[3] During World War II, Kahin served in the United States Army between 1942 and 1945, where "he was trained as one of a group of 60 GIs who were to be parachuted into Japanese-occupied Indonesia in advance of Allied forces".

[3] We voted for the maintenance of academic freedom, believing that without that essential quality there can be no relationship of any kind between blacks and a university, because without that quality you don't have a university.On April 19, 1969, Cornell's Afro-American Society occupied the Willard Straight Hall student union in protest against "the university's racist attitudes and irrelevant curriculum" regarding racial issues.

[7] The university was divided between proponents of the inclusion of the principles of social justice in course instruction and advocates of academic freedom for the faculty.

[8] Many of these professors had considered leaving the university due to the administration's policies promoting racial justice, and many did following the end of the occupation.

Senator George McGovern campaigned in the 1972 presidential election on a platform to end the war, Kahin became his foreign policy adviser.

In his opening, he said:[13]Mr Chairman, my own research makes very clear that responsibility for the outbreak of the tragic civil war in Cambodia lies with the very architects of foreign policy in the executive branch who now argue that the international prestige and credibility of the United States are inextricably tied to its insuring the survival of the present government in Phnom Penh through international or nongovernmental channels.In Cambodia, US officials assert that US credibility and national honor are at stake.

Let us also not fail to distinguish between the credibility and honor of the principal architects of our cambodian policy – the CIA, the Pentagon, and Henry Kissinger – and that of the United States as nation.In his foreword to Gareth Porter's book Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, Kahin argued that Khmer Rouge policies "were not, then, applications of some irrational ideology, but reflected pragmatic solutions by leaders who had to rely exclusively on Cambodia's own food resources and who lacked facilities for its internal transport.

"[14] After Kahin was expelled from Indonesia in 1949, he helped young Indonesian diplomats Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, Soedarpo Sastrosatomo, and Soedjatmoko during their work at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C.

[5] Kahin helped develop Indonesian studies in the United States at a time when the majority of material on Indonesia was held at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

He also helped many Indonesian intellectuals, including Deliar Noer and sociologist Selo Soemardjan, obtain education in the United States.

[3] Several months after his death, a memorial service was held in Ithaca, New York, for him and to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

[2] Kahin was a major influence on the foreign policy thinking of Sandy Berger, United States National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton.