Stephen Kinzer

Stephen Kinzer(born August 4, 1951) is an American author, journalist, and academic. A formerNew York Timescorrespondent, he has published several books and writes for several newspapers and news agencies.

Stephen Kinzer
Born	(1951-08-04)August 4, 1951
Alma mater	Boston University(BA)
Known for	American author, journalist, and academic
Website	http:// stephenkinzer

Reporting career

During the 1980s, Kinzer covered revolutions and social upheaval in Central America and wrote his first book,Bitter Fruit,about military coups and destabilization inGuatemaladuring the 1950s. In 1990,The New York Timesappointed Kinzer to head itsBerlinbureau,from which he covered Eastern and Central Europe as they emerged from theSoviet bloc.Kinzer wasThe New York Timeschief in the newly establishedIstanbulbureau from 1996 to 2000.

Upon returning to the U.S., Kinzer became the newspaper's culture correspondent, based in Chicago, as well as teaching atNorthwestern University.He then took up residence in Boston and began teaching journalism andU.S. foreign policyatBoston University.He has written several nonfiction books about Turkey, Central America, Iran, and the U.S. overthrow of foreign governments from the late 19th century to the present, as well asRwanda's recovery from genocide.

Kinzer also contributes columns toThe New York Review of Books,The Guardian,andThe Boston Globe.He is a Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at theWatson Institute for International and Public AffairsatBrown University.

Views

Kinzer's reporting on Central America was criticized byEdward S. HermanandNoam Chomskyin their bookManufacturing Consent(1988), which cited Edgar Chamorro ( "selected by the CIA as press spokesman for the contras" ) in his interview byFairness and Accuracy in Reportingdescribing Kinzer as "just responding to what the White House is saying".In chapter 2 ofManufacturing Consent,Kinzer is criticized for deploying no skepticism in his coverage of the murders ofGAMleaders in Guatemala and for "generally employing an apologetic framework" for the Guatemalan military state.

Kinzer has since that time criticizedinterventionistU.S. foreign policytowardLatin Americaand more recently, theMiddle East.InOverthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq(2006), he critiqued U.S. foreign policy as overly interventionist.In a 2010 interview withImagineerMagazine, he said:

The effects of U.S. intervention in Latin America have been overwhelmingly negative. They have had the effect of reinforcing brutal and unjust social systems and crushing people who are fighting for what we would actually call "American values." In many cases, if you take Chile, Guatemala, or Honduras for examples, we actually overthrew governments that had principles similar to ours and replaced those democratic, quasi-democratic, or nationalist leaders with people who detest everything the United States stands for.

In his 2008 bookA Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man who Dreamed It,Kinzer creditsPresidentPaul Kagamefor what he calls the peace, development, and stability inRwandain the years after theRwandan genocide,and criticizes Rwanda's leaders before the genocide, such asJuvenal Habyarimana.According toSusan M. Thomson,the "book is an exercise in public relations, aimed at further enhancing Kagame's stature in the eyes of the west", is one-sided due to heavy reliance on interviews with Kagame and even apologist.

Kinzer has been criticised for "help[ing] spread Assad's propaganda".In a 2016 opinion piece, Kinzer wrote thatAleppohad been liberated byBashar al-Assad's forces from the violent militants who had ruled it for three years, but that the American public had been told "convoluted nonsense" about the war. He added: "At the recent debate in Milwaukee,Hillary Clintonclaimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on 'an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva.' The precise opposite is true. In 2012 Secretary of State Clinton joinedTurkey,Saudi Arabia,andIsraelin a successful effort to killKofi Annan's UN peace plan because it would have accommodatedIranand kept Assad in power, at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her. "Clinton was referencing theGeneva I Conference on Syria,during which the major powers agreed on principles and guidelines for a power transition.

In April 2018, he added:

According to the logic behind American strategy in the Middle East—and the rest of the world—one of our principal goals should be to prevent peace or prosperity from breaking out in countries whose governments are unfriendly to us. That outcome in Syria would have results we consider intolerable.

Kinzer wrote that the2018 Syrian Gas Attackson Civilians in the Douma region was a "false flag" attack, suggesting the event was staged by either al-Qaeda, NATO, or Syrian Civil Defense.

Kinzer has opposed US support for Ukraine in response to the2014and2022Russian invasions, stating that the war is a proxy war provoked by NATO expansion.Kinzer said in March 2022, after Russia's initial invasion, that US provision of arms to Ukraine only "guarantees more suffering and death" and that it "provoke[s] Russia to respond by killing more Ukrainians."Kinzer believes that "for American strategic planners, this war has little to do with Ukraine. They see it as a battering ram against Russia. Since saving Ukrainian lives is not their priority, they view diplomacy as an enemy."Kinzer has rejected the "villainous" depiction ofVladimir Putin,stating: "For years, we reveled in our moral superiority over colorful nemeses likeCastro,Khadafi,andSaddam Hussein.Putin fits perfectly into this constellation. "

Bibliography

Title	Year	ISBN	Publisher	Subject matter	Interviews, presentations, and reviews	Comments
Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala	1982	ISBN9780385148610	Doubleday	1954 Guatemalan coup d'état		Written withStephen Schlesinger.Revised edition, 1999,Harvard University Press,ISBN9780674075900.
Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua	1991	ISBN9780399135941	G. P. Putnam's Sons	Nicaraguan Revolution		Revised edition, 2007,Harvard University Press,ISBN9780399135941.
Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds	2001	ISBN9780374131432	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	Turkey	Booknotesinterview with Kinzer onCrescent & Star,October 21, 2001,C-SPAN
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror	2003	ISBN9781681620619	John Wiley & Sons	1953 Iranian coup d'état,Mohammad Mosaddegh,Mohammad Reza Pahlavi	Presentation by Kinzer onAll the Shah's Men,October 8, 2003,C-SPAN
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq	2006	ISBN9780805078619	Times Books	United States involvement in regime change	Presentation by Kinzer onOverthrow,April 10, 2006,C-SPAN Presentation by Kinzer onOverthrow,June 4, 2006,C-SPAN
A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It	2008	ISBN9780470120156	John Wiley & Sons	Paul Kagame,Rwandan Civil War	Presentation by Kinzer onA Thousand Hills,June 18, 2008,C-SPAN
Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future	2010	ISBN9780805091274	Times Books	Iran–U.S. relations,Israel–U.S. relations,Saudi Arabia–U.S. relations,Turkey–U.S. relations	Presentation by Kinzer onReset,June 15, 2010,C-SPAN	Later published asReset Middle East: Old Friends and New Alliances -- Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Iran,2011,I. B. TaurisISBN9781848857650
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War	2013	ISBN9780805094978	Times Books	John Foster Dulles,Allen Dulles	Q&Ainterview with Kinzer onThe Brothers,November 3, 2013,C-SPAN Presentation by Kinzer onThe Brothers,October 4, 2013,C-SPAN
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire	2017	ISBN9781627792165	Henry Holt and Co.	Theodore Roosevelt,Mark Twain,American imperialism	Presentation by Kinzer onThe True Flag,January 26, 2017,C-SPAN
Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control	2019	ISBN9781250140432	Henry Holt and Co.	Sidney Gottlieb,MK-ULTRA	Presentation by Kinzer onPoisoner in Chief,October 3, 2019,C-SPAN

See also

• Timeline of United States military operations

External links

• Stephen KinzeronTwitter
• Official website
• Interview with KinzerforGuernica Magazine
• AppearancesonC-SPAN
• "Empirical Evidence",onWNYC'sThe Brian Lehrer Show,April 26, 2006
• Interview with Stephen Kinzer and Martha Cardenas (mp3)February 10, 2008