Reflecting this singular record, Dr. Kissinger is among America's most admired celebrities. He has been consulted by every president for the past four decades, he’s lionized by other celebrities, he’s a media darling quoted with awe by pundits and reporters, his company is eagerly sought by Washington and New York’s most exclusive hostesses, his own consulting business is booming, he’s offered huge bucks to sit on corporate boards like the one Conrad Black once controlled which then crow lustily about their great coup,
Not even his shameless public support for the dictators in Beijing during the Tiananmen massacre, at the exact same time they were making him rich by opening their doors to his American corporate clients, could sully his reputation, a fact neither his new book on China nor the fawning reviews have thought fit to mention.
Now it’s Canada's turn to be graced by the good doctor. The hoopla is already well advanced. In a couple of weeks he’ll be in Toronto to star in the latest of the high-profile Munk Debate series. His debating partner will be Time magazine’s Fareed Zakaria, who greeted Osama bin Laden’s murder last month by lumping him in with Hitler as “two of history’s great mass murderers.” I wonder where exactly he’ll situate Dr. K.
Lucky locals have the opportunity to pay between $25 and $90 to see and hear a real live accused war criminal. In return, I’m told Dr. Kissinger’s fee is likely between $50,000 to $100,000, but this is not confirmed. Presumably he’s not doing it out of the goodness of his heart, and while such a sum is mere pocket change for Dr. Kissinger these days, it’s considerably more than he’d get where he belongs – in the dock at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The Munk Debates are an initiative of a foundation set up by Peter Munk, the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corporation. According to the website, the debates “benefit from the advice” of an advisory board that includes Andrew Coyne, Allan Gotleib, George Jonas, Margaret McMillan and Janice Gross Stein. Whether any of them or Mr. Munk himself approved the choice of Dr. Kissinger is not known, but there is no record of any protest and none seems to have resigned to date.
The moderator and co-organizer of the debates is Rudyard Griffiths, who has a reputation for advocating measures to develop knowledgeable citizens with “robust civic values.” He too has not resigned in protest at having to interact with Dr. Kissinger and to get paid to do so.
The debate will be held at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, which seats 2,630 people. A jammed house is fully anticipated. Unless some will attend in order to issue a citizen’s arrest against Dr. Kissinger – it’s been attempted in London and Dublin, and international arrest warrants were issued by judges in Spain and France – that means 2,630 Torontonians are prepared to pay good money to listen to a man responsible for untold human misery. This number is somewhat smaller than the 3,200 people murdered by the Pinochet regime in Chile that Henry Kissinger did so much to install and support.
I’m sure the Kissinger saga tells us something about both the United States and our own country. But I’m not sure I want to know what it is.
