Henry Kissinger's all-consuming need to influence world affairs came to a screeching halt in 1977, when he was forced to step down as White House advisor following the election of Jimmy Carter. The former secretary of state died on Wednesday, November 29, at the age of 100.
For four decades, in Washington and on every continent, he continued to be a man of influence, dispensing his geopolitical analyses and strategic advice through multiple networks, combining official functions and private missions, speaking at conferences and writing books and articles for the press. But, by playing the role of eminence grise, justifying the relevance of his recommendations by his past diplomatic successes, "Dr. Kissinger" ran the risk of seeing the darker side of his past catch up with him.
As early as 1975, the US Senate committee chaired by Frank Church revealed his role in the fall of the Salvador Allende regime to the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in 1973. The declassification of the archives on these events in 2000 supported these accusations. In his 2001 book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, journalist Christopher Hitchens accused Kissinger of war crimes, not only in Latin America but also in Cambodia (for the bombings between 1969 and 1973).
Various judges in Chile, Argentina and France sought – in vain – to question the former secretary of state, who was consequently forced to leave certain countries off his lecture tours. In May 2001, he left France in a hurry after receiving a summons from Judge Roger Le Loire, who was investigating the "Condor" plan to eliminate opponents of Latin American dictatorships.
Conversations recorded at the White House and revealed in 2013 left no room for doubt. "We will not let Chile go down the drain," Kissinger threatened in 1970, after Allende's election. From Greece to Thailand and from the Philippines to Argentina, the fear of communism and the defense of American economic interests motivated the head of American diplomacy more than democracy. True to form, he never ceased to defend China against those advocating sanctions for its human rights abuses.
This in no way prevented him from pursuing his academic, editorial and political career. In 1977, he began teaching at Georgetown University, and in 1982 founded a lucrative consulting firm in New York, serving major private companies (Exxon Mobil, American Express) and governments. An advisor to the Venezuelan government (1990), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Crédit Lyonnais (1994) and Walt Disney (1997), Kissinger never lost his privileged access to the White House. To the very end, he remained an insider. Every president consulted him, both for approval of their policies and to neutralize the sharp-tongued, media-savvy Kissinger.
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