Mr.'s Reviews > The Trial of Henry Kissinger

This little book includes some of Christopher Hitchens' best investigative reporting. He puts former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on trial (at last), and indicts him for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus, East Timor, for an attempted assassination of Greek dissident journalist. The book is slim, but fairly detailed, and while it focuses on Kissinger (deservingly), the implicit thesis of the book is the flaw of international legal standards, that is to say, when a statesman commits crimes and is powerless he is hanged, if the statesman is powerful he is worshipped. Perhaps a little light on footnotes, Hitchens prefers to provide internal citations, but I think book's conclusions are actually conservative; Hitchens often cites the most conservative number of dead civilians to avoid legal pressure, i.e. 100,000 dead in East Timor (most studies cite 200,000 in total), one can be sure that the figures are not politicized, Kissinger's legal team would have brought Hitchens down in two seconds if there had been number inflation. (...)