Renzo Piano

Henry (Heinz) Alfred Kissinger (born the May 27th 1923, Fürth, Germany) is a American Diplomate of German origin , Nobel Prize of peace in 1973, Conseiller with the national security (the United States) then Secretary of State of the republican government of Richard Nixon.
Promotor of the `' Realpolitik'', it plays a big role in the American Diplomatie during the Cold war of 1968 and 1976. He inspires the policy of the relaxation with the the USSR and plays a crucial role in the bringing together with the China as from 1971.

Media figure during its functions, its politics foreign creates many inimitable as well side of the left to him pacifist as of the right anticommunist. Discussed character and target of criticisms of the international press and association humanitarians, the justice of many countries wishes today to question it, it limits its voyages abroad.

History

Years of training

Henry Kissinger was born with Fürth (of which he became citizen of honor and to support of the team of Football), in Germany in an Jewish family. In 1938, its family, fleeing persecutions Nazis (more than one ten of its members will disappear in the death camps) share for New York. It is naturalized American the June 19th 1943.

Schoolboy with Manhattan, and not losing his German accent, it follows the school the night to work in the factories the day. In 1943, it is taken as interprets German in the American Armée and for the Secret services. According to some he would then have been a Soviet spy under the name of code Bor . After the war, it is named administrator of a German small town.

In 1954, he becomes doctor in Political science with Harvard, its thesis on the Diplomatie between 1812 and 1822 ( has World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems off Peace 1812-22 ) being famous longest of the history of the university. It then becomes there professor at the department of the governmental studies.

Having a great political ambition, it maintains the relations with Nelson Rockefeller and advises occasionally Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Whereas Richard Nixon is the favorite of the election of 1968, Henry Kissinger becomes his adviser. From the theoretical point of view, it is a fervent supporter of the Realpolitik , as it exposes it in his major work, Diplomacy , published in 1995. It opposes political realism to it to the idealism wilsonien to which the Néoconservateurs are the heirs.

He was administrator of Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Gulfstream Aerospace and creator of Kissinger Associates.

Nixon administration

When Richard Nixon takes her functions, Henry Kissinger is named to advise with National defense, in 1969, then in 1973 Secretary of State (foreign affairs). In the team of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger develops the policy relaxation with the Soviet Union. He negotiates thus the treaty SALT I limiting the number of nuclear bombs of both superpuissances. In the same way, in June and October 1971, for the first time, it comes secretly into contact with the communist China then accompanies Nixon at the time of its official visit (the first of an US president) in 1972. Recently déclassifiés documents show that it was then strongly a question of Taiwan.

Having promised at the time of the elections of 1968 a fast exit with the problem of the War of Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger must face a climbing of the conflict. This one is marked by the decision (in which Kissinger takes part) to illegally bombard positions (themselves illegal) of the Vietcong to the Laos and the Kampuchea. Following the agreements of Paris of January 23rd 1973 providing the foundations of the American withdrawal of Vietnam, it jointly receives the Nobel Prize of peace with Vietnamese the Duke Tho, for the work completed for the peace agreements with the Vietnam. This last refuses the price, explaining why peace is not made yet.

In 1973, it plays a big role in the end of the Guerre of Kippour by negotiating the Cessez-le-feu between Israel and the Egypt.

According to several works, like the Crimes of Mr. Kissinger , of the journalist iconoclast Christopher Higgens, Henry Kissinger would have a responsibility in the Coup d'etat of September 11th, 1973 in Chile directed by the general Pinochet against the government for Salvador Allende. Déclassifiés elements showed later that the CIA had supported a project of takeover by force in 1970, but Kissinger affirms that the United States did not foment any more such projects in 1973 and that they did not have a role in the Putsch of 1973 without this assertion being ever contradicted.

In spite of charges on bonds considered to be too tight with foreign countries, Kissinger is then one of the rare characters of the Nixon administration to be really popular. It is not blamed when bursts the Scandale of Watergate, thus gaining a clean reputation of man ( clean man ).

Ford administration

Following the resignation of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger remains at his post of Secretary of State but leaves that of advising with National defense, under the authority of the new president Gerald Ford in 1974.

In December 1975, Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, meet the president of the Indonesia Suharto. They would have approved, following the declaration of allegiance of 4 parties of Eastern Timor in Indonesia, the imminent annexation by this one of this territory, in order to unify the island of Timor, from which Indonésiens have already other half. This annexation led to the massacre of 200.000 inhabitants by the soldiers indonésiens. Kissinger always affirmed its ignorance with regard to this invasion, against documents supporting the opposite.

In 1976, Henry Kissinger reconsiders the policy of relaxation with the “white” modes of Africa (established in 1969). In exchange of a relieving of the relations with South Africa on the relative questions with the South-western African/Namibia and with the Apartheid, it goes to Pretoria where it asks John Vorster, South-African the Prime Minister, to make pressure on Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia in order to obtain from him the return to international legality and the application of the principle of " majority; One man, one vote" in Rhodesia. It partially obtained win and in September 1976, Ian Smith yielded on the principle of the government by the black majority, thus opening the way with a political solution in Rhodesia.

The victory of the democrat Jimmy Carter with the presidential elections of November 1976 then does not enable him to continue the negotiations for a negotiated payment (they will be taken again by her successor Cyrus Vance and will lead to a failure).

Henry Kissinger leaves his post of Secretary of State in January 1977.

Later influence

Thereafter, Henry Kissinger plays a relatively minor part in the governments which follow (having bad relations with George Bush), participant in many political groups, commissions, etc It regularly expresses his point of view as a consultant or at the time of speech, articles or books.

In 2002, George W. Bush names it in the board of inquiry on the events of the September 11th, 2001, which it must leave following dissensions with the democratic .

Charges

In his capacity as person in charge of the international businesses of the United States, charged to defend the international interests of this country, Henry Kissinger was the target of charges:

Coup d'etat in Chile

It is quoted like witness in investigation into war crimes by judges with the Chile and in Spain, about the Coup d'etat of September 11th, 1973 in Chile. Henry Kissinger would then have declared: “We will not let a country rock in Communism because of the irresponsibility of its citizens”. Kissinger did not submit at the requests of these judges and invited them to address itself to the State Department of the United States. The hostility of the United States to the government of the Popular Unité in Chile was not any doubt (partly because of the precedent of the mode of Castro).

The intervention in the coup d'etat is discussed. For example according to the journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens: “We can affirm, without fear to be contradicted, that it is guilty, PRIMA facie , of direct intervention in the murder of a senior officer of a peaceful and democratic country. ” (in connection with the murder of the general Schneider).

War of Vietnam

Several tests reproach him the first phase of the secret Bombardement of the Kampuchea by the United States (1969 - 1975). One even went until him to charge the death of 200  000 people. The neutrality of Kampuchea had been violated of long time by the North-Vietnamese convoys borrowing the “track Ho-Chi-Minh”, through little populated forests, to supply the Vietcong with the South-Vietnamese soldier-Nam. The Americans, in war against the Vietcong, bombarded these convoys at the time of their illegal passage through Kampuchea.

Invasion of Eastern Timor

One in the same way reproached him his formal support for the president Indonesia N Suharto during the invasion of the Eastern Timor by this country, involving 200  thereafter; 000 dead.

Operation Condor

Documents déclassifiés by the CIA and published by NSA from 2001 prove the support of the the United States for the Opération Condor which took place throughout the years 1970. This operation, organized between the South American dictatorships, consisted of the physical elimination of the political opponents " subversifs" (initially Chile, Argentinian, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, then also Ecuador and Peru). The victims were tracked in the whole world, without limiting itself to the South American sub-continent.

Kissinger being to advise with the National defense of 1969 to 1974 like Secretary of State of 1973 to 1977, it is probable that it was at least informed of the Opération Condor. Its close diplomatic relationships of the time with the governments of the dictatorships concerned place it in first line of the marked political personalities states-uniennes to have supported the Opération Condor, even if no formal bond were proven up to now between Kissinger and this campaign assassinations of great scale.

Works

  • the new American power , 2003

  • Diplomacy , Beech, Paris, 1996,860 pages, ISBN 2-213-59720-0
  • has World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems off Peace 1812-22 . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957 (thesis of doctorate)
  • At the White House, 1968-1973 , 2 vol. Beech, Paris, 1979.
  • the stormy Years , 2 vol. Beech

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