Henry Kissinger 1923-2023: Giant of statecraft molded post-war US history
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Transcript
00:00 more or less speak to our chief foreign editor, Rob Parsons.
00:02 Hello to you, Rob.
00:04 A lot to discuss here.
00:05 Take us through some of the major achievements.
00:07 - Well, I mean, this is a diplomatic giant,
00:11 the diplomatic giant of the 20th century,
00:13 whether you like him or whether you loathe him.
00:16 And there are many on both sides of that equation.
00:19 But if you think particularly to the 1960s,
00:22 to that period, 1969 to 1977,
00:25 when he served as national security advisor
00:27 and secretary of state for the US.
00:30 Not to say he didn't achieve anything before that,
00:32 because he did a lot as an academic
00:34 and as an advisor in various different capacities
00:37 to the US government.
00:38 But that was the key period for him.
00:40 When he came into office, the Cold War was in full spate.
00:45 The United States was deep into the Vietnam War.
00:48 There were problems in South America.
00:50 Israel had just fought the Six-Day War in 1967.
00:54 It was heading towards the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
00:57 The relationship with China was tense.
01:00 Relations with the Soviet Union, very, very tense indeed.
01:04 He came to power at that time
01:06 and quickly became associated with what's now known
01:10 as detente with the Soviet Union,
01:13 leading to disarmament agreements with the Soviet Union.
01:17 He reopened relations between the United States and China,
01:21 which had been nonexistent since the revolution.
01:25 Kissinger went to China for the first time,
01:27 met Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai, the foreign minister.
01:32 He managed to pull the US out of the Vietnam War.
01:36 He didn't get the peace with honor
01:38 that probably he would have liked to have got,
01:40 that certainly he would like to have got,
01:41 but certainly he got the US out of the war,
01:43 got that Nobel Peace Prize you referred to.
01:46 1973, with the Yom Kippur War,
01:49 he was the man who became associated
01:51 with what the new concept of shuttle diplomacy,
01:54 going backwards and forwards between the capitals of Israel,
01:57 Egypt and Syria to get peace,
01:59 which led to the Camp David Agreements a few years later,
02:02 1979, when he was already out of office.
02:04 But he was the man who laid the basis for that.
02:07 So this is a giant of his times.
02:10 - And what did the critics say?
02:12 - Well, there is lots they had to criticize as well.
02:15 Some call him a butcher, some call him a war criminal.
02:20 He's been wanted by different courts around the world
02:22 at different times,
02:24 particularly in association
02:27 with what happened in Chile in the 1970s.
02:30 His policies were to overthrow effectively
02:34 the democratically elected government of Chile,
02:37 of Salvador Allende, a communist.
02:40 Kissinger wanted him removed
02:43 simply because he was a communist,
02:44 because he had very close relations with Cuba.
02:48 And this is what he had to say
02:50 about getting rid of Salvador Allende in 1973.
02:53 "I don't see why we need to stand by
02:55 and watch a country go communist
02:57 due to the irresponsibility of its people."
03:00 He had little regard, in other words.
03:02 - Rob, you interviewed him in 2009.
03:04 Just wanna play a clip from that real quick.
03:07 - The parallel is the potential opposition
03:12 within the United States.
03:13 And having gone through the Vietnam War,
03:16 one has to face this fact.
03:21 You cannot fight a war
03:23 if a very large percentage of your population
03:26 is determined to stop it.
03:31 - Rob, what did you take away from that interview?
03:32 - The standout for me, I think this is the fight that he,
03:37 it's what's called the Kissinger approach to diplomacy.
03:41 He's a realist.
03:42 You know, when he sees that the odds
03:45 are stacked up against him, as he was saying there,
03:48 that the American people no longer supported
03:50 the war in Vietnam,
03:51 therefore, the United States had to get out of that war.
03:54 The United States had to find an honorable peace,
03:58 what's called the Kissinger doctrine.
04:00 That's what he's most associated with,
04:02 realism in politics, realism in diplomacy.
04:05 - All right, Rob, thank you very much.
04:06 Rob Parsons, our chief foreign editor.