Salon.com > Henry Kissinger

Kissinger: The illegal we do immediately; unconstitutional takes longer

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:10:00 +0000

Updated, 10:35 a.m.: News organizations around the world who have partnered with Wikileaks over the Kissinger Cables are already digging up a number of significant stories.

The late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi may have been a middleman for an arms deal in the 1970s, according to diplomatic cables searched by The Hindu newspaper. Gandhi was employed by Swedish group Saab-Scania to help sell its Viggen fighter jet reportedly because of access to his mother Indira Ghandi -- prime minister at the time. In his press conference Monday, Julian Assange said this revelation is shaking Indian politics, as the Ghandi family still dominates India's ruling party.

Meanwhile, one cable dated October 18, 1973 sent to Washington by the US embassy to the Vatican reveals that the Vatican once dismissed reports of massacres by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as "Communist propaganda."

Updated, 9:56 a.m.: Assange compares the Kissinger Cables to "essentially like what Aaron Swartz was doing" -- namely collating documents which are hard to access, or available only through a specific intermediary.

Ignore McGovern’s message at your peril

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:54:00 +0000

George McGovern lived his public life with an integrity that in these rancid political times, all of us might envy. He unfortunately is remembered most for his overwhelming defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon in the presidential election of 1972, but it is worth noting that Nixon resigned in disgrace, the only president to ever abandon his office. McGovern was a historian, undoubtedly with profound respect for the presidency; it is difficult to imagine his obstructing justice or abusing his power in the Nixon manner.

As we count the dwindling numbers of World War II veterans, we recall McGovern’s heroic service in that conflict. He piloted the lumbering B-24, the slowest of our combat bombers, through 35 hazardous missions over numerous targets in Nazi-occupied southern Europe. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for one mission in which his navigator was killed, yet he safely landed his crippled plane on a small Adriatic island.

Dick Cheney interviewed by Liz Cheney at “Ideas Forum”

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:25:00 +0000

This week, the Atlantic Media Co. held its "Washington Ideas Forum," one of many regular events held for Washington's political elite to gather and congratulate themselves for having so many ideas. The Atlantic -- which also publishes a monthly magazine, I'm told -- throws these pricey orgies of self-regard each year, in Washington and Aspen. One of the big "ideas" presented at this year's forum was actually a pretty old one: that no matter how awful and criminal certain people's behavior is in office, they will never, ever be kicked out of the Washington elite.

That's why the forum hosted Henry Kissinger, this big idea's mascot. And that's why the forum ended with an interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a memoir to promote. Cheney was joined onstage by his daughter and co-author, Liz Cheney, who is devoting herself to whitewashing her father's legacy of torture and death and shooting old men in the face.