Henry Kissinger 1923-2023: Giant of statecraft molded post-war US history

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00:00 more or less speak to our chief foreign editor, Rob Parsons.

00:02 Hello to you, Rob.

00:04 A lot to discuss here.

00:05 Take us through some of the major achievements.

00:07 - Well, I mean, this is a diplomatic giant,

00:11 the diplomatic giant of the 20th century,

00:13 whether you like him or whether you loathe him.

00:16 And there are many on both sides of that equation.

00:19 But if you think particularly to the 1960s,

00:22 to that period, 1969 to 1977,

00:25 when he served as national security advisor

00:27 and secretary of state for the US.

00:30 Not to say he didn't achieve anything before that,

00:32 because he did a lot as an academic

00:34 and as an advisor in various different capacities

00:37 to the US government.

00:38 But that was the key period for him.

00:40 When he came into office, the Cold War was in full spate.

00:45 The United States was deep into the Vietnam War.

00:48 There were problems in South America.

00:50 Israel had just fought the Six-Day War in 1967.

00:54 It was heading towards the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

00:57 The relationship with China was tense.

01:00 Relations with the Soviet Union, very, very tense indeed.

01:04 He came to power at that time

01:06 and quickly became associated with what's now known

01:10 as detente with the Soviet Union,

01:13 leading to disarmament agreements with the Soviet Union.

01:17 He reopened relations between the United States and China,

01:21 which had been nonexistent since the revolution.

01:25 Kissinger went to China for the first time,

01:27 met Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai, the foreign minister.

01:32 He managed to pull the US out of the Vietnam War.

01:36 He didn't get the peace with honor

01:38 that probably he would have liked to have got,

01:40 that certainly he would like to have got,

01:41 but certainly he got the US out of the war,

01:43 got that Nobel Peace Prize you referred to.

01:46 1973, with the Yom Kippur War,

01:49 he was the man who became associated

01:51 with what the new concept of shuttle diplomacy,

01:54 going backwards and forwards between the capitals of Israel,

01:57 Egypt and Syria to get peace,

01:59 which led to the Camp David Agreements a few years later,

02:02 1979, when he was already out of office.

02:04 But he was the man who laid the basis for that.

02:07 So this is a giant of his times.

02:10 - And what did the critics say?

02:12 - Well, there is lots they had to criticize as well.

02:15 Some call him a butcher, some call him a war criminal.

02:20 He's been wanted by different courts around the world

02:22 at different times,

02:24 particularly in association

02:27 with what happened in Chile in the 1970s.

02:30 His policies were to overthrow effectively

02:34 the democratically elected government of Chile,

02:37 of Salvador Allende, a communist.

02:40 Kissinger wanted him removed

02:43 simply because he was a communist,

02:44 because he had very close relations with Cuba.

02:48 And this is what he had to say

02:50 about getting rid of Salvador Allende in 1973.

02:53 "I don't see why we need to stand by

02:55 and watch a country go communist

02:57 due to the irresponsibility of its people."

03:00 He had little regard, in other words.

03:02 - Rob, you interviewed him in 2009.

03:04 Just wanna play a clip from that real quick.

03:07 - The parallel is the potential opposition

03:12 within the United States.

03:13 And having gone through the Vietnam War,

03:16 one has to face this fact.

03:21 You cannot fight a war

03:23 if a very large percentage of your population

03:26 is determined to stop it.

03:31 - Rob, what did you take away from that interview?

03:32 - The standout for me, I think this is the fight that he,

03:37 it's what's called the Kissinger approach to diplomacy.

03:41 He's a realist.

03:42 You know, when he sees that the odds

03:45 are stacked up against him, as he was saying there,

03:48 that the American people no longer supported

03:50 the war in Vietnam,

03:51 therefore, the United States had to get out of that war.

03:54 The United States had to find an honorable peace,

03:58 what's called the Kissinger doctrine.

04:00 That's what he's most associated with,

04:02 realism in politics, realism in diplomacy.

04:05 - All right, Rob, thank you very much.

04:06 Rob Parsons, our chief foreign editor.

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