Guest all i will say is i stand behind the book for geithner you are you emotionally attached. I am not. It is an honest book. I am so pleased to welcome to the store this evening. To launch the book we are doubly pleased to have him. The book is kissinger is a shadow but he is likely known to you for his earlier book which was a finalist for the buck Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award and also the author of the empire of necessity and the blood of guatemala. Hes a professor of history at new york university. His book is on the government sources. To chart kissingers political philosophy one that stems back to the cambodian and asian argued that is responsible for the current militarization of American Foreign policy. Evan thomas rated in the Washington Post this weekend praised the book for its literary flair and the sharp eye for the absurdity of politics. We are so happy to have him here with us this evening please help me welcome greg. [applause] thank you. What a nice turnout and thank you for coming out and for that lovely introduction. I think some friends were supposed to be here. I dont know if larry was in the audience that his character of the council and we would credit him for teaching quite a bit how to write but i guess that hes not here. So when i told friends and colleagues i was writing about the legacy of the foreignpolicy made mention of the book that is quite well known and did very well, Christopher Hitchens the trial of Henry Kissinger and i saw my purpose as the debacle to the 2001 polemic which i think is a good example of what the great historian in 1936 called or dismissed as the devils theory of war the tendency to place the blame for militarism on a single isolated cause in the term and the sources of conflict to look at the big picture to consider the ways to. Aside from assembling the docket and gathering of the accused role in place a. Righteous indignation doesnt provide much room for the understanding, hitchens is deep into the dark heart. In Southern Africa and here in the circle in washington, d. C. This is a side of the price of power kissinger in the Nixon White House was published in 1983 and that did capture the secretive world of the fascinating Security Apparatus as it was functioning during the vietnam war and the study of kissinger, the paranoia reads like a prelude to todays prevailing surveillance and counterterrorism stated that we now live under. This gave us the defining portrait of any biographer that follows will have to top this between the ruthlessness to advance a career cursing the fates and letting the b52 fly small in the vanities and shabby in the motives and kissinger is nonetheless shakespearian because the pettiness gets played out on the world stage with epic consequences. But writing in the early 1980s could know the longterm effects not only of the specific policies but of how the imperial extons sister chose extension was on. Who in the 1930s took us after a quick detour into central america, deeper into the gulf and then after 9 11 into afghanistan and iraq so the shadow is long and hence the title of the book. Kissinger is 92yearsold and his wife courses through like a bright red lion from the jungles of vietnam and cambodia to the sands of the persian gulf shedding light on the road that brought us to now where we find ourselves. I think some of the early reviews of the book have gotten this wrong but i do not hold kissinger responsible from the evolution to the United States National Security state and to the perpetual motion machine that it has become. I dont think that if you extract kissinger from u. S. History there is a virtuous republic. Its the state like no one else and in particular he was a key player during the transformative moment of the imperial presidency in the 1960s and 1970s when the vietnam war and watergate began to undermine the traditional foundations on which the cold war policy and National Security states stood since the beginning of the 1940s, since the 1940s. The lead of planning and the bipartisan consensus and public support and now the unraveling. It was related nixon and kissinger did it takes a crisis to a new level of which kissinger was the architect and the engineer. It was at kent and Jackson University that led directly to watergate and the downfall in 1974. More crying and paranoia. Today watergate is remembered largely as a domestic scandal but when we learned of foreignpolicy gamely to decide to keep the bombing of cambodia secret and it was kissinger more than any other staffer in the white house who got nixon riled up about the Daniel Ellsberg and the pentagon papers and more specifically about the secret bombing of cambodia as far as i know certainly not the nixon but there is a fleet that went to the pentagon papers of what they were doing after 1969. Kissinger began the meeting with curse that son of a bitch, hes a despicable bastard. He was described in the annunciation of ellsberg he keyed his performance to start up next ins various resentments and he looked at him she looked at him as a liberal and hedonistic subversive promiscuous and privileged hes now married a very rich girl, kissinger told nixon and nixon was fascinated earlier. Henry got nixon cranked up and then he started cranking each other up. Kissinger told nixon that shows that you are a link weakling mr. President. So crimes lead to more crimes than he was involved in the early plotting including the wiretaps and and associates, surveillances and meetings where the nations highest officers were smearing antiwar dissidents on both treasonous allegiance is where they were plotting to block mail former president s and throw up. Couple of states and the institute and give orders to run the paramilitary operations that led to watergate. Even as vietnam and watergate were beginning to break up the old National Security state, kissinger who had survived and we can talk later on in the questions about how we manage to survive watergate and continue on under the successor gerald ford was helping with the reconstruction of the National Security state and a new form, kind of a restored imperial presidency capable of moving forward into the postvietnam world and many different elements of this restored National Security state. I will touch on a few of them but i try to go in detail in the book one is the increased dependency on secrecy and covert action. There will be the support of insurgencies and thirdparty mercenaries in Southern Africa particularly in angola they provided a template for the expansion of similar covert operations throughout the third world would lead to the iran contra and theres a connection. The second element that is central to the restoration of the imperial stages but increased by militarism to leverage the domestic polarization as the domestic consensus unraveled the war or threat of war or just the violence and brutality was used to leverage the polarization and division for the domestic advantage and this is not new. Every president prior to nixon used the war or Foreign Policy for the domestic and but i think that in this kind of post consensus unraveled in nixon and kissinger in some ways. Its the attempt to win over the democrats for the 1972 election to ensure the landslide and keep the potential rightwing thirdparty in the Republican Party and in many ways the strategy had a foreignpolicy come of the destruction and brutality visited on cambodia and vietnam. It is directly aimed at keeping the Southern States and the sutherland sentences. They said that the federal courts should stay out of the affairs of the mississippi and South Carolina in one meeting. We wouldnt have had the cambodia as a way of kind of proving that nixon was a hawk so that element of the National Security state leveraging particularly the brutal militarism as a way of winning over the right kind of attributes to the right to get started under reagan and nixon. It was the deployment of ever more spectacular displays of violence to shock and awe. Its leading to the disaster that we are living under today. I think that it is neither covert or political opportunism that kissingers chief competition to the vietnam resurgence in American Military militarism whether it was metaphysical. Conventional wisdom opposes Henry Kissinger to dick cheney and paul wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and others that drove to iraq. Its sad set up to be a different philosophical tradition than the arrogance of an administration that fought the United States military was so powerful that it could make reality. I dont believe you remember that quote but the empire now when we act we make reality and it is true that many of the prominent neocons in the last days did use kissinger as a foil and said and he was a sinner because he supposedly didnt believe that american righteousness should guide its foreignpolicy and others have that famous morality inserted into the 1976 republican platform, Republican Party platform which you can think of as an antikissinger think tank that i think conventional wisdom is wrong. If it is taken as a view of the world that holds that reality is transparent but the truth of the facts can be derived from simply preserving the facts and kissinger was definitely and is not a realistic. Of all the policymakers that helped shape the postworld war ii National Security state, kissinger was perhaps the most selfaware of the philosophical foundations that justified his actions. He was deeply influenced by an antirationalist and extremely subjective strain of the metaphysics that considering how often we used to justify the war might be called in. Alexis tantalus on. Kissinger was an accidental list. You can read the 1950 undergraduate thesis the longest ever submitted to harvard university, 400 pages, and it reads it is tough going. But the echo of the 1950s accessed angeles on his present and the intense subjectivity that there is no reality other than one that emanates from our own individual experience of the radical freedom and tragedy and suffering is the hallmark of existence and there is no meaning to existence other than the meaning that we assign as individuals and people have a responsibility to act in the world. In the footnotes of course where the other accessed angeles use that different kind of morality from the accessed angeles from to protest the war and the entire kissinger used it to defend and advance the war and empire. So in kissingers shadow to explain this how it manifested itself in its specific policies and that after he left office in his advice as a foreignpolicy intellectuals. But the thesis is darkening that proves you can see how the fox kind of runs through much of his considerations about the foreignpolicy and how he justifies his actions up until the latest book world order. For some of this nature belief in this romanticism is that action creates the perception of reality and that the past has no meaning other than what we assign it and that the future is undetermined and its refused to be paralyzed by the the patent held by the overabundance of data as the modern bureaucracies into the statesman act on hunches. The creation of the definition its the responsibility of the true leaders not only to maintain the protection of order they have to find the material for the creation. They are leading to some of the neoconservative idea lets him. Theres a fascinating site of passage in the 1954 doctoral dissertation. It would be highly unstable and make the limited war almost inevitable. Its achieved by the fact into the consciousness of the awareness of balance. Its too creepy awareness that one needs to be willing to act. The action has to be avoided to show that action was possible. Action can overcome the paralyzing fear of the drastic consequences that might result from action in this case talking about the potential of nuclear escalation. The purpose was to create an awareness of the american purpose that circularity of the reasoning. They are doing well but they dont know why they are doing it. They dont have purpose. Its a circularity that the purpose of American Power is to create an awareness and american purpose. We cant defend the interest and nobody interests are until we defend them. Kissinger taught there was no such thing as the estess international affairs. The cover has become tested. But in the book i focused a good deal on cambodia as a good example of the perpetual motion machine as it has been demonstrated by other historians it doesnt contest it in any form they get elected by helping derail and passing information about the paris peace talks in the fall of 1968 but mixing used to derail and make sure that humphrey would get no bump from the potential ceasefire. And that action prolonged the war from five pointless years. They couldnt start a bombing bombing North Vietnam for a lot of different political reasons so they began to bomb cambodia in secret. They died as a result of the bombing campaign. And there you have it we have to escalate in order to prove and the more evidence we have to escalate. The madman policy in the idea the North Vietnamese would think whatever from performance and in an accident to convey the actual act and the ravaging of the country from nowhere but the ravage. Nixon and kissingers bombing helped accelerate and provoked the coup that ended up to the invasion that helped spread of the civil the civil war in which escalated the bombing so again the circle remains unbroken and not just in cambodia. Over and over again in in laos and vietnam and angola and mozambique and elsewhere kissinger offers repeatedly plunged into the circular argument in action has to be avoided in order to show that action is possible. We showed the in saigon they gave a famous piece of advice that the United States has to take some action somewhere in the world. So they continued out of office to step up the bombing of iraq in the 1990s as a way of demonstrating american purpose. Thats what he and nixon did in Southeast Asia kissinger told clinton and whether we got it right or not is really secondary second, its not that remarkable a statement at least not when one considers the demonstrative effects arent american. The demonstrative effects are not necessarily on other people. Its to proved that we are willing to do something and that the effects produced by the onetwo act of the world are or important than the consequences of that act of the foreign victims. We go through where this played out in the country. All of this might sound familiar and it should work basically it is the same, kissingers philosophy is basically that metaphysical advance of the neocons who believe that america creates its own reality and they constantly complain that americans have grown too soft. Paul wolfowitz complained that there were not enough casualties as a way of kind of hardening america to the fight. The u. S. Would act as if it were the foregone conclusion. It echoes and you can trace a direct lineage from cheney to kissinger on the whole body of the kind of german irrationalism and continental irrationalism. Kissinger was an early supporter of attacking not just afghanistan and iraq that somalia and yemen as well as called on george bush to launch a revolution into the International Sweep away for the notions of sovereignty. On august 22, 2002 when dick cheney laid out the fullest case why iraq was the only option coming directly quoted kissinger saying it was a pre preemption and once it turned a disaster the statement regularly with staffers citing the experience and be a time for the u. S. Southern withdrawals of the troops. I spent a lot of time in the neoconservativism but its really just the highly selfconscious broad consensus that reaches out well beyond republicans the republicans to capture the ideologue pragmatist idealists alike. Hillary clinton protested the invasion of cambodia and recently praised kissinger calling him a friend saying that she relied on the council and the famous realist referring to the most recent book sounds surprisingly idealistic and then she said kissingers vision is her vision just and liberal. The defense intellectuals and journalists have essays explaining the trouble. They often have difficulty defining what exactly that would look like. Often kissinger is defined in negative terms. Without knowing its purpose i tried to show that it is exactly that but i think it is an effective of kissinger himself of the rehabilitation of the National Security state and the relentless militarism that goes with it. Constant unending war with the drum like a drone like efficiency has done more than cause fought and morality and brought about a disassociation of words and things, belief and action of which abstractions are sent to the opposite. According to clinton, idealists are realists and everybody is a liberal and Henry Kissinger is our avatar. If your civilians died from. Hes right and that the political argument that he made at the time in the 1960s justified his illegal war in cambodia and laos. At the time as far out of the mainstream. This is especially true of the idea that the u. S. Had the right to violate and to destroy enemy sanctuaries. Youll find no safe haven, barack obama said allowing kissinger his resolution. I think, i wanted to end on that because it is that on broken circle. Kissinger looked at so he could look at what he did in cambodia in chile and elsewhere. What he did nearly half a century ago created the conditions of todays endless war. Those with the obama liberals. Thank you. [applause]. Let me congratulate you on being able to open a dialogue that is long overdue. I just want to ask is i want to broaden it a little, this runs throughout our culture. He goes back to our feelings with mexico, native americans, kissinger is just a pragmatist along the way. So, with your type of perspective how do we start to examine our culture and policy and the needs and which we are starting to feel a lot of pressure. How do we take this and go somewhere let me just say that i agree completely that this is an expansion of militarism. I want to break down the phases where this takes place. What is possible in any of those variations. You can have an olympian view which is no difference between what fdr was doing under the new deal, i dont think that particularly useful. There are moments where theres possibilities for opposition for education and for resistance. Maybe i am an optimist considering where we are now. Beyond that, i think looking specifically and intently and present at kissingers philosophy of history, when kissinger dies he will be outside the american tradition. Either because of his thick accent, i dont know why. I think it is important to understand he is a quintessential american and the argument of the book is that american exceptionalism is a strong irrational subjective isnt that kissinger embodies. Hes very aware of it. What do we do with that . I guess i am on here next. No other mike. Im going to try to squeeze in a few quick questions. One you referred to kissinger as a form of extra essential is, part of that characterization of that is the facts and information is how he thought things were or how he ought to be. Yet you look at the modern surveillance state to kissinger at least in part. It seems to me one of the main characteristics is the obsession with facts and data and so forth, rather so we can examine it in detail. So so i was sort of implying a inconsistency so i will just ask you is there and in inconsistency . Yes there is its true. Ultimately, what do you do with all of that information. Just control of data can lead to forms of control and forms of repression. When stakes were down, what did did the neocons do . In 2003 they separate get the data, forget the facts, forget the intelligence lets just plunge in. I think this is more of a relationship between the data and the intuition. I think it is revealing a different type of elements, not so much the surveillance but more the covert aspects of it. The secrecy. Kissinger in some way inaugurated a new ritual in american politics. Testifying in front of congress, it started with the fulbright commission, really what dont we know . There is a way in which secrecy and spectacle go handinhand. There is a way in which the relationship between that, in some situations theres too much knowledge. Were speaking now less about the speech information than the citys center use of it. What dont we dont we know about the National Security say . We know it can ducks convert activities. There has has been commission after commission, the pentagon papers. Alexander colbert talked about this when the fact that the Iranian Embassy in 1979 got all the cia documents. You can go to the library and theres the volume after volume of what the cia was doing. It is almost overwhelming. It it is almost too much information. There is a way in which the avalanche of information contributes to the spectacle site. It plays out in a way that becomes about procedural is him. When kissinger, and who is that congressman from berkeley, berman . Does anyone remember. Ron delman. He was hammering kissinger on all of the stuff after the church commission. He thought he had on. He said something like, frankly i think that what you are presiding over is that massive, illegal operation that violates the law. Kissinger said that with a little bit of force, apart from the legal stuff, is there anything else wrong with my operation . That was the 52nd clip that played on the news. That was what people remembered about that. There is an inconsistency. Thank you so much for your unraveling the kissinger doctrine. It is amazing, on mainstream tv, he testified on congress and he wishes. Two questions. He never signed the geneva Peace Agreement with vietnam. If you go back and see the footage where you signed is sound on train hk. Its not really a legal signature. My question to you is then, what was his relationship, you have reviewed the recent documents that have come out. His exact relationship with the cia . On a daytoday basis. Obviously it is hard to talk about a situation like this without sounding like you dive down a rabbit hole. Kissinger came up to the intelligent system in the u. S. In world war ii and then after world war ii, he was a military Sergeant Sergeant in the army, in the intelligence division. He won a bronze star, he was also leading captain of the hierarchy. He had fiercely maintained his intelligence with the intelligence community. He offered to spy on people that were attending the international seminar, he served on a number of covert actions, psychological psychological warfare boards in the 1950s. He quickly became, he was a student of William Elliott who is someone who had deep roots within the intelligence community. What we know about him, is interesting enough to give us a sense of useful understanding of the evolution of the National Security state. So is too big to fail. The mass murders are too big to convicts. My question to you is, is the evidence evident. You laid it out, its been laid out for history. The man is a mass murderer, he has killed people from here to there. As soon as vietnam was over he killed a millionaire, m16s were coming down the street over her head, her friend friend saved her life that day so what does it take in our country, as someone who has been in war, what do we have to do to bring mass murderers to justice in our world . [applause]. The jewish people follow these mass murders to the holocaust across the world. We know where kissinger is. 92, i dont care if he is 102, put him in jail. [applause]. You mention and im glad america is how mass social movements can hold people accountable. It takes time and persistence. Whatever latin american countries, chile, argentina, argentina do is not whats done in the u. S. I liked how you concluded by creating that relationship between kissinger and obama. My question is, while he was justifying his radical actions by talking about obamas radical actions in pakistan, afghanistan, and libya, how do you frame his rather sensible, within the mainstream actually position of the ukraine. You look at others and they are at these progenys of these legacy that kissinger created, yet that liberal frame they are now a part of they are much more extreme than he is. I think that is right. Then you look at iran and he was supposed to, he hasnt spoken much. There is a simple wayi dont know finish your question, i think he is a european nest in some way. There are plenty of quotes when he says all i care about is europe. The effects of his policy in the third world and the rise of the third world is bound up in kissingers history and policy. In many complicated ways but at his heart i think he identifies as a european in some sort of profound way. I think that could be one way of answering, it could also be business dealings. Who knows what his Business Associates are up to. Lets not forget he presides over kissingers, it helped facilitate the privatization of industries in latin america. Whatever it does in china, it is a private kissinger had to resign from being chair of the 9 11 commission because he wouldnt reveal the client list. Some republican senators said that client list is the most soughtafter document in washington. They offered to read it and some secured room and the pentagon and kissinger resigned. It might just be economics. I dont know what it accounts for in the spectrum of American Foreign policy while he seems a reasonable on russia and ukraine but not on iran. But that is not listed on that so thats kind of interesting right. They think he vaux purpose. Its a ritual of the Political Class but when he finally does say one thing that is sensible, nobody listens to it. [laughter] it gets lost in the banter. You didnt refer at all to the middle east and the israel and i would be interested in your comments because it still remains a puzzle to me. What in the background of the middle east created the nightmare that is real and anomie, i want want to say one thing i was at a meeting and a lady spoke about the two children that she had during the war in vietnam. The two children she had after the war, the two children were born normal and the other two were born completely deformed the mentally retarded. Tamia puts what you say into context. So many people, have played with their lives and paid with their happiness and Everything Else for this maniac. And the crimes are still going on. Ordinances in laos and cambodia claim many many lives each year. Bombs explode and farmers have to cultivate the land, i think it hass claim 20,000 lives in lives in laos since the war ended. So in terms of the middle east, i am starting in latin america relations i think like that kissinger and his relationships, you look at the middle east. My understanding is kissinger locked in an impasse. He committed the u. S. To not recognizing a palestinian state and tell palestine recognize israels right to exist without demanding the same on the part of israel. Beyond that, i think kissinger gets a pass on his middle east policy. He is responsible for the shah. It the massive sale and transfer of hightech weapon tree to tie iran and saudi arabia, that was kissingers engineering. It had to do with figuring out ways to recycle dollars into the United States. It also set up saudi arabia and iran as the guardians of the golf in a post vietnam kind of realignment. When people want to think about blowback from the middle east, they look at the 1980s, they look at the cias, and afghanistan. But in many ways that infrastructure was put into place by kissinger. It is just not just one person responsible for the impasse of the cassette catastrophe. Kissinger has more of a responsibility that he gets criticized for lots of things. I also think he gets a pass in the middle east. He started goosing pakistan to go into afghanistan and destabilize afghanistan. That was the beginning in some ways a political islam. That was around the same time he was doing the same thing, now with political islam but with the south africa. He was using new nearby proxy states to destabilize enemies. Kissinger put into place a lot of infrastructure that was trying to disentangle, including including arms tales and dependence on arms sales, i think about it like this, kissinger looked at the dollars as a way of financing u. S. At bombs and financing others. It was a reluctant coming to. Its not that he did it willingly. He was constantly saying things like cant we open and overthrow abu dhabi. Instead of overthrowing chile in 2003 they overthrew saudi arabia. We have time for a couple of more questions. I should say full discourse or, i am peter dixon. Dixon. I publish the first ever study of that undergraduate these is with Cambridge University 40 years ago. I think you are good in picking up with the existentialist subtext of that thesis. He is very much a historic, up course for political reason he has to give voice to transcendent values. That is that german historians position that he is a part of it. I would would still make two comments, a little more critical. The National Security state has been all around a long time. There were a lot of things that the United States did in the 40s, 50s, 50s, and 60s which were Kissinger Arian like. I dont think he is the godfather of the National Security state although many things that happened in that period of the 60s would reinforce the imperial presidency. The other thing i would say, and that is what thomas suggested in his review yesterday. The last thing i would say is i think think you blurred the neocon kissinger distinction too much. They really loathe one another. Many of the neocons are jewish persuasion and they did not trust this court jew. They called him a court jew because from their point of view, in german it was someone who is in the court compromising jewish interests. I think the neocons really start out with a domestic critique of the welfare state and they further refine their position on form policy in opposition of kissinger. I think in the long run you do have a point that kissingers realism and their positions to get blurred for one basic reason. Kissinger, even though he is out of power is addicted to access and power. He compromises a lot and sustained relationships with republicans that dont care for him that much. I think the real moment of truth was when the invasion of iraq. And i would say kissinger was cautious of that and then Hillary Clinton went with the war fever that was beating cheney and connie rice. I would have expected him, at that moment, to, to draw lines. I agree completely. Thank you that was a wonderful book. It is a terrific book. Two things, 1i agree completely that he was the founder of the National Security state and echoes back to other questions about continuity, change, and variation of different stages. It illustrates the revolution and he reveals the system. He plays an outside role because he is Henry Kissinger and he has had an enormous amount of power. By no means i think the National Security state began with Henry Kissinger. I think there has been variations in that kissinger is a wonderful window onto those. The second thing, i think there has been a tendency to focus on neocons in much the way people focus on kissinger. Im sure that they loathe each other. From what i know rock obama doesnt like Hillary Clinton but i dont know how useful that is when thinking about the way and how ideology both enables and reflects. And to see how it things overlap in the form policy. I think you can look at kissinger and look at the kind of irrational subjective is him of his will to power and see a residence of both deeper in american political culture. It is american conceptualism to a great degree and forward to the neocon. And that the argument there is neoconservatism is not an argument. Then you still have what we have. I would just be manifested in different ways. That is what i was trying to get at with kissingers relationship with the neocon. My name is rhonda, i have one question. I am deeply troubled by many things you said although i havent read the book yet. I will go for some low hanging fruit unfortunately. You made the, that kissinger did certain things during his time of power and that obama is doing similar things now, which if i understood you correctly you are making sort of an ethical parallel. That to me is such a facetious argument. It doesnt get to the real issue of either of their actions at ethical . So i just wanted to say it because you could say a bomb is doing similar stuff
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