>> i am pleased to welcome craig to the store this evening as his first visit at politics & prose also though wanted his book is called kissingers shadow but he would be likely known for his earlier book which was a finalist for the pulitzer prize and the national book award. also the empire and of necessity a professor of history at new york university and has written for a variety of publications including "the new york times" and "los angeles times" and a recipient of fellowship from the guggenheim foundation it draws on recently available government sources as well as biographies and work from a controversial subject as a student at harvard to look at kissinger's political philosophy back to the cambodian invasion arguing for their current militarization of american foreign policy. evan thomas praised the book for the literary flair and a sharp eye for the absurdities of politics. we are happy to have him here with us this evening. [applause] >> what a very nice turn now. thanks with a lovely introduction. i'd think some friends were supposed to be here i don't know if larry is here. he is the director and was going to credit him for teaching me quite a bit on how to write. he is not here. when i book friends and colleagues of the legacy of kissinger's policy many made mention of the of book that is quite well-known and did very well christopher hichens did well and i saw my purpose to be a little anti-pedicle to hichens polemic which is a good example of what a great historian called for dismissed as the devils the area of four. the tendency to place the blame for militarism on a single cause and to really understand the sources of conflict to look at the big picture to consider the waves that war is work to emerge bader of the economic situation. and hichens making the case that kissinger should be tried and convicted for war crimes did not look at the big picture but focused obsessively on the morality of one man of kissinger but aside from assembling a the dockage in the trial i don't think it is useful but actually counterproductive righteous indignation does not provide room for understanding he'd gets deep into his dark part but the statesmen was implicated in atrocities with a list of countries cambodia, a bank with dash, latin america america, southern africa, here in washington d.c. when operation condor blew up to assassinate a former minister against the kurds in and on and on. hichens leaves readers waiting to come out of this journey into kissingers dark heart to tell us what it means that kissinger is a criminal but agents never does. most students of kissinger find it hard to say anything that isn't about him he eclipses' his own context and leaves many biographers and critics to focus exclusively on the quirks of his personality or moral failings. the other great book of course, is the price of power and that it did capture the secretive world of the national-security apparatus functioning during the vietnam war and that study of his paranoia is an innocent preludin to the surveillance thank counterterrorism state that we live under he gave us a defining portraits that any biographer follows will have to top this that he has paranoia to offenses carrier to curse his fate will let the b-52s fly to share in his motives but he is shakespearean because it is played out of the world stage with epic consequences but hersh rating could not know of the long-term effects not only of specific policies but how kissingers extension was some previewed zero later generation who in the '90s took us into central america deeper after 9/11 and afghanistan and. saw his shadow is long. he is 92 years old and his life course is through the decades from the jungles of vietnam and cambodia to the persian gulf shedding light on the road to where we now find ourselves. i think some of the early reviews of the book were strong but i did not hold kissinger responsible for the evolution as a national security state into what it has become. many people were involved in that battle thank you extract kissinger you have for virtuous republic but his career eliminates that national security state like no one else and he was a key player during a transformative moment of the imperial presidency when the vietnam war and watergate began to undermine the traditional foundations on which cold war policy stood since the beginning of the '40's to plan a bipartisan consensus of support. that unraveling end then ran through 66 to the civil-rights movement and the beginnings of the vietnam war but it took the crisis to a new level that is illegal invasion that he was the architect kicks off a series of events that led directly to watergate tonight to watergate to is domestic scandal but really foreign policy to keep the bombing secret and kissinger more than any other staffer who got nixon while the about the "pentagon papers". if you have no information as far as i know not the space they presided over but there was of the your that the leaks that led to the "pentagon papers" could leak out after 1969. kissinger began one overall office reading saying he is a despicable bastard. to describe passionate in his denunciation of daniel goldberg that is the key to his performance to stir up his various resentments as if he is of liberal she was smart and promiscuous and privileged. [laughter] now he has married of very rich girl. [laughter] and nixon was fascinated earlier. he got henry all cranked up the day were both in a frenzy. kissinger told nixon as it shows you are a weakling mr. president. so that led to more crimes that led to the early plotting to close friends and associates were the highest offices were sparing antiwar dissidents to plan bombings on the brookings institute to give orders to run the of paramilitary black band operations that led to watergate but even as they were beginning to break up the old national security state of the kissinger has survived watergate to and continued under the success of general ford was helping with the reconstruction of the national security state in a new form as a restored imperial presidency to move forward into post the vietnam world. there are many different elements of this restored and national-security stage. i will touch on a few of them which is the increased dependency on secrecy and covert action. kissinger's the of the book supports of insurgencies and third-party mercenaries in angola provided a template for a the reagan expansion of similar covert operations that led to iran-contra. the second element that is central to the restoration of the imperial state is the increased use of a tourism to leverage domestically as that consensus of ravel's war or the threat of it or violence and brutality was used to leverage that polarization and division for a domestic event. this isn't new. they would use that for domestic gain but in the post consensus of raveling they said you cannot find one foreign policy that they presided over the also didn't take place for domestic advantage in was that emissary to placate the rising right to in the way that everybody knows about the southern strategy with the attempt to win over the racist democrats for the election to ensure the of landslide right wing for third-party but that strategy had a foreign policy of the destruction and brutality visited on cambodia dash blouse was a way to placate the right and also in southern africa as the tar baby option with his policy to work with white supremacist against liberalization movements was directly aimed at keeping southern states said senators happy. the u.n. should respect the internal policies of the south african states would resonate among the senators who said the federal courts should stay out of the affairs of mississippi and south carolina. in one meeting he went to placate reagan as governor of california we would not have had cambodia or laos to prove that neck -- nixon was a hawk but that element to the average brutal militarism as of way to win over the right really gets started under nixon and kissinger goes along with it and is the key agent. in the third element is the deployment of displays of violence of shot the and all not to enemies this element happens after kissinger leaves office as he is added as a consultant jude support pretty much every military incursion into the middle east living under what we're under today but with the chief contribution to the post leonora resurgence of the of military but his main legacy was metaphysical. conventional wisdom opposes him to dick cheney or paul wolfowitz or donald rumsfeld and drove the u.s. into a afghanistan and iraq his realism is said to be of good different philosophical tradition than the have the arrogance that united states military was so powerful it could make reality and a note to remember that quotation. and it is true that many of the most prominent neo carts instead use kissinger to say he was the loser because of vietnam and %he was the loser bf vietnam and a sinner because supposedly he did not believe american righteousness should guide the foreign policy as cheney had that morality plank inserted into the platform of the republican party that could be anti-kissinger platform but conventional wisdom is wrong if taken as a view of the world that the truth of the facts to be arrived at kissingekissinge r it definitely is not a real test of all the policy makers who would help to shape the post world war ii ruth security state kissinger was of most self aware of the philosophical renditions to justify his actions deeply influenced by the entire rationalist dancer breed -- supremely objective is back considering how often it was used to justify war was imperial existentialism. you could read his undergraduate thesis the longest ever submitted to harvard university 400 pages it is tough. but the echo of the '50s existentialism is clearly present with intense subjectivity that there is no reality that emanates from its own individual experience. that is the odd hallmark of existence other than what be assigned as individuals and people have a responsibility and rather others develop a different kind of morality to protest or end empire purpose of so in his shadow is a manifest itself and specific policies that after he left office as a foreign policy intellectual but here are some of the major believes. i don't believe his undergraduate thesis is the document that proves he is the existentialist but once you get a handle on what he is arguing you can see how runs through about ethics or morality so that the past has the meaning that the future is undetermined to be aware of radical freedom error refuse to be paralyzed by the past to act on a hunch and the intuition with the perpetual creation on a costa redefinition is a responsible of true leaders not only to maintain in the perfection of order but to contemplate chaos to prime material and obviously we're i am headed with good your conservative idealism that got us into the disaster but kissinger is best known is the concept balance of power but there is a fascinating passage doctoral dissertation to be highly unstable to make it almost inevitable. is achieved by a consciousness of the awareness of balance. this isn't brought about in order to create the awareness of power the best way to produce that was too wrapped for providing what kissinger was saying over and over again is that an action has to be avoided to show it was possible. the only action could for a the systemic war in action to overcome the paralyzing fear of any drastic consequences that might result from action talking about nuclear escalation but the purpose of american power was to create an awareness of american purpose a circular area of reasoning that is often how we critique the administration of the moment they do what they do well but they don't know why or have a purpose the when you dig through it isn't clear what he means that the purpose of american power is to create the awareness we cannot defend our interests until we know what they are know what they are and tell we defend them. [laughter] kissinger thought there is no such thing as stasis great states are always evening were losing influence so the balance of power has to be constantly tested. in the book i focus our and cambodia as the good example of this perpetual motion machine. razz perpetuated by other historians it is not contested in any form from he clearly helped nixon get elected in its 68 to buy passing information about the paris peace talks in the fall of 68 that nixon used to derail those talks to make sure that humphrey would not get a bump from any cease-fire. and apple want the vietnam war five years then with ever knew resumed set of talks they had to have resolved they could not bomb north vietnam said they began to bomb cambodia in secret half a million tons and maybe 100,000 civilians who'd died as a result of that campaign. we have to escalate to prove to send a message to saigon then the more we have to escalate to help him transform the bad man policy the idea to pretend we're crazy soar the north vietnamese would think we might do but what ever comes before this the actual act of moral insanity the ravishing and act of lerner neutral country except for that act. nixon and kissinger is bobbing hope to decelerate the country civil war provoke a coup that provokes the invasion that provokes a civil war that there is a bomb so the circle isn't broken over and over in north vietnam, angola, mozambique kissinger repeated the plunges into the four texts of his own circular argument the action has to be avoided to show that it is possible it gave for word a bit of a price after the fall of saigon. but when saigon fell in 35 he gave up piece of advice to ford united states will have to take some action somewhere in the world. some action somewhere. so that continued out of office he urged the clinton to step up the bombing to demonstrate american purpose that is what he and nixon did in southeast asia and whether regatta writer much is secondary. -- we got it right or not is secondary. but kissinger would insist the effects is not on other people but to convince ourselves that we are willing to do something but those defects produce are more important than the consequences of that act of foreign victims. we can go through where that played out but this may sound familiar and it should his philosophy is the dance card of the neocons who believe america creates its own reality crystal constantly complains americans have grown too soft paul wolfowitz complained there were not enough casualties too hard in america to the fight three 9/11. dick cheney held there is the slightest chance a prep will be realized in the u.s. would act as if it were a foregone conclusion also the direct lineage from a 82 passenger he did not invent this he pulls upon the old german a rationalism continental air rationalism. after 9/11 kissinger was an early supporter to attack also somalia and yemen as well to contour to bush of revolution jews sweep away the notions of sovereignty and on august 22nd 2002 with laying out the case it was the only option he directly quoted kissinger there was a preemptive action and once it turned disastrous the metric of a with staffers citing his experience in vietnam for why the u.s. should not withdraw troops. i was spending time on your conservative is of but it is thought highly self-conscious senses that reaches well beyond republicans to capture the pragmatist and hillary clinton protested the invasion of cambodia recently praised kissinger calling him a friend that she relied on his counsel clinton said the famous surrealist sounds surprisingly idealistic ben said his vision is her vision as a liberal. defense intellectuals penn essays prescribing a tonic for the troubles that they have difficulty to define what that looks like off than he is defying did negative terms not the recklessness of the neocons i tried to show that it is but it isn't the barack obama and purpose without knowing what it is but he is so hard to pin down it is the rehabilitation of the national security state their relentless and of the tourism that goes with it. constant on ending war has done more than cause some thought for morality. but according to ruth clinton everybody is though liberal and kissinger is the "avatar". last year while promoting his most recent book responding to a question about his past controversial policies pointing to barack obama there is no difference what he did of cambodia or what the president is doing with pakistan and yemen and somalia. when asked about his role in chile in 73 he said his actions were justified by what barack obama did namibia and what he wanted to do in syria. his defense with his absurd assertion that you were civilians died from the half a million tons of bombs in cambodia but he is right that the political arguments that he made at the time justify his illegal war in cambodia and laos was far out of the mainstream but now is under question part of international law with the right the u.s. to violate a neutral country to destroy enemy sanctuaries. . . [inaudible conversations] >> questions over is there. >> first let me congratulate you on being able to open a dialogue that is long overdue and not just gone kissinger. the question i want to ask you is i want to broaden it a little because this runs throughout our culture, this goes back to our dealings with mexico to native americans to the spanish and so forth and so forth. henry kissinger is just a pragmatist along the way who figured it out. with your perspective, how do we start to examine our culture and foreign policy and the needs in which we are starting to feel a lot of pressure from, how we take this and go somewhere? >> let me say i agree completely that this is a small face a larger history of expansion and militarism. it is important to break down phase is that larger history takes place in, because what is possible in those variations, you can have an olympian view which is no difference between what fdr was doing and do the new deal and what reagan was doing and didn't do right i don't find particularly useful because the of those moments that were different possibilities for opposition, for education and resistance. maybe i'm a little bit of an optimist considering where we are now but beyond that, i think looking specifically, intently and foreign sickly the philosophy of history, i think when henry kissinger dies he will be routinely understood as standing outside of some kind of american tradition either because of his son realpolitik or because of his thick accent, i don't know why and it is important to understand, he is the quintessential american and the implicit argument of the book is that it american exceptionalism is a kind of irrational subjectivism that henry kissinger am bodies and is very aware of. is important to dive deep. what do we do with that? organized. >> i guess i am on next. and the try to squeeze in two quick questions, i don't have anything other than quick posing of them. you referred to henry kissinger as a form of existentialist, part of that characterization of that was a sort of subordinate facts and information with a preference for just kind of how he thought things were or how he thought they ought to be. and you also trace the modern surveillance state to kissinger at least in part. and it seems to me one of the main characteristics of the modern surveillance states is the obsession with facts and the and so forth rather than just thinking about things as let's get a lot of data here so we can examine its in detail and try to decide what needs to be done so this sort of implying an inconsistency rather than empire, just ask if that is an inconsistency. >> there is an inconsistency, there's a great question. it is true. but ultimately what you do with all their information, just the control of data complete to forms of control and forms of repression, when the stakes were down what did the neocons do? in 2003, forget that data, for get the information, forget the intelligence, let's just plunge in. there is more of a relationship between the data and intuition and i think it is revealed in the way, and a different kind of element of the national security state, not so much the surveillance but the cover aspects of it, secrecy aspects. henry kissinger in some ways inaugurated a new ritual in american politics, the testifying before congress. it started with the fulbright commission and went back. i am sure we don't lot of things, a lot of secrecy and spectacle go hand in hand. there is a way the symbiotic relationship between that in some sense too much knowledge. this goes back less about the state, 0 this the's use of information and a citizen's use of it, what don't we know about the national-security state? we don't know who killed john kennedy. but we know, conduct convert activities, there has been commissioned after commission, pentagon papers that infant item -- look at -- alexander cockburn talked about this. when they sacked the iranian embassy in 79 they got all the see of a document. you can go to the library and there is volume after volume of information with the the it was doing, to run was the hub for that. not just iran and is almost overwhelming, almost too much information so there is a way in which the avalanche of information contributes to the spectacle, it becomes all spectacle and it plays out in the way that it becomes about procedural isn't so when kissinger was up there, who is that congressman from berkeley that was part of the anti-war left coalition, left-wing democrat. berman? does anybody remember? he was hammering kissinger on all this stuff that is the church commission and all this stuff and thought he had him, said something like frankly i think what you a presiding over is the massive illegal operation that violates the law and henry kissinger said apart from the legal stuff is there anything else wrong with my operation? that was the 5 second clipped it played on the news and that is what people remembered's that there is an inconsistency. i don't think it is a contradiction. it is an enabling kant addiction that i have not fully worked out. >> we have a lot -- >> i went on too long. >> thank you for unraveling of the kissinger doctrine. it is amazing to me he is still able to get on mainstream tv and testify in congress any date he wishes, saying i will be there. two questions, he never signed a peace agreement with vietnam. if you go back and see the footage, he says hk, in one stroke. it is not a signature, not really a legal signature. my question to you is what was his relationship, you reviewed a lot of recent documents that have come out, his exact relationship with the cia, with a national security apparatus on a working day today basis? >> he him up through intelligence. hard to talk about a subject like this without sounding like you are driving down a rabbit hole of info wars. kissinger came up through the intelligence system in the u.s.. in world war ii, then after world war ii he was a military sergeant in the army, the intelligence division, won a bronze star for his ability to interrogate germans and extract information man leading to the captive of higher levels, he obviously maintained his relationship with the intelligence community. in the walter whitman biography or somewhere, he writes a letter to the fbi's office in cambridge, offering to spy on people that were attending the international seminar, he served on a number of covert actions, psychological warfare boards in the 1950s, he was a student of william eliot who was a cold war hawk with great roots in the intelligence community. aside from that, i think what we do know about him, the stuff we do know about him is interesting enough to give us a sense of a useful understanding of that evolution of the national security state rather than linking him to any particular covert action. >> we are in an era where bank said too big to fail, mass murderers are too big to convict, the evidence avant, you wait it out, it has been laid out through history. the man is up mass murderer, killed people from here to there. he ran these with ford, in 16 coming down the street, and 16, and in 1969, 65, bring mass murderers to justice. the jewish people followed these mass murderers with the cost around the world, we know what the 12 is. 92, don't care if he is 102, put him in jail. >> latin america is an example, mass social movements and hold people accountable, it takes time and persistence and whatever latin american countries do, chile and argentina and guatemala, in the u. s. to answer that question. >> i like you concluded by creating their relationship between kissinger and obama. my question, while he was justifying his radical action talking about obama's radical actions, pakistan, afghanistan and libya. how do you frame his rather sensible within the mainstream positions on the ukraine and look at -- progenies, the legacy kissinger created and when you look at that kind of liberal frame they are part of within the state department apparatus they are much more extreme than he is. >> he hasn't -- george shultz coming, providing the kind of way in which people could oppose it. there is a simple way, in a fundamental way, a western supremacists, plenty of quotes, the effect of his policies and the rise of the third world bound up in kissinger's policies and all kinds of complicated ways. at his heart he identifies and saab is a european in a profound way and that is a way of answering. also be business dealings, who knows what kissinger associates are, let's not forget he presides over kissinger associates which is the premier consultancy for the world's -- the privatisation of industries in latin america. whatever i it is a ritual to banter with him like samantha power but when he says one thing that is sensible nobody listens to him. [laughter] >> gets lost in the banter. okay. difficult. you didn't refer to his role in the middle east, israel, i would be interested in your comments because it still remains a puzzle to me, what in the background of the middle east created the nightmare that is real and its enemies are today. i was at a meeting ten years ago in which a lady spoke about the two children, that she had during the war and the two children after the war. the two children were completely deformed and mentally retarded, it puts what you say into context. so many people, millions of people have paid with their lives and paid with their happiness and everything else for the musings of this maniac. >> the crimes are still going on, and exploded ordinances' in laos and cambodia claimed thousands of lives a year including one died on kissinger's 92 birthday, big celebration, saying regis hotel, bombs explode, they hit upon a unexploded ordnance and died, claims 20,000 lives in laos and since the war ended. in terms of the middle east i am a historian of latin american relations i came to kissinger through his involvement in latin america so i relied on historians that i trusted to look at the middle east. in terms of israel/palestine, kissinger locked in an impasse, committed the u.s. to not recognize a palestinian state until palestine recognized israel's right to exist without demanding the same on the part of israel. beyond but israel palestine conflict i think henry kissinger gets a pass on his middle east policies that he is responsible for the shot, kissinger pumped up the shah and began to sell, the massive scale and transference of high-tech weaponry to pteron before the revolution of saudi arabia was kissinger's engineering and had to do with figuring out ways to get back to the united states and also setting up saudi arabia and iran as the guardians of the gulf in post vietnam kind of realignment. a lot of people when people think about blow back from the middle east they look at the 1980s, the cia, the mujahedin, afghanistan, in a lot of ways that infrastructure was put in place by kissinger. you don't want to find one person responsible for the impasse of catastrophe that the middle east is that kissinger bears more responsibilities that he gets criticized for lots of things but he gets a pass on what he did in the middle east. he started using pakistan to go into afghanistan and destabilized afghanistan, that was beginning in some ways of political islam. i never found -- that was around the same time he was doing the same thing not with political islam but south africa, and olin and mozambique, using proxy states to destabilize potential enemies so kissinger put into place a lot of the infrastructure in the middle east the we are trying to disentangle including arms sales, dependence on arms sales and saudi arabia. i think of it like this. kissinger often said, kissinger bristled at high energy prices and coming to the solution of petrodollars as a way of financing u.s. bonds, that was the kind of reluctant coming to, wasn't something they did willingly. he was constantly saying things like can't we overthrow a sheet or two, talked about overthrowing ought to dhabi, counterfactual on what the world would look like instead of overthrowing chile in 73 they overthrew sodom arabia. >> we have time for couple more. >> full disclosure, i am peter dixon, published the first ever study of the undergraduate thesis at cambridge university 40 years ago. and i think you were good in picking up on the existential lost subtext of that thesis. he is very much a historical relativists and for political reasons he has to give voice to transcendent values when he is in a public setting, but that is a german tradition that he is part of but i would still make two comments of little more critical, national security state has been around a long time and there were a lot of things the united states did in the 40s, 50s and 60s that were kissingerian-like. i don't think he is godfather of the national security state also many things that happened in that period of the 60s would reinforce the imperial presidency. other thing i would say, what evan thomas suggested in the post, you blur the neocon/kissinger distinction too much, they really low of one another. many of the neocons i jewish persuasion and did not trust this court jubilees they called him a court issue because from their point of view in german, a person who was in the court compromising jewish interests and i think the neocons start with the domestic critique of the welfare state, they further refine their position on foreign policy in opposition to kissinger. i think maybe in the long run you do have a point that kissinger's realism and their positions get blurred from one basic reason. kissinger even though he is out of power is addicted to access and power and he compromiseds all lots to sustain relationships that don't care for him that much. and oppose the invasion of iraq. to be cautious about that. hillary clinton and the lot of other people, though war fever, and would have expected at that moment. >> i agree completely. and it is a terrific book and great exit jesus, and what peter wrote. and the founder of the national security state. and this goes back to other questions about continuity and different phases, and kissinger illustrates -- he doesn't create the system. and had an odd amount of power. and the window on to those condors and there has been at tendency to focus on the neocons, for the context. and barack obama doesn't like hillary clinton but that, thinking about ideology, thinking about overlaps in foreign policy establishment. you look at kissinger and the irrational subjectivism of will to power and see a resonance deeper in the american political culture and american exceptionalism to a great degree and forward to the neocons and the argument there and it is not an exhibition, if you expect the new conservatives from american history you don't have 1/3 choice republic, you still have what we have and it would just be manifested in different ways and is the same and that is what i was trying to get at with kissinger's relationship with the neocons. >> i have one question, deeply troubled by many things you said, i haven't read the book yet. i will go over some low hanging fruit. kissinger did certain things, obama is doing certain things, similar things now. if i understood you correctly, you were making a and ethical parallel, but that to me is a specious argument. it doesn't get to as low real issue, are either of their actions ethical? >> in terms -- >> obama is doing similar stuff. >> a day. maybe i wasn't clear. kissinger was defending his actions in cambodia by invoking what obama is doing today with drone warfare program. >> that is a specious argument. my neighbor beats his wife so my husband can be me. that is >> and we know better. >> is not my argument, it is kissinger's are given. >> for someone so brilliant is amazing someone as non brilliant as he can see through it. 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