Kissinger and Friends

This chapter discusses Henry Kissinger's relationship with military dictatorships, analyzing U.S. policies toward Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguay. What is evident is that the secretary of state was comfortable and loquacious in the presence of men who authorized mass murder, torture, and terrorism. His most revealing memorandums of conversations on political philosophy are with military dictators and their minions. The mayhem created by these military ideologues forced Kissinger to confront the issues of human rights and international terrorism. Kissinger's intellectual defense of military extremism, his reluctant embrace of human rights matters, and his policies toward the military dictatorships revealed fundamental tenets about his character and his concept of international relations.