, thankfully is
Speaker 2: not nearly as toxic a person as Henry Kissinger. But like,
Speaker 2: if you actually look at Madis's background, one of the
Speaker 2: things he did in the Iraq War was cover up
Speaker 2: a war crime. He's not a not a man to
Speaker 2: be like I mean, and he was. He was like
Speaker 2: he was very popular among like people who served under him,
Speaker 2: which is part of like why there was this kind
Speaker 2: of collective relief. But it's this idea that he's like
Speaker 2: the warrior monk, right. They love the idea that like, well,
Speaker 2: this guy who's president is a maniac, but this dude
Speaker 2: reads books that he hired so that it'll be okay,
Speaker 2: And it's never okay.
Speaker 3: You continue to lower the bar more and more. You're obvious,
Speaker 3: like the people that you're bringing back are part of
Speaker 3: a lower bar. But because the bar is even lower,
Speaker 3: it seems and feels a little higher. But it is
Speaker 3: all just.
Speaker 4: It's just this is exactly what happened with Colon Powell
Speaker 4: is sucking evil.
Speaker 15: We did the exactly evil Monsterson, Yeah, cover up fucking
Speaker 15: the massacres in fucking Vietnam. That's like when he started
Speaker 15: out like terrible human being. But the press did the
Speaker 15: same shit.
Speaker 2: If you can quote old books and smile and you're
Speaker 2: willing to give journalists time, they will talk about you
Speaker 2: as being the secret reasonable person within the war crimes party,
Speaker 2: you know, like that's all it takes.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: It's just the same thing as if you're a Nazi
Speaker 2: who reads books. You can get an archtyvee profile, yes
Speaker 2: or yeah, or you'll get on sixty minutes or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's don't trust people who want you to think
Speaker 2: they're smart. Yep, that's never a good sign smart. It's
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's the same thing with like people
Speaker 2: who want you to believe they're dangerous. If they want
Speaker 2: you to believe something specific about them, they're lying about it.
Speaker 2: That's how people work.
Speaker 4: And and if if a doctor wants to get on
Speaker 4: the news to talk about COVID and be famous on
Speaker 4: the news, that's actually not a doctor you should listen.
Speaker 2: To and a great guy.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 3: Also, I mean it's you know, it's from the same
Speaker 3: publications and the same networks. The idea that you continue
Speaker 3: to listen to these sources about what is right and
Speaker 3: what is wrong just because they have fancy terms like
Speaker 3: senior policy advised. It's like it's all fucking it's it's
Speaker 3: days of our lives. It's they're actors. These are teleprompters. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they don't know any more than you about anything
Speaker 3: that matters.
Speaker 2: As a general rule. Every now and then you get
Speaker 2: but like even like within agencies that are heavily like
Speaker 2: medical oriented, like the CDC, where you would expect them
Speaker 2: to have a lot of specialized knowledge, it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: mean they're going to do a good job.
Speaker 3: But I'll say that much times comfortably lied about Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's not great. So during a transition from
Speaker 2: the Johnson to Nixon administration, US Military Command began to
Speaker 2: act under what General Creighton Abrams described as a total
Speaker 2: war mindset against the infrastructure of the Vietcong insurgency. This
Speaker 2: began with a six month operation to clear the Mekong Delta,
Speaker 2: code named Operation Speedy Express. This would prove to be
Speaker 2: the first major military operation that both Nixon and Kitschinger oversaw,
Speaker 2: and it was a titanic bloodlet bath. There is a
Speaker 2: good article on this operation in the Nation and the
Speaker 2: title of the article is A my lie A month.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's it's oh my god.
Speaker 2: Now the Myli massacre had occurred in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: before Nickson he Kissinger were in power. You know that
Speaker 2: ain't on them, and Seymour Hirst didn't like break the
Speaker 2: story until sixty nine, which is the year that they
Speaker 2: come to power. And this slaughter of five hundred civilians
Speaker 2: by US troops was horrific enough, but within a few
Speaker 2: months of taking power, speedy express it exceeded it many times.
Speaker 2: Quote from the Nation, an inkling that something terrible had
Speaker 2: taken place in the Mekong Delta appeared in a most
Speaker 2: unlikely source, a formerly confidential September nineteen sixty nine senior
Speaker 2: officer debriefing report by none other than the commander of
Speaker 2: the Ninth Division, then Major General Julian Ewell, who came
Speaker 2: to be known inside the military as the Butcher of
Speaker 2: the Delta because of a single minded fixation on body count.
Speaker 2: In reports, copies of which were sent to west Moreland's
Speaker 2: office and to other high ranking officials, you will candidly
Speaker 2: noted that while the Ninth Division stressed the discriminate and
Speaker 2: selective use of firepower in some areas of the day Delta,
Speaker 2: where this emphasis wasn't applied or wasn't feasible, the countryside
Speaker 2: looked like the Verdun battlefields, the site of a notoriously
Speaker 2: bloody World War One battle. That December, a document produced
Speaker 2: by the National Liberation Front sharpened the picture. It reported
Speaker 2: that between December first, nineteen sixty eight and April first,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, primarily in the Delta provinces of Kinhoua
Speaker 2: and Din Twog, the Ninth Division launched an express raid
Speaker 2: and mopped up many areas, slaughtering three thousand people, mostly
Speaker 2: old folks, women and children, and destroying thousands of houses,
Speaker 2: hundreds of hectares of fields and orchards. But like most
Speaker 2: NLF reports of civilian atrocities, this one was almost certainly
Speaker 2: dismissed as propaganda by US officials. A United Press International
Speaker 2: report that same months month, in which US advisors charged
Speaker 2: the division with having driven up the body count by
Speaker 2: killing civilians with helicopter gunships and artillery, was also largely ignored.
Speaker 2: And it's because they're saying they're soldiers, that they're shooting
Speaker 2: from a distance.
Speaker 3: And then they justied.
Speaker 4: Colin Pale justified it by saying, while they're providing food
Speaker 4: for the enemy, so there's no difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: By the time Speedy Express comes to an end, US
Speaker 2: forces had killed more than ten thousand people. The vast
Speaker 2: majority of these were claimed to have been insurgent fighters,
Speaker 2: but extensive mop up after operations after the fact found
Speaker 2: less than eight hundred weapons on all these bodies they shared.
Speaker 3: That is fucking crazy. Yeah, I mean, like we can't
Speaker 3: even frame them competently now.
Speaker 5: And also, remember you're taking guys that you drafted.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, right, yeah, right, you know to do this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, like you said with your uncle, I mean,
Speaker 3: it is it's like the generational ripple through that and
Speaker 3: the lifetime you know what it does really, I mean yeah,
Speaker 3: it's pretty beyond who dies, who doesn't live again?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And what you know, what do people
Speaker 2: take back with them now? It is fair and necessary
Speaker 2: to note that this began in the December before Nixon
Speaker 2: and Kissinger took office. This is not entirely on them.
Speaker 2: Some of the blame for this ghosts on the LBJA
Speaker 2: administration as well, obviously, but it continued under them. This paragraph,
Speaker 2: written by Christopher Hitchins, gives you some idea of the
Speaker 2: savagery of what occurred in the early days of the
Speaker 2: Nixon administration's control of the Vietnam War. The people who
Speaker 2: still live in pacified Kinhoa all have vivid recollections of
Speaker 2: the devastation that American firepower brought to their lives in
Speaker 2: early nineteen sixty nine. Virtually every person to whom I
Speaker 2: spoke had suffered in some way. There were five thousand
Speaker 2: people in our village before nineteen sixty nine, but there
Speaker 2: were none in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3: One. Village elder told.
Speaker 2: Me the Americans destroyed every house with artillery airstrikes or
Speaker 2: by burning them down with cigarette lighters. About one hundred
Speaker 2: people were killed by bombing, others were wounded, and others
Speaker 2: became refugees. Many were children killed by concussion from the bombs,
Speaker 2: which their small bodies could not withstand, even if they
Speaker 2: were hiding underground. So Nixon's plan, at the beginning, you know,
Speaker 2: when his people had derailed the peace negotiations in sixty eight,
Speaker 2: was that he would win election and then make peace
Speaker 2: with Vietnam, right to do the thing that he promised
Speaker 2: to do. But it swiftly became clear that peace was
Speaker 2: a messy prospect. One of the things he's worried about
Speaker 2: is that, like, well, if we withdraw him with Vietnam,
Speaker 2: the Saigon government's probably going to fall, right because there
Speaker 2: we're just barely propping up this shitty dictatorship, and that'll
Speaker 2: be it will make me look weak, right, And so
Speaker 2: I can't do it because it'll make me look weak.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you beer, that'll quit drink it. Yeah, And then
Speaker 3: I won't win reelection in nineteen seventy two. And that's unacceptable.
Speaker 3: I mean that, and that I mean obviously keeps going
Speaker 3: over and over again. It's you get into office and
Speaker 3: then you're like, well, what about re election instead of
Speaker 3: going like the best direction for.
Speaker 2: It is one of the few things I'll give Biden
Speaker 2: some credit for because he had the same calculus with Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: A lot of criticisms to make about the pull out
Speaker 2: from Afghanistan, but he did not make the same decision
Speaker 2: Nixon and Kissinger did. He did fucking get out. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't yeah, yeah, So withdrawing from Vietnam mean Saigon is
Speaker 2: going to fall. The government's going to fall, and that
Speaker 2: will be bad in the seventy two elections, and it
Speaker 2: might push Kissinger and Nixon out of power. Neither of
Speaker 2: them can accept this, and this description of a meeting
Speaker 2: from December nineteen seventy by H. R. Haldeman shows Kissinger's
Speaker 2: role in pulling back from peace. Kissinger came in and
Speaker 2: the discussion covered some of the general thinking about Vietnam
Speaker 2: and the president's big peace plan for the next year,
Speaker 2: with kissing, which Kissinger later told me he does not favor.
Speaker 2: He thinks that any pullout from next year would be
Speaker 2: a serious mistake because the adverse reaction to it could
Speaker 2: set in well before the seventy two elections. He favors
Speaker 2: instead of continued winding down and then a pull out
Speaker 2: right at the fall of seventy two, so that if
Speaker 2: any bad results follow, they will be too late to
Speaker 2: affect the election.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's you know, that's what our wars always are.
Speaker 4: They're all about Yeah, they're all about elections. They fucking
Speaker 4: always are. It's you know, I mean, yeah, this led
Speaker 4: to Republicans thinking that, you know, they had to get
Speaker 4: war back on.
Speaker 3: Track at some point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But it's you know, it's always it's never never works,
Speaker 4: like it's just such a crazy idea. And you also
Speaker 4: like people are watching body bags go home, Like no
Speaker 4: one's happy about anything that's going on.
Speaker 2: No, and it this they just kind of I mean
Speaker 2: this part of why it keeps going is, yeah, this
Speaker 2: kind of craven knowledge that like, well, the worst thing
Speaker 2: that could happen is we don't get reelected.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At no point is he thinking about any of the
Speaker 2: human beings involved, even any of the American human beings involved.
Speaker 2: It's just like, well, we can't be losing reelection.
Speaker 3: You know, imagine if Kissinger was damaged from his childhood,
Speaker 3: how bad things would get. It could be really bad.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, actually, when we talk about the
Speaker 2: story of like American presidents making craven political decisions, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons FDR did not approve more effort being
Speaker 2: taken to evacuate Jewish refugees from Germany as he did
Speaker 2: not want to be seen as pro jew Oh Jesus
Speaker 2: the socialist policies and stuff that we're going through. He
Speaker 2: knew that that could hurt him. There were a number
Speaker 2: of other reasons, but like, yeah, they're like they did
Speaker 2: not that is like there is there were things that
Speaker 2: were done that led to the US government saving fewer
Speaker 2: Jewish people from the Holocaust that were done for craven
Speaker 2: political reasons by the FDR administration.
Speaker 3: Let me hear this Kaiser pitch again. It actually big hat.
Speaker 2: I learn the hat, biggest hat you've ever seen, big,
Speaker 2: very spiky now loves this mom's hands. But oh god.
Speaker 2: So the fun thing about this episode is that everything
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about in part three is even
Speaker 2: worse because in part three we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: fucking Cambodia. Soo y well, you guys want to plug
Speaker 2: anything after my ears three hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to be I'm going to be in
Speaker 4: a toilet trying to get clean.
Speaker 3: After that, you can go to the Dollar Go to
Speaker 3: Dollar podcast dot com for two more information and my
Speaker 3: website Karen Reynolds dot com. I'm on tour, but not
Speaker 3: like tours of duty, just like stand up and podcast
Speaker 3: tours with the aim of bringing joint of people. I
Speaker 3: don't want to talk like that anymore. Dave, Dave, shit
Speaker 3: your fucking mouth and you can.
Speaker 5: Just listen to the last last time I saw you
Speaker 5: do a seay. You just fucking murdered the whole fucking
Speaker 5: shit your.
Speaker 3: Fucking face, like kill that crowd.
Speaker 2: You left unexploded ordnance in the crowded.
Speaker 3: Over should have been over fifteen minutes earlier.
Speaker 2: And like with unexploded ordinance in low forty percent of
Speaker 2: the people who loved your jokes after the set and we're.
Speaker 3: Children no more.
Speaker 9: There'll be no more relating. There'll be no more correlating. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 9: that's part two. You got two more weeks of innardy kissing.
Speaker 9: You'r ahead of you, folks, to strap in gets a
Speaker 9: lot uglier. But also we'll be talking about his sex life.
Speaker 9: So you know, I was going to say something to
Speaker 9: look forward to, but like not really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, come back next week for more of the
Speaker 2: dick Sucking toilet Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty good title.
Speaker 2: Sophie's not happy with it.
Speaker 3: No, Sophie is not on board. I don't love it.
Speaker 3: But you know, all right, Oh I don't.
Speaker 2: How do I, Sophie, how do I introduce part three
Speaker 2: of the Kissinger series?
Speaker 3: You just did it? Gareth and David are right here,
Speaker 3: they're waiting for something good and I just I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm fucking it.
Speaker 2: Up, Sophie.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, but you you accidentally introduced the podcast
Speaker 1: which is behind the.
Speaker 2: Bastards Behind the doll Ups doll Up the Bastard the
Speaker 2: Bastards hybrid podcast, and like all hybrids, it is incapable
Speaker 2: of procreating, but better at getting up steep mountain passes.
Speaker 3: It's getting a little goading.
Speaker 4: Now we can multiply by cell division, but not through
Speaker 4: sexual Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've tried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have, we have. We're in that process.
Speaker 3: We tried.
Speaker 2: So since we last recorded a podcast, war has broken
Speaker 2: out and I was.
Speaker 3: Just thinking, mister in Europe, God, three days yeah, but
Speaker 3: we like ended it and then it was like, oh wow,
Speaker 3: it's happening, and now it feels like it's been two
Speaker 3: months since. Then had a brief conversation what do you
Speaker 3: think is going to happen?
Speaker 2: And then immediately checked our phones to be like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: so they're shipping all over the place. Oh so, y'all
Speaker 2: are we ready to learn about Henry Kissinger and a
Speaker 2: little country you might have heard of called Cambodia, Oh god,
Speaker 2: and also a separate country you might have called Lao,
Speaker 2: and also Vietnam. Still so that energy, I.
Speaker 3: Am, let's go, let's do it.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So on February fourteenth, Valentine's Day, nineteen sixty five, President
Speaker 2: Lyndon B. Johnson approved Operation Rolling Thunder. This was a
Speaker 2: long term campaign of aerial bombing against North Vietnam. It's
Speaker 2: primary aims were to help them morale with the South
Speaker 2: Vietnamese and the Sikon government, to persuade North Vietnam to
Speaker 2: stop supporting the Viet Cong, and to destroy the North
Speaker 2: Vietnamese transportation infrastructure and industrial base so as to stop
Speaker 2: them from sending men.
Speaker 3: And equipment south. It did not succeed. As a spoiler,
Speaker 3: none of this, none of this works.
Speaker 4: Like it's just amazing that, like you have all this firepower,
Speaker 4: you have all these planes, and really you're talking about
Speaker 4: destroying like railroads and shipping.
Speaker 2: And like underground tunnels too. This is the ho Chiman Trail,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean is that what we're talking about,
Speaker 4: the Hochiman Trail?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, And we're never going to do that. No.
Speaker 2: This is like a lesson that no one ever learns
Speaker 2: in warfare. Because you can also point to like the
Speaker 2: saturation bombing of Germany, which had a minimal effect on
Speaker 2: German industrial production. You can talk about like what's happening
Speaker 2: right now in Ukraine, which has not succeeded in its
Speaker 2: strategic games. You could talk about a number of wars
Speaker 2: the US has been involved, and you can talk about
Speaker 2: like World War One, where the British would drop a
Speaker 2: million shells in a couple of hours on a chunk
Speaker 2: of trench line and then all get killed by machine
Speaker 2: gun fire because the shells didn't do enough. Like military
Speaker 2: leaders always have this idea that we can just bomb
Speaker 2: our problems away and it just never really works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it doesn't. Yeah, you know what it does.
Speaker 3: It terrifies the civilian population.
Speaker 2: It sure does, yes, and it helps the Pentagon a lot.
Speaker 2: I think it does help the Pentagon. It makes money
Speaker 2: for people, so I guess to that extent it succeeds
Speaker 2: in its goal. And Operation Rolling Thunder did make some
Speaker 2: people a lot of money. It continued for three straight
Speaker 2: years until November of nineteen sixty eight. During this period,
Speaker 2: Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps planes through more than
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand attack sorties, which dropped more than eight
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty four thousand tons of bombs. For reference,
Speaker 2: the United States dropped half a million tons of bombs
Speaker 2: in the Pacific theater during all of World War two Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is hard to exaggerate the extent to which we
Speaker 2: bomb the shit out of North Vietnam to no notable effect.
Speaker 2: According to our trustworthy friends at the CIA, the raids
Speaker 2: did five hundred million dollars in damage, killed twenty one
Speaker 2: thousand people, and injured more than thirty thousand more. The
Speaker 2: CIA says that seventy five percent of all casualties were
Speaker 2: people involved in military operations. US government estimates, not by
Speaker 2: the CIA, however, estimate at least thirty thousand civilian fatalities.
Speaker 2: Other estimates placed the civilian death toll much higher, at
Speaker 2: close to two hundred thousand civilians, probably fair to say
Speaker 2: north of one hundred thousand. You know, a lot, a
Speaker 2: lot of folks. By the time Kissinger and Nixon took office,
Speaker 2: it was clear that Rolling Thunder had failed miserably. This
Speaker 2: was due in part to the existence of the Hochiman
Speaker 2: Trail in nineteen fifty nine, this is before US soldiers
Speaker 2: had officially entered the country. The trail had been created
Speaker 2: under order by the Loudong, which is the Communist Party
Speaker 2: of Vietnam, to aid them in what was at that
Speaker 2: point a building conflict with South Vietnam. At the start,
Speaker 2: it led across just the demilitarized zone into Quaisan and
Speaker 2: South Vietnam. Porters would carry boxes of ammunition and rifles
Speaker 2: on their body, which they would then hand to insurgents
Speaker 2: in the South. Over time, the trail was expanded to
Speaker 2: a vast underground transit network, more than twelve thousand miles
Speaker 2: in size, capable of moving more than ten thousand troops
Speaker 2: and thousands of trucks per year. As the fighting escalated,
Speaker 2: the trail veered into Lao, where the government was engaged
Speaker 2: fighting its own insurgency and unable to stop the transit
Speaker 2: of weapons. The Hochiman Trail allowed North Vietnam to smuggle
Speaker 2: equipment south and to evade the US naval blockade that
Speaker 2: sought to choke it out. Today, even Defense Department sources
Speaker 2: recognized it as one of the greatest logistical successes of
Speaker 2: twentieth century warfare. It works pretty good for this trail.
Speaker 3: It's amazing to think of the number of bombs you're
Speaker 3: talking about. And then they made a tunnel. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: turns out they dug a hole. Yeah, a really good haul.
Speaker 3: But it's like Chopak, it's not just a tunnel.
Speaker 4: It's in a jungle, like we're tying him out a
Speaker 4: very difficult sort of environment to make a tunnel.
Speaker 3: It's not that like it's incredible what they did. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So lbj's administration sent planes into Lao to bomb the
Speaker 2: trail and to escort Laochian planes while they bombed the trail.
Speaker 2: When US airmen were killed or captured over Lao, their
Speaker 2: families were told they'd gone down in Southeast Asia to
Speaker 2: allow LBJ to claim he'd abided by his nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: four election promise to avoid a wider war. Cambodia was
Speaker 2: bombed as well, but during lbj's administration, Lao was considered
Speaker 2: a more important target. They thought more stuff was getting
Speaker 2: into Vietnam through Lao. This changed in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: when the Tet Offensive made it clear that that North
Speaker 2: Vietnam had gotten very good at running troops in and
Speaker 2: out of Cambodia. Johnson hadn't been willing to escalate the
Speaker 2: bombing campaign against a neutral country, though, especially since again
Speaker 2: there was this big election going on and he was
Speaker 2: kind of having his vice president run on the promise
Speaker 2: that like we're really going to end this thing. So
Speaker 2: you know LBJ when he's trying to tease North Vietnam
Speaker 2: with a bombing halt, isn't gonna just start laying into Cambodia.
Speaker 2: Right In the spring of nineteen sixty nine, after you know,
Speaker 2: Kissinger and Nixon took office, they approved the expanded use
Speaker 2: of US special forces in Lao along with a campaign
Speaker 2: of sustained air strikes. This was called Operation Steel Tiger.
Speaker 2: All of these so, I mean, the stupidest names. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3: I mean we the marketing that we have gone for
Speaker 3: in this country for so long has been so absurd.
Speaker 4: Steel Tiger, well, I mean they're just taking y and
Speaker 4: T album names at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if only they'd gone with like Prince Operation Purple Rain.
Speaker 2: But it's likely the folianth that gives everyone cancer. So
Speaker 2: I should note here that all secret operations carried out
Speaker 2: by any US forces anywhere in the world during the
Speaker 2: Nixon administration were approved personally by Henry Kissinger. Henry was
Speaker 2: the chairman of something called the forty committ Hell oh
Speaker 2: sorrys This was a semi secret body that had been
Speaker 2: set up to provide management and oversight to CIA covert operations.
Speaker 2: The committee was made up of members of the National
Speaker 2: Security Council. They concerned themselves regularly with the question of
Speaker 2: how to stop weapons from flowing into Vietnam. By this point,
Speaker 2: trails ran through parts of Flow and Cambodia, but also
Speaker 2: from the Vietnam Chinese border. So Kissinger is the head
Speaker 2: of this committee. Considers a number of ways to stop
Speaker 2: weapons from getting into new or from getting into North Vietnam,
Speaker 2: including the use of thermonuclear weapons to annihilate the rail
Speaker 2: waste between North Vietnam and China Jesus out of its
Speaker 2: entire damn mind, and to be fair, is nuts enough
Speaker 2: that even Kissinger is like, no, that's a little too far.
Speaker 2: He also considered bombing the dikes that kept North Vietnam's
Speaker 2: irrigation system from flooding all of its fields. Both of
Speaker 2: these would have been war crimes on a Titanic scale. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: Kassinger declined to do either in favor of a completely
Speaker 2: different set of war crimes.
Speaker 3: So that's good, that's nice. Yeah, don't let's do a
Speaker 3: different thing.
Speaker 2: He decides which war crimes to commit, like we decide
Speaker 2: like jeans or sweatpants in the morning.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that would go really well. With
Speaker 3: what we're doing. Now that a really tie the whole
Speaker 3: thing together. Yeah, it's quite a life.
Speaker 2: So immediately after taking office, Henry helps his new boss
Speaker 2: put together a menu of bombardment targets in Cambodia. This
Speaker 2: is literally called Operation Menu.
Speaker 10: Now, yeah, what before some great ideas to tip your bombardier.
Speaker 3: Get this?
Speaker 2: That was That's what I don't know. I actually don't
Speaker 2: recall off the top of my head which bombing operation
Speaker 2: McCain was involved in. But there's a good there's a
Speaker 2: good tip joke to be made there. Somebody will figure
Speaker 2: it out. Well people do in post. Yeah, we'll figure
Speaker 2: it out. Different parts of Operation Menu had code names.
Speaker 2: Different targets had code names like breakfast, lunch, certain.
Speaker 3: What I mean? It is one thing to be like
Speaker 3: so sadistic, and it's just another thing to tie it into.
Speaker 3: Wanted to try brunch. Yeah, we're going back to brunch
Speaker 3: finally under the watchful.
Speaker 4: So slaughter can be fun, like you can find fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you should got to love what you do, Dave,
Speaker 2: otherwise you're just going to feel like work, you know.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: So, before they began this series of bombings, the Joint
Speaker 2: chiefs of Staff they warned the White House quote, some
Speaker 2: Cambodian casualties would be sustained in the operation. Surprise effectiveness
Speaker 2: would tend to increase casualties. So they're like the fact
Speaker 2: that we're not warning anyone and that we're keeping this
Speaker 2: a secret means more civilians will die. Like, heads up,
Speaker 2: so you know what you're doing. This is what's going
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: As they approached the question of bombing Cambodia a Kissinger
Speaker 2: and Nixon had a choice. They could either tell Congress
Speaker 2: or they could hide what they were doing and use
Speaker 2: the presidential power over the Armed Services to appropriate funds
Speaker 2: from other places in order to carry out the bombing
Speaker 2: and secret. Nixon had been elected with Kissinger's help in
Speaker 2: part due to the LBJA administration's failure to end the war.
Speaker 2: He didn't want to go into nineteen seventy two's re
Speaker 2: election campaign having to defend the fact that he expanded it.
Speaker 2: Henry Kissinger worked with colonels Alexander Haig and Race Sitten
Speaker 2: to figure it away for the president to direct bombing
Speaker 2: operations in a private manner. And I'm going to quote
Speaker 2: from Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Grandon Sitton based on recommendations
Speaker 2: he received from General Creighton Abrams, the commander of military
Speaker 2: operations in Vietnam, would work up a number of targets
Speaker 2: in Cambodia to be struck. Then he would bring them
Speaker 2: to Kissinger and Hague in the White House for approval.
Speaker 2: Kissinger was very hands on revising some of Sitten's work.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he was using as his reason
Speaker 2: for varying them. Sitting later recalled strike here in this area,
Speaker 2: Kissinger would tell him or strike there in that area.
Speaker 2: Once Kissinger was satisfied with the proposed target, Sittin would
Speaker 2: back channel the coordinates to Saigon, and from there a
Speaker 2: courier would pass them on to the appropriate radar stations,
Speaker 2: where an officer would make a last minute switch. The
Speaker 2: B fifty two would be diverted from its cover target
Speaker 2: in South Vietnam into Cambodia, where it would drop its
Speaker 2: bomb load on the real target. When the run was complete,
Speaker 2: the officer in charge of the deception would burn whatever documents, maps,
Speaker 2: computer printouts, radar reports, messages, and so on that might
Speaker 2: reveal the actual flight. Then he would write up false
Speaker 2: post strike paperwork indicating that the South Vietnam sortie was
Speaker 2: flown as planned.
Speaker 3: It's so much work. Yeah, reminds me of when I
Speaker 3: used to skip school, that like the lengths I would
Speaker 3: go to to get away with cutting class, and like
Speaker 3: the point would be made always to me, like if
Speaker 3: you put this focus towards studying, you'd probably you'd spend
Speaker 3: less time and it would be more effective. But instead
Speaker 3: you just waste so much. Instead of just stopping, you
Speaker 3: do all this gymnastics just to continue the thing that
Speaker 3: is the problem, that makes the problem compound.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's they really are are going through a lot
Speaker 2: of work to illegally bomb a neutral country to look
Speaker 2: like they're not bombing. Yeah, to look like they're not.
Speaker 2: It's gaslighting, you know, this is that's what That's what
Speaker 2: this is kissing.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: We're finally going to get him canceled.
Speaker 3: This is going to be what it would be. Imagine
Speaker 3: a Canceler book.
Speaker 4: We're gonna do Kissinger on Hannibal Burst did to Cosby.
Speaker 3: Oh man, come on, come on.
Speaker 2: So you know, obviously this is very illegal. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of and there's a lot of parts of it
Speaker 2: that are illegal. For example, the military has a chain
Speaker 2: of command and Sitton was bypassing his bosses in the
Speaker 2: Department of Defense, because he's just a colonel, right, Like
Speaker 2: colonels don't get to that's not there, Like you're not
Speaker 2: at that level, right, So he is he is bypassing
Speaker 2: the normal chain of command in order to directly orchestrate
Speaker 2: an a legal bombing campaign with the White House and
Speaker 2: kind of cutting out a chunk of the Pentagon sitting
Speaker 2: knew at the time that it was weird to cut
Speaker 2: his commanding officers out and report directly to Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 2: He later recalled, I kind of felt I was way
Speaker 2: out on a limb and skating on some pretty thin
Speaker 2: ice with all my trips to the West basement of
Speaker 2: the White House where he's meeting with Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, like, yeah, I'm going to a secret basement, Yeah,
Speaker 4: to talk about bombing, Like maybe maybe this isn't how
Speaker 4: it's supposed to be done.
Speaker 3: Him seem like a democracy I feel like we shouldn't
Speaker 3: be doing things like this in a basement. I can't
Speaker 3: come to secret democracy basement. Yeah. Yeah. The people voted
Speaker 3: for this basement. A knock, so I know it's you.
Speaker 2: I noted here that they kind of cut out a
Speaker 2: large chunk of like the military command apparatus to do this,
Speaker 2: which doesn't mean that those guys were against what they
Speaker 2: were doing. And in fact, all of Sitton's superiors knew
Speaker 2: what he was doing. They just didn't want to be
Speaker 2: involved because again, it was a crime, you know.
Speaker 3: Like so they so they're like they're down with the
Speaker 3: cutout because they're just like, yeah, you do it.
Speaker 2: I don't want my name on this shit.
Speaker 3: It's crazy, but go with it for sure. Yeah I
Speaker 3: love it. Yeah we love it. Give me out of
Speaker 3: the loop.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they didn't know about the bombing f Cambodia
Speaker 2: the same way. I have never known a pot dealer, right,
Speaker 2: So Sitting would regularly like, I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say this is to his credit, but he
Speaker 2: was like this is weird, and he would go he did,
Speaker 2: on a couple of occasions go to his superiors and
Speaker 2: was like, are.
Speaker 3: You okay with this?
Speaker 2: And his exact phrase about what they responded was just
Speaker 2: do just what you're doing. When you get a call
Speaker 2: to go to the White House, go because you don't
Speaker 2: really have a choice.
Speaker 3: Just great, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: It's so it's it's straight out of the show snowfall.
Speaker 4: Like it's just like this shit just happens all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this is what happened with Iran. Contract was the same,
Speaker 4: fucking know. Yeah, it's all crimes. And it's worth noting that,
Speaker 4: like the United States is going to war with a
Speaker 4: neutral country in secret under the personal direction of a
Speaker 4: guy who several months ago had been a Harvard professor
Speaker 4: like Kissinger is not even a year distant from being
Speaker 4: a fucking teacher this and now he is orchestrating a
Speaker 4: secret war in Cambodia. I mean, and like, I love
Speaker 4: the I love the beginning thing where you said there's
Speaker 4: like a guy whose job it is to pick targets,
Speaker 4: and he's picking targets and Nick guessn't just taking them
Speaker 4: maps and going No, I like most bomb here, like
Speaker 4: just totally random. He doesn't have any fucking idea what
Speaker 4: he's doing. He's just like that hill looks like it
Speaker 4: should go away.
Speaker 2: He has not even begun to micromanage this, this war
Speaker 2: crime day. So the purpose of this illegal bombing campaign
Speaker 2: was not just to stop the movement of Vietnamese troops
Speaker 2: and materiel. It also it also pleaded a role in
Speaker 2: advancing what Nixon called his Madman theory. Now, the President
Speaker 2: had shared this with close confidence to the nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: eight election. He told his future chief of staff that
Speaker 2: in order to negotiate an into the war with favorable terms,
Speaker 2: he felt he had to make the North Vietnamese quote,
Speaker 2: believe I've reached a point where I might do anything
Speaker 2: to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to
Speaker 2: them that, for God's sake, you know, Nixon is obsessed
Speaker 2: about communists. We can't restrain him when he's angry, and
Speaker 2: he has his hand on the nuclear button. And Ho
Speaker 2: Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days
Speaker 2: begging for peace, which is.
Speaker 3: Like the idea someone's like, so you want us to
Speaker 3: try to convey that you're crazy? Okay, that seems I
Speaker 3: think it's coming across her. Honestly, I think that's already
Speaker 3: baked into this whole thing a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's also very funny that, like they are trying to
Speaker 2: scare Ho Chi Minh, who at this point is fighting
Speaker 2: his second winning war against a major world power with
Speaker 2: like a very very small number of people, you know,
Speaker 2: Like no, North Vietnam not a big country compared to
Speaker 2: say the French imperial forces or the United States. He's
Speaker 2: not a kind of you're not going to scare ho
Speaker 2: Chi minh.
Speaker 3: Right, he's not. He's not a guy who gets spooked.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, it's over.
Speaker 5: That's just absolutely not happening at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Kissinger either believed in his boss's plan or understood
Speaker 2: that he had to play along. Greg Grandon argues that
Speaker 2: Nixon's mad Man theory was actually just an extension of
Speaker 2: the foreign policy arguments that Kissinger himself had been making
Speaker 2: for years. Quote toughness after all was a late motif
Speaker 2: that run ran through much of his state craft, the
Speaker 2: idea that war and diplomacy are inseparable, and that to
Speaker 2: be effective, diplomats need to be able to punish and
Speaker 2: persuade an equal unrestricted measure. In fact, the mad Man
Speaker 2: theory was an extension of Kissinger's philosophy of the deed
Speaker 2: that power wasn't power unless one was willing to use it,
Speaker 2: that the purpose of action was to neutralize the inertia
Speaker 2: of an action.
Speaker 3: I mean it like it's not I mean it's not
Speaker 3: a double down. It's like it's eighteen double downs. But
Speaker 3: at some point you just I at least in my
Speaker 3: lifetime had a moment where I did believe that there
Speaker 3: there were people who were who would like point out
Speaker 3: the crazy shit. And the more you learn, the more
Speaker 3: you go, No, there's just there's not They are just
Speaker 3: all like it's like a bunch of junkies figuring out
Speaker 3: how to get more junk. Yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: like it's just how do you get through the day.
Speaker 3: It's not long term anything. Yep.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a degree to which and this is
Speaker 2: like one of the things that's most frustrating about this
Speaker 2: part of how this always gets justified is there's legitimate
Speaker 2: logic in that, Yeah, Hitler gobbled up a bunch of
Speaker 2: little chunks of Western Europe and nobody stopped him, and
Speaker 2: they should have, like something should have been done, like
Speaker 2: when he decided to take Czechoslovakia, you know, or during
Speaker 2: the Angelis there's certainly you know, like there, and they
Speaker 2: take this logic of like, yeah, if you have this
Speaker 2: like massive militarized nation gobbling up its neighbors, you can't
Speaker 2: just necessarily do nothing. And they applied that to like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: we've got a bomb Cambodia. Because some dudes are hiking
Speaker 2: through it with guns on their back, like Chamberlain.
Speaker 3: Nonsense escalation. Chamberlain also is always in play there too,
Speaker 3: because it's like everyone's like, you know, want to be Chamberlain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're appeasing North Vietnam if we don't drop more
Speaker 2: bombs than we're dropped in all of World War Two
Speaker 2: on Cambodia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have Cambodia.
Speaker 2: It's this nonsense escalation of logic, of historical logic that's
Speaker 2: like like someday Nixon's just gonna look in the mirror
Speaker 2: and be like, sometimes I think I'm I'm just fighting
Speaker 2: a war inside of myself. There actually are some quotes
Speaker 2: from Kissinger that aren't all that far off here.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 2: So the first bombing mission in this operation was launched
Speaker 2: on March eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine. Kissinger was in conversation
Speaker 2: at the time when he was interrupted with a note
Speaker 2: telling him that the bombing run had been a success.
Speaker 2: He smiled and then sent the information on to the President.
Speaker 2: Nixon's chief of staff, later recalled historic day. Kissinger really excited.
Speaker 2: He came in beaming with the report. Now, it was
Speaker 2: noted by people who are around the White House that
Speaker 2: nick that Kissinger seem to enjoy quote playing the bombadier
Speaker 2: taking great pains to direct the destruction. Seymour Hirsch wrote
Speaker 2: that quote. When the military men presented a proposed bombing list,
Speaker 2: Kissinger would redesign the missions, shifting a dozen planes, perhaps
Speaker 2: from one area to another, and altering the timing of
Speaker 2: the bombing runs.
Speaker 3: And it does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess no fucking expertise in this area, absolutely none.
Speaker 2: He's a fucking nerd who reads books like you don't
Speaker 2: know anything about what to bomb, Henry.
Speaker 4: It's like me showing up at a hospital and being like,
Speaker 4: all right, give me this surgical schedule. I need to
Speaker 4: start to working these surgeries and getting them in order
Speaker 4: like that. Yeah, it's fucking crazy, it is. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is there's a human impulse here, right.
Speaker 2: We're seeing it in Ukraine where all these like random
Speaker 2: people are being like, here's how you disable a tank,
Speaker 2: and it's like, you've never disabled a tank. You don't
Speaker 2: know what the fuck you're talking about. Like you're not
Speaker 2: gonna like throwing paint on it isn't going to stop it.
Speaker 2: You're going to get people killed. If any one's stupid
Speaker 2: enough to listen to you shut up. It just like
Speaker 2: Kissinger is actually in a power to really do that.
Speaker 2: And there's this I don't know what it is. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is that makes some people certain
Speaker 2: that like they know how to prosecute an entire war
Speaker 2: based on their experience reading a lot of books at
Speaker 2: a school.
Speaker 3: And there's and there's. It doesn't sound like there's anybody
Speaker 3: who's going like, no, that doesn't make any sense. Is
Speaker 3: this out of its mind? Yeah? Yeah, it's just like
Speaker 3: it is. It's just people being like, okay, sure.
Speaker 2: Because there's a lot Obviously, the the unrestricted drone warfare
Speaker 2: that that escalated during the Obama administration and continued at
Speaker 2: an even higher pace under Trump is indefensible morally, but
Speaker 2: also the way that it tended to work was like
Speaker 2: you would get, you know, these guys with the administration
Speaker 2: at whichever one it was, would say like, these are
Speaker 2: the things we are we are going to target with drones,
Speaker 2: and then the military would bring them like, well, here
Speaker 2: are the different options for strikes that we have, and
Speaker 2: they would like pick which one to do. Kissinger is
Speaker 2: literally taking the maps from them, erasing their plans, and
Speaker 2: like writing in his his own, which is like.
Speaker 3: Like a it's a coach and it's someone in the
Speaker 3: huddle with an actually with coach k he's drawing a
Speaker 3: plan on a whiteboard and then a fan just scribbles
Speaker 3: it out and like rubs it all down with his arm.
Speaker 3: And then he's like, instead, I don't we all run
Speaker 3: up the court at the same time, and then we
Speaker 3: passed the battle bunch. Try to do it. That would
Speaker 3: make someone head the butt into the.
Speaker 4: It's it's I think, yeah, I'm just upset because I
Speaker 4: bought forty gallons of paint.
Speaker 2: Because you were going to try to knock out a
Speaker 2: couple of tanks.
Speaker 3: Tank war, and now the whole fucking thing shot.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, there are some things paint is good
Speaker 2: at when it comes to conflict. There were some very
Speaker 2: funny moments in one of the big HUD fights we
Speaker 2: had up in Portland, where kids filled a fire extinguisher
Speaker 2: with paint and like ruined thousands of dollars in tactical gear.
Speaker 4: That was that was good.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: Look, it's not to say that amateurs never have good ideas,
Speaker 2: but they were not amateurs at that point though.
Speaker 3: Those kids.
Speaker 2: I've been finding those proud boys for a minute, so
Speaker 2: Kissinger's extraordinary degree of control over the situation was possible
Speaker 2: because he had literally reformed the entire national security apparatus
Speaker 2: around himself. Nixon wanted a buffer from his own secretary
Speaker 2: of State, which provided Henry with the opportunity to take
Speaker 2: as much power and centralize it around the National Security Advisor.
Speaker 2: And he could do this as long as he kept
Speaker 2: Nixon happy. Under Kissinger, the National Security Council, which he headed,
Speaker 2: became the center of US foreign policy, a massive bureaucracy
Speaker 2: fed piles of information embassy cables, intelligence reports, etc. Straight
Speaker 2: to Henry Kissinger. He decided, he's again, Henry is where
Speaker 2: all of the information from this vast apparatus that the
Speaker 2: US has to gather information right the eyes and ears
Speaker 2: of the president, you know, all of the things that
Speaker 2: are supposed to provide the president with information. All of
Speaker 2: that comes directly to Henry, and he decides what to
Speaker 2: give the president.
Speaker 3: And he was a teacher, and he was a year before.
Speaker 2: He was a guy whose primary claim to fame before
Speaker 2: this was we need more new we don't have enough
Speaker 2: fucking nukes, and also we should use them. Whenever it's
Speaker 2: I was just watching there's a great documentary called Commanded Control.
Speaker 2: That's about a nuclear disaster in the US in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty that nearly killed half of the people on the
Speaker 2: East Coast. That enough folks don't know about. A guy
Speaker 2: accidentally dropped a bolt and it ignited part of a
Speaker 2: nuclear missile and it nearly killed everyone on the East seyboard. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: It was a big old It was a big kerfuffle.
Speaker 3: And say so the guys there's a profile and the thing.
Speaker 2: That's nuts about it. But one of the things that
Speaker 2: pointed out I think we have Sophie can google this
Speaker 2: for me. I think we have about six thousand nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons right now, which is way too many.
Speaker 4: But as a result we have yeah, we have the
Speaker 4: Soviet Russia is around six thousand. We have around forty
Speaker 4: eight hundred.
Speaker 2: I think forty eight hundred, So that's too much. Both
Speaker 2: countries have too many nukes. I think we can all
Speaker 2: say that's fair.
Speaker 3: It's a lot. I'm not sign enough on that.
Speaker 2: As a result, in part of Kissingers, we have a
Speaker 2: missile gap and we need to build more. By this
Speaker 2: point in the mid sixties, there are thirty two thousand
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons in the United States.
Speaker 3: It is that's even an aside because it's like a
Speaker 3: Kardashian with shoes. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feel my thing has always been every every person
Speaker 4: who owns property should be allowed to have a nuke.
Speaker 3: Your own nuke.
Speaker 2: Look, I think you can all agree, you know what,
Speaker 2: you know what there wouldn't be if everyone had a nuke. Dave,
Speaker 2: no knock raids by the cops.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna have any of that shit.
Speaker 3: They're gonna be busted down doors. Yeah, come on, guys,
Speaker 3: are fine doors of mesole.
Speaker 2: Real different situation are the cops if everybody's got a nuke?
Speaker 3: Other problems though there would there would be some other
Speaker 3: problems I don't seem Yeah.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Kissinger is the the Kissinger is effectively turned
Speaker 2: himself into the eyes and ears of the United States
Speaker 2: military applats.
Speaker 3: He decides what it's great.
Speaker 2: You can argue he's one of the two or three
Speaker 2: most powerful people who's ever lived at this point. An
Speaker 2: argument could be made so Marvin and Bernard Kolb, who
Speaker 2: were both diplomats at this point, describe what Henry builds
Speaker 2: here as Henry's wonderful machine.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Since Kissinger, I know, Willy Wonka mister Magoriam's nuclear emporium.
Speaker 2: Since Kissinger controlled the system, he controlled the decision making process.
Speaker 2: Everyone reports to Kissinger and only Kissinger reports to the president.
Speaker 2: This set up allowed Henry to micromanage bombing campaigns, over order,
Speaker 2: covert arms deals, and engage in secret diplomacy at will.
Speaker 2: He was not merely executing the president's orders. He himself
Speaker 2: was free to make national policy as long as Nixon
Speaker 2: was happy with him. From Kissinger's shadow quote, Kissinger, according
Speaker 2: to Marvin and Bernard kaulb knew almost instinctively that he
Speaker 2: would be able to control the bureaucracy and thus help
Speaker 2: reorder American diplomacy, only to the degree that he became
Speaker 2: indistinguishable from the President and his policies. Rogers at State
Speaker 2: was opposed to the idea of escalating the war into Cambodia.
Speaker 2: Laired at the Pentagon was for it, but thought it
Speaker 2: needed to be done above board, legally and publicly through
Speaker 2: the normal chain of command. This gave Kissinger an opening,
Speaker 2: letting him stake out in naplus ultra position. He wanted
Speaker 2: to bomb. He wanted to bomb in a way that
Speaker 2: inflicted the most pain, and he wanted to bomb an
Speaker 2: absolute secrecy, completely off the books. As a result, every
Speaker 2: war crime committed by the United States during the Nition administration,
Speaker 2: every bad thing US forces do, particularly under the ages
Speaker 2: of special operations at least right has to be considered
Speaker 2: one of Henry Kissinger's crimes because it is his job
Speaker 2: to personally sign off on all of them, and he
Speaker 2: is He is not just a rubber stamper. He is
Speaker 2: actively pushing for things. So we are going into very
Speaker 2: specific detail about one specific crime. If you find a
Speaker 2: bad thing that that US, the CIA or Special Forces
Speaker 2: did from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy three, Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger gave that the old thumbs up. Again, We're gonna
Speaker 2: have to leave out a lot.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even sound like it's I mean, it's like
Speaker 3: ego based. Yeah, it's it's not even I mean there's
Speaker 3: there's there's so little actual. It just shows you, like
Speaker 3: what happens when you're in a bubble. Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 3: I just don't think most people would would be capable
Speaker 3: of this. But it's it is. It's just like it's
Speaker 3: not really for anything other than he is just feels
Speaker 3: great being at the helm of this and it's an
Speaker 3: extremely powerful position.
Speaker 2: And it's such a bad idea, Like if you proceed
Speaker 2: like a moment, get ourselves in the headspace. If someone
Speaker 2: who thinks all of this is morally justified, it's a
Speaker 2: bad idea because a person can't competently manage all.
Speaker 3: Of this, right they would, right, they would be like, look,
Speaker 3: I need help. I mean, we're doing what we're going
Speaker 3: to do, like a reasonable warlord would be like delegated, rational,
Speaker 3: level headed, Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2: So when he was signing off on bombing, Kissinger poured
Speaker 2: over raw intelligence documents, which included information on exactly, in
Speaker 2: many cases, down to the number how many civilians lived
Speaker 2: in a certain target area. Now, sometimes it was a
Speaker 2: little bit less specific in this. For example, Area seven
Speaker 2: oh four, which had quote sizable concentrations of civilians, didn't
Speaker 2: have an exact number, but was bobbed two hundred and
Speaker 2: forty seven times on Henry Kissinger's orders. And since we're
Speaker 2: going to be talking a lot about bombing, we should
Speaker 2: discuss exactly what that mint in this case. Because all
Speaker 2: bombings are not created equal. The bombings Kissinger directed were
Speaker 2: carried out by B fifty two bombers. These are massive plans.
Speaker 2: These are like the size of the big international commercial
Speaker 2: aircraft roughly right. These are not like fighter jets and stuff.
Speaker 2: These fly too high to be seen from the ground,
Speaker 2: and they are incapable of meaningful discrimination between civilian and
Speaker 2: military targets. This is not an era in which there's
Speaker 2: much at all in the way of precision guided bombing,
Speaker 2: And with a B fifty two you cannot even attempt precision.
Speaker 2: You are dropping explosives blindly from like a mile up.
Speaker 2: I want to quot now from a write up by
Speaker 2: Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan for Yale quote, A single
Speaker 2: B fifty two D big belly payload consists of up
Speaker 2: to one hundred and eight two hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: kilogram or forty two three hundred and forty kilogram bombs,
Speaker 2: which are dropped in a target area of approximately five
Speaker 2: hundred by fifteen hundred meters. In many cases, Cambodian villages
Speaker 2: were hit with dozens of payloads over the course of
Speaker 2: several hours. The result was near total destruction. When US
Speaker 2: officials stated at the time, we had been told, as
Speaker 2: had everybody, that those carpet bombing attacks by B fifty
Speaker 2: twos were totally devastating that nothing could survive.
Speaker 3: It's like a sturgeon with eggs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is. It is just completely indiscriminate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: one Cambodian survivor, because people did live. As we've stated,
Speaker 2: these are never as good at killing people as the
Speaker 2: military likes to claim, which is not to minimize the horror.
Speaker 2: It's just like it's also not it doesn't work except
Speaker 2: I mean, one Cambodian survivor of US bombing described it
Speaker 2: this way. Three f one on ones bombed right center
Speaker 2: of my village, killing eleven of my family members. My
Speaker 2: father was wounded but survived. At that time, there was
Speaker 2: not a single soldier in the village or in the
Speaker 2: area around the village. Twenty seven other villages were also killed.
Speaker 2: They had to run into a ditch to hide, and
Speaker 2: then two bombs fell right into it.
Speaker 3: Oh for fucks, Yeah, it is. Yeah. You cannot you
Speaker 3: cannot exaggerate the extint to which this is indiscriminate. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just total madness on top of madness. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: there's no Yeah.
Speaker 2: People are rightly furious about like bombing in Ukrainian cities
Speaker 2: right now. What the United States is doing in Cambodia
Speaker 2: is eliminating grid squares on a map of all life, like, yeah, which.
Speaker 5: Is a country that has nothing to fucking do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some d these are walking through it, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's cop logic, where like, well, a guy who
Speaker 2: stole a car was seeing in this neighborhood, so we
Speaker 2: had to shoot anyone someone we saw in the window
Speaker 2: of their house, you know, like it's that kind of shit,
Speaker 2: which I guess it makes sense that cops act the
Speaker 2: way they do because this has always been the way
Speaker 2: people with guns and power act everywhere through all time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the ostensible purpose of all this carnage which to
Speaker 2: put an end to North Vietnam's ability to wage war,
Speaker 2: but a huge factor for both Kissinger and Nixon, even
Speaker 2: larger than any actual impact on the war itself, was
Speaker 2: to preserve their personal power. Right after the bombing of
Speaker 2: cambodi began, Nixon sent Kissinger to talk with the Soviet ambassador,
Speaker 2: a fellow named Dobrynyan. In Henry Kissinger in American Power,
Speaker 2: Thomas Schwartz writes, quote Kissinger put forward a straightforward, put
Speaker 2: forth a straightforward domestic political account for Nixon's motivation and thinking,
Speaker 2: noting that Nixon is not seeking a military victory, but
Speaker 2: he cannot go down in American history as the first
Speaker 2: US president to have lost a war in which the
Speaker 2: US participated.
Speaker 3: H Oh, I mean the honest, like you'd think you'd
Speaker 3: at least lie about it. No, No, just the Oh
Speaker 3: my god, Look, it's murdering. A demicide is one thing, Gareth,
Speaker 3: but dishonesty, t christs, It's just it's disgusting. That's I
Speaker 3: feel like a parent. Look the ambassador someone Kissinger drinks with,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, exactly lie to him. I mean, I
Speaker 3: just I would love to see a version where he
Speaker 3: just keep up an appearance. Look, he can. We just
Speaker 3: Nixon hates losing. That's what this is about. We can't
Speaker 3: think the people. Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 2: Between March of nineteen sixty nine and May of nineteen seventy,
Speaker 2: more than three thousand, six hundred and thirty rates were
Speaker 2: flown across the cam Bodium border. Each was approved personally
Speaker 2: by Henry Kissinger. The New York Times broke this story
Speaker 2: to the American public for the first time in May
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty nine. So that's pretty good, right, like
Speaker 2: the New York Times actually is pretty shocking on this
Speaker 2: and reveals what has happened. This prompts protests, an international outcry.
Speaker 2: That's one of the frustrating things about the New York Times,
Speaker 2: because there's a million things to be angry at them
Speaker 2: all the time, and then it's like, oh, and they
Speaker 2: also were the first people to reveal this horrific crime
Speaker 2: against humanity, because.
Speaker 3: These bright spots where you're like, you fuckers, Well, it's
Speaker 3: like a broken clock.
Speaker 2: Though it's you know, every now and then, it's like
Speaker 2: a broken clock. But when it's right, it's about like
Speaker 2: the massacre of civilians on an industrial scale. But also
Speaker 2: when it's wrong, it's about the massacre of civilians. Southern investors,
Speaker 2: so mixed bag. So there's immediately protest, an international outcry.
Speaker 2: Armed students sees a building at Cornell University, which is
Speaker 2: very based. Students at Kissinger's own Harvard engage in a
Speaker 2: two week strike. Ever, pr savvy Kissinger agreed to meet
Speaker 2: with student protesters in order to prop up his image
Speaker 2: among liberals. He told them, if you come back in
Speaker 2: a year and things haven't changed, we won't have a
Speaker 2: morally defensible position. So like, hey, you know, I know
Speaker 2: it's all fucked up. I've got to fix this whole
Speaker 2: messed up. It's been going on for years. You know
Speaker 2: I'm working on it. If you come back behind this,
Speaker 2: but I figured the problem. There's a coug in here.
Speaker 3: Give me, give me one year to kill all the babies.
Speaker 3: And it also shows how fucking crazy you are, Like
Speaker 3: if you're doing this, you know you'd be like, look,
Speaker 3: hide me. I do not want to talk to the
Speaker 3: fact that he's like, I'll meet them, it's like you
Speaker 3: can make it work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll just tell him what's up. Like, look, we
Speaker 4: gotta kill him, but we gotta kill people for like
Speaker 4: a year. Let's let's see how it goes. Give me
Speaker 4: a year. I'm gonna bomb the ship out of just
Speaker 4: villages and ship and kill a bunch of babies and ladies.
Speaker 15: Have no idea year.
Speaker 3: It's just nice. Nice to be back at Look at
Speaker 3: the campus. You guys changed a couple of things.
Speaker 11: Huh.
Speaker 3: You guys are just like you guys are like I
Speaker 3: heard something bad.
Speaker 5: We're just getting started.
Speaker 3: But give me a year is an amazing thing to say.
Speaker 3: What it's on this Look, yeah, this is happening. In
Speaker 3: the year, we'll revisit. It's like, yeah, no, not a year.
Speaker 3: You don't get to revisit this, you revisit we should
Speaker 3: revisit where we are in the story after this break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's revisit the sponsors of the show.
Speaker 4: You know who else?
Speaker 3: You know who else need a year to keep killing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Look, if if it has not stopped the carpet bombing
Speaker 2: of Cambodia in a year, then then you can cancel
Speaker 2: your subscription, you know.
Speaker 3: Either way talking, that's menus. Those are menu options operate
Speaker 3: very much like Yeah, it's very much like a white
Speaker 3: House visit with a hell, well, do you want to
Speaker 3: make a case of deal or do you want to
Speaker 3: do this checkpiece? What do you there's options? You want
Speaker 3: to do a flood bread? Oh we're back?
Speaker 2: So uh, there's congressional inquiries about the illegal carpet bombing?
Speaker 3: What are they after? What they smell some smoke?
Speaker 2: I should also note seizing Cornell offices with arms, dope,
Speaker 2: actually sitting down with Henry Kissinger to let him talk
Speaker 2: about how things aren't really that bad, not dope. Maybe
Speaker 2: throw a stapler in his face, you know something, You
Speaker 2: you hit him really hard to hit him. You know,
Speaker 2: at least give him a shoe. You know, you've got
Speaker 2: options from a fucking baseball team at Harvard had to
Speaker 2: have been able to hit him with a fastball.
Speaker 5: There are people that if you're around you should be
Speaker 5: Cheney Bush.
Speaker 4: Get around certain people, you get close to him, you
Speaker 4: should fucking hit them, hit him hard.
Speaker 3: Look, dig Cheney is basically like a charging phone. Just
Speaker 3: unplug him at this point and see what happens. Whatever
Speaker 3: is little plugging a microwave. Next time, just have a
Speaker 3: microwaving an extension cord.
Speaker 1: Put a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look we we we all know.
Speaker 4: Everybody here knows that eventually Cheney and and Kissinger shed
Speaker 4: their human skins and become one ball of energy.
Speaker 3: I think Kissinger currently is shedding his human skin. If
Speaker 3: you've seen him lately, it looks like he's halfway through
Speaker 3: the moor's crossed. Yeah, but the two of them merge
Speaker 3: and then you know wings, Oh yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3: So they kind of become like a like a cerebus
Speaker 3: or something like that. Yeah, then they're one. It's like, Henry,
Speaker 3: let's get out of here. Find that they got through,
Speaker 3: and then they.
Speaker 2: And they locate in nuke microbiological life on Europa.
Speaker 3: No one has done yet. I love that it is coming.
Speaker 2: So there's congressional inquiries. Kissinger gets brought before the Senate
Speaker 2: where he assures everyone that Cambodian territory is bombed by
Speaker 2: the US were all quote unpopulated. He knew this was
Speaker 2: a lie at the time. We know from briefing documents
Speaker 2: Kissinger received that he was warned into tail about such things.
Speaker 2: The breakfast bombing target he was told wasn't he but
Speaker 2: by sixteen hundred and forty civilians, dessert had three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty.
Speaker 3: Nixon, it's just like ice cream. Yeah, you wouldn't get
Speaker 3: angry at me for bombing a baskin Robbins, would you?
Speaker 5: There are no people there, senator who hates cake.
Speaker 3: It's called the magic shell.
Speaker 2: So Nixon eventually initially blamed Kissinger for the leaks that
Speaker 2: had revealed the story of the bombing of Cambodia to
Speaker 2: the New York Times. And this is because Kissinger brings
Speaker 2: in a lot of like liberals. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: Kissinger's staff are not Republicans, are not like right wing guys.
Speaker 2: They're like Northeastern liberals.
Speaker 3: Because yeah, and he's charming. They are.
Speaker 2: But Nixon is like, it must have been one of
Speaker 2: these East Coast liberals you brought in that leaked at
Speaker 2: the Times.
Speaker 3: Heath right, so he thinks it's an extension of Kissinger,
Speaker 3: not Kissinger. No, no, no, he doesn't kissing. That would
Speaker 3: be someone's really up to something. Somebody's fuckinglogy. I won't
Speaker 3: tell you who those.
Speaker 4: But this is just like bringing Woody Allen in. He's funny,
Speaker 4: he tells you he's good.
Speaker 2: This is some good context on how comprehensively shitty a
Speaker 2: person Kissinger is, how incapable of real loyalty he is.
Speaker 2: Thomas Schwartz writes that in order to preserve his own position,
Speaker 2: Kissinger had to throw large numbers of his team members
Speaker 2: under the bus quote. Kissinger called FBI Director J. Edgar
Speaker 2: Hoover and gave him a list of those staffers in
Speaker 2: his office with access to the information, telling Hoover that
Speaker 2: he would destroy whoever did this if we can find him,
Speaker 2: no matter where he is. Among the first to be
Speaker 2: wiretapped was Morton Halperin, who had helped devise the NSC system.
Speaker 2: Helm At Sonenfeld, Kissinger's fellow German Jewish refugee, and even
Speaker 2: Winston Lord, the man Kissinger later called his conscience on
Speaker 2: foreign policy issues. And all there would be seventeen FBI
Speaker 2: wiretaps up by the White House, thirteen on government employees,
Speaker 2: including Kissinger's staff, and four on newsmen, among them Kissinger's
Speaker 2: British friend who was a reporter for the London Times.
Speaker 3: It's a media or raw. It's like American idol level
Speaker 3: sudden impact as far as because I mean, as you
Speaker 3: pointed to, he wasn't like this crazy. I mean he
Speaker 3: was crazy, but now it's like he's just it's on roids.
Speaker 3: The level that he the level he's gotten to, and
Speaker 3: the level of insanity that he's gotten to is really
Speaker 3: even for this country historic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's pretty cool. And just like it's great
Speaker 2: he is he's not capable of even like treating his
Speaker 2: very loyal friends. Well, so, yeah, this would come back
Speaker 2: to bite Kissinger and Nixon and the ass in the
Speaker 2: not too distant future. But we're gonna take a while
Speaker 2: to get to that because there's a lot in between
Speaker 2: there and now. So let's return to Cambodia. It is
Speaker 2: worth noting that Operation Menu achieved nothing. It was useless
Speaker 2: in a military sense. The enemy command and control facilities
Speaker 2: they were ostensibly trying to destroy. We're never take it out.
Speaker 2: And it was useless for a negotiating standpoint because North
Speaker 2: Vietnam did not bulge, budge bulge, They post baby.
Speaker 1: They have.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy, Nixon incited to escalate again by ordering a
Speaker 2: ground invasion of Cambodia. He announced this with a typically
Speaker 2: unhinged speech. And again this is public because at this point,
Speaker 2: you know, the New York Times is revealed things. So
Speaker 2: we live in an age of anarchy. We see mindless
Speaker 2: attacks and all the great institutions which have been created
Speaker 2: by free civilizations in the past five hundred years. It's
Speaker 2: happening because kids are like protesting and colleges yeah, like yeah.
Speaker 3: He framed it as a test of the nation's quote
Speaker 3: will and character. Serious. Now he's right.
Speaker 2: When one of his staff members balkman, Kissinger's staff members
Speaker 2: balked at plans to illegally invade Cambody with ground troops troops,
Speaker 2: Henry told him, quote, your views represent the cowardice of
Speaker 2: the Eastern establishment. This staff member, William Watts, tried to
Speaker 2: physically attack Henry Kissinger who hid behind his desk.
Speaker 3: Ah, it's just like that, if he was only able
Speaker 3: to just kill him. What imagine the ripple, if only
Speaker 3: there'd been a sharper letter opener on the desk, put
Speaker 3: it like a pen through his neck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very funny that Kissinger did at some point
Speaker 2: have to hide behind a desk to stop his staff from.
Speaker 3: So strong bombing everywhere. And then he's hiding under his desk.
Speaker 3: The relax.
Speaker 2: So this staff member, uh Watts resigns right after this,
Speaker 2: And when staff member Anthony Lake echoes Wats' concerns, Kissinger,
Speaker 2: presumably still hiding behind his desk, calls Lake not manly
Speaker 2: enough to do what was necessary, and so Lake resigns too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Bold words from behind the hiding behind a desk. Yeah,
Speaker 3: big tough guy.
Speaker 2: Four days after Nixon's speech announcing the invasion of Cambodia,
Speaker 2: four students were shot dead at Kent State during a
Speaker 2: protest over the invasion. Nine more were wounded. Two weeks later,
Speaker 2: at Jackson State, police shot into a crowd of black
Speaker 2: students protesting the war. Two were killed and twelve wounded.
Speaker 2: The invasion prompted some of the first consequences and only consequences. Kissinger, ever,
Speaker 2: faced stern rebukes from fancy academics he respected. A group
Speaker 2: of them, men who had often acted as his brain
Speaker 2: trust and advised him and other presidential advisers on issues,
Speaker 2: marched into his office after the invasion. One of the men,
Speaker 2: Thomas Shelling, opened by saying that he supposed he should
Speaker 2: explain who they were. Kissinger responded with confusion that I
Speaker 2: know who you are. You're all good friends from Harvard.
Speaker 2: Next from Niall Ferguson's Kissinger no, said Shelling. We're a
Speaker 2: group of people who have completely lost confidence in the
Speaker 2: ability of the White House to conduct our foreign policy,
Speaker 2: and we have come to tell you so we are
Speaker 2: no longer at your disposal as personal advisors. Each of
Speaker 2: them then proceeded to berate him, taking five minutes apiece.
Speaker 4: Now sound at this point you've seen from Rudy when
Speaker 4: they all hand in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah for to get ready to play. It's like that
Speaker 3: and stories.
Speaker 2: If you have oh god, what's his fucking name, I'm
Speaker 2: spacing the West Wing, motherfucker.
Speaker 3: If Aaron is a description of him.
Speaker 2: If Aaron Sorkin is writing this, this is like the
Speaker 2: heroic moment where like the conscience of the American ruling
Speaker 2: class that comes in is like, this is not right, Henry,
Speaker 2: and really that's bullshit, that's not what's happening. And Ferguson
Speaker 2: goes on to note that these guys were kind of
Speaker 2: full of shit. They're all Washington insiders. They have Shelling
Speaker 2: advised LBJ to massively escalade violence throughout the war in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Ferguson continues, and this is his explanation of what they
Speaker 2: were really doing. Quote for these men publicly breaking with Kissinger,
Speaker 2: with journalists briefed in advance about the breach was a
Speaker 2: form of self exculpation, not to say, an insurance policy.
Speaker 2: As student radicals back on the Harvard campus ran riot.
Speaker 2: When Newstat told the Crimson, I think it's safe to
Speaker 2: say we're afraid, he did not specify of what others
Speaker 2: were more candid, as Shelling put it, if Cambodia succeeds,
Speaker 2: it will be disaster, not just because my Harvard office
Speaker 2: may be burned down when I get home, but it
Speaker 2: would even be a disaster in the administration zone terms.
Speaker 3: So it's amazing it fuck sake, Yeah, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: that's what this happens on the dollop a lot where
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, we got a hero, and then
Speaker 3: immediately I'm like more villains. God damn it.
Speaker 2: I mean to the extent that there's some heroes, the
Speaker 2: kids on these campuses who are actually like lighting buildings
Speaker 2: on fire and destroying things. They do make Henry Kissinger
Speaker 2: and his academic friends afraid and uncomfortable briefly, which is
Speaker 2: more than anyone else does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean this would kind of be the
Speaker 3: last time that that even happens, really, right, that like
Speaker 3: that people in that level of power do feel any
Speaker 3: sort of like threat from the So the regular folk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, credit where it's due. They are the only people
Speaker 2: that I'm aware of who made Henry Kissinger briefly feel
Speaker 2: something that vaguely resembles shame.
Speaker 3: So emotion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good, like seriously good work.
Speaker 3: But of course, you know that doesn't stop anything, obviously,
Speaker 3: you know he's got of course, he's got many desks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Cambodia falls into chaos as a result of the
Speaker 2: as most places would when bombed on this level. Right,
Speaker 2: hard to maintain a state with this level of things exploding.
Speaker 2: It is unclear precisely how many people die in Operation Menu,
Speaker 2: the subsequent invasion of Cambodia and the bombing campaigns that followed.
Speaker 2: The low estimate is fifty thousand. The high estimates are
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand. Thirty to
Speaker 2: fifty thousand. Lotions die in the bombing campaign, which makes
Speaker 2: the sparsely populated nation the most densely bombed place on Earth.
Speaker 2: Thirty percent of these bombs failed to detonate, and in
Speaker 2: the years since the bombing, another twenty thousand people have
Speaker 2: died from the estimated eighty million bombs left in the soil.
Speaker 2: Forty percent of the victims or children. One AID worker
Speaker 2: set of the situation. There are parts of law where
Speaker 2: there is literally no free space. There are no areas
Speaker 2: that have not been bombed. And when you are in
Speaker 2: the villages now, you still see the evidence of that.
Speaker 2: You see the bomb craters, You still see an unbelievable
Speaker 2: amount of metal and wreckage and an exploded ordinance just
Speaker 2: lying around in and it's still injuring and killing people today.
Speaker 3: What a legacy.
Speaker 2: Now, If any of this concerned Nixon and Kissinger.
Speaker 4: I would like you to just throw out there that
Speaker 4: I do feel that gardening should be more dangerous.
Speaker 2: So yes, and nobody's in disagreement about that. And we
Speaker 2: have enough bombs in this country to make gardening a
Speaker 2: lot more dangerous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, four fucking beans.
Speaker 2: If there's not a one in three chance digging up
Speaker 2: a potato loses you a goddamn arm, you're not really
Speaker 2: a gardener.
Speaker 3: So how are the tomatoes? Ken's dead?
Speaker 2: If any of this concerned Nixon and Kissinger, we have
Speaker 2: no evidence of it. We know that in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: Nixon asked how many did we kill in LAO, and
Speaker 2: the Press Secretary ron Ziegler responded with a guess, maybe
Speaker 2: ten thousand fifteen. Kissinger agreed in motion in the lotion
Speaker 2: thing killed about ten fifteen. This is how they talk about.
Speaker 3: It's the showcase showdown three to five, nine eleven's worth
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's the way you talking about. Did you
Speaker 4: get like one bag of grapes or two?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think I had two bags of grapes.
Speaker 2: Oh, what's the cover fee to get into that? To
Speaker 2: get into that concert? It's like ten or fifteen bucks?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, except for this is they're just complete and total
Speaker 4: fucking psychopaths and.
Speaker 2: They're off by a half at least. You know, it's
Speaker 2: hard to get accurate. You know, death tolls here and
Speaker 2: the bombs were not the only thing left behind by
Speaker 2: the campaign that Kissinger orchestrated. Greg Brandon Wrights defoliation chemicals
Speaker 2: did their work just over a two week period April
Speaker 2: eighteenth to May second, nineteen sixty nine. US dropped agent
Speaker 2: Orange caused significant damage. Andrew Wells Dang, who has long
Speaker 2: been involved in relief aid to Southeast Asia rights. Both
Speaker 2: the US government and independent inspection teams confirmed that one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy three thousand acres were sprayed seven percent
Speaker 2: of Kompong Cham Province, twenty four thousand, seven hundred of
Speaker 2: them seriously affected. The rubber plantations totaled approximately one third
Speaker 2: of Cambodia's total and represented a loss of twelve percent
Speaker 2: of the country's export earnings. Washington agreed to pay over
Speaker 2: twelve million in reparations, but Kissinger tried to defer the
Speaker 2: payment to fiscal year nineteen seventy two, when the money
Speaker 2: could be paid without a specific without a special request
Speaker 2: that would have revealed US cross border activity. Every effort
Speaker 2: Kissinger road should be made to avoid the necessity for
Speaker 2: a special budgetary request to provide funds to debate his claim.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, look, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're going
Speaker 5: to get the money.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get the money.
Speaker 5: You're gonna get the money.
Speaker 3: The money. It's just gonna take a lot. I just
Speaker 3: need to it's a thing. Move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I need to move some stuff around. Just but
Speaker 5: you're gonna get it.
Speaker 3: It's fine. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Let's just keep it on the on the d L,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: Hecret Service wasn't calling Trump Agent Orange by the way, Uh,
Speaker 3: if that wasn't his code name, that's a disappointment, that is.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, there's a lot of reasons to be
Speaker 2: disappointed in the Secret Service, but that is one of them.
Speaker 3: That's my mom one.
Speaker 2: So the loss of life and economic damage caused Cambodia
Speaker 2: to spiral into chaos, or at least was a factor.
Speaker 2: Other stuff's going on. We have a couple episodes about
Speaker 2: King Notre Dam Sahanok, who is a real piece of shit.
Speaker 2: In the King of Cambodia. In this period, a lot's happening,
Speaker 2: but unrest by the caused by the bombings and the
Speaker 2: economic devastation helped to spark a right wing coup, which
Speaker 2: was likely orchestrated with CIA help.
Speaker 3: And US with the direct input it. You guys are
Speaker 3: looking to change things up here. We've got a plan,
Speaker 3: We got an idea. Well do no matter what happened,
Speaker 3: someone bomb you will Why don't we provide some help? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And the coup, you know, overthrows the king, who then
Speaker 2: starts backing the.
Speaker 3: Khmer Rouge then wins. They're great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their counter revolution against the right wing coup, and
Speaker 2: this leads to the establishment of Polpot's Khmer Rouge government.
Speaker 3: Yay.
Speaker 2: Once the Rouge took over in nineteen seventy five, Nixon
Speaker 2: had left office. Kissinger, though, was still in power. In
Speaker 2: November of nineteen seventy five, he told Thailand's foreign minister,
Speaker 2: you should also tell the Cambodians that we will be
Speaker 2: friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won't
Speaker 2: let that stand in our way. We are prepared to
Speaker 2: improve relations.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. Yeah, I mean we get it.
Speaker 3: We get a Kissinger. I mean my people were I
Speaker 3: get it. Murderous thugs. I'm all about murderous thugs. I
Speaker 3: think we could find common ground. This man wants to
Speaker 3: kill a million people.
Speaker 2: I think that is a cute start.
Speaker 3: I've got adorable. In nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Eight, when questioned on this, Kissinger explained that quote, the
Speaker 2: Tie and the Chinese did not want a Vietnamese dominated
Speaker 2: into China. We didn't want the Vietnamese to dominate. I
Speaker 2: don't believe we did anything for pole Pot, but I
Speaker 2: suspect we closed our eyes when some others did something
Speaker 2: for pole Pot. Of course, the United States attempted at
Speaker 2: least to provide direct military aid to the Khmer rouge
Speaker 2: in order to help them oppose Vietnam, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of debate and uncertainty. It seems that very little
Speaker 2: if any actually made it to the Khmer, but this
Speaker 2: is primarily because of difficulty getting shipped into Cambodia at
Speaker 2: this point in time. But it is fair to say
Speaker 2: that Kissinger and Nixon's actions were crucial in creating the
Speaker 2: circumstances that brought Polepot to power, and once he was
Speaker 2: in charge in massacring people, they tacitly supported his government
Speaker 2: because they thought it would styley the Vietnamese. In total,
Speaker 2: from the killing that started when the US bombing rates began,
Speaker 2: to the people killed by Polpot's regime, to those who
Speaker 2: died fighting in the fighting with Vietnam that finally brought
Speaker 2: the rouge to an end. One point seven million Cambodians died,
Speaker 2: more than a quarter of the population of the country
Speaker 2: pre war.
Speaker 4: It's it's so incredible how their ideology of just communism bad.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, communism will kill a bunch of people,
Speaker 4: and they're just.
Speaker 3: Fucking everything they can to say people well.
Speaker 2: And it's also like they don't even really believe communists
Speaker 2: because the Khmara or communists hell, and they're fine with
Speaker 2: working with them because it's Vietnam is the ones who
Speaker 2: beat them.
Speaker 3: And so they're angry at Vietnam.
Speaker 2: And it's like and Vietnam fights Cambodia, Like it's not
Speaker 2: there's no these people don't believe in anything. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: not good lessons to take from this, but no, it's
Speaker 2: it's really someone should have stabbed Henry Kissinger, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Oh I stabbed him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's so many people we should have stabbed.
Speaker 3: I mean there's so many, but Kissinger's.
Speaker 2: Way up there and in this story right, like we're not. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you can't blame all of the deaths in Cambodia on
Speaker 2: Kissinger a lot, just like you can't blame all of
Speaker 2: the deaths in Vietnam on Kissinger and Nixon, but like
Speaker 2: just so many lead to which he's central to a
Speaker 2: lot of the worst actions in these wars.
Speaker 3: Well, And so the I I keep thinking about the
Speaker 3: point you made in the last episode where it you know,
Speaker 3: the idea that LBJ, that that he broke up the
Speaker 3: LBJ plan to sort of end all of this, and
Speaker 3: just for political reasons made that not happen, and that
Speaker 3: just that the avenue that we are down now is
Speaker 3: just I mean, it's unconscionable.
Speaker 4: And there's there's so many also we also besides just
Speaker 4: the straight bombings, we destabilize areas, we change the trajectory.
Speaker 3: Look putin is our fucking doing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we fucking took out the government, We did Yelsen,
Speaker 5: all that shit.
Speaker 3: That was a fucking I'm not gonna let you sit
Speaker 3: here and touch shit on Yeltsen. He was very in
Speaker 3: control of what he was doing to it.
Speaker 2: I definitely knew what was happening.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like having a bottle of sphar enough in charge.
Speaker 3: Nothing that happened.
Speaker 5: Everything we get involved with turns into a fuck pie.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just we just create chaos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're murder midas.
Speaker 2: It's this, it's this thing where we're talking about like
Speaker 2: how how insane it is that Kissinger is micromanaging these bombings.
Speaker 2: Which is not to say that like the military men
Speaker 2: who were doing it before were particularly better. And this
Speaker 2: is the problem that like we're going to have, you know,
Speaker 2: with Ukraine and whatnot too. It's just that like, well,
Speaker 2: now we have all of these people who are supposed
Speaker 2: to be are the people we call experts who are
Speaker 2: now going to be doing things, and like if you
Speaker 2: actually look at their resumes, it is not a wide
Speaker 2: ranging history of successes, you know. And it is the
Speaker 2: same thing with Russia. You could look at like Russian
Speaker 2: intervention a bunch places. It's a nightmare. The kind of
Speaker 2: people who are in a position to make calls when
Speaker 2: the conflicts get to this level are always ghoules, and
Speaker 2: they're always bad at anything but causing devastation. And that's
Speaker 2: why all of this keeps happening, because none of these
Speaker 2: people are any good at it.
Speaker 3: And no one gets punished and nobody ever mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the fact that Bill Crystal is still saying what
Speaker 4: anybody do anywhere in the world, You're like, what in.
Speaker 3: The fuck is going on? Guess who gets to go,
Speaker 3: who goes away? Who goes away favoring his tweets?
Speaker 2: I imagine I know somebody who lost their job at
Speaker 2: a grocery store because they got arrested protesting for like
Speaker 2: protesting against police violence.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, meanwhile, Bill Crystal's like a guest on an media show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's Bill. What do you think I mean, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's frustrating. Every now and then, far too seldom
Speaker 2: you get a story like that billionaire Russian arms dealer
Speaker 2: who's yacht got partially sunk. But there's like three of
Speaker 2: those stories for every thousand kissingers. Yeah, and they don't
Speaker 2: ever mean anything because that guy can afford to fix
Speaker 2: his fucking yacht.
Speaker 3: So, yes, when they were they were egging Bezos's boat,
Speaker 3: when when he was getting that bridge torn down, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're like, I mean people, Yeah, it's like, yeah, he's
Speaker 3: gonna have someone hoes it down, and that he's fine.
Speaker 3: You look, yachts burn. We know yes, we've it.
Speaker 2: They burn, that's the thing. Yachts burn, and so do
Speaker 2: Bill Crystals. Bill Crystal, I think.
Speaker 3: It's like anals. No, yeah, actually when you burn and
Speaker 3: he just turns into a few crystals.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Greg Grandon, author of Kissinger's Shadow, sees the bombing campaign
Speaker 2: in Cambodia and Lao is the terminal phase in what
Speaker 2: he calls the crack up of America's domestic consensus, which
Speaker 2: had begun under Johnson. Kissinger considered conditions in the country
Speaker 2: at the time of Kent State to be quote near
Speaker 2: civil war conditions. The paranoia Nixon had felt led him
Speaker 2: to push for illegal expansions of domestic surveillance, which eventually
Speaker 2: led to his ouster from office. The Senate investigation into
Speaker 2: the Watergate scandal concluded quote Kent State marked a turning
Speaker 2: point for Nixon, the beginning of his downhill slide towards Watergate.
Speaker 2: Nixon grew increasingly unhinged, which is a story for another time.
Speaker 3: Nixon's starting to lose a gang.
Speaker 2: It is worth noting that for all of the things
Speaker 2: happening at this point, Nixon is as a rule, anytime
Speaker 2: I quote him and Kissinger talking, Nixon is as a rule,
Speaker 2: drunker than you have ever been. Like then you have
Speaker 2: ever been. I don't care how drunk you've gotten, you
Speaker 2: have never gotten. Nixon in the White House hammered. So,
Speaker 2: with Kissinger's help, Nixon cooks up a plan to pursue
Speaker 2: an arms control treaty in order to discredit his political rivals.
Speaker 2: Kissinger agreed that attacking the left was the right way
Speaker 2: to distract from the disaster they'd created in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2: He told his boss, we've got to break the back
Speaker 2: of this generation of Democratic leaders. Had responded an agreement,
Speaker 2: we've got to destroy the confidence of the people in
Speaker 2: the American establishment. Good news on that one, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know what a rare swish and he's
Speaker 2: drunk and he's right. Yeah, that is a hole in
Speaker 2: one for you, my friend. No nuts so prescient.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Re Election in nineteen seventy two was always going to
Speaker 2: be dicey for Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon's plan was the
Speaker 2: infamous Southern strategy, cultivating racial resentment in order to turn
Speaker 2: whites into a reliable Republican voting block. There's a lot
Speaker 2: to be said about this. Obviously, we were just kind
Speaker 2: of breezing past it. But part of the strategy, part
Speaker 2: of his strategy for doing this, to get these Southern
Speaker 2: whites on his side, was to continue carpet bombing huge
Speaker 2: chunks of Southeast Asia, even though this had no impact
Speaker 2: on the war's course, and he knew it. Grandon described
Speaker 2: the continued bombing as quote blood tribute paid to the
Speaker 2: growing power of the American right, and.
Speaker 3: As yeah, just and I mean it is like I mean, you,
Speaker 3: it's what our politics is now, which is just constantly
Speaker 3: the optics on how to get re elected. It's just
Speaker 3: the number crunch on how do you get reelected by
Speaker 3: doing things illegally or you know, shifting priority whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Butasking you, yeah, yeah, whatever it is. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: like we all know that war helps pull numbers, so
Speaker 3: well some of them do. Yeah, right, But I mean
Speaker 3: in the in the short term, it seems like it's
Speaker 3: it's a short there's a short term gain to be made,
Speaker 3: certainly if.
Speaker 2: You're on the right, for sure. Yeah, And it's it
Speaker 2: is worth noting because I always had this idea, even
Speaker 2: at past the point where I stopped believing Henry Kissinger
Speaker 2: was a hero, that he was doing what he was
Speaker 2: doing in Southeast Asia because there were like very specific
Speaker 2: wonky things he believed about the conduct of the war
Speaker 2: and how to win it. It was just like willing
Speaker 2: to do these horrible things. But no, they know what's
Speaker 2: not winning the war. This is for votes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Kissinger they yeah, So, I mean you're basically
Speaker 4: just saying it is just a white supremacist thing.
Speaker 5: They're killing people of color to make whites in the
Speaker 5: South happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all we're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, m hmm. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's supremacist the country. But that doesn't fit on a
Speaker 3: lawn placard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get one of those, like in this in this house,
Speaker 2: we believe in.
Speaker 3: The nick administration. We believe in covering up doubling down
Speaker 3: on racism in order to And so it's.
Speaker 2: Worth noting too Kissinger isn't just micromanaging the the actual
Speaker 2: racist bombing campaign that they're doing to get votes. He
Speaker 2: is also the frontman Nixon sends out to talk to
Speaker 2: right wing leaders to try and like pump them up
Speaker 2: about this. Nixon sent him to talk to Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 2: then the governor of California. Kissinger sat down on Nixon's
Speaker 2: behalf with Billy Graham with William F. Buckley, with Bob Hooking,
Speaker 2: name God. His pattern went like this. The President wanted
Speaker 2: me to give you a brief call to tell you
Speaker 2: that with all the hysteria on TV and in the
Speaker 2: news on LAO, we feel we have set up everything
Speaker 2: we set out to do. Destroyed more supplies than in
Speaker 2: Cambodia last year, set them back many months. We achieved
Speaker 2: what we were after.
Speaker 3: Well, I tell you, I really am. I can't wait
Speaker 3: to go out there and rally.
Speaker 4: That was true, Sir Hank having just been doing some research.
Speaker 4: He is friends with Frank Sinatra. Frank would call him
Speaker 4: on the phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds right, That fucking sounds right.
Speaker 3: When I get a nuclear weapon? Is that possible?
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra with a nuke?
Speaker 3: That's yeah.
Speaker 2: There's no people left if that had happened.
Speaker 3: I imagine on Dean Martin's drink, and he didn't notice.
Speaker 2: Baby Kissinger spent a particularly long time bragging to Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan about the administration's achievements. Quote, we wouldn't have had Cambodia,
Speaker 2: we wouldn't have had LAO, and we wouldn't have had
Speaker 2: an eighty billion dollar defense budget, you know, without Nixon
Speaker 2: getting elected. He also told Reagan, we wouldn't have had Amchitka.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 2: Chica is an island off the coast of Alaska in
Speaker 2: the early nineteen seventies. The White House wanted to nuke
Speaker 2: it for a lot of complicated reasons.
Speaker 4: Maybe I get that. Yeah, this is one thing.
Speaker 2: I'm actually I was from, not other islands, but specifically Amchitka. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're like am Shitka. So the White House wants to
Speaker 2: nuke this island off the coast of Alaska. And as
Speaker 2: you have like environmentalists and indigenous people, just folks who's brain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, freedom, I hate freedom.
Speaker 2: Here's Greg Grandon again. The test had no military or
Speaker 2: scientific benefit, but was seen as something of a ritual
Speaker 2: by the right fireworks to celebrate the end of Johnson's
Speaker 2: presidency when many Hawks, like Curtis LeMay, felt the United
Speaker 2: States had fallen behind on nuclear development. Then, when public
Speaker 2: opposition to the detonation began to grow, Nixon had a
Speaker 2: chance to show conservatives that he would stand up to liberals.
Speaker 2: He let me known that we're the Supreme Court to
Speaker 2: issue an injunction against the test. He would go forward anyway.
Speaker 2: Didn't block the test but Haldman told Kissinger to play
Speaker 2: it for politics anyway. Tell Reagan, we're taking an unmitigated heat.
Speaker 2: In order to keep that thing going, we need all
Speaker 2: the support of the right. Later after the test was conducted,
Speaker 2: Nixon met with Senator Barry Goldwater and mocked the fears
Speaker 2: of environmentalists. The seals are still swimming. The President said,
Speaker 2: I'm damn proud of you. Goldwater told him.
Speaker 3: I need to get a bucket to Barfin.
Speaker 4: When people when people think like, oh, we've become dumb recently,
Speaker 4: we've always been so fucking stupid.
Speaker 5: It cannot be emphasized enough. We're just really dumb.
Speaker 3: I honestly, I definitely thought that we've I mean, it
Speaker 3: is a shocking level of dumb. It's the fact that
Speaker 3: it's just this dumb. Yeah, it's just been going on
Speaker 3: the island because because they wanted the fireworks. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: he wanted fireworks.
Speaker 4: And it's as they could tell Reagan, it's like his
Speaker 4: gender reveal fucking party, like right right, Jesus Christ, the bomb.
Speaker 2: It is worth noting for the sake of talking about
Speaker 2: how dumb we still are today. Curtis LeMay, who was
Speaker 2: one of the people cheering on the bombing of this
Speaker 2: random island is essentially the hero of Malcolm Gladwell's book
Speaker 2: The Bomber Mafia, which talks about how cool the bombing
Speaker 2: apparatus we set up was and how it helped keep
Speaker 2: things peaceful and built the wonderful packs Americana. That that's
Speaker 2: I'm sure these Cambodian civilians we've talked about appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the one where you need to Once you
Speaker 3: have ten thousand bombs, you're an expert. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: If you drop ten thousand bombs, you're a bombing Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. That's exactly. So in order to be able
Speaker 2: to do it right, yeah, you have to do it wrong.
Speaker 2: For those bomb you gotta.
Speaker 3: Log the bombs.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right here. So part of what made Kissinger remarkable, though,
Speaker 2: was his ability to rope conservatives in line for mass
Speaker 2: murder while also charming the entire liberalistat plishment of the
Speaker 2: East Coast. Nixon's chief of staff later recalled we knew
Speaker 2: Henry is the Hawk of hawks in the Oval office,
Speaker 2: But in the evenings, a magical transformation took place. Touching
Speaker 2: glasses at a party with his liberal friends. The belligerent
Speaker 2: Kissinger would suddenly become a dove, and the press, beguiled
Speaker 2: by Henry's charm in humor, bought it. They just couldn't
Speaker 2: believe that the intellectual, smiling, humorous Henry the Ka was
Speaker 2: a hawk like that bastard Nixon. It really is all
Speaker 2: about like if if if Donald Trump had had talked
Speaker 2: like an Aaron Sorkin character and like quoted books that
Speaker 2: people don't read but know are smart books, he would
Speaker 2: have been the most popular president in a generation.
Speaker 3: Like well, and I mean that'll happen. Yeah, No, one
Speaker 3: of them will figure it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, cracked, And you gotta dial the racism down
Speaker 2: a little, you gotta dial the polite up and then
Speaker 2: kind of equalize them, and then you can yeah, and then.
Speaker 3: And then the right access to the right people in media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I mean we already saw that. I
Speaker 2: mean even under Trump, where you've got all these fucking
Speaker 2: reporters who had these like bombshells about horrible crimes being
Speaker 2: committed that they didn't release for a year in change
Speaker 2: because they got a book deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, right right, yeah, yeah, I mean John Bolton
Speaker 3: was basically just there to write a book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone was. The whole administration was. Yeah, they're like
Speaker 2: fucking navy seals with the books. Yeah. So, Kissinger's reputation
Speaker 2: was as a brilliant, computer brained policy wonk, but his
Speaker 2: success came from his charm. He was able to win
Speaker 2: reporters over with a mix of leaks and effusive praise
Speaker 2: for their work, something that made them feel like insiders
Speaker 2: and thus sympathetic. He had a regular series of lunches
Speaker 2: with Arthur Slshinger, a liberal historian, whom he made sure
Speaker 2: to confidentially inform quote, I have been thinking a lot
Speaker 2: about resignation after the invasion of Cambodia. Slushinger was not
Speaker 2: privy to the information that proved Kissinger had planned the
Speaker 2: whole thing, so he believed Kissinger when Henry said that
Speaker 2: he'd only kept working for Nixon to prevent more damage
Speaker 2: to quote institutions of authority. Kissinger would warn his liberal
Speaker 2: friends that if he resigned, Spiro Agnew would run foreign policy.
Speaker 2: He was basically threatening, if I'm not here, the far
Speaker 2: right's going to be totally in power in foreign policy.
Speaker 2: I'm the only one keeping things from going crazy.
Speaker 3: It's like sessions and with Trump. I mean there are
Speaker 3: multiple people like that, but the amount of times when
Speaker 3: people would be like, oh, McMasters, you know, these are
Speaker 3: the good guys inside of the you.
Speaker 2: Know, but this too as he's drawing on a map
Speaker 2: where to annihilate. Yeah, oh yeah, and it works. It
Speaker 2: always works. It works, and it works over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. As a rule, if their job is
Speaker 2: to be a journalist who spends their time face to
Speaker 2: face with powerful people, they're bad at their job. As
Speaker 2: a rule, every now and then you get an exception, but.
Speaker 3: As a rule, no, it's like when Chomsky points out
Speaker 3: to that reporter that he has the rye, he's sitting
Speaker 3: in that seat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get the odd people who are willing to
Speaker 2: like report on the Penanon papers or whatever, and like
Speaker 2: do you know you get or the Afghanistan papers with
Speaker 2: the Washington Post. Not to not to down play the
Speaker 2: fact that there are people in those institutions who do
Speaker 2: do damning reports on power, but also the level of
Speaker 2: complicity within the broader media apparatus means that even when
Speaker 2: you get a damning report on, for example, the war
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, which the Washington Post, if you've read that
Speaker 2: it's utterly damning.
Speaker 3: Been do anything doesn't matter. Yeah, like this doesn't stop
Speaker 3: anything very I mean, you know, and the reason why
Speaker 3: people do it less and less is because you're attacked. So,
Speaker 3: I mean it works. The public attacks discredit you, and
Speaker 3: then you are you are what you are, You're no
Speaker 3: longer you no longer get access to that information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. So A good example of how Kissos
Speaker 2: used his charm is a speech he gave at MIT
Speaker 2: in January of nineteen seventy one. He started off by
Speaker 2: feigning a confidential air and telling the students that Nixon
Speaker 2: had not been his quote first choice, but that in
Speaker 2: time he'd come to see the bombing of Cambodia as
Speaker 2: the only quote sensible path towards the Vietnamization. Vietnamization is
Speaker 2: like the process of the US getting out in South
Speaker 2: Vietnam taking over, Right, that's the big buzz Nixon and
Speaker 2: his jury using. When one student asked him what it
Speaker 2: would take to make him resign from the Nixon administration,
Speaker 2: Kissinger said he wouldn't quote unless gas chambers were set
Speaker 2: up or some horrendous moral outrage.
Speaker 3: What wait, wait, what is it? What does that mean? Exactly?
Speaker 2: He wouldn't get out unless and less Nixon was setting
Speaker 2: up gas chambers.
Speaker 3: I mean, what the fuck? U child? His childhood didn't
Speaker 3: affect him in any way. Yeah, outrageous, And it's confidence
Speaker 3: the student.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because then the student who asked this
Speaker 2: question of Kissinger later realized, like, is there really a
Speaker 2: difference between forcing people into a gas chamber and incinerating
Speaker 2: from them from the sky with a bombing campaign. I
Speaker 2: guess not. But at the moment, this doesn't really occur
Speaker 2: to him. And at the moment he writes quote, he
Speaker 2: had sounded so sincere, so sympathetic, so much one of us,
Speaker 2: and right' I'll blame the journalists, like I'm not going
Speaker 2: to blame a student for falling for Henry, because like
Speaker 2: he's essentially still a child, And Henry Kissinger is the
Speaker 2: most powerful man in the world. Of course, he's good
Speaker 2: at wat talking circles around these fucking kids. The week
Speaker 2: after that speech, Kissinger and Nixon sent ground troops into
Speaker 2: Lao after another massive round of aerial bombardment. This involved
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand South Vietnamese troops supported by US air power.
Speaker 2: It was a catastrophe. Eight thousand South Vietnamese soldiers were
Speaker 2: killed or wounded. The United States lost two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifteen men. Nixon considered it a victory because it played
Speaker 2: well with conservatives in the media.
Speaker 9: Fu.
Speaker 3: Oh god, and he's drunk, and he's drunk, and he's
Speaker 3: he is that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: He just pounded back an entire bottle of vodka before
Speaker 2: saying that. When the media savaged Lao as a pointless bloodbath,
Speaker 2: Kissinger ran to his boss and complained about vicious coverage,
Speaker 2: saying if Britain had pressed like this in World War Two,
Speaker 2: they would have quit. In forty two. Both Kissinger and
Speaker 2: Nixon saw LAO as a win because it benefited their
Speaker 2: domestic chances of re election. As Nixon told his right
Speaker 2: hand man, the main thing on Lao, I don't care
Speaker 2: what happens there.
Speaker 3: It's a win. See a win. See he's a little
Speaker 3: gangstere that's right. Henry to Orange started coppers.
Speaker 11: Oh.
Speaker 2: And as the re election campaign turned forward, Kissinger was
Speaker 2: about to help his boss engineer another win. And this one, boy,
Speaker 2: how do you think we've seen a body count so far?
Speaker 5: My god, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: But that's still morning that island. So now they're in sweeps. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now they're hitting sweeps. And if you think hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of cambodi and dead, plus aiding in the
Speaker 2: deaths of another millionaire.
Speaker 6: So was bad.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It's really bad. It's a historic crime. But also Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger's just getting started.
Speaker 3: So I'm just you guys want to plug anything my
Speaker 3: ears death? Yea, I remember because when I did an
Speaker 3: episode on our podcast about Tim Leary and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of the you know, Nixon law and Order president
Speaker 3: stuff in there, and how drunk he was. But also
Speaker 3: his lunch every day was pineapple circles with cottage cheese
Speaker 3: in the middle, and so that was his that was
Speaker 3: his daily drunk lunch. And then there's the one night
Speaker 3: where he's starting to feel the heat. Well maybe I
Speaker 3: don't know if you'll get it into that. Well, he
Speaker 3: basically he goes out hammered with his valet and he
Speaker 3: goes and talks to some of the people protesting him,
Speaker 3: and like one of the he wakes one of these
Speaker 3: guys up and he's like, you really think I'm a
Speaker 3: bad guy, And the guy's just like, what the fuck
Speaker 3: is going on?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 3: Nixon out cruising? Yeah, Well, we'll we as you know, Look,
Speaker 3: it sounds like the world loves America after hearing some
Speaker 3: of this stuff. So we will be going to Australia
Speaker 3: on a tour. You can go to dollapodcast dot com
Speaker 3: for those tour dates. We'll be touring America, and even
Speaker 3: if we do badly, we won't bomb as hard as
Speaker 3: Kissinger Nixon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it would be hard to.
Speaker 3: Bomb on that level.
Speaker 2: I honestly, we still have a lot of bombs. I
Speaker 2: don't know if we have enough bombs to bomb that
Speaker 2: hard anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I honestly think we could pull
Speaker 3: our pants down and fight with our penises and still
Speaker 3: people be like, that's not that I've seen. I've heard
Speaker 3: of Wor's bombings.
Speaker 2: I have seen a couple of cities leveled by American
Speaker 2: bombs at this point, and it's still not as much
Speaker 2: as fucking law got bombed.
Speaker 3: And christ yeah he cannot process it. And well I'm
Speaker 3: on the road to go to Garethronolds dot com for
Speaker 3: tour dates. Yeah, but feels feels wrong to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: hard promotion.
Speaker 4: Well it's great.
Speaker 2: I will put in a plug for the concept of
Speaker 2: death because as long as as long as men die.
Speaker 2: You know, there's all of these ghouls eventually had to
Speaker 2: face the end of of everything in the same way
Speaker 2: that that those people in Cambodia did. And one day
Speaker 2: it will come for Henry Kissinger and he will be
Speaker 2: frightened and alone and left.
Speaker 3: I feel like he bombed the reaper. I mean he
Speaker 3: like he is the level of melting. I mean he is.
Speaker 3: I hope he dies.
Speaker 4: I hope he just I hope he shits himself and
Speaker 4: then slowly dies over eight hours.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, it needs to be like that. He needs
Speaker 3: to be. It needs to be a letting.
Speaker 2: There's a you know, the one war criminal in all
Speaker 2: of history who got close to what he deserved is
Speaker 2: Ryan Hard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust, who stupidly
Speaker 2: charged a bunch of assassins and got wounded by a
Speaker 2: bomb and shatted into his own guts for several days
Speaker 2: until he died of sepsis over the course of a
Speaker 2: week and change. That's that's the kind of death. And
Speaker 2: and not just Kissinger. There's like thirty people we've named
Speaker 2: in this story. You deserve that kind of death. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of folks, I mean, pot died old and
Speaker 2: relatively you know, unpunished. You know, they all, most of
Speaker 2: them do at all that.
Speaker 3: It's great to hear a judge sentence Kissinger to that,
Speaker 3: like it would be you to shitting in your own
Speaker 3: guts for about a week after a bomb just embowels you.
Speaker 3: That's that's the right that's the right punishment for this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, all right, Yeah, yeah.
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