In this excerpt, we are examining a declassified State Department transcript. We pick up here from the previous entry where Kissinger was shaming a colleague about the escape of information. A subject discussed below relates to how American weapons that were supposed to be used only for self defense on the part of Indonesia were used instead to slaughter and subjugate the people of East Timor.
HABIB: Our assessment was that if it was going to be trouble, it would come up before your return. And I was told they decided it was desirable to go ahead with the cable.
Philip Habib
[KISSINGER]: Nonsense. I said do it for a few weeks and then open up again.
PHILIP HABIB: The cable will not leak.
[KISSINGER]: Yes it will and it will go to Congress too and then we will have hearings on it.
HABIB: I was away. I was told by cable that it had come up.
[KISSINGER]: That means that there are two cables! And that means twenty guys have seen it.
HABIB: No, I got it back-channel-it was just one paragraph double talk and cryptic so I knew what it was talking about. I was told that Leigh thought that there was a legal requirement to do it.
MONROE LEIGH: No, I said it could be done administratively. It was not in our interest to do it on legal grounds.
JOSEPH SISCO: We were told that you had decided we had to stop.
[KISSINGER]: Just a minute, just a minute. You all know my view on this. You must have an FSO-8 [Foreign Service Officer, Class Eight] who knows it well. It will have a devastating impact on Indonesia. There's this masochism in the extreme here. No one has complained that it was aggression.
Joseph Sisco
LEIGH: The Indonesians were violating an agreement with us.
[KISSINGER]: The Israelis when they go into Lebanon-when was the last time we protested that?
LEIGH: That's a different situation.
CARLYLE MAW: It is self-defense.
[KISSINGER]: And we can't construe a Communist government in the middle of Indonesia as self-defense? LEIGH: Well...
[KISSINGER]: Then you're saying that arms can't be used for defense?
HABIB: No, they can be used for the defense of Indonesia.
(KISSINGER]: Now take a look at this basic theme that is coming out on Angola. These SOBS are leaking all of this stuff to [New York Times reporter] Les Gelb.
SISCO: I can tell you who.
[KISSINGER]: Who? SISCO: [National Security Council member William] Hyland spoke to him.
[KISSINGER]: Wait a minute-Hyland said...
Writer Les Gelb
SISCO: He said he briefed Gelb.
[KISSINGER]: I want these people to know that our concern in Angola is not the economic wealth or a naval base. It has to do with the USSR operating 8,000 miles from home when all the surrounding states are asking for our help. This will affect the Europeans, the Soviets, and China. On the Timor thing, that will leak in three months, and it will come out that Kissinger overruled his pristine bureaucrats and violated the law. How many people in L [the Legal Adviser's Office] know about this? [italics added]
LEIGH: Three.
HABIB: There are at least two in my office.
[KISSINGER]: Plus everybody in the meeting so you're talking about not less than 15 or 20. You have a responsibility to recognize that we are living in a revolutionary situation. Everything on paper will be used against me.
HABIB: We do that and take account of that all the time. ... (KISSINGER]: Every day some SOB in the Department is carrying on about Angola but no one is defending Angola. Find me one quote in the Gelb article defending our policy in Angola.
HABIB: I think the leaks and dissent are the burden you have to bear.
[KISSINGER]: But the people in charge of this Department could have lacerated AF [Bureau for African Affairs].
INGERSOLL: I was told it came from up the river.
EAGLEBURGER: No way.
I’ve asked myself many times, “is it this insanely repressive simply because Kissinger is terrified of finally getting caught for what he’s done?”
Did he try to rob me of my “public figure” status because he’s terrified of getting caught?
I am trying to make the case that, yes, this is exactly what happened.
New york has jurisdiction over Kissinger.
The corrupt in New York protect him.
[KISSINGER]: Don't be ridiculous. It's quoted there. Read Gelb. Was [Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs William] Schaufele called in and told to get his house under control? This is not minor league stuff. We are going to lose big. The President says to the Chinese that we're going to stand firm in Angola and two weeks later we get out. I go to a NATO meeting and meanwhile the Department leaks that we're worried about a naval base and says it's an exaggeration or aberration of Kissinger's. I don't care about the oil or the base but I do care about the African reaction when they see the Soviets pull it off and we don't do anything. If the Europeans then say to themselves if they can't hold Luanda, how can they defend Europe? The Chinese will say we're a country that was run out of Indochina for 50,000 men and is now being run out of Angola for less than $50m. Where were the meetings here yesterday? Were there any?
We are protecting him from the consequences of committing genocide on millions.