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To the Board of Visitors at the College of William and Mary:

My name is Julie Griffiths, and I graduated from the College in May of 2001. At first, I thought that the completion of my academic career with William and Mary might also mean the end of my involvement with student organizations, the end of reading the Flat Hat, and the end of caring about the details of daily life in Williamsburg. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Instead, I have found that my status as an alumna has heightened my interest in the renown of the College, both domestically, and abroad. I am exceedingly proud of the reputations our various departments and schools have achieved, and I know that in the years to come, I will continue to boast of my connection to this excellent institution. The successes we enjoy were not the product of a few good reviews by U.S. News and World Report, but are the work of countless diligent students, alumni, faculty, and administrative leaders who believe in this institution, and who are willing to fight to protect and nurture it. I consider myself one of this number.

Unfortunately, I am not writing this letter to tell you about my school pride, but to let you know that I am outraged by the installation of Henry Kissinger as chancellor of the college. His appointment is an embarrassment to the students, faculty, and alumni who pledge their allegiance to the oldest Honor Code in the United States. According to the William and Mary website:

A succession of influential individuals--including President George Washington, President John Tyler, Chief Justice Warren Burger, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and currently, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger have held the post of Chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

Influential? Undoubtedly. Yet I believe it is in the best interest of the Board of Visitors to reconsider what kind of international influences it considers in line with the purposes of this institution. During George Bush's visit to the college, he declared, â€œWilliam and Mary understands the value of service to others". I ask you again, to rethink what kind of â€œservice" we have valued here for nearly 310 years. Despite the Board's affirmations to the contrary, Kissinger is not the kind of man who will strengthen our international respect or bolster the value of a William and Mary education. He is, quite simply, a war criminal.

No self-respecting William and Mary graduate would make such a claim without providing evidence to support it. Thus, I am prepared to do so. Below, I have quoted a number of Kissinger researchers. Certainly, a few quotes cannot be expected to overturn the web of deception Kissinger has woven around himself. For this reason, even if these allegations do not convince you of the obvious guilt of Mr. Kissinger, it is my sincere hope that they will arouse your concern for the public opinion surrounding a man of such questionable dealings.

I implore you to fulfill your obligations as protectors of the reputation the people of this college have worked so hard to create. Do not defile the Honor Code with your endorsement of a war criminal as chancellor. Listen to the students, faculty, and alumni of this college. Listen to the evidence I have enclosed. And above all, listen to your conscience.

Sincerely,

Julie Griffiths 01

---Christopher Hitchens, author of The Trial of Henry Kissinger, says the following in his preface:

I have confined myself to the identifiable crimes that can and should be placed on a proper bill of indictment. These include:
1. The deliberate mass killing of civilian populations in Indochina.
2. Deliberate collusion in mass murder, and later in assassination, in Bangladesh.
3. The personal suborning and planning of murder, of a senior contitutional officer in a democratic nation of Chile-- with which the United States was not at war.
4. Personal involvement in a plcan to murder the head of state in the democratic nation of Cyprus.
5. The incitement and enabling of genocide in East Timor.
6. Personal involvement in a plan to kidnap and murder a journalist living in Washington, DC.

---Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a nationwide consortium of public-policy researchers. He is the author of "Media Beat," a nationally syndicated column on media and politics that appears in the San Francisco Examiner and other daily newspapers. A longtime associate of FAIR, Solomon has written op-ed articles on media issues for many papers, including the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Newsday, New York Times, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Baltimore Sun. He has written nine books:
While interviewing Kissinger, "NewsHour" correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth asked him point-blank about the discussion with Pinochet. "Why did you not say to him, 'You're violating human rights. You're killing people. Stop it.'?"
Kissinger replied: "First of all, human rights were not an international issue at the time, the way they have become since. That was not what diplomats and secretaries of states and presidents were saying generally to anybody in those days."

---William Shawcross, from his 1979 book, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia:
Neither the United States nor its friends nor those who are caught helplessly in its embrace are well served when its leaders act, as Nixon and Kissinger acted, without care. Cambodia was not a mistake; it was a crime.

---Edward S. Herman, Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a regular contributor to Z Magazine:

Henry Kissinger's role in the Cambodian genocide, Chile, and East Timor, makes him a first class war criminal, arguably at least in the class of Hitler's Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop, hanged in 1946.