Part contemporary investigation and part historical inquiry, The Trials of Henry Kissinger follows the quest of one journalist in search of justice. The film focuses on Christopher Hitchens' charges against Henry Kissinger as a war criminal - allegations documented in Hitchens' book of the same title - based on his role in countries such as Cambodia, Chile, and Indonesia. Kissinger's story raises profound questions about American foreign policy and highlights a new era of human rights. Increasing evidence about one man's role in a long history of human rights abuses leads to a critical examination of American diplomacy through the lens of international standards of justice. Gibney and Jarecki use extensive interviews and archival footage to remind us of Kissinger's powerful role in global affairs, while reconstructing the cases that Hitchens so adamantly argues in his book.

Peacemaker or war criminal? One of the most powerful statesmen of the 20th century, Henry Kissinger is the also one of the most controversial. The former U.S. Secretary of State was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but has more recently been summoned in five countries to answer questions in the ongoing investigation of human rights abuses by Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile (those summons currently remain unanswered).

Journalist Christopher Hitchens makes no bones about his answer to that question. He states boldly that Kissinger should be tried for war crimes, and his arguments are examined by filmmakers Gibney and Jarecki in their new documentary. Hitchens, who wrote a book with the same title, focuses his case against Kissinger based on his role in the assassination of a Chilean general in 1970, the secret bombing of Cambodia in 1969, and the sale of U.S. weapons to Indonesia, which were used in the East Timor massacre of 1975.

Gibney and Jarecki use archival footage and new interviews with important players in the events, offering a revelatory portrait of Kissinger during these years. Indeed, for them, the personal is political, and they give insights into how Kissinger’s early experiences of the Holocaust may have influenced his later political decisions.

Producer-director Jarecki’s documentary and investigative works have appeared on BBC TV, National Geographic, and “60 Minutes.” Writer-director Gibney was senior producer of the HBO documentary “Soldiers in the Army of God” and is currently producing a documentary miniseries called “The Blues” with executive producer Martin Scorsese.

HRW: What inspired you to make this film?

Gibney: The inciting incident was Chris’s articles in Harper’s [which later became a book]. We credit him with the bold statement that Kissinger is a war criminal. But we went in a different direction. We were interested in Kissinger the man, looking for a possible explanation for his motives.

Jarecki: We wanted to give the fairest look at [Hitchens’] case. We would not have made the film if we didn’t believe that his charges didn’t have merit. The charges call for an inquiry.

Gibney: Well, I don’t know if it’s radical. It may be a bit shocking for some people. But the concept of universal justice is a pretty well regarded idea—particularly in the wake of 9/11. One would like to think that there are universal standards of justice that you can apply to everyone. One of the advantages of globalization is that it has brought people closer to the idea of universal accountability. Now Americans are used to ruling the world and therefore not being very accountable. If we’re going to insist on justice everywhere in the world, mustn’t we insist on it at home?

Jarecki: There’s no question that the U.S. government’s position has been. With their recent retreat from the International Criminal Court, with the unsigning of the treaty that Clinton had signed but not ratified yet, they’re really saying that international law does not apply to Americans. But that just creates confusion about where moral authority lies. Who then can tell any dictator, any Milosevic, anywhere in the world that what’s he’s doing is inappropriate if the United States is not willing to look inward.

Jarecki: I don’t think we can take credit for being timely because we were just filming something as it was happening. But Henry Kissinger is the poster child of the pursuit of accountability for Americans in international law. And of course he’s not the only person who would be accountable. And Americans don’t like the potential example that could lead to what they think of as abuses by other countries.

Gibney: Yeah, we sent him a letter. He declined to be interviewed. He didn’t want to be in a program with critics that he regarded as irresponsible.

Gibney: What [Time magazine editor] Walter Isaacson says in the film is that Kissinger had a very cynical reaction to the Holocaust. Coming out of that horrific experience, he viewed power as more important than anything else, and that he needed to be close to the seat of it. He lived his life that way, and he made a lot bargains. He was not a man guided by a strong moral compass or great regard for American democracy.

Jarecki: As a person coming out of the Holocaust, and having lost family members in it, he went the way of some people who go through that experience of developing a real hard line attitude toward totalitarianism in any form. He saw Communism cast a new and only slightly different manifestation of the totalitarianism of which he’d been a victim. Hence, his extraordinary commitment to ending communism is explained by his Holocaust experience. But his anti-Communism was important enough, from the way the evidence looks, that he would go beyond the law to pursue it.

Then on the private level, he took away from that experience a hardline-ism in his personal conduct, in the sense of by-any-means-necessary to get into the place of power rather than being the young and embarrassed outcast that the Holocaust had made of him in Germany. He left Germany in ’38 when things were getting extremely humiliating for Jews. Finding his way into the White House, he was someone on a personal level who sought personal power and acceptance by the establishment.

HRW: What else did you learn about the man?

Gibney: Going back over the old footage, I realized what a celebrity he was. He understood celebrity in way that was way ahead of the time. And by making himself a darling of the media, he went a long way toward making himself invulnerable. I grew up, like many people, with a positive image of Kissinger—the peacemaker and Nobel Prize winner.

Jarecki: Our film is like marshalling an attack on Mr. Rogers. I find him quite likable. I believe that he felt he was doing the right thing. But he doesn’t have to be Dr. Strangelove to have broken domestic and international law.

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