The Trial Of Henry Kissinger Summary

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In his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens examines the trials and tribulations of Henry Kissinger, a onetime diplomat, Nation Security Advisor, and United States Secretary of State during the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The author takes a partisan view of Kissinger’s crimes and put forward his assertions that the former diplomat was responsible for war crimes in Chile, Vietnam, East Timor, and Cambodia. Christopher Hitchens mounts a stinging indictment of a man whose ambition and ruthlessness have directly resulted in both individual murders and widespread destruction of lives. He manages to capture in details a complicated web of conceit that Kissinger used in order to rise to power and later to consolidate …show more content…

Kissinger symbolizes the freedom of power by negotiating the Vietnam peace agreement with President Gerald Ford. He deliberately sabotaged the peace negotiations to help secure the election of Richard Nixon. In return, Kissinger would be promoted under the new administration. However, this peace deal sabotage extended the war by four more years and resulted in the death of millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and tens of thousands of US servicemen who were serving in Vietnam. This illustrates the length a person can go to gain political power, even if it means involving his/her hand in the process. Kissinger became a symbol of flattery and dishonesty. He is seen as a man who was willing to trade loyalty for material and political gains. His willingness to delay the Paris peace treaty for his own political gains make the people see him as a power-hungry and ruthless individual.
The indictments did not stop in Vietnam for Kissinger. He was very involved in the deliberate mass killings of unarmed civilians in the Indochina war. With Kissinger’s knowledge, thousands of civilians were killed when US air force and infantry men attacked densely populated communities. The justification was that these communities were used as hiding places by the Viet Con guerillas. Customary laws of war and neutrality were violated, and in which conscious lies had to be told to conceal these facts and

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