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"Henry
Kissinger is a war criminal," says firebrand journalist Christopher
Hitchens. "He's a liar. And he's personally responsible for
murder, for kidnapping, for torture." What is Hitchens on about?
He could be talking about the lawsuit currently under way in Washington
DC, in which Kissinger is charged with having authorised the assassination
of a Chilean general in 1970. Or he could be referring to the secret
bombing of Cambodia which, arguably, Kissinger engineered without
the knowledge of the US Congress in 1969. Or perhaps Kissinger's
involvement in the sale of U.S. weapons to Indonesian President
Suharto for use in the massacre of 1/3 of the population of East
Timor in 1975.
These and several
other recent charges have 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 now, 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.
Featuring previously
unseen footage, newly declassified US government documents, and
revealing interviews with key insiders to the events in question,
The Trials of Henry Kissinger 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.
It is at once
an unauthorised biography and a look at the sparks that fly when
an honoured American statesman is charged with war crimes. The film
tackles the question of whether principles of international law
applied by Americans to their enemies are applicable to Americans,
or whether these laws are only written for the losers of conflicts.
The Trials of Henry Kissinger in the courts of law and public opinion
will begin to answer this question.
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