The towering diplomat and Nobel prize winner shaped decades of US foreign policy but was seen by critics as a war criminal
Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon who became one of the most prominent and controversial figures of US foreign policy in the 20th century, has died. He was 100.
His consulting firm Kissinger Associates announced his death in a statement on Wednesday evening, but did not disclose a cause.
Continue reading...Papers reveal how Richard Nixon was briefed on impending military takeover in Chile that ushered in 17-year dictatorship
Two more US Department of State documents relating to Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in Chile have been declassified, revealing how President Richard Nixon was briefed on the impending military takeover.
The president’s daily brief from 11 September 1973, the morning of the US-backed military coup, informed Nixon that Chilean military officers were “determined to restore political and economic order”, but “may still lack an effectively coordinated plan that would capitalize on the widespread civilian opposition”.
Continue reading...President hosted rightwing mogul Agustín Edwards in September 1970 and discussed plans to foil socialist election-winner
Days before Salvador Allende’s confirmation as Chile’s president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The documents, published in a new Spanish edition of the Pinochet files by archivist and writer Peter Kornbluh, include Nixon’s agenda for 15 September 1970, which shows a meeting in the Oval Office with Agustín Edwards, the owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group.
Continue reading...Vice-president and wife exposed to ‘massive dosages’ of ionising radiation at US ambassador’s residence, declassified files show
Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, were exposed to potentially harmful radiation while staying at the US ambassador’s residence in Moscow in 1959, according to declassified Secret Service documents.
Nixon, who was vice-president at the time, was not informed of the threat, and the state department was only informed in 1976, when a member of his Secret Service detail, James Golden, revealed that detection equipment had measured significant levels of radiation in and around the Nixons’ sleeping quarters at the residence, Spaso House.
Continue reading...The trip was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough at the time but now critics in the US question its wisdom
On a brisk winter day in February 1972, the 34-year-old American diplomat, Winston Lord, arrived in Beijing with his boss, Henry Kissinger, and president Richard Nixon. Barely an hour after they checked in to their guest house, a message came: “Chairman Mao wants to see president Nixon.”
The urgency from Mao resonated with the excitement from the American delegation. The establishment of bilateral relations offered great opportunities for both sides in facing a common enemy: the Soviet Union. For more than two decades since the Chinese communists took over the mainland, Beijing and Washington had had no official contact on this scale.
Continue reading...The country star is not always remembered for his politics, but his about-face to withdraw support for Nixon and the Vietnam war may be his finest moment
“I speak my mind in a lot of these songs,” Johnny Cash wrote in the liner notes to the album Man in Black, released 50 years ago today. He might be better known now for the outlaw songs of his youth or the reckonings with death in his final recordings, but Cash used his 1971 album to set out his less-discussed political vision: long on feeling and empathy, and short on ideology and partisanship. The United States seemed hopelessly polarised, and Cash confronted that division head-on, demanding more of his fellow citizens and Christians amid the apparently endless war in Vietnam.
Continue reading...Many politicians and diplomats from the 1980s lay claim to a pivotal role in ending the cold war, but the former US secretary of state George Shultz, who has died aged 100, had a better claim than most. And he was not shy in letting people know, as he did at length in his 1,184-page account of his years at the state department, Turmoil and Triumph (1993).
When he became secretary of state in 1982 – a job he was to hold for seven years – relations between the US and the Soviet Union were at a dangerous low. The administration of US president Ronald Reagan was packed with anti-Soviet hardliners. Reagan himself in 1983 dubbed the Soviet Union “the evil empire”.
Continue reading...Asking if Donald Trump can rehabilitate himself in US public life as did a disgraced president before him, legendary Washington reporter Elizabeth Drew was not optimistic.
Related: Chaos of Trump's last days in office reverberates with fresh 'plot' report
Continue reading...What does Trump mean by claiming he’s the ‘law and order’ president and is this a new argument from him?
“I am your president of law and order,” Donald Trump declared in June, as federal agents violently cleared peaceful protesters from a park near the White House. Lately, Trump has simply tweeted “law and order” in all caps. But what is his strategy here – and will it work?
Related: Trump compares police shootings to golfing and defends teenager who shot protesters
Continue reading...Ronald Reagan made racist remarks about African delegates to the United Nations, newly released audio recordings have revealed. 'Damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes,' Reagan tells Richard Nixon, who erupts in laughter. At the time of the call, Nixon was still president and Reagan was governor of California