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sent by Peter Bell:

Regarding "Seizing Arab Oil: Kissinger, 1975," Dec 30, 2004:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/piper...227/011141.html

Here's my question: Is this really Kissinger?

The question is sparked by two things in the piece. One is a strong
criticism of a Kissinger plan - the author says the plan would leave the
US impoverished at best: "If we do make Dr. Kissinger's recycling scheme
work, we will have created the engine of our own impoverishment."

Also, there is this "Vietnam was full of trees and brave men, and the (US)
national interest was almost invisible."

Kissinger saying this? I'm aware that Kissinger has since said almost as
much, but in '75 I wonder if he had already been willing to go that far.

So, I went to the Harper's page. They do not credit Kissinger as having
written the piece.

I googled; where is the attribution to Kissinger?

The closest I can find is a Mother Jones piece, which includes an
interview with a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia - serving in Saudi
Arabia when the Harper's piece was written.

"[the harper's piece and] a rash of similar stories appeared in other
magazines and newspapers. "I knew that it had to have been the result of a
deep background briefing," Akins says. "You don't have eight people coming
up with the same screwy idea at the same time, independently.

"Then I made a fatal mistake," Akins continues. "I said on television that
anyone who would propose that is either a madman, a criminal, or an agent
of the Soviet Union." Soon afterward, he says, he learned that the
background briefing had been conducted by his boss, then-Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger. Akins was fired later that year.

"Kissinger has never acknowledged having planted the seeds for the article."

So there is a suggestion that Kissinger did a briefing that led to this
and several other similar pieces. Kind of a distance from getting to
Kissinger wrote it, and in a context (also from MJ) where Kissinger was
advocating "massive political warfare" against Saudi Arabia, I could very
easily see folks he'd briefed making the logical assumption that, for
Henry, political warfare was always backed up by real warfare, and then
gaming out an on-the-ground war scenario to go with the political warfare
Henry was talking about.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/fea.../ma_273_01.html is the
article the above passages come from.

The critique of Kissinger's own ideas and the admission on Vietnam,
though, make me ask if anyone has better info on the attribution?

-Peter

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