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he knowingly broke the law in continuing to supply
*See especially Nicole Barrett: "Holding Individual Leaders Responsible for Violations of
Customary International Law," Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Spring 2001.
American weapons to Indonesia, which in turn used them to violate the neutrality of a
neighboring territory and to perpetrate gross crimes against humanity. Kissinger also faces
legal trouble over his part in the ethnic cleansing of the British colonial island of Diego Garcia
in the early 1970s, when indigenous inhabitants were displaced to make room for a United
States military base. Lawyers for the Chagos Islanders have already won a judgment in the
British courts on this matter, which now moves to a hearing in the United States. The torts
cited are "forced relocation, torture, and genocide."
In this altered climate, the United States faces an interesting dilemma. At any moment, one
of its most famous citizens may be found liable for terrorist actions under the Alien Tort
Claims Act, or may be subject to an international request for extradition, or may be arrested if
he travels to a foreign country, or may be cited for crimes against humanity by a court in an
allied nation. The non-adherence by the United States to certain treaties and its reluctance to
extradite make it improbable that American authorities would cooperate with such actions,
though this would gravely undermine the righteousness with which Washington addresses
other nations on the subject of human rights. There is also the option of bringing Kissinger to
justice in an American court with an American prosecutor. Again the contingency seems a
fantastically remote one, but, again, the failure to do so would expose the country to a much
more obvious charge of double standards than would have been apparent even two years ago.
The burden therefore rests with the American legal community and with the American
human-rights lobbies and non-governmental organizations. They can either persist in
averting their gaze from the egregious impunity enjoyed by a notorious war criminal and
lawbreaker, or they can become seized by the exalted standards to which they continually hold
everyone else. The current state of suspended animation, however, cannot last. If the courts
and lawyers of this country will not do their duty, we shall watch as the victims and survivors
of this man pursue justice and vindication in their own dignified and painstaking way, and at
their own expense, and we shall be put to shame.
APPENDIX I
A FRAGRANT FRAGMENT
I AM TAKING the liberty of reproducing a correspondence, initially between Henry
Kissinger and myself, which began in the New York Times Book Review in the fall of the year
2000. In a review (reprinted below) of The Arrogance of Power, the work by Anthony
Summers and Robbyn Swan to which direct reference is made on page 13 of this book, I had
essentially summarized and condensed the case against Nixon's and Kissinger's private and
illicit diplomacy during the 1968 election; a case made much more fully in Chapter 1 here [see
pages 8-15]. I also made reference to some other Nixon-era crimes and misdemeanors.
This drew a rather lengthy and - to put it no higher - distinctly bizarre reply from Kissinger.
Its full text is also appended, together with the responses that it occasioned in its turn. (I have
no means of knowing why Kissinger recruited former General Brent Scowcroft as his co-
signer, unless it was for the reassurance of human company as well as the solidarity of a well-
rewarded partner in the firm of Kissinger Associates.)
The correspondence makes three convenient points. It undermines pseudo-lofty attempts
by Kissinger and his defenders to pretend that this book, or better say the arguments
contained in it, are beneath their notice. They have already attempted to engage, in other
words, and have withdrawn in disorder. Second, it shows the extraordinary mendacity, and
reliance upon mendacity and upon non-credible but hysterical denial, that characterizes the
Kissinger style. Third, it supplies another small window into the nauseating record of "rogue
state" internal affairs.
Review by Christopher Hitchens
The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon.
Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swan.
In one respect at least, the memoirs of Henry Kissinger agree with Sideshow, William
Shawcross's report on the bombing of Cambodia. Both books confirm that Richard Nixon
rather liked people to fear his own madness. In the fall of 1969, for example, he told Kissinger
to warn the Soviet ambassador that the President was "out of control" on Indochina, and
capable of anything. Kissinger claims that he regarded the assignment as "too dangerous" to
carry out. But, as Anthony Summers now instructs us:
Three months earlier, however, Kissinger had sent that very same message
by proxy when he instructed Len Garment, about to leave on a trip to
Moscow, to give the Soviets "the impression that Nixon is somewhat 'crazy'
-immensely intelligent, well organized and experienced to be sure, but at
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