Washington, D.C., November 29, 2023 -
Henry Kissinger’s death today brings new global attention to the long
paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations,
conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became
famous—détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East
shuttle diplomacy, among them.
This historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s
controversial tenure in power: his role in the overthrow of democracy
and the rise of dictatorship in Chile; disdain for human rights and
support for dirty, and even genocidal, wars abroad; secret bombing
campaigns in Southeast Asia; and involvement in the Nixon
administration’s criminal abuses, among them the secret wiretaps of his
own top aides.
To contribute to a balanced and more comprehensive evaluation of
Kissinger’s legacy, the National Security Archive has compiled a small,
select dossier of declassified records—memos, memcons, and “telcons”
that Kissinger wrote, said and/or read—documenting TOP SECRET
deliberations, operations and policies during Kissinger’s time in the
White House and Department of State.
The revealing “telcons”—over 30,000 pages of daily transcripts of
Kissinger’s phone conversations which he secretly recorded and had his
secretaries transcribe—were taken by Kissinger as “personal papers” when
he left office in 1977 and used, selectively, to write his best-selling
memoirs. The National Security Archive forced the U.S. government to
recover these official records by preparing a lawsuit that argued that
both the State Department and the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) had inappropriately allowed classified U.S.
government documentation to be removed from their control.
“Henry Kissinger’s insistence on recording practically every word he
said, either to the presidents he served (without their knowledge that
they were being taped) or the diplomats he cajoled, remains the gift
that keeps on giving to diplomatic historians,” remarked Tom Blanton,
director of the National Security Archive. “Kissinger’s aides later
commented that he needed to keep track of which lie he told to whom.
Kissinger tried to keep those documents under his own control, his deed
of gift to the Library of Congress would have kept them closed five
years from now, but the Archive brought legal action and forced the
opening of the secret documents that show a decidedly mixed picture of
Kissinger’s legacy, and enormous catastrophic costs to the peoples of
Southeast Asia and Latin America.” |
Ziehier Yoeri Albrecht, die door een jonge journalist van het mediakanaal Left Laser betrapt werd tijdens een privé-onderonsje met twee ...
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