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The Trial of Henry Kissinger

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In this breezy but extremely well researched little book, Christopher Hitchens convincingly argues that Henry Kissinger is a war criminal according to published American and International legal standards. Hitchens builds his case not from a moral or political point of view but from a purely legal one based on evidence that Kissinger was responsible for acts of genocide, assassination, and unlawfully interfering with government operations both in the United States and in foreign countries. Hitchens documents how Kissinger's ignominious resume spans the globe and includes the mass murder of civilians in East Timor, Pakistan, Greece, Cyprus, Chile, Argentina, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

In places such as Chile and Argentina, according to Hitchens, Kissinger merely supervised the assassination of democratically elected heads of state and the establishment of brutally repressive and murderous military dictatorships. His accomplishments were more significant in East Timor where, with his help, one third of the population was murdered, and in Indochina where he not only colluded in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese but also in Cambodia and Laos where under his guidance, Nixon illegally extended the war and waged it almost purely against the civilian population.

Conservatives or self-styled realists might refute Hitchens by arguing that Kissinger's genocidal resume is merely the result of his practicing a brutal but necessary variant of realpolitik. But as Hitchens' gleefully points out, few Kissinger lovers including Kissinger himself are unwilling to do this for two reasons: first because they are unwilling to face the legal consequences of linking the man to his murders and second because in many cases, while Kissinger's actions personally benefited him and his patrons, they in no way helped the United States. For example, in 1968 Kissinger helped to sabotage the Johnson administration's peace plan in order ensure a Nixon presidential victory and his own appointment as Secretary of State. Four years later he successfully brokered THE SAME PLAN only by this time, twenty thousand more American troops had been killed along with hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The only people who benefited from this were Nixon and his top officials including Kissinger.

It is for these reasons and others, according to Hitchens, that Kissinger has gone to great lengths to cover his tracks, by censoring documents or bequeathing them to the Library of Congress under the condition that they remain sealed until his death. While Kissinger enjoys a sort of morbid celebrity status at home, he is less at ease abroad where at least once he has been legally detained to answer questions about his responsibility for the "disappearance" of foreign nationals.

The importance of this book lies not so much in its condemnation of Henry Kissinger, but in the lessons it holds for Americans in these troubled times. As of this writing, many Americans are asking themselves why their nation is so hated around the world, and whether its forthcoming invasion of Iraq is based on genuine national security concerns or the self interest of the ruling elite. Sometimes the answers to such questions are found not so much in the present but in the past. Henry Kissinger's career, as chronicled in this book, provides us with many hints and direct answers to some of our most troubling questions today.

... It is particularly surprising that the claim arousing the most incredulity is the alleged sabotage of the pre-Nixon peace talks, which is almost certainly true. The far-more-moderate Larry Berman makes exactly the same claim (with a different analysis)in No Peace, No Honor a book which even conservatives (like former Reagan lackey Jack Matlock, writing recently in the New York Times Review of Books) find entirely credible.

As to Hitchens as character assassin: Certain characters, like Kissinger's, are in great need of reassessment. When one's life consists largely of extremely bad deeds done secretly in service of no good higher than one's own ambition and greed, a thorough assessment won't look very nice. Short of outright lying, there is no pretty spin one can put on secret carpet bombings, kidnapping, assassination (the murdering kind), overthrow of democratically elected leaders and a lifetime of making cozy with ruthless dicatators the world over.

The book is clearly not intended as a legal brief. As Hitchens recently stated: it is the case for the case for the prosecution, not the case itself. As such, it contains more than ample evidence to warrant further investigation. Indeed, Kissinger has already been served a summons in Paris to be a witness regarding crimes perpetrated in Chile. Summons have been issued in Argentina and Chile as well. So far Dr. K, with the assistance of the US State Dept., has assiduously resisted taking the stand, even though he is not even on trial. What is he so afraid of?

For those still making up their minds about the book, you should notice that those who dimiss Hitchens claims make no factual counter-claims, but instead offer puffy pseudo-expert dismissal. This is even true of Kissinger himself, who has yet to say publicly that anything in the book is untrue. Instead he resorted to calling Hitchens a "Holocaust denier" a claim for which Hitchens recently threatened to sue, and for which which Kissinger, by way of his lawyer, has issued a qualified retraction.

...

By their reckoning, a president is good and progressive if bad, regressive people dislike him. By extension, Hitchens is a bad writer and a bad person because he dislikes a good president who is good because, well, see above...

That the likes of Pinochet and Kissinger can no longer hide entirely from justice is perhaps the most civilizing trend in our uncivilized times. And we are indebted to anyone adding fuel to this particular fire.

Hitchens is, for all his faults, one of the all-time great living essayists (up there with Gore Vidal) and a dyed in the wool truth-teller. We should listen.

Although Hitchens wrote this book in order to expose the criminality of Henry Kissinger, it is of utmost importance to Library of Congress employees (as well as other librarians) to see how the institution was misused and [bad]. Really, just how can a government employee hide government papers as his own personal papers?

A bit out of date, Hitchens details on page 76 how this was done: "On leaving the State Department, Kissinger made an extraordinary bargain whereby (having first hastily trucked them for safekeeping on the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills, New York) he gifted his papers to the Library of Congress, on the sole condition that they remained under seal until after his demise. However, Kissinger's friend Manuel Contreras made a mistake when he killed a United States citizen, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in the Washington car bomb which also murdered Orlando Letelier in 1976. by late 2000, the FBI had finally sought and received subpoena power to review the Library of Congress papers, a subpoena with which Kissinger dealt only through his attorneys." I am also assuming one of Kissinger's attorneys could be listed as the General Counsel of the Library, Elizabeth Pugh.

Left out is the story of the man who took the papers under a [tricked] Deed of Gift, signed on Christmas Eve no less, between then Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin and Kissinger. Boorstin, a highly duplicitous man in his own right, is a former communist who named names at the McCarthy hearings. The current Librarian of Congress, right-winger James Billington, is the man who fought the FBI subpoena. Maybe that is because he later named an endowed Library of Congress chair after Kissinger?

I particularly liked Hitchens summary of just who Kissinger is on page 16: "The signature qualities were there from the [Nixon] inaugural moment: the sycophancy and the duplicity, the power worship and the absence of scruple; the empty trading of old non-friends for new non-friends. And the distinctive effects were also present: the uncounted and expendable corpses; the official and unofficial lying about the cost; the heavy and pompous pseudo-indignation when unwelcome questions were asked...It debauched the American republic and American democracy, and it levied a hideous toll of casualties on weaker and more vulnerable societies." This description goes for a lot of people in power in Washington.

One bit of work that needs to be done is to be found on page 110 and concerns the attempted assassination attempt Kissinger helped plan against Greek journalist Elias Demtracopoulos. The journalist had been very critical of the junta of generals who had taken over Greece, engaging in suppression of democracy as well as murder (and tied to Nixon and Kissinger). The index for Kissinger's papers at the Library of Congress gives this tanalizing hint about Kissinger's role: "keywords acknowledging sens moss burdick gravel re mr demetracopoulos death in athens prison due 701218." It would be nice for the Library of Congress to release those papers, would it not?

My only complaint about this book is the fact that the Library of Congress figures prominently in hiding the criminal behavior of Kissinger, yet "Library of Congress" is not to be found in the index at the back of the book.

Christopher Hitchens' slender indictment of former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger can be judged according to its realization of either one of two possible goals. The first, explicit, goal is the narrow one of presenting historical evidence and the relevant clauses of American and international law so as to make the case for Kissinger's trial as a war criminal by US, foreign or international courts. The second goal, implicit in Hitchens' subject matter and arguments, is the broader one of explaining, or at least exploring, what role justice ought to play in Great Power politics and how heads of state ought to be held accountable for their actions. The book realizes the first goal but falls far short of the second--and far more interesting--one.

Drawing on available White House and State Department documents from Kissinger's years in government service, as well as various accounts by others, inside and outside Washington power circles, Hitchens does a skillful job of defining the war crimes in question and demonstrating Kissinger's culpability in them. Here, Hitchens shows his abilities as a journalist and historical detective, as well as his debating skills, deftly dissecting Kissinger's various excuses and evasions concerning his past actions.

Two problems mar this otherwise impressive performance. The first, inevitable, problem is that the sifting of historical data and parsing of laws makes the book a bit dry and dull--exactly what one would expect from a legal brief. The second, far more avoidable, problem is the book's style, made extremely tedious by the buckets of vitriol and self-righteousness Hitchens pours out not only on Kissinger but on far less morally reprehensible figures like Clark Clifford or Daniel Patrick Moynihan (whose writing abilities, as well as character, are attacked in a bizarre aside).

The book's most serious flaw, however, is its failure to address the larger issues involved. Hitchens seems to believe that all key political decision makers ought to be held to the high standards set by international law and human rights codes and tried for their violations of these standards by a body like the International Criminal Court. While this is a worthy goal in principle, its practicality is doubtful. The rule of law within a society presupposes the authority of a unified state, preferably one accountable to the people, behind the law. Only such a common authority can enforce the law and ensure a reasonably uniform application of it. No such authority exists behind international law or the ICC, which are subject to the same old power politics among nations they are supposedly above.

Take, for example, the original war crimes tribunals against the German and Japanese high commands after World War II. Were those men guilty of war crimes? Absolutely--but so were Winston Churchill (for allowing the fire-bombing of civilians at Dresden), Harry S Truman (for authorizing use of the A-bombs) and Josef Stalin (for originally invading Poland, slaughtering Poles and allowing the mass rape of German women at the war's end). The reason those men did not end up at the end of the rope was for the simple, cynical reason that they won and the Axis powers lost. Similarly, Henry Kissinger might someday be prosecuted for his crimes, but such prosecution will represent the triumph of his political enemies, not of justice.

Fair application of international law is a near impossibility, especially since its violation is a sadly routine part of politics and if it ever were rigorously applied not only Kissinger but most of the world's governments would be behind bars. Hitchens failure to acknowledge this problem makes him seem naive and makes The Trial of Henry Kissinger an ultimately unsatisfying read.

In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens presents evidence that he believes could be used to prosecute the former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State for war crimes. The book describes a series of sordid episodes where Kissinger's foreign policy initiatives and other actions directly caused mass murder, assassination, and genocide, with Kissinger's full knowledge that these things would occur. In keeping with the pretence that the book could be used as "the basis of a legal prosecution" (ix), Hitchens states at the outset that he will only include "identifiable crimes that can and should be placed on a proper bill of indictment" (x). In other words, he claims to omit many things that could help paint a negative portrait of Henry Kissinger if these things do not fit accepted definitions of "war crimes." Even with this self-imposed limitation, Hitchens has no trouble finding plenty of accusations, usually supported by U.S. government documents and memoirs of other U.S. policymakers of the time. Hitchens makes no secret of his wish to see Henry Kissinger hauled in front of a real war crimes tribunal, but this is not likely to happen anytime soon, especially now that Kissinger has been named to lead the investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Still, Hitchens shows that in theory, it could probably be done, by the same standards used to prosecute dictators such as Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic.

Among the specific accusations made by Hitchens makes are:

- That Kissinger cooperated in an effort by Presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1968 to sabotage the Paris peace talks on Vietnam in order to help Nixon get elected. Nixon's first appointment after winning the election was Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor. America's bloody involvement in the Vietnam War dragged on for years and was concluded on almost the exactly the same terms that could have been achieved in 1968.

- That Kissinger is responsible for various bloody campaigns in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia between 1968 and 1972 that killed countless civilians. Among these campaigns were several heavy bombing raids on densely populated areas.

- That he allowed the Pakistani government to murder hundreds of thousands of Bengali civilians, knowing in advance that the murders would happen and insisting that the U.S. do nothing to prevent them.

- That he funded an assassination in Chile that eventually led to the overthrow of a democratic government and the installation of Augusto Pinochet with U.S. support.

- That he was involved in a plot to murder President Makarios of Cyprus. The murder ultimately did not take place, but Makarios was removed from power.

- That he supported Indonesia's takeover of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor and the subsequent mass murders carried out by the Indonesian government with U.S. weapons.

- That he was involved in a plot to murder a Greek journalist living in Washington, D.C. who opposed the Greek regime that Kissinger supported.

Obviously, this is not a biography of Kissinger, or even an account of his full career in the White House, and it makes no attempt to be "balanced." Hitchens despises Kissinger and makes no attempt to hide this fact throughout the book. He presents various possible "defenses" of his actions that Kissinger could use, in order to show how inadequate they are. Hitchens includes several statements that Kissinger has made in the past in his defense, including an extended transcript of a question-and-answer session during which Kissinger was confronted about East Timor, and a letter co-authored by Kissinger that addresses the charges about the sabotage of the 1968 Paris peace accords. Each time Hitchens lets Kissinger speak for himself, he shows how his words are inconsistent with government documents and other evidence, including in some cases comments that Kissinger had made on other occasions. Perhaps if Kissinger were allowed to present a full rebuttal, he could refute some of Hitchens' charges, but it is doubtful that he could do enough to erase the "war criminal" designation. Hitchens presents enough evidence from reliable sources to ensure that at least some of the charges would stick, if Kissinger's "trial" ever occurred.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger is a quick read, at only 150 smaller-than-average pages including appendices and acknowledgements. Hitchens' writing style is generally lively, even if it does get bogged down at times by the many pieces of evidence that he presents. If you want to learn why in some social circles, the name "Henry Kissinger" is considered to be synonymous with "war criminal" (or "butcher", "barbarian", "murderer", etc.), this is probably your best resource. It may not be "balanced," but it shows that the prosecution has a strong case.

J. Paul Getty once said: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." Similarly, if you are a young black guy who has killed one person with a gun while high on drugs, you have a problem and you may find yourself on death row somewhere in the USA; but if you are a Nobel prize winner responsible for killing millions of people with the weapons of statecraft and real politick while high on arrogance and influence, society has a problem and may not be able to prosecute you.

Hitchens' book first appeared in 2001 and had additional facts added in 2002; still, 6 years later no one in the USA has dared to bring his case to court. Does that mean the case is weak? Or that someone in power has a problem? Hitchen's evidence seems credible but there may not be a court anywhere prepared to hear the case.

It is interesting that according to the back cover of the book, while Dr. Kissinger finds the book 'contemptible' it is not reported that he finds the contents are 'untrue.'

An extra star goes to Hitchens for his courage in taking on the 'establishment.'

One of the most memorable scenes in the original "Godfather' movie was a sequence in which Michael (played by Al Pacino), now firmly insinuated in the evil machinations of the family business, travels to rural New England to try to attempt to persuade Kate (played by Diane Keaton) to marry him. When she complains about his father's business and the violence associated with it, Michael says that his father is no different than any other powerful men, like a governor or senator. Kate looks at him with surprise and contempt, claiming governors and senators don't have people killed. With those cold dark eyes, Michael says, "Now Kate, who is being naive?"

Such a cynical recognition of the motives and methods of some of our leaders informs this insightful book by journalist Christopher Hitchens, who does the reader a yeoman's service in detailing the evidence mounting against Henry Kissinger for crimes against humanity. Chief and foremost of these many such incidents involves Kissinger's willful disregard for the welfare of American soldiers in harm's way in Vietnam, where his actions and policies served to both derail a possible settlement in the fall of 1968 (thereby condemning an additional 40,000 servicemen to unnecessary death in the fields and jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), and also extended a state of war over additional areas such as Cambodia and Laos for strictly political purposes, thus creating the conditions for millions of unnecessary and unfruitful deaths as well as unimaginable destruction for Americans, Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese over the next several years.

Yet Hitchens' indictments of Kissinger's malice and misdeeds do not end here, but extend to many other situations and sets of circumstances, such as the involvement in the overthrow of Chile and the murder of Chile's elected President, Allende, as well as the sponsorship of murder and mayhem on the part of a plethora of indigenous dictators and potentates, ranging from Indonesia's Suharto to the Greek Cypriots, from Bangladesh to Angola. Everywhere Hitchens peered beneath the neatly papered-over official record, Kissinger's bloody fingerprints emerged, staining the truth with his personal brand of Realpolitik, extending his malevolence toward innocent bystanders who got in the way of his global ambitions. And the irony of all this is that despite all the evidence indicating there is more than adequate evidence of Kissinger's culpability and participation in many acts of genocide and murder, Kissinger is still held in such high esteem by so many unsuspecting Americans.

Of course, in point of fact, Kissinger is not alone. Others belong to this select group of indictable Americans culpable for their participation in crimes against humanity, including Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland, and William Rogers, along with many others who operated more anonymously in service to the bloody policies of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Yet among these people, no one deserves the humiliation and discrediting as much as Kissinger, who should be charged, tried, and ultimately executed for his actions.Hang him high, as a beacon and a memorial for the memory of all the innocent victims he left in his terrifyingly reckless wake. This is a book that will illustrate just how heinous his actions while supposedly serving the country actually were. I highly recommend this book.

This extraordinary book is the "first word" about Henry Kissinger's culpability for war crimes that may yet see him hanged (highly unlikely but worth mentioning for "awakening" value); but it also brings together a number of themes discussed in more detail by other authors, and I want to start with those before detailing the author's superb and very studied denunciation of Henry Kissinger, a denunciation all the more timely as Donald Rumsfeld is charged with war crimes where a US general officer is testifying against him.

First off, there is the matter of the end of sovereign immunity. This trend could be perceived when the United Nations established that human rights and human security were sufficient to warrant INTERVENTION, and is detailed in the most amazing intellectual and legal review of Philip Allott of Cambridge, in his book HEALTH OF NATIONS: Society and Law Beyond the State, in which he explicitly calls for the overturning of the Treaty of Westphalia, and the re-examination of borders carved by the colonial powers and against hundreds of years of tribal distinction.

Then there is the matter of government integrity. It is now undeniably established that the US Government and the Executive in particular, lies to Congress and the public as a matter of routine. These lies tend to be exposed in the ten-fifteen year time frame (some sooner, as with CIA and other whistle-blowers four years into the war on Iraq), but at the twenty five year mark, there is a clear "explosion" of illumination. Robert Parry, LOST HISTORY: Contras, Cocaine, the Press, & Project Truth" is one book in this vein; while Larry Beinhart's FOG FACTS: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin addresses a different aspect.

Finally, one has the general matter of whether the US as a Nation is represented overseas as America the Good, which most US citizens would like to believe, or America the war-mongering, predatory, immoral "rogue nation." The books documenting the latter are legion, from Derek Leebaert's THE FIFTY YEAR WOUND to Chalmers Johnson SORROWS OF EMPIRE to my fellow moderate Republican Clyde Prestowitz's ROGUE NATION: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. On the corporate side, one has many many books, among which John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and William Greider's THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, stand out.

My point is that this author's crucification of Henry Kissinger on the basis of documented facts, in a historical context, is NOT a "hit job" or by any stretch of the imagination anything less than a sensible legal document that is a precursor to Kissinger inevitably being brought to justice.

Now to the specifics. The author focuses on the manner in which Kissinger specifically helped Nixon undermine the Paris peace discussions that could have brought Hubert Humphrey to office, with the result that fully 20,000 additional Americans were killed in Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, over the next four years. Henry Kissinger stands indicted--personally indicted--for the totally unnecessary and immoral death of 20,000 US and 100,000+ others (closer to millions, actually, but how many life sentences can he receive...)

The author:

1) focuses on the manner in which Kissinger explicitly supported specific dictators in their genocidal endeavors, violating the U.S. Constitution and a variety of laws both domestic and international.

2) excels at discussing details, such as the indiscriminate nature of B-52 bombings, and points out that we put twice as much tonnage of bombs on Vietnam as were fired during our entire World War II campaign.

3) lays out the manner in which Kissinger managed "two track" policies in which the State Department and the Ambassador were kept in the dark, and covert illegal operations were carried out by the CIA and the defense attaches. Chile, Indonesia, and Greece are featured.

4) is careful to note that in this book he is covering only four specific major documentable aspects of Kissinger's high crimes--he lists many others that do not make the cut but are equally reprehensible, such as the betrayal of the Kurds, the support for apartheid in South Africa, the Central American games, and the tortured regime of the Shah of Iran

5) suggests hat Kissinger pioneered US sponsored--state sponsored--terrorism in the modern era; he also pioneered rendition, that nasty little word that means "kidnap people so they can be tortured by others".

The author does not prove nor claim that Kissinger profited from his public position, but draws out compelling relationships between Kissinger, his private gain, and his political interventions. Much information remains to be revealed, I have no doubt that it will reveal Kissinger to be a world-class criminal guilty of betraying the American public and helping many dictators abuse their own populations.

The author closes with a concise legal summary that I suspect is as good a description as one can achieve of Kissinger's living nightmare. This book inspires, this book justifies, this book DEMANDS a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate both what has been done against Americans by their own government "in our name," and what has been done against the publics of the world, again "in our name."

I will close with three snippets.

The author suggests that now that international law has turned a corner, Kissinger must shudder with every dictator's arrest, fearful of what their testimony will disclose.

The author quotes General Taylor, reflecting on Vietnam in 1971, as saying that in comparison with the accusations and judgments of the Nuremberg trials, the White House and the senior generals serving in Vietnam clearly qualified for similar accusations and judgments.

Finally, the author suggests that Kissinger is not in fact an example of power as the ultimate aphrodisiac, but rather of power as the ultimate pornography. Norman Cousins, in The Pathology of Power, would certainly agree.

I concur with this author, and suggest that he has been too kind. America cannot afford any more pathological monsters in the White House. It's time we returned to America the good.

Henry Kissinger left Paris early on a recent trip. Some contended that the early departure stemmed from the Belgian government's eagerness to confront Kissinger for alleged "crimes" in the overthrow of the Chilean government of President Allende culminating with the legally elected leader's assassination. European interest has dramatically intensified in recent months regarding an expressed need for Kissinger to be compelled to explain his actions regarding Chile and other controversial matters. The controversial former U.S. secretary of state seeks to quell such inquiries through a nervous silence, hoping such concerns will dissipate through the passage of time.

Into the scene comes Christopher Hitchens, who makes a case in this book for Kissinger standing trial for past foreign policy conduct. He makes the case for Kissinger's involvement in the overthrow and assassination of Allende in Chile, but does not stop there. Hitchens also presents his reasons why Kissinger should be held accountable for a coup and an assassination in Bangladesh, and for the deaths of East Timoreans seeking freedom and incurring widespread loss of life at the hands of Indonesian President Suharto's forces. Hitchens also implicates Kissinger in the 1974 Cyprus tragedy and also hones in on actions in which he was involved as Nixon's special national security operative and secretary of state during the Vietnam War. He cites Telford Taylor, an American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, as stating that U.S. policy was subject to prosecution by invoking the prevailing Nuremberg criteria, relating to ferocious bombing assaults which Taylor and Hitchens believe violated the Geneva Codes.

Hitchens presents his case with compelling vigor, asserting that, in a world where the United States is seeking vigorous prosecution in the World Court against Slobodan Milosevic and his cohorts for criminal conduct in the former Yugoslavia, a Henry Kissinger should also be held accountable for his activities.

William Hare

Christopher Hitchens is among the greatest contemporary polemicists. In this book he is at his best, using his loathing of Henry Kissinger to animate a series of well-supported arguments that indict Kissinger beyond doubt.

Not that there was any doubt before: there has never been any question that Kissinger played a central role in formulating American foreign policy under Nixon and Ford, and by any consistent definition both administrations engaged in extensive human rights abuses and, under Nixon, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hitchens's contribution is to sum up the charges against Kissinger and to add his efforts to the goal of getting Americans to face their bloody history, which has been effectively blotted out of public awareness.

I won't detail the specifics since other reviewers have already ably done so. But I would like to make two comments. First, this book is not an historical account and carries all the drawbacks of any legal briefing, including a lack of context, unequal time for the criminal to present his case, and limited examination of the motives driving the criminal behavior. But this is not exactly a fair criticism of Hitchens since no good historical account of these events will be possible for perhaps 15 years or more because the American government (and Kissinger with regard to his personal papers) keep key internal documents classified for three to five decades, and sometimes more.

And second, this kind of book, by focusing intently on one high government official, risks assigning blame for American crimes to individual evil rather than structures of power. Unfortunately Hitchens does little to counteract such a conclusion. Certainly Kissinger's individual traits made some differences around the edges, but ultimate blame for the USA's policies must rest on a political culture and an economic system that together lead all top officials to commit atrocities in the perpetual pursuit of dominance for the government and business.