Speaker 1: This week's classic episode is of particular importance to us
Speaker 1: and arguably the world. On November twenty ninth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: America is Darth Vader. Henry Kissinger passed away.
Speaker 2: It's true, and I mean, I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: been an ongoing joke simply because the guy seemed like
Speaker 2: his blood was flowing with sith Lord energy and that
Speaker 2: he was never going to die. So Ben quite often
Speaker 2: gauged like time against his kissing you're still with.
Speaker 1: Us, And then we literally made that joke. I think
Speaker 1: the day that he passed away, and I.
Speaker 3: Think I was like, we did this and this was us. No,
Speaker 3: I don't think we have No, we didn't. It was
Speaker 3: a hundred years old crazy. We were literally waiting on
Speaker 3: the clock with him. Yeah, And it is strange to
Speaker 3: if you look at the reporting that's come out anywhere
Speaker 3: in mainstream, it's always Henry Kissinger, like this very important
Speaker 3: figure right in the world, who also did a lot
Speaker 3: of bad things. And we're going to list a lot
Speaker 3: of those things out in this.
Speaker 1: Only up to twenty nineteen, right when we recorded the episode. Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't mention it on this episode, but as you
Speaker 1: guys know, I had a different life before podcasting, and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, I actually saw Henry Kissinger
Speaker 1: speak in eight when he was up at Athens, Georgia
Speaker 1: at Uga. Very very intelligent man, which we also point
Speaker 1: out in this episode. But being intelligent does not necessarily
Speaker 1: make you a good person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is when you were a paperboy, right,
Speaker 3: this is when I was a paper.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, exactly, Yeah, yeah, no, I mean it's funny too.
Speaker 2: We talked about even it came up in the are
Speaker 2: the life extension episode or the very least the sort
Speaker 2: of I guess grief technology episode where it's like, what
Speaker 2: if someone figured out how to make an AI synthetic
Speaker 2: version of Henry Kissinger's brain and use that to consult
Speaker 2: on like war tactics, No, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he'd have some interesting thoughts hot takes.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they you know, the technology would probably arrive
Speaker 1: at conclusions that would be close to that of Kissinger Prime.
Speaker 1: But this, this person is incredibly important to the state
Speaker 1: of the world as we understand it today. He is responsible,
Speaker 1: is responsible in one way or another for millions of deaths, right.
Speaker 3: And decisions that went that turned into actions, right or
Speaker 3: at least so as a voice in a room a
Speaker 3: bunch of times that advised this, sird, Yeah, that ended
Speaker 3: up killing millions.
Speaker 2: And you gotta wonder if a guy like that even
Speaker 2: makes that connection, like I did this, you know, I
Speaker 2: killed these people? Or is it more of a matter
Speaker 2: of it's just the cost of doing business. And I
Speaker 2: certainly didn't directly do anything. It's sort of the gun
Speaker 2: versus the person shooting kind of arguments.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a big proponent of the greater good,
Speaker 1: by far, one of the most wintral secretaries of State
Speaker 1: in US history, to the point where he may have
Speaker 1: been steering the ship the way that typically a US
Speaker 1: president or Congress would have or a Dick Cheney or
Speaker 1: a Dick Cheney, right. You know what if there was
Speaker 1: some kind of New American century, what if we made
Speaker 1: that a project or maybe something in twenty twenty five. Anyhow, anyhow,
Speaker 1: Kissinger did not live to see this stuff. If you
Speaker 1: are interested in learning much more about Kissinger as well
Speaker 1: after our episode, please check out the six part series
Speaker 1: from our friends Behind the Bastards on Kissinger. As you
Speaker 1: could tell from the title, they may have a little
Speaker 1: bit of bias, but We went into this objectively, and
Speaker 1: so what you are hearing in this episode from twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen is factual and terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's jump.
Speaker 4: In from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
Speaker 4: is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
Speaker 4: or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4: A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1: Noel is not here, but we'll be returning soon. They
Speaker 1: called me Ben. We were joined as always with our
Speaker 1: super producer Paul Mission Control decad. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff. They don't
Speaker 1: want you to know this. We've been doing this check
Speaker 1: in at the beginning of the show. We hope that
Speaker 1: you check in as well when you before you dive
Speaker 1: into the strange, bizarre, and sometimes terrifying things we explore here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Matt, Yeah good, Yes, thumbs down, two thumbs up.
Speaker 1: You just released a show.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I did, Yes, I didn't. I assisted in
Speaker 3: the production slash creation of a show called Noble Blood
Speaker 3: that is now available. It's number three on the charts
Speaker 3: right now in iTunes.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 3: It's Aaron Mankey and Dana Schwartz's and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, Paul, how you doing out there? Got a thumbs
Speaker 1: up thumbs up at a stylish answer from Mission Control.
Speaker 3: I want to bring this up before we get too
Speaker 3: deep into this. I just finished Mister Robot season three finally,
Speaker 3: and you know, we have a bit of a history
Speaker 3: with that show. We did a couple episodes surrounding season two, I.
Speaker 1: Believe, and we have masks we do show.
Speaker 3: I have one sitting in my room and when I
Speaker 3: watched the show, I always put it on, which is
Speaker 3: I don't know, is that too weird?
Speaker 1: No, that's awesome, that's great, Okay, cool.
Speaker 3: I just had to bring that up. I was just
Speaker 3: excited that the next one is supposedly coming out this year.
Speaker 1: Yes, I had heard. I had heard. No, they'll still
Speaker 1: have Robny Malick. I imagine, I certainly hope. So what we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about maybe a sensitive subject to some
Speaker 1: people who find themselves politically partisan, right at least in
Speaker 1: the Western sense, And we want to hear your opinion. So,
Speaker 1: as always, if there's something that you want to tell
Speaker 1: us and you're not near a keyboard at the moment,
Speaker 1: just pause this episode. We'll wait for you and call
Speaker 1: us directly.
Speaker 3: Yes, call our number. It is one h three to
Speaker 3: three st d W I t K.
Speaker 1: What I love about this conversation with mister Robot is
Speaker 1: that we're we're kind of foreshadowing something that'll come into
Speaker 1: play later, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, without fully saying it right right. And there's there's
Speaker 3: a character within the universe. There are a couple, but
Speaker 3: there's one in particular in the universe of mister Robot
Speaker 3: that I find that maybe you will too, has some
Speaker 3: similarities to our guest of honor, our person of interest.
Speaker 1: There we go, There we go our POI. Today, Miss
Speaker 1: Robot concerns shadowy forces working in secret, conspiring right the
Speaker 1: power behind the throne. And it's often said in fiction
Speaker 1: and nonfiction alike that the true power of a nation,
Speaker 1: a kingdom, or an empire isn't usually the face. It's
Speaker 1: often not the person on the throne. It's the people
Speaker 1: behind that person. The folks you see standing silently behind
Speaker 1: a king, a prime minister, or president as they deliver
Speaker 1: a speech they probably did not write. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: about one such character. One of the most influential people
Speaker 1: in the history of modern US politics Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 3: So let's go to the beginning. Henry Kissinger was born
Speaker 3: Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May twenty seventh, nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 3: in a place called Firth, Germany. He was one of
Speaker 3: two sons born to Paula Stern Kissinger and Lewis Kissinger. Now,
Speaker 3: his father was a teacher, and you know, there was
Speaker 3: this group of people that came to power called the Nazis,
Speaker 3: and when that occurred, he lost his job in his
Speaker 3: entire career. You know, the Nazis, of course were carrying
Speaker 3: out the orders of mister Adolph Hitler, and they of
Speaker 3: course began prosecuting Jewish people throughout Germany and countries all
Speaker 3: surrounding Germany. And the Kissingers were in fact Jewish, and
Speaker 3: their family, I guess the larger family saw the effects
Speaker 3: of this firsthand. Now, of course, Henry was just a
Speaker 3: little boy at the time, and he seemed to be
Speaker 3: a better student, at least to his parents and to
Speaker 3: the people around him. They knows he's a better student
Speaker 3: than perhaps an athlete or you know, someone who is
Speaker 3: going to pursue some kind of physical career. And you know,
Speaker 3: as the anti Semitism was increasing there in Germany where
Speaker 3: they were living, the whole family decided, we have to
Speaker 3: get out of here, and in nineteen thirty eight they
Speaker 3: ended up going to England, and then not long after
Speaker 3: that they ended up going to the United States.
Speaker 1: Which was a pressing to move for any student of history.
Speaker 1: The family. Once they reached the US, they ended up
Speaker 1: settling in New York City, which you may remember from
Speaker 1: several Saucy commercials. Kissinger completed high school there and began
Speaker 1: taking night classes at City College with the intention of
Speaker 1: becoming an accountant a CPA. Oh on what small things
Speaker 1: does history hinge? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: It could have gone a very different way.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine him as a CPA. We'll see. I
Speaker 1: want to hear what you think about that, folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he worked his way through college. He went to
Speaker 1: a factory during the day and then he would go
Speaker 1: to class. During World War Two, he joined the military
Speaker 1: and served in Germany. He was working in army intelligence.
Speaker 3: It is a bit odd, right because he's from Germany,
Speaker 3: but he went to the United States and now he's
Speaker 3: going back to Germany to fight for the Americans.
Speaker 1: Or with you know, as an American, Well that that
Speaker 1: is you know, it seems counterintuitive, but it happens a lot.
Speaker 1: So I've got a couple of friends whose families were
Speaker 1: originally from Iran and they live in the US, but
Speaker 1: because they spoke Farsi, they got jobs as translators.
Speaker 3: And yeah, they ended up you know, going back to
Speaker 3: the Middle East.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming I believe that they are US based, but
Speaker 1: I understood.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, no, of course, we can't say anymore. Understand
Speaker 3: understand that well, and this is a it's a big
Speaker 3: deal here. So even though he was very young at
Speaker 3: the time when his family left, or you know, somewhat
Speaker 3: young when when the family left Germany, he still experienced
Speaker 3: what was occurring in his home country. And then to
Speaker 3: leave and then get to go back and serve in
Speaker 3: the military for a country that's going to essentially attempt
Speaker 3: to liberate the country from which you've fled, that's a
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 1: Oh, the biggest, are you kidding? Yes, he also is
Speaker 1: something you and I mentioned off airman. He also didn't
Speaker 1: sit idly by during his time in the service, right,
Speaker 1: he actually saw combat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he got to experience the Battle of the Bulge firsthand.
Speaker 3: And if you don't know much about that, we won't
Speaker 3: go into it, but I would say look it up.
Speaker 3: It was a German offensive that occurred in the West,
Speaker 3: and history describes it as quote the deadliest and most
Speaker 3: desperate battle of the war in the West. It involved
Speaker 3: three armies, three German armies that essentially we're attacking over
Speaker 3: the course of quite a while. And again there's his historian,
Speaker 3: his biographer, Ferguson niall Ferguson I believe is his name.
Speaker 3: He describes it as Henry Kissinger experienced heavy shelling firsthand.
Speaker 3: And again these are big experiences for a growing person,
Speaker 3: you know, someone who's coming into their own having this
Speaker 3: kind of thing occurred to him. And that's not all
Speaker 3: that happened during.
Speaker 1: The war, right. He also had the stark and terrifying,
Speaker 1: heartbreaking revelation that all of his family members that stayed
Speaker 1: in Germany were dead. He witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: He was present during the liberation of a concentration camp,
Speaker 1: and following the war he remained in Europe as an
Speaker 1: instructor at a place called the European Command Intelligence School,
Speaker 1: also in Germany, and.
Speaker 3: Then in nineteen forty seven, he returns to the US.
Speaker 3: He goes to Harvard and enrolls there and he graduated
Speaker 3: in the class of nineteen fifty and he had a
Speaker 3: degree in government. Pretty interesting stuff there, right, So he's
Speaker 3: changing course quite a bit from those original aspirations of
Speaker 3: becoming an accountant again, with these experiences that are changing him.
Speaker 3: He continued his studies as a graduate student and ended
Speaker 3: up earning a master's degree in nineteen fifty two and
Speaker 3: then eventually his PhD in fifty four. And he was
Speaker 3: also teaching at the Harvard University.
Speaker 1: And here's an important note. So we always have to
Speaker 1: be very careful when attempting to ascribe personal motives to
Speaker 1: an individual. And we know that something happened, something fundamentally
Speaker 1: changed his life during his experiences in World War Two.
Speaker 1: He became someone with a mission. We like the historians
Speaker 1: research have conjectured here on what his revelatory moments were,
Speaker 1: and those are pretty good guesses. But regardless of what
Speaker 1: specific instance it was that was the big change. Post war,
Speaker 1: he is no longer interested in accounting, or perhaps, if
Speaker 1: we want to wax a bit poetic, he is concerned
Speaker 1: with a different sort of accounting Oh, yes, he is
Speaker 1: concerned with what he sees as moral accounting, right, preventing,
Speaker 1: oddly enough, the horrors of World War Two, fighting for
Speaker 1: what he and he's alive today, fighting for what he
Speaker 1: would see as a greater good. And this brings him
Speaker 1: to his career in academia. Right. So, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: he earned his PhD in nineteen fifty four. Between nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two and nineteen sixty nine, he directed the Harvard
Speaker 1: International Seminar. This was a study organization in which the
Speaker 1: advanced students, along with a professor, conduct research and contribute
Speaker 1: to discussions. It's sort of a nascent think tank, which
Speaker 1: happens a lot in grad.
Speaker 3: Schools, and in this kind of environment and position lets
Speaker 3: him start making relationships that he would eventually use later
Speaker 3: on in his career.
Speaker 1: Right right. And it may surprise some of us to
Speaker 1: learn just how much policy here in the United States
Speaker 1: is written by professors in academic roles. You know, it
Speaker 1: starts with proposals, it starts with research, right and studies,
Speaker 1: or it starts with something like ALEC wherein that's that's
Speaker 1: capital A capital L, capital E, capital C. It's a
Speaker 1: process through which corporations dictate policy for better or worse.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, yeah, it doesn't. Because a politician is
Speaker 1: a fan of something doesn't mean they actually wrote it
Speaker 1: anymore than a prime minister or president giving a speech
Speaker 1: means they actually wrote it.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, we're going to learn here that power, many times
Speaker 3: and in many ways is developed through personal relationships more
Speaker 3: than a lot of other ways.
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, absolutely, which is a failure of the human
Speaker 1: species because it lessens the impact of meritocracy. But that's
Speaker 1: a whole other thing. It's a whole other bag of
Speaker 1: badgers here. The point is for this part, this is
Speaker 1: where Kissinger gets his taste of being a power behind
Speaker 1: the throne. He's visited by tons of international figures that,
Speaker 1: as you said, Matt, he'll later deal with in a
Speaker 1: governmental capacity. He joins the Council on Foreign Relations, and
Speaker 1: he publishes something called Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, and
Speaker 1: this gets him some bonafide, some street cred. He is
Speaker 1: now seen as a leading expert on international relations and
Speaker 1: national defense policy. And then he gets involved with the Rockefellers.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he has eighteen months of working with this
Speaker 3: thing called the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He actually directed it
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty six, and it had this Special Studies project. Okay,
Speaker 3: now just listen to this. It's a program developed to
Speaker 3: investigate possible domestic and international problems. Okay, I hear what
Speaker 3: you're saying to me, investigate possible domestic and international problems.
Speaker 3: In nineteen fifty seven, he became a lecturer at Harvard.
Speaker 3: He's talking to the students like he's changing or perhaps
Speaker 3: influencing the way students are thinking. And eventually he gets
Speaker 3: promoted to a professor in nineteen sixty two, and again
Speaker 3: he's able to teach others some of the things that
Speaker 3: he's learning and the ways he's viewing the world already.
Speaker 1: Right. And also during this time he joins other international
Speaker 1: and domestic organizations and think tanks. He's at the National
Speaker 1: Security Council, the Arms Controlled Disarmament Agency, and the RAND Corporation.
Speaker 3: While, dude, you just got to jump in all the
Speaker 3: things we've mentioned thus far, that he's joining up Council
Speaker 3: on Foreign Relations, the Rand Corporation. We've talked about.
Speaker 1: A lot of these, right, Yes, they are the source
Speaker 1: of what could plausibly be called a lot of real conspiracies,
Speaker 1: not theories. So we'll just laundry list real quick. The
Speaker 1: rest of the broad strokes of his career, so he's
Speaker 1: working full time at Harvard from sixty two to sixty five,
Speaker 1: and sixty five he becomes a consultant to the State Department.
Speaker 1: He's their Vietnam consultant from sixty five to nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: He visits Vietnam several times. Most of nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: he was working as a campaign guru for then Governor
Speaker 1: Nelson Rockefeller, who was running for the Republican nomination for
Speaker 1: the presidency.
Speaker 3: Against Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, against Richie Nix himself, and despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Nixon did defeat Rockefeller, Rockefeller contacted Nixon and was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what they said. There was something
Speaker 1: along the lines like, hey, good game, bro. By the way,
Speaker 1: you know you had some real hustle out there. I
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to my boy h K.
Speaker 1: Put him on the team, get him off the bench.
Speaker 1: And that's how Kissinger ended up heading the National Security Council.
Speaker 1: Kissinger already had a plan laid out. He did not
Speaker 1: like the US foreign policy toward the USSR the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: He thought that they had been too nice. Essentially, they
Speaker 1: have been kid gloves. They had not been consistent, and
Speaker 1: as we know, consistency is a huge deal in any
Speaker 1: international relationship. So he said, look, let's be honest. The
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, they are the big batties, they are main rival,
Speaker 1: there are main opponents. But you gotta respect him, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's what he was kind of
Speaker 1: the same way. He said, look, take him seriously. It's
Speaker 1: dangerous to nuclear power. And one of his big early
Speaker 1: successes was the institution of detante, which is easing relationships,
Speaker 1: easing tensions, saying, look, we both know the lay of
Speaker 1: the chessboard here. We're probably never going to be friends,
Speaker 1: but we should communicate and we should do our best
Speaker 1: not to blow up the world while we fight with
Speaker 1: our nuclear weapons.
Speaker 3: Some would say that's pretty smart. That's a good way
Speaker 3: to to look at things. Let's not blow each other up.
Speaker 3: We get it, we know who we are. I can
Speaker 3: I understand that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's that's a very clear cut thing, right,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's a powerful thing, even even in
Speaker 1: a microcosmic level. Some of us may have had that
Speaker 1: occur in our personal lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly, but it is far more nuanced than that,
Speaker 3: right in order like that, if that's the ideal or
Speaker 3: that's the baseline goal, let's not blow each other up.
Speaker 3: We understand who we are underneath. That is just oh wasps,
Speaker 3: just a swarm of wasps for some reason.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely. So one of the things
Speaker 1: he does is the successful agreement on something called SALT
Speaker 1: or Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty. So Union and the US say, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna limit the number of nuclear weapons we have.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get rid of them ever, because
Speaker 1: we both know who we are, but you know, we
Speaker 1: promise not to have millions of them, because that's just egregious.
Speaker 1: And when they signed this agreement, he was seen as
Speaker 1: someone again working for the greater good, and the greater
Speaker 1: good being avoiding nuclear annihilation or a nuclear war. And
Speaker 1: now you will hear people argue whether he is a
Speaker 1: hero or a villain. He used to speak about once
Speaker 1: a year here in Georgia, and I believe he hasn't
Speaker 1: done that for a number of years. But you could
Speaker 1: go visit him here and speak at different places, and
Speaker 1: he is treated very much as an elder statesman, a
Speaker 1: policy emperor, you know, a king behind the throne. But
Speaker 1: regardless of what you might think of his work, there
Speaker 1: is no arguing that he's been anything other than massively
Speaker 1: successful in his personal life. Between January twenty seventeen and
Speaker 1: January twenty eighteen, he pulled in an estimated fifty eight
Speaker 1: million dollars. This makes him, by far one of the
Speaker 1: highest paid politicians in the world, accepting you know, dictators
Speaker 1: or Putin type figures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people who set that number themselves, essentially by the
Speaker 3: state or whatever the state pays then right.
Speaker 1: His estimated net worth is said to be one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five million, according to the publication People with Money.
Speaker 1: Some folks regard him as a hero. They say he's
Speaker 1: a man who helped secure the US position as the hedgemon,
Speaker 1: as the premier global superpower. Others, however, consider him an
Speaker 1: irredeemable villain.
Speaker 3: Why we'll talk about that right after a quick word
Speaker 3: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. I get. While opinions on
Speaker 1: Kissinger may differ over the course of his career, he
Speaker 1: has been implicated in numerous activities that could be called
Speaker 1: at the very least illegal. He's also been the subject
Speaker 1: of numerous conspiracy theories. Let's just laundry list some of
Speaker 1: the illegal actions that he was directly involved in.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Let's jump to nineteen sixty nine and seventy in Cambodia. Now,
Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger is considered, i guessed, one of the one
Speaker 3: of the main architects of the secret bombing that occurred
Speaker 3: there in Cambodia. And this bombing itself played a really
Speaker 3: important role in bringing about the Khmer Rouge that we've
Speaker 3: discussed before on this show, certainly on YouTube as well,
Speaker 3: bringing them about as a power there in Cambodia, as
Speaker 3: basically an unintended side effect of taking out the power
Speaker 3: that already exist in that.
Speaker 1: Country, attempting to eliminate the communist threat that they saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let's just go ahead and say this at
Speaker 3: the top here. Many times we've seen over the history
Speaker 3: of the United States that there is a major enemy
Speaker 3: that we will identify and attempt to eliminate or even
Speaker 3: if it's just ideological, and then by militarily or through
Speaker 3: a coup eliminating that. There are these unintended consequences that
Speaker 3: come about because of the vacuum of power that exists
Speaker 3: in whatever that place is where some group or despot
Speaker 3: or person will come through and just grasp that power.
Speaker 3: And that's what we see happening in Cambodia in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty nine to seventy.
Speaker 1: Yep, YEP. At least forty thousand people died as a
Speaker 1: result of this.
Speaker 3: The bombing itself that he was the architect of right and.
Speaker 1: He entered into the ceasefire negotiations with North Vietnam. He
Speaker 1: was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for this, and his
Speaker 1: critics find that ironic, and reportedly even Kissinger himself was like,
Speaker 1: I don't deserve this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, especially when you think about the Khmune rousion
Speaker 3: and what happened afterwards because because of them, millions of
Speaker 3: people were slaughtered.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, let's go to October nineteen sixty nine. He
Speaker 1: had this thing called Madman theory, and Madman Theory, now
Speaker 1: with the benefit of retrospect, is weird and hilarious. It
Speaker 1: was essentially a pr branding campaign whereby Kissinger wanted to
Speaker 1: make leaders of communist nations think that Richard Nixon was insane,
Speaker 1: like scare them basically, yeah, like larger in life kind
Speaker 1: of crazy person. You don't know, is he going left,
Speaker 1: is he going right? Is he launching a nuke? This?
Speaker 3: Does it remind you of something?
Speaker 1: Maybe? Maybe, But in this case it's an act. So
Speaker 1: the I mean, in this case, it is a calculated thing.
Speaker 1: And it was of great benefit to in backdoor diplomatic conversations,
Speaker 1: because one thing a lot of diplomats do is they say, look,
Speaker 1: we're like each other. We're just we happen to be
Speaker 1: on different sides of a conversation, just.
Speaker 3: Trying to do the best for the people we represent.
Speaker 1: And you know, I get it, Like I work directly
Speaker 1: with Nixon and he is nuts, So I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's gonna do. I feel like it's best for
Speaker 1: us to work this out between us and quickly before
Speaker 1: he gets I mean, he might have a bad day.
Speaker 3: He's got that football thing that has the codes in it.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So it's kind of like building rapport, Like
Speaker 1: you're as a diplomat, you're sort of distancing yourself from
Speaker 1: the policy and saying like, I'm here to help you, buddy.
Speaker 1: So so this is effective. He has something called Operation
Speaker 1: Giant Lance Nixon again. Nixon sends eighteen B fifty two
Speaker 1: bombers with nuclear warheads to the border of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: the eastern border, and they're hoping that this madman theory
Speaker 1: is believable enough that the Soviet government will panic and
Speaker 1: say and pressure it's proxy North Vietnam to accept US
Speaker 1: peace demands. And could you say this is a brilliant
Speaker 1: sigh up? Could you say, it's just it's ugly. It's
Speaker 1: a bully tactic. But bully tactics kind of par for
Speaker 1: the course in a lot of these things, especially if
Speaker 1: you're playing real politic.
Speaker 3: And you know, and you're playing with nukes, and you're.
Speaker 1: Playing with nukes, that's the problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then in the end North Vietnam is victorious,
Speaker 3: and you know in the Paris peace accords occur anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, So nineteen seventy one, at least in the case
Speaker 1: of I want to note, at least in the case
Speaker 1: of Giant Lance, thousands and thousands of people did not die.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, he support Pakistan as it massacred
Speaker 1: over a million people during what was called the Bangladesh
Speaker 1: Liberation War. He also joked about the massacre of Bengali
Speaker 1: Hindus and he sneered at Americans who quote bleed for
Speaker 1: the dying Bengalis. That's according to professor Gary Bass, who
Speaker 1: was writing in Political magazine about this. Bass also says
Speaker 1: that Kissinger's policy was again oriented towards what he saw
Speaker 1: as the greater good. Pakistan, he might say, has some imperfections,
Speaker 1: including you know, massacring millions of people, but it's also
Speaker 1: not communists, and it's good to have that chess piece
Speaker 1: in play to prevent the spread of communism.
Speaker 3: Now, remember he's working closely with Richard Nixon during a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff, and he ends up being one
Speaker 3: of the primary reasons that Nixon begins wiretapping everybody and
Speaker 3: recording everybody, and he ends up being a part of Watergate,
Speaker 3: or he's involved at least, but we can leave that
Speaker 3: for perhaps another episode. You should just know that he
Speaker 3: was involved in Watergate and wiretapping.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that definitely happened. He also aided Indonesia under
Speaker 1: the brutal dictatorship of Suharto in terms of financial aid
Speaker 1: and military funding. In seventy three, he overthrew the democratically
Speaker 1: elected Salvador Ayinde and Chile, installing the dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and remember he didn't do it with his bare
Speaker 3: hands like that. But man, that guy made it happen
Speaker 3: through you know, I guess engineering is a good way
Speaker 3: to put it in. He made it occur with his voice.
Speaker 1: Right, He puppeteered it. Yes, So he also supported Operation Condor.
Speaker 1: Operation Condor was a campaign designed to get the secret
Speaker 1: police of fascist dictators in South America to work together,
Speaker 1: supporting coups on non fascist countries and facilitating drug dealing
Speaker 1: in the region.
Speaker 3: As a way to provide funds for these kinds of activities.
Speaker 1: He was a fan of Pinochet because he was not
Speaker 1: a communist, and he was also a fan of the
Speaker 1: Junta in Argentina at the time. We also found, according
Speaker 1: to documents that were released in twenty fourteen, that he
Speaker 1: signaled in the nineteen seventies to Argentina's right wing military
Speaker 1: leaders something along the lines of, Hey, you know, dissent
Speaker 1: is just a real pill, isn't it. Guys? If you
Speaker 1: need to crack down on those commies and those pinkos
Speaker 1: and those hippies, you know, we don't really have a
Speaker 1: problem with that. We just want you to know we
Speaker 1: don't have a problem with it, and that became implicit
Speaker 1: support of what is called the Dirty War. The dirty
Speaker 1: war resulted in the deaths of more than thirty thousand people.
Speaker 3: And one of the craziest things about those documents that
Speaker 3: you mentioned, Ben, that were released in twenty fourteen is
Speaker 3: that there are accounts from several people, one of whom
Speaker 3: was Robert Hill, who was the ambassador to Argentina, and
Speaker 3: it's this conversation that Kissinger had with a foreign minister
Speaker 3: there named Gazetti. And Okay, so apparently this foreign minister
Speaker 3: was really afraid that if they were doing this dirty war,
Speaker 3: they were going to carry this stuff out and they
Speaker 3: were going to continue doing it. They were afraid that
Speaker 3: the United States would end up cracking down on their
Speaker 3: activities and their government in general as a way of
Speaker 3: fighting against these human rights violations that were occurring. Right,
Speaker 3: and then Kissinger says to him, I mean, this is paraphrasing,
Speaker 3: but you don't need to worry about that. That's not
Speaker 3: going to happen.
Speaker 1: Right. So it is maybe a little bit hyperbolic, but
Speaker 1: it was a breakfast that resulted in the death of
Speaker 1: thirty thousand people, But it wasn't really they were going
Speaker 1: to They were probably going to make the dirty war
Speaker 1: happen anyway, Kissinger in this case knew about it and
Speaker 1: did not stop it and gave them sort of an
Speaker 1: atta boy. Yeah, and let's go to one more example.
Speaker 1: In December of nineteen seventy five, he approved the Indonesian
Speaker 1: invasion of East Timor, resulting in one hundred thousand to
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty deaths conflict related deaths. And conflict
Speaker 1: related death could be anything from starvation or disease related
Speaker 1: to the horrors of war. What we're saying is it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be an actual you know, gunshot to
Speaker 1: the head or death by bombing. War brings death in
Speaker 1: many forms. Let's put that in perspective. So we said
Speaker 1: one hundred to one hundred and eighty thousand people died
Speaker 1: in conflict related deaths. One hundred thousand people were forced
Speaker 1: to relocate. Maybe not the biggest number until you consider
Speaker 1: the total population of the country at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, only six hundred and eighty two thousand human beings.
Speaker 3: So that's over half of the people were relocated. And
Speaker 3: add on to that the number of people who died.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a rough move there.
Speaker 1: This taally of massive death that has been indirectly attributed
Speaker 1: to Kissinger. Seems it seems like quite a tab to
Speaker 1: add up over time, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, there are a lot of people who would say,
Speaker 1: now hold on and we'll get to them after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Now hold on, It's fair to say, hey, government's a
Speaker 3: big and we need to avoid the lazy fallacy of
Speaker 3: blame in all these events on a single man. He
Speaker 3: might have had his hands tied, he might have not
Speaker 3: been aware that this was all happening at all. Right, right,
Speaker 3: you know it is true. We have been pretty rough
Speaker 3: on Kissinger already, saying that he engineered all these things,
Speaker 3: basically blaming him for all these deaths. I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe that really isn't all that fair.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe here's the problem, Matt. Experts, including people
Speaker 1: who applaud Kissinger's actions, disagree with the idea that he
Speaker 1: was unaware of these things. Christopher Hitchens, he was recognized
Speaker 1: for a number of other things. He's polemical, he was
Speaker 1: at his time a huge proponent of atheism and so on. Right,
Speaker 1: that may be one of the ways he's best known today.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm quite hilarious in his digs of other people. Yeah, cantankerous, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and also hated or loved essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, he had no chill. There you go, Chris
Speaker 1: for Hitchens had no chill one way or the other.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book called The Trial of Hydry Kissinger,
Speaker 1: and in this book he says the degree of micromanagement
Speaker 1: revealed in Kissinger's memoirs forbids the idea that anything of
Speaker 1: importance took place without his knowledge or permission of nothing.
Speaker 1: Is this more true than his own individual involvement in
Speaker 1: the bombing of Neutral Cambodia. And then so that's one
Speaker 1: of the many arguments in full disclosure. Hitchins is not
Speaker 1: a fan of Kissinger, and it's pretty it's pretty obvious
Speaker 1: in the way he writes about him. But even people
Speaker 1: who are like, you know, got to break a few
Speaker 1: eggs and sow jill political outlets work, even they will
Speaker 1: say that Kissinger did this. It didn't just happen when
Speaker 1: he was off on vacation on a Friday. According to
Speaker 1: a guy named Greg Grandon, who's a professor of history
Speaker 1: at New York University, this means that quote a back
Speaker 1: of the envelope count would attribute Tree maybe four million
Speaker 1: deaths to Kissinger's actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims.
Speaker 3: Yikes. Yeah, that's a history a history professor at New
Speaker 3: York University saying that you should probably attribute three or
Speaker 3: four million deaths to this man.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't even touch on the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3: Oh no, my god. Again, when you are a part
Speaker 3: of all of these different organizations, when you're essentially the
Speaker 3: power behind a government, or at least you know, if
Speaker 3: it's a Disney movie, he's who are I forget all
Speaker 3: the main like ja'far type characters, but the counselor that
Speaker 3: sits next to the king, that whispers dark things into
Speaker 3: the king or queen's ear. I mean, that's essentially that's
Speaker 3: that's really whittling it down. But that's a lot of
Speaker 3: what he ends up doing, whispering to other people in
Speaker 3: power who make the decisions. I think when you have
Speaker 3: that position, you are going to be at least targeted
Speaker 3: by people who see conspiracies, if not actually taking part
Speaker 3: in conspiracies.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well well said and well put. So as as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, this is due to his membership in these
Speaker 1: enormously influential bodies. He's a member of the Bohemian Growth,
Speaker 1: a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member
Speaker 1: of the Builderberg Group, a member of the Aspen Institute,
Speaker 1: a participant in the Trilateral Commission. We have episodes on
Speaker 1: pretty much all of those, except, I believe, the Aspen Institute.
Speaker 1: We also need to mention that the racist and anti
Speaker 1: Semitic conspiracy theories come into play here too. They harp
Speaker 1: on Kissinger due to his Jewish background, and then you'll
Speaker 1: read these sorts of things saying that he is a
Speaker 1: key player in some sort of secretive Jewish cabal. This
Speaker 1: gets tied into those allegations of international banking cartels and
Speaker 1: so on. But while the Jewish conspiracy clap trap has
Speaker 1: been thoroughly and thing thankfully debunked, there is bad news here.
Speaker 1: The bad news is that banking cartel conspiracies do have
Speaker 1: sand Some of them are very very, very true, and
Speaker 1: it is highly likely that Henry Kissinger ran into something
Speaker 1: like banking led conspiracies during his career.
Speaker 3: I mean, he did want to be an accountant.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't even think about that. I didn't
Speaker 1: think we would have one that goes into one that
Speaker 1: hinges on his accounting past. I mean, that's a very
Speaker 1: good point. Met So he has been both a participant
Speaker 1: in genuine conspiracies and subject to speculation on other conspiracy theories. Right,
Speaker 1: And for a lot of people, the big question is,
Speaker 1: at what point do these policies become war crimes, the
Speaker 1: conspiracies that he created and enacted. At what point do
Speaker 1: they go beyond being secretive for the purpose of national
Speaker 1: security and become something that you should prosecute someone for?
Speaker 3: And what really is the difference between those two things?
Speaker 1: Right? Where is the line? Where is the line? There's
Speaker 1: a guy named Mario del Pero, a professor of international
Speaker 1: history and author of the Eccentric Realist Henry Kissinger in
Speaker 1: the Shaping of American Foreign Policy, he reacts in a
Speaker 1: different way. He throws a little cold water on this.
Speaker 1: He says, I am afraid that, by the standards some
Speaker 1: of his critics have applied to Kissinger, numerous post nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five US statesmen could be accused of crimes against humanity,
Speaker 1: and that applies perhaps to the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: leader's modern great powers. Very good point, right, Like, at
Speaker 1: some point, if you're in charge of a country, are
Speaker 1: you responsible for every bad thing that country does.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, it's true. That's kind of a tough truth.
Speaker 3: I guess we have to face a little bit.
Speaker 1: Here, right, Absolutely, we have to face he said head on.
Speaker 1: Let's also let's also continue just a little bit, because
Speaker 1: del Pero doesn't believe that Henry Kissinger was very good
Speaker 1: at his job. To be honest, he says, he's not
Speaker 1: some sort of arch manipulator. He says Kissinger was simplistic,
Speaker 1: binary even uninformed. During his tenure. He was dogmatic, he
Speaker 1: adhered to the zero sum game of international politics. And
Speaker 1: then del Pero says, in short, he wasn't a war criminal.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a very deep or sophisticated thinker. He rarely
Speaker 1: challenged the intellectual vogues or fads of the time, and
Speaker 1: once in government, he displayed a certain intellectual laziness.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting take, right, that's saying, that's saying. Look,
Speaker 1: the argument here is almost like if he's a war criminal,
Speaker 1: everyone else is. And also the hype's not real. He
Speaker 1: wasn't that good at what he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he wasn't as big a part of any of this.
Speaker 3: It's I wonder about the motivation there because it's certainly
Speaker 3: not a view that is or it's not a view
Speaker 3: of Kissinger that you see very often. Right again, we
Speaker 3: kind of laid it out at the top there. He's
Speaker 3: a lot of times seen as this war criminal or
Speaker 3: you know, a hero and just being a lazy government
Speaker 3: guy that's just sitting around not doing much, being uninformed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you don't hear that very often. I was thinking about
Speaker 3: the twenty sixteen Democratic debates, just really quick off side here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was when oh, I hope I'm not getting this wrong.
Speaker 3: I believe it was Hillary Clinton. And at least it
Speaker 3: was a discussion between the moderator, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 3: and they were discussing Henry Kissinger, okay, and Hillary Clinton
Speaker 3: was a supporter of Kissinger, and at some point it's
Speaker 3: brought up that yes, she said, yes, I will take
Speaker 3: the advice essentially or the counsel of Henry Kissinger. You know,
Speaker 3: I believe him to be very informed in you know,
Speaker 3: his opinion I value essentially. And then Bernie Sanders said
Speaker 3: the opposite, like no, absolutely, and laid out some of
Speaker 3: the war crimes things, at least in very very brief ways,
Speaker 3: and just said no, I absolutely won't take advice from
Speaker 3: this person. And they had a really fairly, fairly brief
Speaker 3: but interesting exchange about him on the stage at a
Speaker 3: debate like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kissinger is seen as a tutor of Henry Clinton. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think would surprise some people who are more
Speaker 1: on the conservative side. Yeah, because you know you as so,
Speaker 1: politics suffers from that false dichotomy here in the US,
Speaker 1: and people would say, Okay, this guy did a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff under the Richard Nixon administration, So why is
Speaker 1: he advising why is he a counselor to Hillary Clinton?
Speaker 1: And this is a point where you know, you have
Speaker 1: to ask yourself fingers on a hand, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and Hillary Clinton also makes a very rational point here,
Speaker 3: which is this, this man has such a wealth of
Speaker 3: experience in dealing with foreign powers as well as the
Speaker 3: United States as a power. Why would you not listen
Speaker 3: to him? Just from an experience perspective?
Speaker 1: I mean, that does seem like a rational point. The
Speaker 1: question then becomes one of not just experience, but of
Speaker 1: accomplishment success or lack thereof.
Speaker 3: Short and alignment, and like, are you going to align
Speaker 3: yourselves with that kind of power? I guess if you're
Speaker 3: running for something like the office or president anyway, just
Speaker 3: wanted to throw that out there.
Speaker 1: Sure right now, regardless again of what we may or
Speaker 1: may not think about Henry Kissinger as individuals. Judges from Argentina, Chile, France,
Speaker 1: and Spain are still seeking his testimony regarding crimes committed
Speaker 1: by US client regimes in South America in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: Those US backed dictatorships were mentioned earlier. When he was
Speaker 1: in London in April of two thousand and one, British
Speaker 1: activists sought his arrest on charges related to the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: Even in the US, he was the subject of a
Speaker 1: civil suit, but by the family of a Chilean military
Speaker 1: chief murdered in the seventies as part of the US
Speaker 1: attempt to block the election of Salvadora. In day now,
Speaker 1: some people doubtlessly see the criticism of Henry Kissinger as
Speaker 1: unfounded or even offensive, and calling somewhat a war criminal
Speaker 1: is a very heavy charge. It's a term that's actually
Speaker 1: rarely used today in political discourse because hauling someone a
Speaker 1: war criminal automatically implies that they have killed massive amounts
Speaker 1: of people through either their direct actions or their policy decisions.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because then it becomes an argument of is
Speaker 3: that a war crime? Even though they killed all these people,
Speaker 3: is that a war crime? Did they do it in
Speaker 3: a way that would constitute.
Speaker 1: That right exactly? And we have tons of international law
Speaker 1: on that very subject. However, it is true that Kissinger
Speaker 1: simply cannot travel to certain countries for fear of arrest,
Speaker 1: and this is also something in which he is not
Speaker 1: unique amongst various former politicians and bureaucrats. As we record
Speaker 1: today's episode, Henry Kissinger is alive. He is ninety seven
Speaker 1: years old. He will likely never be prosecuted for his actions,
Speaker 1: and some argue that he should not be, as the
Speaker 1: US is historically opposed to any sort of international legal
Speaker 1: action against serving or former US politicians. Where this is
Speaker 1: where something called the American Service Members Protection Act of
Speaker 1: two thousand and two comes into play. It Essentially, it's
Speaker 1: a law that might be hilarious or terrifying to some
Speaker 1: of us listening outside of the US. It's a law
Speaker 1: in the United States that authorizes the use of military
Speaker 1: force to liberate any American or citizen of a US
Speaker 1: allied country being held in the International Criminal Court that's
Speaker 1: located in the Hague. This has been called the Hague
Speaker 1: invasion clause. People in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, obviously
Speaker 1: hate this idea. The law provides for the withdrawal of
Speaker 1: US military assistants from countries that agree with the ICC treaty.
Speaker 1: It restricts US participation in UN peacekeeping unless the US
Speaker 1: is immune from prosecution. And there's a provision that says
Speaker 1: the President can change his or her mind on this
Speaker 1: whenever due to national interest.
Speaker 3: Wow wow.
Speaker 1: So, if, for instance, Paul's dodgy international past catches up
Speaker 1: with him and he is arrested and taken to the
Speaker 1: International Criminal Court, the US has law in the books
Speaker 1: that says this country can send an invasion force to
Speaker 1: physically rescue him and extricate him from Europe.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well, Paul, whatever you did, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 3: it's a much more three dimensional thing that occurred. There
Speaker 3: are reasons behind it, the reasons you did it. But
Speaker 3: you know, in the end, we're gonna get you back, buddy.
Speaker 1: And that also is a terrible example, because Paul is
Speaker 1: a hero. He is, and he is known as a
Speaker 1: gem domestically and abroad. But one thing is for sure,
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger did conspire to do numerous things that were
Speaker 1: at the very very least unethical dirty pool. He actively proved,
Speaker 1: created and participated in a number of conspiracies to advance
Speaker 1: what he saw as the greater good for the US
Speaker 1: on a global stage. That is true. It's not a theory,
Speaker 1: that's not a person's opinion. That is a fact. The
Speaker 1: big question is was it all worth it?
Speaker 3: Well, we were gonna, I guess, figure that out in
Speaker 3: the next hundred years, just really looking back at it,
Speaker 3: I think, and generally when someone passes, I think the
Speaker 3: the harsh realities of a person's life can be viewed
Speaker 3: I guess more fully at least by society, by history,
Speaker 3: and we can actually talk about it in a way
Speaker 3: that we couldn't when they were still living. So I
Speaker 3: have a feeling, you know, unfortunately for Henry Kissinger, probably
Speaker 3: pretty soon he won't be with us, and maybe we'll
Speaker 3: get a little more light shed on exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps perhaps.
Speaker 3: Or it'll go to the grave with him, maybe.
Speaker 1: Or it will go to the grave. We want to
Speaker 1: know what you think. Is it true that these sorts
Speaker 1: of things occur and do serve a greater good? Or
Speaker 1: is that an oversimplification, you know what I mean. Was
Speaker 1: Kissinger making the best, if harsh political decisions for the time,
Speaker 1: or was he blinded by ideology or something else? Let
Speaker 1: us know. You can find us on Facebook, you can
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