Kissinger and the Right
Christopher Hitchens
If it's true that intellectuals are secretly fascinated by power, then there's no need for surprise at the renaissance of Dr Henry Kissinger. There are three interpretations of him (it would be going too far to call them 'schools of thought') and they have all had their turn at the wicket this past fortnight. First in to bat was Seymour Hersh, whose new book The Price of Power (to be published by Faber and Faber in the autumn) gets Henry bang to rights as a war criminal, liar, cheat and toady. The Reagan administration seems to have regarded this prospectus as encouraging, and hired the subject on the spot. Second come the liberals who agreed that Kissinger may have been too exuberant about Chile, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus and the rest, but still give him credit as the designer of detente. After all, they say, it's a dangerous old world and you can't always behave as a boy scout should. Finally, and in many ways most surprisingly, came the Republican Right. To them, Kissinger is the epitome of surrender and appeasement, a man who would bargain away the West piecemeal in order to get a flattering picture of himself on the front page.
Ronald Reagan used to be a member of the third faction. In the 1976 election, he ran against Gerald Ford, saying that, if elected, he would sack the Doctor. 'Henry Kissinger's recent stewardship of US foreign policy,' he declared, 'has coincided precisely with the loss of US military supremacy.' Now, as I write, Ronald Reagan's closest political advisers from the 1980 campaign are saying the same thing only more so. They have announced that they will form a group to monitor Central America, and Henry in particular. Howard Phillips, chairman of the 'conservative caucus', expressed himself forcefully as follows: 'Dr Kissinger has been involved in some of the most serious foreign policy defeats ever suffered by the United States, including the loss of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to communist totalitarians. He helped instigate the surrender of the US canal and zone at Panama, he orchestrated the betrayal of our free Chinese allies on Taiwan, he paved the way for the destruc- tion of Rhodesia.'
This certainly expressed the visceral view of the old rooting-tooting fundamentalist Right: Ronald Reagan's true believers who have stuck with him in good times and in bad and who now feel that the fire in his belly is being doused by repeated draughts of pragmatism. The outlook of this group is easily intelligible once you accept their basic assumption that the United States owns the world and needs to prove it every now and again. There is, however, a more sinuous and intellectual clutch of conservatives at Reagan's elbow. These are the smart and unsentimental figures who defected from the Democratric Party when, especially under Jimmy Carter, it became too apologetic about American interests. Their chief spokesman within government is Mrs Jeane Kirkpatrick, ambassador to the United Nations, member of the cabinet and friend of General Galtieri.
In the circles where opinions are formed, their main man is Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary. It is from his small but influential Equipe that Mrs Kirkpatrick has chosen most of her advisers. These people used to distrust Kissinger too; they thought that he had given away too much during the negotiation of the SALT treaty.
I've enjoyed my life. Any failure or unhap- piness I've had I'm able to blame on my husband.'
They even suspected him of being prepared to tamper with Israel's undisputed sovereign- ty over the occupied territories and over American Middle East policy. But as time has elapsed they have revised their opi- nion. About a year ago, Norman Podhoretz awarded himself the cover of his own magazine to write a lengthy article entitled 'Kissinger Reconsidered'. He described Kissinger's latest volume of memoirs as 'one of the great works of our time', going on to award it 'high intellectual distinction'. by the standards of the neo-conservatives, as the Kirkpatrick- Podhoretz group term themselves in con- trast to the old Goldwater Right, this was a rehabilitation. For the President, who is rattled enough about Central America to seek what he calls 'bipartisan consensus', Kissinger must seem a good media and political choice.
There is a convergence, peculiar at first sight, between the Left and the old Right about this appointment. The Left says, as often as it can, that the Central American isthmus is a north-south and not an east- west problem. The real issue is not, on this analysis, the threat of communism or insur- rection. Instead, the United States must learn to understand that poverty and ex- ploitation are the root of the matter. This is more or less a standard position and has the disadvantage, from the policy point of view, of being true. The old Right, normal- ly so quick to detect the Soviet hand, do not want Dr Kissinger for the same reason: because he might make the area a bargain- ing point between the superpowers. This, in their judgment, would be impermissible because it would violate the Monroe Doc- trine. Thus, paradoxically, they shy away from the cold war interpretation of the region and stress that it is nothing more nor less than 'America's backyard'. This rather insulting description is meant to signify that it is 'off limits' to any outside negotiator including even Mexico.
What does Kissinger himself think? In 1969, when he was devoting himself to pleasing Richard Nixon, he told the Chris- tian Democrat foreign minister of Chile, Gabriel Valdes, that Latin America was of no significance. 'History has never been produced in the south, the axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the south is of no importance.' Later, he was to dismiss Argentina as 'a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica'. In more recent interviews, he has dropped the contemptuous tone. But he still regards the isthmus as having no relevance in itself. From his point of view, the small countries down there serve only as a test of American will. One of our lot has got to beat one of their lot: how else shall we convince the Gulf States or the West Europeans that we mean business? Not without difficulty, Mrs Kirkpatrick and her co-thinkers have brought Kissinger back on board. Will Central America look any more manageable when reduced to the status of a bargaining chip?
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