Bush Recognizes Mistake: Kissinger Rejects Chairmanship

Last Friday Henry Kissinger told US President George W. Bush about his resignation from the post of chairman of the commission intended to investigate the September 11 attacks, which became rather unexpected for the US president. George W. Bush has to admit what PRAVDA.Ru recently reported: when he appointed the 79-year-old patriarchy of diplomacy, Nobel Peace Price laureate, but the person with a marred reputation, he committed the same mistake once again.

The above mentioned commission intended to investigate the September 11 attacks can be certainly called an extraordinary commission, as its responsibilities place its high above the executive and legislative authorities. The commission consists of five republicans and five democrats; it has a right to interrogate any official or read any documents, if it’s approved by the commission chairman or at least six members of the commission. No secrets either in the FBI or in the CIA can be concealed from the commission. What is more, investigations of the extraordinary commission are intended especially concerning failures of American special services before the September 11 terrorism attacks.

This appointment became more than attractive for Kissinger, as it promised a desirable final of his triumphant political career. In accordance with the law on creation of the extraordinary commission, Henry Kissinger was appointed chairman of the commission for 18 months, but remained only 16 days on the post. An official version of his resignation given by Kissinger himself is inability to combine the jobs of the commission’s chairman and the chief of Kissinger Associates, political consulting firm. The company has clients all over the world and fees they pay to the company are always secret. That is why Henry Kissinger declared that he couldn’t serve if it meant revealing the clients of his consulting firm. A question arises in this connection: why didn’t he recollect about his “strange firm” immediately, but only in 16 days after the appointment? The delayed rejection of the post can be explained by an unbelievable boom caused by the documentary “The Trials of Henry Kissinger”. Authors of the film, producer Eugene Jarecki and script writer Alex Gibney based the documentary on a political best seller, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” by Christopher Hitchens, just slightly changed the title (trials are given in plural in the film title). The book became probably the most scandalous denunciation of imperialism after the theoretical works by Vladimir Lenin; the book was published three times within 2001-2002, it always enjoyed wonderful rating in influential newspapers.

One of the crucial moments in the book and in the documentary concerns events at the end of 1968, when Kissinger was just approaching the Olympus of the governmental authority. Then-vice-president, Democrat Hubert Humphrey competed with Republican Nixon for the presidential post, at that, he had a very strong trump card: talks about cessation of the Vietnamese war were started in Paris. The USA was getting ready for cessation of bombing North Vietnam and the latter, in its turn, planned to withdraw its troops from the South. The fact certainly promised triumph to the Democratic Party and to Humphrey personally at the coming presidential elections.

In order to deprive the rivals of the trump card, Henry Kissinger and other members of Nixon’s team developed a plot against the US diplomacy: they secretly talked one party of the Paris talks, the South Vietnamese junta into rejection of any variants of a peace solution of the problem. In exchange, they promised Saigon much good from a prospective Republican administration.

The South Vietnamese junta obediently frustrated the talks in 1968; the Democratic Party and Humphrey personally were discredited, which was successfully used by Nixon for his triumph at the elections. In four years, Nixon and Kissinger concluded a peace treaty on almost identical terms; as stated by Hitchens, this artificial delay with the peace treaty cost millions of human lives. And Kissinger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his “peaceful” achievements in Vietnam. The Prize was awarded to Kissinger together with Vietnam leader Le Duc Tho, who also signed the peace treaty (unlike Kissinger, the Vietnamese leader refused to take the Prize).

As we see, in thirty years the history has brought the USA to a similar situation when a pre-election rating is raised at the expense of war, an incredible devastation, floods of human blood, which may undermine the present-day geopolitical balance. It is highly symbolic that Henry Kissinger is once again connected with these dirty political technologies: the man is still merciless to humanity. Kissinger’s rejection of the post became a cruel sign at the end of his political career and a painful blow against George W. Bush’s pride.

Andrey Krushinsky PRAVDA.Ru Beijing China

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: https://www.pravda.ru/world/8648-kissinger/

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