On September 30, 2023, a Georgian-language Facebook user published a post which, according to the author, quotes the opinions of American diplomat Henry Kissinger. In a lengthy quote attributed to Kissinger, we read how the United States fought against the Soviet Union, which was the greatest threat to the Western system. Among many other anti-American and anti-Western assertions, according to the post’s author, Kissinger admits that Hitler’s rise to power was planned in the US, World War II was orchestrated by the US, and that the Lend-Lease program was part of this “premeditated and staged theater scene.” The post is accompanied by constant emphasis on the strength and intelligence of the Soviet Union and Stalin, as if Kissinger is fascinated by his foresight and the system that Stalin created in the form of the Soviet Union.
The introductory part of the post mentions that Henry Kissinger voiced these opinions in an interview with the Spanish publication “El Mundo.”
The claim that Henry Kissinger, in an interview with the Spanish publication “El Mundo”, blames the United States for bringing Hitler to power and causing the Second World War is false. An extensive interview with Kissinger was indeed published by “El Mundo” on March 25, 2023; however, the main topic of the interview was Kissinger’s book “Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy” published in 2022, and Kissinger did not talk about the Soviet Union and Stalin in the interview. No other interview with Henry Kissinger can be found on the website of “El Mundo.”
Topics Discussed by Kissinger with El Mundo
On March 25, 2023, the Spanish publication “El Mundo” published an interview with Henry Kissinger conducted by historian Niall Ferguson. This is the only interview with Henry Kissinger that can be found on the “El Mundo” website. In the interview, Henry Kissinger talks about his book, “Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy ” and discusses the leaders whose political activity and management style analysis he paid special attention to. In Henry Kissinger’s book, Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew, and Margaret Thatcher are discussed, Stalin is not on this list, and therefore his name was not mentioned in the interview.
The main part of the interview concerns Richard Nixon and his administration’s relations with China. Speaking about China, Kissinger noted that the world is entering the critical phase of the new Cold War, when two radically different and incompatible systems are confronting each other, which in the age of technology can not only transform civilization but also destroy it.
In the interview, Henry Kissinger touched upon the Russia-Ukraine war and the decisions made by Vladimir Putin. “Putin’s main problem is that he is at the head of a country that is about to fall, and in this crisis he has lost his sense of proportionality. There is no justification for his behavior,” Kissinger said in an interview with “El Mundo”.
How does Kissinger Describe the Soviet Union?
In modern political analysis, Henry Kissinger is a particularly controversial figure, and his views are often the subject of criticism. Although the former US Secretary of State has often shown a loyal position towards dictators and violent regimes, his assessments of the Soviet Union were always critical.
In 2014, Henry Kissinger reviewed the Cold War in an extensive interview with Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas. Asked whether the Cold War could have been avoided, Kissinger emphasized that the Cold War was inevitable – “if you read what Stalin was saying at the time about the nature of international systems, it was imperative for him to have a confrontational atmosphere between the two systems.” According to Kissinger, Stalin needed to enter into a new conflict in order to consolidate around a common idea of society after the war.
In the same interview, Kissinger also talks about the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union – “I think now—maybe not so explicitly then—but I think now that the Soviets became gradually aware of the unworkability of their system. And I think, as I pointed out before, that Brezhnev sort of felt it, but he didn’t know how to translate it into action, and maybe he was wiser than Gorbachev in the sense that he knew that if you fool around with that system, that there was no margin there to adjust it, and that when you try to adjust it, it was almost bound to collapse.”
Fabricated quotes, the purpose of which is to emphasize the superiority of the Soviet Union over the United States of America, have been circulated in the name of Henry Kissinger in the past as well. For more details, see the articles prepared by “Myth Detector:”
- Kissinger’s Interview about USSR is Fake and was Disseminated by Progressnews based on a Russian Satirical Edition
- Do the Words “We Only Had Sex, They (Soviet People) Had True Love” Belong to Kissinger?
About the Source
The disinformation amplified by the Georgian-language Facebook user “Beso Beso” has been debunked by “Myth Detector” in the past as well (1, 2, 3).
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