The Peace Prize Warlord

Operation Menu — the secret bombing of Cambodia — began in March 1969, two months after Nixon's inauguration. Kissinger was National Security Advisor and, by all documented accounts, one of the principal architects of the decision. C1 The bombing targeted North Vietnamese supply lines and bases inside Cambodian territory. It was conducted in secret — Congress was not notified, the American public was not told, and the flight records were falsified to conceal sorties into Cambodia. C1

The bombing continued until August 1973, when Congress legislated its end. By that point, U.S. aircraft had dropped more tonnage on Cambodia than was dropped on Japan during all of World War II. C2 The estimated civilian death toll ranges from 50,000 to 150,000 — the wide range reflecting the difficulty of accounting in a country whose administrative infrastructure was being destroyed. C2 The bombing also destabilized Cambodia's relatively neutral government, contributing to the political conditions that allowed the Khmer Rouge to seize power in 1975 — a genocide that killed approximately 1.7 million people. C2 Historians debate the degree to which U.S. intervention was directly causal to the Khmer Rouge's rise; the documented destabilizing effect of the bombing on Cambodian society is not disputed. C2

Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 — seven months before the Cambodian bombing ended.

Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile in September 1970 — the first democratically elected Marxist head of government in Latin American history. Kissinger's documented response was explicit: he directed that the CIA make the Chilean economy "scream" and worked to prevent Allende's confirmation by the Chilean Congress. C1

His recorded comment to the NSC on September 15, 1970 — that he saw no reason why Chile should be allowed to go communist "due to the irresponsibility of its own people" — is among the most concise expressions of the Kissinger doctrine: that democracy was acceptable when it produced acceptable results, and that American strategic interest overrode the democratic choices of foreign populations. C1

The CIA's involvement in Chilean destabilization from 1970 to 1973 is confirmed by declassified documents. The coup of September 11, 1973, brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Allende died in the Presidential Palace — killed or suicided during the coup, the forensic record indicating suicide under duress. Pinochet's subsequent regime killed an estimated 3,200 people, tortured tens of thousands, and disappeared over a thousand. C1 C2 Kissinger met with Pinochet in 1976 and, declassified records confirm, told him that the U.S. supported him and hoped he would succeed. C1

In 1971, when Pakistani military forces launched a genocidal campaign against Bangladeshi civilians — killing between 300,000 and 3 million people by varying historical estimates — Kissinger and Nixon backed Pakistan. The U.S. was using Pakistan as a conduit to open relations with China, and that strategic goal outweighed, in Kissinger's calculus, the documented mass murder. C1 American diplomats in Dhaka sent the "Blood Telegram" — one of the most famous dissents in State Department history — directly reporting genocide. Kissinger dismissed it. C1

In December 1975, Kissinger and President Ford visited Jakarta and met with Indonesian President Suharto. Declassified cables confirm that the Indonesian invasion of East Timor — then a Portuguese colony seeking independence — was discussed in those meetings. The invasion began the following day. The subsequent conflict and Indonesian occupation killed an estimated 100,000–180,000 people in a territory of less than 700,000. C1 U.S. arms sales to Indonesia continued throughout. C1

In 1976, Kissinger met with Argentine Foreign Minister César Guzzetti and, according to declassified records and witness accounts, indicated that the U.S. supported the junta's actions against political opponents and hoped they would complete their operations quickly. Argentina's subsequent "dirty war" killed between 10,000 and 30,000 people. C1

The pattern across all four cases is identical: strategic interest, as defined by Kissinger, took precedence over human life, as documented by his own government's records. The deaths are not alleged — they are documented. Kissinger's involvement is not alleged — it is in the declassified cables.