Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under President Richard Nixon and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been making the media rounds to talk about his latest book. He's mainly been asked for his take on the present: the war zones of Iraq and eastern Ukraine. But on NPR, the past came up. Kissinger was asked to defend his support for the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia between 1969 and 1973.

For those who might not remember, while most of the fighting took place in Vietnam, as the tide shifted against the South Vietnamese and American forces, Nixon unleashed massive airstrikes in neighboring Cambodia to hit North Vietnamese soldiers and supply lines in that country. It was kept secret from the American public, and when news leaked out, Congress ultimately moved to shut it down.