Henry Kissinger: His Sins and His Merits

Henry Kissinger, who passed away on November 29 at the age of 100 and whom Baskın Oran described as the best foreign minister America has ever had but less significant than Ahmet Davutoğlu, is one of the most controversial figures of the Cold War era, viewed by some as a genius and by others as a ruthless statesman.

For Kissinger, the number one representative of Realpolitik in the 20th century, national interests took precedence over justice and fundamental rights. Although this perspective made Kissinger the foreign minister who best served America's interests, his decisions occasionally resulted in the violation of human rights and the sovereign rights of societies, ultimately making him a war criminal in the eyes of many.

Kissinger served as Secretary of State during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1973 and 1977. Since he was Nixon's national security advisor before becoming Secretary of State, he had been actively influential in American foreign affairs since Nixon took office in 1969.

Kissinger took office during the years of the Vietnam War, when American foreign policy was in crisis. Kissinger would not only solve the Vietnam War problem but would also open a new page in the history of American international relations by abandoning foreign policies that had clearly failed and were no longer serving the country's interests.

Born in 1923 in Fürth, Bavaria, Henry Kissinger was a German-born Jew. In 1938, when the Nazis were completely out of control, he fled to America with his family (his grandmother and grandfather, who refused to flee, would be killed by the Nazis).

Due to his family's financial difficulties, Kissinger had to work every job he could find in America. The Second World War would be the turning point that changed his life. In 1943, while working at a brush factory during the day and studying accounting at New York University in the evenings, Kissinger was drafted into the army. Because his native language was German, he was assigned to the intelligence section of the 84th Division and sent to the European front.

Kissinger stood out as a successful intelligence expert during the war due to his talents, and after the war ended, he taught for about a year as an intelligence instructor at an interrogation facility established by the Americans in Germany.

In 1946, he returned to America and entered the international relations department at Harvard University. After completing his undergraduate degree in 1950, he received his master's degree in 1951 and his doctorate in 1954 from the same school. After graduation, he continued his academic life at Harvard and took on administrative duties at the school.

Throughout his academic training, Kissinger focused on administrative history, legitimacy, nuclear weapons, and how America should lead other societies. Considering how much his actions and decisions during the years he had a say in American foreign policy overlapped with his academic life, it would not be wrong to say that Henry Kissinger built his successes on the lessons he learned from history.

Until 1969, when he became Nixon's advisor, Kissinger held various positions in institutions related to foreign affairs in addition to his academic career, and served as a foreign policy advisor to Nelson Rockefeller, who would serve as vice president between 1974 and 1977.

With his appointment as Nixon's advisor in 1969, he would have the opportunity to put into practice the ideas he had been maturing for a long time. According to Kissinger, the problem lay in America's foreign policy style. In his view, America had placed too much importance on moral values and ideologies throughout its history, and as a result, had never been able to use its true power. The Vietnam War was the example that most confirmed his thesis. America had taken political and ideological developments in Vietnam too seriously and had entered a quagmire from which it could not escape. The outcome of the war would prove his point. Contrary to what American statesmen feared, Vietnam falling into the hands of communists had caused no harm to America. Conversely, the destruction America caused throughout the war and its loss of the war led to an unprecedented loss of prestige.

Kissinger advocated that instead of forming alliances with small and corrupt countries like South Vietnam and entering meaningless adventures like the Vietnam War in the name of protecting these countries from communism, America should focus directly on its relations with major powers. Instead of directly intervening in small countries, America should shape the politics of countries in this category using other tools, using as few resources as possible, and align them with America's interests. As a result of these actions, which were by no means innocent, reactions could pour in against the American state from both inside and outside America. However, the reactions were much lower than those for direct American intervention, and in the final analysis, these types of side effects were of no importance as long as America maintained its power and reputation.

Although Kissinger began attempts to end the Vietnam War from the moment he took office in 1969, he could not prevent the war from escalating further due to Nixon's intention to bomb Cambodia. The date his policy began to bear fruit was 1972. As a result of the meetings Kissinger held with Vietnamese General Le Duc Tho in Paris, a ceasefire would be signed between the parties in 1973, and the American army would completely withdraw from Vietnam that same year. Although the war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam would continue until 1975, as a result of America's withdrawal from the war, Kissinger and Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Kissinger accepted the award, while Tho rejected it.

Vietnam was not Kissinger's first success. In 1971, he secretly met with Mao Zedong and became the person who restarted Sino-American relations, which had been suspended for twenty years. The relationship between the two countries would officially begin with Nixon's official visit to Beijing in 1972.

Afterward, Kissinger contacted Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and managed to curb the uncontrollably rising nuclear arms race, bringing a certain degree of détente to the tense relationship between the two countries. With this success, Kissinger also brought a balance to the Cold War. As a result of the cooperation between America and the Soviet Union between 1972 and 1977, the Cold War ceased to be a tension that could turn into a nuclear war at any moment and turned into an ordinary competition between two superpowers.

Kissinger approached major powers in a compliant manner, and as a result, he showed significant success in maintaining world peace by significantly reducing the possibility of a third world war breaking out. He would not be as conciliatory toward small countries. Kissinger did not hesitate to make third-world countries that did not fall in line with America pay a price. One of America's most serious concerns during the Cold War years was the shift of third-world countries toward socialism. To keep socialism away from third-world countries, Kissinger did not refrain from giving open support to coup-plotting officers, corrupt politicians, and anti-socialist extremist groups in these countries.

Chile and Argentina would be the countries that suffered the most from Kissinger's policy.

Kissinger began to undermine Chile from the moment its socialist president, Salvador Allende, won the elections in 1971. He provided financial support to the media and opposition and did everything he could to harm the Chilean economy. In 1973, he orchestrated a CIA-backed coup in Chile. As a result of the coup carried out by General Augusto Pinochet, Allende committed suicide, and a disgraceful military dictatorship was established in the country. In the days following the coup, thousands of people were killed, imprisoned, and lost their jobs.

After Chile, Kissinger gave the green light to the Argentine coup in 1976. After the coup, just as in Chile, he turned a blind eye to the execution, internment in concentration camps, and loss of jobs of thousands of people in order to destroy the socialist movement in Argentina.

Although America did not play a direct role in the Chilean and Argentine coups, the whole world knew who was truly responsible, and these actions would make Kissinger a war criminal. However, as Kissinger had foreseen, the reaction and hatred he gathered as a result of his decisions caused no harm to either himself or America.

Small countries that fell in line with America were rewarded. Pakistan was considered an important ally against India, which had begun to establish friendships with China and the Soviet Union in those years. Pakistan had committed a large-scale massacre during the Bangladesh Liberation War that took place in 1971. Since Bangladesh had the support of India, America supported Pakistan in this war. The massacre was reported in detail to Washington by American officials in the region, but Kissinger ignored what was happening. Kissinger is considered among those responsible for the 1971 massacre due to the support he gave to Pakistan.

Turkey is also in the category of countries that Kissinger protected. Kissinger supported Turkey in the Cyprus issue and argued that Turkey was justified in its aggressive stance by pointing to Makarios as the source of the Cyprus problem. Greeks still hold Kissinger as responsible as Ecevit for the Cyprus Peace Operation today and claim that Kissinger turned a blind eye to what was happening because Turkey was one of NATO's important bridgeheads.

Kissinger also opposed the arms embargo that America imposed on Turkey after the operation, but he could not prevent the decision from passing through Congress. Demirel, who came to power after Ecevit, would decide to close American bases in Turkey in response to the embargo implemented in 1975. With the closure of the bases, what Kissinger feared had come to pass, and from that date on, he would strive for Turkish-American relations to return to their former state. Although he persuaded Turkey to open the bases in exchange for the lifting of the embargo in 1976, it would take until 1978 for the decision to pass through parliament.

Kissinger was an expert with the ability to put theory into practice perfectly, and the extraordinary harmony of his theories with American foreign policy enabled him to achieve unique successes. By optimizing American foreign policy between 1969 and 1977, Kissinger ensured that resources were used much more result-oriented and effectively, as he had targeted. However, like other followers of Realpolitik, his acting solely with reason while almost completely ignoring his conscience would make him a figure who was as hated as he was respected for his achievements.