Kissinger: Even Worse Than Cheney

Constantin Costa-Gavras' 1982 film, Missing, had some pretty big stars-- including Jack Lemmon, Charles Cioffi and Sissy Spacek-- and won some pretty big awards-- including the Palme d'Or at Cannes for best male actor and the Academy Award for best writing-- and had a hugely acclaimed score by Vangelis, but there's a good chance you never saw it-- nor read the Tom Hauser book it was based on, The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice. That's because Henry Kissinger didn't want anyone to see that film or read that book. He got it banned. Really… in America. [It was banned in Chile too.] Earlier this morning we looked at the tragedy of war criminals being given a pass, making it inevitable for the destructive work of future war criminals. It was Dick Cheney and King Leopold we were looking at. In between them, though, was, chronologically speaking, Henry Kissinger, who's still alive, still unpunished, still welcomed into polite company, at least in some circles.

So the movie is about an American journalist, Charles Horman, who was as excited as I was when Allende was elected president of Chile. Luckily for me, I was driving a VW van around Asia at the time. Harmon and his wife drove their VW van down to Chile-- right into a bloody coup engineered by Nixon, Kissinger and Chilean fascist Agusto Pinochet. A very bloody coup. The CIA murdered Harmon. The movie is about his dad and his wife looking for him. This week a Chilean court finally admitted what happened, as if anyone whip know anything about the case-- other than Republicans and fascists-- ever suspected anything else.

A Chilean court said U.S. military intelligence played a key role that led to the 1973 killings of two Americans, whose story inspired the 1982 Oscar-winning film Missing. The court said former U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis gave Chilean officials information about journalist Charles Horman, 31, and student Frank Teruggi, 24, that led to their arrest and execution. This took place days after the 1973 coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. The movie Missing was about the search for Horman by his wife and father. The case was practically ignored in Chile until 2000, when Horman's widow Joyce filed a lawsuit against Pinochet. Courts in Chile thought Davis was living in Florida and had sought extradition, but he was secretly living in Chile and died there last year. "Judge Zepeda's ruling both implicates and incriminates U.S. intelligence personnel as playing a dark role in the murder of my husband," said Horman's widow Joyce. "My hope is that the record of evidence compiled by the court sheds further light on how and why Charles was targeted."

Former U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Davis and two other Kissinger stooges sued Costa-Garvas, Hauser, Universal Pictures and MCA for defamation of character in a successful attempt to keep the movie and book from being widely seen in the U.S. The U.S. State Department-- which still publicly displays a picture of Henry Kissinger--half-heartedly persists in denying any involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Horman, half-heartedly because in 1999 a declassified 1976 State Department memo admitted, "U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part."

So do I think, Kissinger should be dragged out of his home and shot like a dog today? I admit that I do but I also believe in due process of law and I would regret if Kissinger (and Cheney) were shot without trials. But unless there are trials and accountability there will be more Kissingers, more Cheney and, alas, more murdered Charles Hormans.