Public Comment

During the hoopla surrounding the death of Henry Kissinger, we must not forget his dark side. He was an amoral practitioner of the art of realpolitik. His role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile, is an excellent example. In 1970, Salvador Allende, a socialist politician, won the 1970 Chilean presidential election. Allende said he was committed to democracy but was supported by the Communist Party. Fearing his election would push Chile toward communism, Kissinger became "the architect of U.S. efforts to destabilize” Allende’s government that ultimately ended up In a 1973, military coup led by Augusto Pinochet.  

For the next half-century, Pinochet led a brutal regime under which thousands of Chileans were disappeared, tortured, and murdered. When Pinochet’s human rights violations became a world-wide concern, then Secretary of State Kissinger assured Pinochet that President Gerald Ford's administration would not punish him for his violations of human rights.  

In a 2001interview by The NewsHour’s Elizabeth Farnsworth Kissinger was asked, "Why did you not say to him [Pinochet]: You're violating human rights? You're killing people. Stop it.?” Kissinger callously replied, "First of all, human rights were not an international issue at the time, the way they have become since.”