SOURCE: Rubin, Alfred P. “Only Obeying Orders.” Times Literary Supplement (20 July 2001): 5.

In the following review of The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Rubin commends Hitchens's criticism of Kissinger's egregious failures, but notes that Hitchens fails to acknowledge Kissinger's limited authority and shared complicity as a product of American democracy.

There isn't much point to muckraking unless there is muck to be raked. In the actions of Henry Kissinger as American National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State, there is much muck to be raked, and Christopher Hitchens has set to work with a will. He has taken the two articles on Kissinger's tenure that he wrote for Harper's Magazine (he calls them “the core of this book”) and expanded them into a small book. The Trial of Henry Kissinger sets forth in some detail the inconsistencies and short-sighted policies of the Kissinger years as if they were the...