As Kissinger turns 100, think of those who never had the chance

From Latin America to Asia, countless people suffered gravely and died as a direct consequence of the policies of America’s most famous diplomat

Tributes and congratulations, including those from Beijing, have been pouring in to celebrate Henry Kissinger reaching 100. We may, however, spare a few thoughts on the countless people who suffered gravely and died as a direct consequence of the foreign policies of America’s most famous diplomat – the ones who didn’t have the opportunity to live a full life. It may not be fair to blame it all on Kissinger; the institutions of which he once stood almost at the apex made all that possible, indeed inevitable; Dr Kissinger merely added a few personal touches.

Great intellectuals who entered politics with grand schemes usually ended up with their tail between their legs, if they were lucky enough to survive. Sima Qian, the Chinese Grand Historian often compared with Herodotus, had his testicles cut off on the order of the emperor who didn’t like his advice. Plato made several absurd attempts to realise his dream of educating a philosopher-king on the model of his Republic at the decadent strife-torn court of Syracuse and barely escaped with his life.

History is mostly the story of why and how much blood was spilled, so to wield power and make history is to spill blood. Kissinger spilled plenty

Machiavelli, a brilliant administrator and diplomat, was thrown in jail and put on the rack – no dislocated joints as they took it easy on him – after the Medici fought their way back to power in early 16th-century Florence.

Kissinger was one of the few who made it out on top. A distinguished scholar, he made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the post-Napoleonic diplomatic system in the first half of 19th-century Europe and Bismarck’s diplomatic dominance after 1870 as well as nuclear warfare. But he wanted to wield real power, not just study it. Long before Viagra, he famously said power was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

To appreciate his brilliance, read the first few pages of his Harvard doctorate thesis, published as “A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822”. There is the concise language and conceptual clarity, as he defines the nature of legitimacy in international politics, the pairing of contrasting concepts such as a revolutionary and a legitimate state, and bureaucracy and (creative) diplomacy. You won’t find a more readable PhD thesis.

History is mostly the story of why and how much blood was spilled, so to wield power and make history is to spill blood. Kissinger spilled plenty. That makes it difficult to distinguish the brilliant intellect from the war criminal.

No one follows the advice of Winston Churchill – “History will treat me kindly because I intend to write it” – more than Kissinger. His multi-volume memoirs on his years in power, according to Stanley Hoffmann, his Harvard colleague and critic who did the arithmetic, amounted to almost three pages per day. Unfortunately for him, the records of his deeds or misdeeds are too well-documented.

One of his worst crimes was the overthrow of socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile, which put the dictator Augusto Pinochet in power until 1990. Kissinger and his boss Richard Nixon highly approved the deposing of democratic governments in Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia. The election of a social democrat like Allende threatened to upend that decades-long dictatorial trend in Latin America favoured by Washington.

Another was Nixon and Kissinger’s duplicity in Pakistan’s genocide against Bengalis and Hindus that nevertheless led to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. They not only approved it, but provided weapons, offered diplomatic cover and suppressed internal State Department dissent. The killings numbered between 200,000 (estimated by Washington) and 3 million (by the Bangladeshi government).

The Vietnam war is too well-known to be worth repeating but a new investigation by online magazine Intercept finds the illegal bombings of Cambodia, which paved the way for the Khmer Rouge, killed a lot more people than Washington had previously let on.

The rapprochement with Beijing is perhaps Kissinger’s greatest achievement. But that was almost an accident, the outcome of his so-called triangular diplomacy to isolate Soviet Russia and force North Vietnam to cave. Still, it was a triumph of sorts for this “old friend of China”.