HENRY KISSINGER made a Faustian bargain in 1968 to trade his tenured professor's status at Harvard for the opportunity to gain world-shaking power in the Nixon White House. His performance there makes him a poor choice to lead an independent commission investigating intelligence failures in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The commission should pursue the truth no matter where it leads in the upper reaches of government. In 1968, to cement his standing with Richard Nixon, Kissinger provided the Nixon presidential campaign with information about diplomatic initiatives to end the Vietnam War. In 1984 a commission he headed urged an expansion of military aid to El Salvador, a policy favored by the Reagan administration. Kissinger has a record of telling powerful people what they want to hear.

The World Trade Center attacks were atrocities in large part because they targeted civilians. Yet Kissinger either devised or supported policies that resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians in Indochina as the Vietnam War dragged on through the Nixon administration. He also endorsed policies by Pakistan and Indonesia that resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians in Bangladesh and East Timor. His appointment to the commission diminishes the moral urgency of the US case against terrorism.

One of the first attacks in the United States with mysterious origins abroad was the car bombing that killed Orlando Letelier, a Chilean, and Ronni Moffitt, an American, in 1976. This attack by the Chilean junta may have been a part of Operation Condor, an initiative by South American dictatorships to track and kill their opponents in exile. Kissinger knew about Operation Condor, yet he did not try to stop it. Anyone with such a record should not be on the commission.

The panel should be able to follow the truth wherever it leads, even to the point of embarrassing governments friendly to the United States. Kissinger is the chairman of Kissinger Associates, which is in the business of giving advice to corporations that do business abroad. His business depends on good relations with Saudi Arabia and other countries that may figure in the commission's work.

Kissinger, to his credit, had much to do with the US opening to China in 1971 and the first serious talks between Egypt and Israel in 1974. Historians will weigh these achievements against his responsibility for prolonging the Vietnam War and for the right-wing surge in Latin America during his time in power.

The commission will be cochaired by former senator George Mitchell, a veteran of peacemaking in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and will include eight other members. It may still do valuable service if all the others possess independence and good judgment. Kissinger's involvement will be a recurring drag on its work.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company

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