Scott Cracraft

To the editor:

He’s baaaack! For years, we did not hear much about Dr. Henry Kissinger. After all, after Dr. Kissinger resigned from the Bush Administration’s 9/11 Commission for “conflict of interest,” it seemed that he remained in retirement, writing books and making expensive speeches.

In my gut, though, I always felt there was something about the Bush Administration that reminded me of Kissinger. Now, it appears that my suspicions may have been correct. If Bob Woodward’s new book is accurate, Kissinger, a friend and neighbor of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has been serving all along as a advisor to the White House and making secret visits there.

Henry Kissinger was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most Americans think of Dr. Kissinger as America’s “elder statesman,” the man who “opened” China to U.S. diplomatic relations and trade and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (a move similar to giving Susan Smith the Mother of the Year Award).

Dr. Kissinger, however, is a “wanted man.” Our “elder statesman” cannot leave the U.S. because in many countries, including some European democracies, he faces possible arrest and detention because he is at least wanted for questioning regarding his role in human rights violations in the 1970s. Directly or indirectly, Dr. Kissinger is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, “disappearances,” and incidents of arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture.

His intervention in East Timor resulted in the deaths of thousands of Timorese. His advice to President Nixon in 1971 to invade Cambodia resulted in a destabilization of that country that allowed the bloody Khmer Rouge to come to power under the butcher Pol Pot. This, combined with the fact that Kissinger was supporting the Chinese who were supplying the Khmer Rouge, resulted in the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1978.

Dr. Kissinger’s responsibility for human rights violations in Latin America is more direct. For example, Kissinger led the U.S. effort to destabilize the elected government of Salvator Allende in Chile and to encourage the military to overthrow it. He was encouraged in this by U.S. Corporate interests including Anaconda Copper and IT&T. The CIA funneled millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to achieve the overthrow of Allende’s government.

The coup that finally occurred in Chile on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 1973 was followed by a 17-year dictatorship and by a reign of terror that resulted in the deaths of thousands (including two American citizens, Frank Teruggi and Charles Horman). Tens of thousands of other Chileans and foreign visitors were arrested, detained, and often brutally tortured. Hundreds of thousands of Chileans, including current Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, were forced to leave their homeland.

In 1976, secret police chiefs from Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay formed Operation Condor which went after dissidents, even when they had fled abroad. In addition to torturing and “disappearing” dissidents in Latin American countries, Condor operatives intimidated and even assassinated people in foreign countries. This included a contract on New York Mayor and Congressman Ed Koch Interestingly, then-C.I.A. director George H. W. Bush warned Koch of the contract but did nothing to protect the him, advising the Congressman to“ be careful.”

Operation Condor also planned the 1976 Washington, D.C., car bombing that killed Allende’s former foreign minister and which is still an “open” case that is being conveniently ignored by the Bush Administration. Declassified documents now show that Dr. Kissinger covered up the emerging truth about Condor’s brutal activities because the governments involved were governments friendly to U.S. military and economic interests.

Aren’t there more Americans that are concerned that Dr. Kissinger is a key advisor to the Bush Administration?

Scott Cracraft

Gilford