Abstract

Kissinger's Shadow Over the Council on Foreign Relations

The article focuses on the influence of former statesman Henry Kissinger over the United States Council on Foreign Relations. In 2003, Kenneth Maxwell, a historian of Latin America, published a review of Peter Kornbluh's "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability" in the November/December 2003 issue of "Foreign Affairs," the influential journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Maxwell's essay enraged two former statesmen with deep connections to the council--Henry Kissinger and his longtime associate William Rogers. On May 13 Maxwell resigned from the council. What triggered Maxwell's resignation was a smoldering exchange with Rogers in "Foreign Affairs"--an exchange, Maxwell insists, that was abruptly curtailed after Kissinger applied direct and indirect pressure on the editor of the journal, James Hoge. Now, after months of silence about that suppressed debate, Maxwell has emerged with a 13,000-word essay about the affair, "The Case of the Missing Letter in Foreign Affairs."