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Airdate: The Trials of Henry Kissinger

The History Channel will air a documentary that analyses former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's record.

The History Channel will air a documentary that analyses former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s record and claims that he should be considered a “war criminal.”

We examine the lawsuit against Henry Kissinger, in which he was charged with having authorized the assassination of a Chilean general in 1970, with engineering the secret bombing of Cambodia without the knowledge of the US Congress in 1969, and with supporting the sale of US weapons to Indonesian President Suharto for use in the massacre of one-third of the population of East Timor in 1975.

These and several other recent charges cast a haunting shadow on the reputation of a man long seen as the most famous diplomat of his age, the Nobel Laureate who secured peace in Vietnam, who secretly opened relations between the US and China, and who, more than a quarter-century out of office, remains a central player on the world stage, only recently voted the number one public intellectual of the 20th century.

Yet British journalist Christopher Hitchens says “Henry Kissinger is a war criminal, a liar. And he’s personally responsible for murder, for kidnapping, for torture.”

Featuring previously unseen footage, newly declassified US government documents, and revealing interviews with key insiders to the events in question, this film examines the charges facing him, shedding light on a career long shrouded in secrecy. In part, it explores how a young boy who fled Nazi Germany grew up to become one of the most powerful men in US history and now, in the autumn of his life, one of its most disputed figures.

Additionally, the film tackles the question of whether principals of international law applied by Americans to their enemies are also applicable to Americans.

Friday, March 23 at 8.30pm History.

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