Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923, in Fuerth, Germany, to "devout Jewish middle-class parents ... the young Kissinger was forced to flee Hitler&#8217;s anti-Semitic regime, settling with his family in New York City in 1938."

Dr. Kissinger came to the United States in 1938 and was naturalized as a United States citizen on June 19, 1943.

After studying at City College in New York, Kissinger served as an interpreter and intelligence officer in Europe in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (1943-1949) and was a Captain in the Military Intelligence Reserve (1946-1949).

He received the B.A. Degree Summa Cum Laude from Harvard College in 1950 and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1952 and 1954 respectively.

Kissinger was a member of the Faculty of Harvard University (1954-1969), in both the Department of Government and the Center for International Affairs. He served as Associate Director of the Center (1957-1960); Study Director, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (1955-1956); Director of the Special Studies Project for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (1956-1958); Director of the Harvard International Seminar (1951-1971); and Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program (1958-1971). (Kissinger was on leave from Harvard from January 1969 to January 1971). Kissinger also served as Chancellor of the College of William & Mary.

Government Service
Kissinger was appointed Assistant for National Security Affairs by Richard M. Nixon. He served as Secretary of State under Gerald R. Ford (September 22, 1973-January 20, 1977), while still holding the position of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1969-1975). 

Kissinger "developed a policy of detente toward the Soviet Union, which led to the SALT agreements. He also developed the first official U.S. contact with Communist China. He negotiated the cease-fire agreement that ended the Vietnam War, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 with Le Duc Tho (who refused it)."The BritannicaConcise, Yahoo

He was also an advisor to Ronald Reagan and was appointed by him to chair the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America until it ceased operation in January 1985 and, from 1984-1990, he served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He established the U.S. State Department's Office of Population Affairs (OPA) in 1975, which is now part of the Department of Health and Human Services ... From 1986 to 1988, he was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department. He is currently a member of the Defense Policy Board."

Kissinger has served as a consultant to the Department of State (1965-1968), United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1961-1968), the RAND Corporation (1961-1968), the National Security Council (1961-1962), the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1959-1960), the Operations Coordinating Board (1955), the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board (1952), the Operations Research Office (1951), and to the Chairman of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (1983-1984).

Kissinger has been labeled a conservative "realist" but can be considered a "neo-con" (neo-conservative). Kissinger is believed to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group. He has been identifed as a protege of Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Kissinger has also been labeled a terrorist :
 * Henry Kissinger was one of the first to react to the recent tragedy. "Those who provide support, financing, and inspiration to terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves," he intoned, words that Son Bush would repeat hours later.
 * If that's how it is, the urgent need right now is to bomb Kissinger. He is guilty of many more crimes than bin Laden or any terrorist in the world. And in many more countries. He provided "support, financing, and inspiration" to state terror in Indonesia, Cambodia, Iran, South Africa, Bangladesh, and all the South American countries that suffered the dirty war of Plan Condor.

The Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations
The Kissinger Chair is "funded by the Kissinger Program Fund, a special endowment at the Library of Congress established by friends and admirers of the former Secretary of State. The Kissinger Chair is a distinguished senior research position, in residence at the Library of Congress for a period of 9 months to one year. Its occupant, called the Kissinger Scholar, is engaged in research on foreign policy and international affairs, and particularly, on matters related to American foreign policy, that will lead to publication.

The supporting grant of $100,000 is administered by the Kissinger Chair Program Steering Committee and the Library of Congress, and selection is made by the Kissinger Scholar Selection Committee. Eligibility criteria include the Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree and a substantial record of scholarly activity.

Contact information: Kissinger Scholar Selection Committee, Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540-4860; phone: (202) 707-3302; fax: (202) 707-3595; email: scholarly AT loc.gov. Web: www.loc.gov/rr/international/kissinger.html

On October 2, 2001, Kissinger delivered the inaugural lecture of the lecture series for the Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress.

Members of the Selection Committee are in turn appointed for three-year rotating terms by a Steering Committee which administers the Kissinger Chair Program. Chaired by the Librarian of Congress, other members of the Steering Committee are Alan Batkin of Kissinger Associates in New York; Lloyd N. Cutler of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington; and Nancy Kissinger.

The Kissinger Chairs


 * First Kissinger Chair - Aaron Friedberg
 * Second Kissinger Chair - Klaus Larres
 * Third Kissinger Chair - Xiang Lanxin

Business Affiliations
(see bio note
 * Principal, Trireme Partners LP
 * Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc., international consulting firm
 * Chairman, International Advisory Board, American International Group, Inc.
 * Director Emeritus, Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. (since 1995)
 * Director, ContiGroup Companies, Inc.
 * Director, Continental Grain Company
 * Director, FirstMark Communications International LLC
 * Director, Hollinger International Inc.
 * Director, The Revlon Group
 * Advisory Board, JP Morgan Chase & Co. International Council
 * Advisor to Board of Directors, American Express Company
 * Advisor to Board of Directors, Forstmann Little and Co.
 * Ties to the Carlyle Group through Lobbyist David M. Marchick, senior adviser to Kissinger McLarty Associates
 * In May 2002, Kissinger joined the private investment firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst's Europe Strategy Board.

Non-Commercial Affiliations / Organizations

 * Honorary Governor, Foreign Policy Association
 * Honorary Chairman, American Academy in Berlin
 * Honorary Director, Friends of Dresden
 * Honorary Member, International Olympic Committee and Public Sector Member, United States Olympic Committee
 * Patron and Chairman of the Advisory Board, The New Atlantic Initiative
 * Patron, Atlantic Partnership
 * Chancellor, The College of William and Mary
 * Chairman, Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships
 * Director, Center for Democracy/Center for Democracy
 * Director, Dan David Prize
 * Director, International Rescue Committee
 * Advisory Board, Children's Scholarship Fund
 * Advisory Board, Puppies Behind Bars (with wife, Nancy Kissinger)
 * Counselor/Trustee, Center for Strategic and International Studies
 * Trustee, Institute of International Education
 * Honorary Trustee, Aspen Institute
 * Trustee, Open Russia Foundation
 * Trustee, Institute of International Education (IIE)
 * Trustee and Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies
 * Member, Honorary Council of Advisors at the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
 * Member and Trustee Emeritus, Metropolitan Museum of Art
 * Reputed Member, Committee of 300
 * Reputed Member, Trilateral Commission
 * Reputed Member, Bilderberg Group
 * Board of Overseers, International Rescue Committee
 * International Board of Governors, Peres Center for Peace

Documents released in 2004 indicate Nixon and Kissinger Politicized the End to the Vietnam War
In August of 2004, using some previously unreleased audio tapes from the Nixon presidency, the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs opened a new exhibit titled, "The Nixon Presidency - 30 Years After".

A section within the exhibit titled "Seeking a ‘Decent Interval’ Exit From Vietnam." uses some of these newly released audio tapes along with other documents of the Nixon presidency to forcibly propose that Nixon and Kissinger politicized the disengagement and withdrawal from Vietnam, to facilitate Nixon's re-election in 1972, having the effect of lengthening a War which both Nixon and Kissinger agreed should be ended and adding many casualities from both sides.

"Seeking a ‘Decent Interval’ Exit From Vietnam" can presently be viewed online, and the exhibit begins with:


 * "By December of 1970, a little less than halfway through his first term, President Nixon had decided to complete the withdrawal of American ground forces from Vietnam by the end of 1971. His national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, argued against the withdrawal on political grounds, as White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman noted in his tape recorded diary entry for December 21, 1970."

The relevent H.R. Haldeman diary entry stated in part:


 * December 21, 1970
 * Personal Diary of H.R. Haldeman
 * Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with, and which we'll have to answer for at the elections.


 * He prefers instead a commitment to have them all out by the end of '72 so that we won't have to deliver finally until after the [US presidential] elections [in November 1972] and therefore can keep our flanks protected. This would certainly seem to make more sense, and the President seemed to agree in general, but he wants Henry to work up plans on it.

A transcript of the last part of the last audio recording offered in the exhibit reads:


 * Kissinger: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it’s the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three - to four - month period, we have pushed President Thieu over the brink—we ourselves—I think, there is going to be—even the Chinese won’t like that. I mean, they’ll pay verbal—verbally, they’ll like it—
 * President Nixon: But it’ll worry them.
 * Kissinger: But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won’t help us all that much because our opponents will say we should’ve done it three years ago.
 * President Nixon: I know.
 * Kissinger: So we’ve got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which—after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January ’74 no one will give a damn.


 * Oval Office Conversation #760-6 Transcript
 * August 3, 1972
 * 8:28am - 8:57am
 * Location: Oval Office

The whole exhibit can be viewed at The University of Virginia, Miller Center for Public Affairs', Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive website.

Seeking a ‘Decent Interval’ Exit From Vietnam

Contact Information
Thanks to google.com: Henry A. Kissinger, (717) 692-3322,, Millersburg, PA 17061 

SourceWatch Resources

 * Imperial terror in South America

Critical Books

 * Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001).