Rory Dempsey

HIST30065
2,715 words

Misguided Morality: Henry Kissinger and Human Rights

Even the most cursory of glances at Henry Kissinger’s record would seem sufficient to

conclude that the former Secretary of State was not concerned by, let alone an advocate of,

human rights. Accordingly, Kissinger has long been the subject of condemnation from scores

of political, legal, and academic scholars who have taken to exposing the supposed

immorality behind his political manoeuvrings. Central to, and inseparable from, these

criticisms is the issue of human rights, so much so that Kissinger’s name has become

synonymous with approval of and even complicity in violations of human rights. Critics have

seized upon reams of newly declassified evidence that have gradually uncovered the

particulars of Kissinger’s “quiet” diplomacy, using the transcripts and telegrams to support

claims that, while serving under Nixon, and then Ford, in the 1970s, Kissinger’s conduct was

marked by a disregard for human rights that bordered on contempt. While these documents

are illuminating, a proper consideration of Henry Kissinger’s view of human rights requires

the analysis of his own writings, including his many books and addresses. This essay will

piece together Kissinger’s own view of human rights — at once utilitarian, hierarchical,

macroscopic, with its own inherent morality — demonstrating, in the process, that they

played a more significant role in his philosophy, foreign policy and diplomatic tactics than is

widely maintained. Despite his record fuelling accusations of a profound moral bankruptcy,

consideration of Kissinger’s own speeches and writings, coupled with consideration of his

critics’ and apologists’ views, affords us an outline of his nuanced stance on an even more

complex issue.

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 With the publication of Christopher Hitchens’ seminal polemic, The Trial of Henry

Kissinger, condemnation of the former Secretary of State — hitherto reserved to political and

academic circles — enjoyed a surge in popularity. The term ‘war criminal’, informed by

Kissinger’s track record of complicity with autocratic regimes and tacit approval of their

grave human rights abuses, became a favourite of Kissinger’s opponents: an ‘intellectually

bankrupt’ catchall that expresses, conveniently and eloquently, his moral shortcomings: his

self-serving tactics, Machiavellian Realpolitik and contempt for human rights. Hugh Arnold’s

semantically-driven study of Kissinger’s relationship with human rights provides an

interesting starting point for our purposes, despite its emphasis on quantitative research on

what must be considered an inherently qualitative issue.1 Barbara Keys, in Congress,

Kissinger, and the Origins of Human Rights Diplomacy, appears reluctant to accept

Kissinger’s increased use of the term, as identified by Arnold, as evidence of his concern for

the issue, pointing instead to the former Secretary of State’s general uncooperativeness and

incessant vetoing of human rights legislation in Congress.2 Umberto Tulli echoes this

perspective, arguing that Kissinger ‘constantly dismissed human rights as irrelevant to

foreign policy’.3 Tulli’s myopic view is consistent with the prevailing sentiment among anti-

Kissinger academic circles, and betrays a refusal to consider Kissinger’s repeated

explanations of his thinking. Other more moderate analyses are to be found in historian

Jeremi Suri’s and Jussi Hanhimaki’s considered portraits, the former raising a number of

salient points concerning the development of Kissinger’s worldview and the latter attempting

1 Hugh Arnold, “Henry Kissinger and Human Rights.” Universal Human Rights 2, no. 4 (1980): 58.
2Barbara Keys, “Congress, Kissinger, and the Origins of Human Rights Diplomacy”, Diplomatic
History, 34, no. 5 (2010): 849.
3Umberto Tulli, “‘Whose Rights are Human Rights?’ The ambiguous rise of human rights and the
demise of Kissingerism”, Cold War History, 12, no. 4 (2012), 576.

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to propose a shift in the perception of Kissinger from ‘war criminal’ to ‘flawed architect’.4

Unlike most works from both sides of the debate, this essay will not attempt to pass

judgement on, or indeed to justify, his transgressions (for an impartial analysis, see Steven

Feldstein’s Applying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Case Study of

Henry Kissinger). In considering the components of his conception of human rights, this

essay will highlight its position in Kissinger’s Weltenshauung, avoiding, as far as possible,

any unnecessary contribution to the saturated corpus of moral judgements against him.

Kissinger’s profoundly utilitarian worldview, which prioritised the protection of

national interests and security above all other foreign policy issues, framed his perspective on

human rights at a fundamental level.5 For Kissinger, protection of national interests was the

only way that human rights could be ensured for the largest number of people; protection of

human rights on a global scale was neither in the immediate interests nor the power of the

United States.6 The obvious byproduct of this perspective was the inevitable suffering of the

corresponding “minority”, whose rights lay beyond, or were said to have lain beyond, the

limits of U.S. influence. Though skeptical of the ‘empty posturing’ of excessive idealism,

Kissinger nonetheless sought to maintain a secure global framework that would

simultaneously benefit the majority and eventually lead to rights for the minority, whose

rights the U.S. could not directly protect — Cambodian and Vietnamese civilians and

political prisoners of autocratic regimes included.7 This worldview was, in many respects,

incompatible with international law, under which, Stephen Feldstein argues, ‘the death of

4 Jussi Hanhimaki, “Conclusion,” in Flawed Architect, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 492.
5Michael Stohl, David Carleton & Steven E. Johnson, “Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Assistance”,
Journal of Peace Research, 21, no. 3, 216, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/424023.
6Henry Kissinger, “Continuity and Change in Foreign Policy”, in For the Record: Selected
Statements, (Boston: Little Brown & Co, 1981), 84.
7 Henry Kissinger, quoted in Arnold, “Henry Kissinger and Human Rights”, 63.

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nearly one million civilians outweighs the American interest’.8 Kissinger nevertheless

maintained that the results obtained through the practical approach were preferable to the

inertia of idealistic bureaucracy.9 Invoking the risks of soured international relations that

result from public condemnation of human rights, he warned that ‘a policy of moral advocacy

… would surely condemn countless millions to great suffering, danger, or despair.’10 Such

utilitarian means, justified only by their ends, clashed with those of idealists and moralists,

who sought to protect the basic rights of every human being, everywhere, at all times. As the

‘arch realist’, Kissinger did not disregard human rights entirely but seems to have been

motivated by a desire to achieve, through utilitarian and pragmatic application of Realpolitik,

conditions in which human rights could thrive.11 Colin Dueck attributes Kissinger’s hard-line,

pragmatic utilitarianism to his childhood in nascent Nazi Germany, where he witnessed

‘Germany’s descent from democracy to tyranny, lawlessness, and racial persecution’. This

experience, Dueck argues, left him ‘skeptical that moralistic proclamations could uphold

civilized order’.12 The lasting impact of these formative years is evident in several of

Kissinger’s addresses: ‘The obscene and atrocious acts [of] World War II,’ he announced in

1977, ‘impressed on the world the enormity of the challenge to human rights.’13 He warned

that ‘the alternative to some governments that resist … authoritarian methods may not be …

enhancements of human rights but … greater suffering, danger, or despair.’14 The relativism

8Steven Feldstein, “Applying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Case Study of
Henry Kissinger”, California Law Review, 92, no. 6, (2004), 1706, doi: 10.2307/3481353.
9Henry Kissinger, “Moral Promise and Practical Needs”, Department of State Bulletin, LXXV, no.
1951, (1976), 603.
10 Kissinger, “Continuity and Change”, 86.
11 Hanhimaki, “Introduction”, in Flawed Architect, xxi.
12Colin Dueck, “Realists as Conservatives”, in Hard Line, (Princeton: Princeton University Press),
151.
13 Kissinger, “Continuity and Change”, 82.
14 Ibid, 86.

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inherent in this utilitarian worldview was a key tenet of his concept of human rights and

elucidates the logic, however incompatible with contemporary standards of right and wrong,

behind his foreign policy.

The task of determining Henry Kissinger’s stance on human rights is intrinsically

linked to the controversial question of his morality. Kissinger was insistent that morality and

realism were not mutually exclusive and made clear his opinion on the relationship between

two in relation foreign policy, ‘refus[ing] to accept’ that ‘moral values and policy objectives

are irreconcilable.’15 Though he rejected the Wilsonian premise that ‘there could be no

distinction between the morality of the individual and the morality of the state’, Kissinger did

not believe that foreign policy was, or should be, a strictly amoral process.16 Morality itself

was not the problem: only ‘when policy [became] excessively moralistic’ did it ‘turn quixotic

or dangerous.’17 Indeed, Kissinger sought to avoid excessiveness in either direction, insisting

that, in diplomacy, ‘morality expresses itself in the willingness to persevere through a series

of steps, each of which is inevitably incomplete in terms of the ultimate goal.’18 His view of

human rights, therefore, the advocacy of which he viewed as ‘a powerful political weapon’,

was perhaps as considered as that of many vocal humans rights activists. 19 Addressing the

Organisation of American States in Santiago, Chile in 1976, Kissinger flagged ‘the recurrent

human rights problem of [the Western] hemisphere’ and raised the ‘serious evidence of

15 Henry Kissinger, “The Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy”, Document 59, in Foreign Relations
of the United States, 1969-1976 Volume XXXVIII, Part I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, July 15,
1975, 313.
16 Henry Kissinger, “Realpolitik Turns on Itself”, in Diplomacy, (New York: Simon & Schuster), 163.
17Henry Kissinger, “Moral Purposes and Policy Choices”, Document 19, in Foreign Relations of the
United States, 1969-1976 Volume XXXVIII, Part I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, October 8, 1973,
86.
18Henry Kissinger, “Peace and Justice”, in Does America Need Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy
for the 21st Century, (New York: Simon & Schuster), 287.
19 Kissinger, “Continuity and Change”, 84.

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violations of … international standards of human rights’ in the two reports of the Inter-

American Commission.20 He stressed that ‘human rights’ were ‘the very essence of a

meaningful life, and human dignity … the ultimate purpose of civil government,’ and that

their protection was an ‘obligation … of all the nations of the Americas.’ 21 While it would

seem easy to dismiss, as some have, these pronouncements as mere lip service, Arnold

maintains that these sentiments were ‘more than mere afterthoughts [and] occupied a central

place in his speeches.’22 Making clear the fundamental differences between his worldview

and that of Congress’ idealists, he stressed that ‘human rights policy [must be] presented in

the context of a realistic assessment of world affairs and not as the magic cure for the

difficulties and shortcomings of mankind’s contemporary experience.’23 While Keys and

others point to his intransigence on matters of human rights towards Congress as evidence of

his lack of concern, transcripts of meetings reveal persistent attempts to reason with them. He

was clear that ‘Congress has every right to question when issues of national security issues

are raised’, recognising that ‘even in national security issues, we should use what influence

we have to promote the basic fundamentals of human rights’; his insistence that American

values ‘cannot be automatically translated and made meaningful to every country in the

world’ points to a nuanced understanding of the sensitivities of diplomatic relations and the

delicate handling that they require.24 Human rights, far from interfering with this process,

were essential to this philosophy.

Henry Kissinger, Human Rights and the Western Hemisphere, (Washington, D.C.: State
20

Department), Ron Nessen Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, July 9, 1976, 3, https://
www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/7368359.pdf.
21 Kissinger, “Continuity and Change”, 82.
22 Ibid, 87.
23 Ibid.
24Henry Kissinger, U.S. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, Foreign Relations of
the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXXVIII, Part 1, December 17, 1974, Document 49, 258.

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 Similarly, Kissinger’s panoptic worldview translated itself into a broad, macroscopic

view of human rights; from such an all-encompassing perspective, the human being as an

individual — microscopic in the larger scheme of international affairs — was secondary, at

best, to other concerns. Kissinger’s philosophy gave rise to a worldview that was almost

cartographic in its scope, consider ing each state as an outline with a leader at the helm: ‘In

the traditional conception,’ he wrote, ‘international relations are conducted by political units

treated almost as personalities. The domestic structure is taken as given; foreign policy begins

where domestic policy ends.’ 25 His consideration of international politics had more in

common with a chessplayer — sovereign states arranged in order from pawn through to king,

engaged in a perpetual struggle for security — than a domestic politician. Accordingly,

Kissinger viewed not human rights themselves as a hindrance to foreign policy but the means

by which they were pursued.26 Quick to dispel falsely dichotomous notions of choices

between morality and effective foreign policy, Kissinger warned of the ‘inevitable eternal

conflict’ that would erupt if ‘every nation of the world press[ed] for the immediate

implementation of all its values.’27 Attempts to censure human rights abuses in allied

countries by ‘restrictive American legislation’ equally posed ‘a serious problem … not

because of the moral view it expresses, which we share, but because of the mistaken

impression it creates that … security ties are acts of charity.’28 In his writings, Kissinger

presents himself not as indifferent to the suffering of civilians but cognisant of the limits of

the U.S.’ ability to affect immediate change.29 Idealistic ‘hostile propaganda’ would result

25 Henry Kissinger, “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy”, Daedalus, 95, no. 2, (1966), 503.
26 Sargeant, America’s Human Rights Discovery, 138.
27 Kissinger, “Moral Promise and Practical Needs”, 604.
28 Kissinger, “Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy”, 323.
29 Kissinger, “Moral Promise and Practical Needs”, 603.

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only in embittered relations with no discernible improvement in standards of human rights.30

He insisted that friendly terms with abusive regimes, which offered the prospect of

diplomatic persuasion, were preferable to the ostracisation of every country that had violated

rights of its citizens. Even so, as Hanhimaki argues, ‘his overall approach to foreign policy …

often blinded Kissinger to the suffering of real people in real places, and ‘his limited

worldview resulted in mistaken policies that contributed to immense human suffering.’31 This

approach was, however, a response to the ‘a rather simplified conception of human rights’

that prevailed in Washington at the time, which treated the U.S.’ defence of ‘other countries

as an award for good behavior’ and not ‘a vital security interest of free peoples.’32 Global

stability was the sole ends that would allow each state to devote themselves to nurturing the

rights of its citizens. His pragmatic understanding of human rights was concerned with

manipulating each state’s national interest to attain a stable world order in which human

rights could then flourish, in the absence of war and belligerent nations, in each individual

state.

While morality factored into Kissinger's philosophy at a fundamental level, his view

of human rights mirrored his hierarchical conception of international politics, according to

which global stability and international security relied upon a balanced, stratified positioning

of states in order of power and influence. His concentration on U.S. national interest thus

likely led him to prioritise the rights of its citizens and, after them, the rights of those in other

powerful countries. Arnold notes that all ‘fifteen references to human rights’ in addresses in

Vietnam were ‘concerned with the American POWs and a demand for their humane treatment

30 Ibid.
31 Hanhimaki, Flawed Architect, xxii.
32 Kissinger, “Continuity and Change”, 269.

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or return, or a demand for an accounting of the missing in action.’33 At an immediate level,

Kissinger’s everyday diplomacy was perhaps more concerned with the rights of humans who

were part of the U.S.’ national interest and security. The claim that human rights do not factor

into his thinking, however, is ill-informed. Kissinger's writings suggest that he considered

many of the more immediate rights outlined by the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of

Human Rights (UDHR) — to marriage, family, freedom of thought and expression — to be

unattainable without others, namely the right to democracy. For Kissinger, then, containing

the spread of communism and providing leaders of each state with the foundations of the

democratic infrastructure — under which human rights could thrive — better served the

cause of human rights than public condemnation of their mistreatment of civilians. The logic

behind this reasoning is, of course, not perfect, but it provides us with an alternate perspective

to Kissinger’s stance on human rights and how they factored into his approach to foreign

policy. Underpinning Kissinger’s stratified ‘structure of peace’ was Article 28 of the UDRH,

which stipulates that ‘everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the

rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.’34 35 Far from omitting

human rights from foreign policy entirely, Kissinger thought as much in terms of which

humans’ rights as which human rights the United States had the capacity to protect.

Kissinger’s pragmatic attempts to respond to the same complexities later faced by Carter, are

repeatedly dismissed as immoral. Keys succinctly summarises these complexities: ‘Which is

more urgent? Acting against electric-shock torture of suspected terrorists, preventing children

33Hugh Arnold, “Henry Kissinger and Human Rights”, Universal Human Rights, 2, no. 4, (1980), 61.
https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/dosb/1951.pdf#page=3.
34Henry Kissinger, “Between the Old Left and the New Right”, Foreign Affairs, 78, no. 3, (1999),
115.

UN General Assembly, "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," 217 (III) A (Paris, 1948), http://
35

www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (accessed May 29, 2019).

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from dying of easily treatable diseases, or promoting self-determination?’36 At the core of the

dilemma is whether it is any less moral to choose to attempt to eliminate one of these issues

over the others. Kissinger consistently expressed these concerns in what would be futile

attempts to justify his methods: ‘To what extent,’ he asked, ‘are we able to affect the internal

policies of other governments and to what extent is it desirable?’37 He reasoned that the

majority of the ‘150 nations in the world’ have ‘ideologies or political practices’ that were

‘inconsistent with U.S. values’, but that the U.S. has political alliances with most of them.38

While Arnold and, to a certain extent, Keys suggest that Kissinger’s use of ‘human rights’ in

his public addresses was a means of appeasing human rights advocates without taking action,

the line of thought outlined running through his apologias, however questionable, stands to

reason, and while his prioritisation of which, and whose, rights needed protection was

perhaps misguided, it was valid nonetheless.

Determining Kissinger’s perspective on human rights is a task almost as complex as

the issue itself. Despite this, considering the justifications and reasoning for his methods in

his own writings, viewing them as part of the larger body of scholarship surrounding his

legacy, affords us a unique and alternate perspective to the homogeneously antagonistic

criticisms of his opponents. In the absence of biased invective, momentarily casting aside the

framework of moral judgement, the conception of human rights that crystallises is one

consistent with a profoundly utilitarian worldview, in which every nation has its place, and in

which human rights were an ends to be achieved by, at times, less than ideal means. This

worldview was not marked by an indifference to human suffering but a calculated

consideration of risks and concern for the “greater good”. Nostalgic for the foregone days of

36 Keys, “Congress, Kissinger, and the Origins”, 827.

37 Kissinger, “Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy”, 322.
38 Kissinger, “Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy”, 320.

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unsentimental foreign relations, Kissinger’s political philosophy was at odds with the

prevailing humanitarian sensibilities of his time. As pragmatic, effective and measured as it

was selective, hierarchical and unfeeling, his perception of human rights was obscured by his

reputation for calculation and practicality; this approach — misguided, misinterpreted, at

times even misunderstood — was perhaps not as immoral as many wish to believe.

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 Bibliography

Primary sources:

Kissinger, Henry. “Between the Old Left and the New Right.” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 3
(1999): 99-116. doi:10.2307/20049283.

Kissinger, Henry. “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy.” Daedalus 95, no. 2 (1966):
503-529. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20026982.

Kissinger, Henry. Human Rights and the Western Hemisphere. Washington, D.C.: State
Department, 1976. Ron Nessen Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library. Available at: https://
www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/7368359.pdf.

Kissinger, Henry. For the Record: Selected Statements 1977-1980. Boston: Little Brown &
Co, 1981.

Kissinger, Henry. “The Moral Foundations of Foreign Policy.” In Foreign Relations of the
United States, 1969-1976 Volume XXXVIII, Part I, Foundations of Foreign Policy,
Document 59. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2012.

Kissinger, Henry. “Realpolitik Turns on Itself.” In Diplomacy, 137-167. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994.

Kissinger, Henry. “Moral Purposes and Policy Choices.” In Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1969-1976 Volume XXXVIII, Part I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, Document
19. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2012.

Kissinger, Henry. “Moral Promise and Practical Needs.” Department of State Bulletin,
LXXV, 1951, (1976): 597-605. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/
document/dosb/1951.pdf.

Kissinger, Henry. “Peace and Justice.” In Does America Need Foreign Policy? Toward a
Diplomacy for the 21st Century, 234-282. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

U.S. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, Foreign Relations of the United

States, 1969-1976, Volume XXXVIII, Part 1, Document 49. Washington: United States
Government Printing Office, 2012.

Secondary sources:

Arnold, Hugh M. “Henry Kissinger and Human Rights.” Universal Human Rights 2, no. 4
(1980): 57-71. doi:10.2307/761851.

Dueck, Colin. “Realists as Conservatives.” In Hard Line, 142-188. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2010.

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Feldstein, Steven. “Applying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Case
Study of Henry Kissinger.” California Law Review 92, no. 6 (2004): 1663-1728. doi:
10.2307/3481353.

Hanhimaki, Jussi. “Conclusion.” In Flawed Architect, 485-492. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2004.

Hanhimaki, Jussi. “Introduction.” In Flawed Architect, xiii-xxii. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2004.

Keys, Barbara. “Congress, Kissinger, and the Origins of Human Rights Diplomacy.”
Diplomatic History, 34, no. 5 (2010): 823-851. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.
1467-7709.2010.00897.x.

Sargeant, Daniel. “Oasis in the Desert? America’s Human Rights Discovery.” In The
Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, 125-145. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Stohl, Michael, Carleton, David, and Johnson, Steven E. “Human Rights and U.S. Foreign
Assistance.” Journal of Peace Research 21, no. 3 (1984): 215-226. https://
www.jstor.org/stable/424023.

Tulli, Umberto. “‘Whose Rights are Human Rights?’ The ambiguous rise of human rights and
the demise of Kissingerism”. Cold War History, 12, no. 4 (2012): 573-593.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2012.654491.

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