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Kissinger outlasts protest at W&M
BY ANDREW PETKOFSKY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Feb 11, 2001
WILLIAMSBURG - Some student protesters unfurled a sign saying "Kissinger Kills" and others chanted "Not our chancellor!" as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was introduced yesterday to deliver his first speech as chancellor of the College of William and Mary.
But within minutes, the protest was drowned out by applause from thousands of other students, alumni and guests who also attended W&M's Charter Day ceremonies and wanted to hear Kissinger speak.
The protesters, about 40 in all, quickly were escorted out of William and Mary Hall by school officials or walked out on their own. Then the audience, estimated by school officials at about 4,000, fell silent to hear Kissinger's keynote address.
"Thank you all for this very warm, very friendly welcome," Kissinger deadpanned after the last protesters filed out. The crowd roared with laughter fueled by tension. "I was told that you do that for all your chancellors."
Kissinger's installation yesterday as the college's 22nd chancellor in reality was nothing like the staid and decorous ceremonies that had greeted his immediate predecessor, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and her predecessor, former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
While both of the earlier chancellors also were controversial public figures, Kissinger's installation in the largely ceremonial office came just weeks after Harper's Magazine published a long article damning the former secretary of state as a war criminal.
The article helped spur a protest movement on campus in which some members of the faculty spoke out against Kissinger's record, a scholar and a journalist slammed Kissinger in a'60s-style "teach-in," and students circulated a petition demanding the revocation of Kissinger's appointment.
Kissinger, noted for his involvement in the opening of China and the end of the Vietnam War, was President Nixon's national security adviser and served as secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under Nixon and President Ford.
In his brief speech, Kissinger began by defending himself against critics with the observation that policy makers have a much more difficult task than the professors who study their actions.
"As a policy maker, the problems are imposed on you," he said. "You cannot choose your sub- ject."
Kissinger also said that a policy maker operates in a complicated world filled with people and societies governed by differing values. A policy maker's actions, he said, must "strike a balance between his values and his necessities."
The United States is a protector of values that include freedom and democracy, Kissinger said, but in the modern world that means being involved in a "permanent process" that requires a different approach in different regions.
The approach that works in Western Europe and other places guided by democracy and market economics will not work in Asia, where governments are more concerned about the balance of regional power, Kissinger said.
The Middle East, characterized by religious and ideological wars, requires a third approach, he said. And Africa, where living standards are so low in places that the conditions appeal to human conscience, requires still another approach.
"We are the one country that has an impact in all these regions simultaneously," he said.
W&M President Timothy J. Sullivan, speaking after Kissinger, praised the new chancellor as a great man who can give students a worldwide perspective and serve as a model for qualities of courageous, principled leadership.
Both speeches drew loud applause from an audience that included former Govs. Linwood Holton and Gerald L. Baliles and former state Sen. Hunter B. Andrews of Hampton.
Cynthia Andrews, wife of the former state senator, said she sat near a group of protesters and considered taking action herself to silence them even though she's 80.
The most visible protesters were black-gowned seniors who unfurled a bedsheet-sized banner, "Kissinger Kills," attached to two crutches.
"I almost got out of my seat and bopped'em on the head," Mrs. Andrews said.
A number of students interviewed before the ceremony said they didn't know enough about Kissinger's history to have an opinion on his fitness to serve as chancellor. Several others said they trusted the wisdom of college officials to make the decision.
Outside William and Mary Hall after the ceremony, a group of about 40 protesters, most students, stood chanting and holding signs with slogans including "Go Home Henry" and "War Crimes." They alternately sang the school's alma mater and chanted slogans including, "We are William and Mary."
Joseph Catron, a sophomore from Hopewell who helped organize the protest, said he felt the inside protest "didn't go over as well as we'd hoped" because alumni, parents and other W&M supporters far outnumbered students in the audience.
He and others involved in the protest said they would continue a petition drive protesting Kissinger's appointment.
Ryan Devlin, a senior whose mother is Chilean, held one side of a Chilean flag to protest Kissinger's support of a dictator whose regime is blamed for the death, torture and disappearance of thousands who opposed the government.
"I can't accept, as a Chilean-American, even having this man on my campus," Devlin said. "I'm doing this for my mother."
Also at yesterday's ceremony, W&M gave an honorary doctor of public service degree to Lawrence S. Eagleburger, a former secretary of state who had served four years on the W&M board of visitors.
Adulphus C. Hailstork, a musician and composer who was named Virginia's cultural laureate in 1992, received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.