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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who played a key role in American foreign policy during the Cold War, has died at the age of 100.
The former diplomat of German origin died at his home in Connecticut.
The statement released Wednesday evening by Kissinger Associates, a political consulting firm he founded, did not mention the cause of death.
Kissinger served as chief U.S. diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Although he left office in the mid-1970s, generations of leaders continued to consult him for decades.
Fleeing Nazi Germany
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in Bavaria on May 27, 1923 to a middle-class Jewish family.
His family later left to escape Nazi persecution, joining the German Jewish community in New York in 1938.
Henry was a naturally shy teenager, who did not lose his original Bavarian accent and retained his passion for football.
He attended night high school, because he worked in a shaving factory during the day and intended to study accounting, but was drafted into the army.
He became an American citizen in 1943 and went on to serve three years in the US Army, after which he joined the Secret Service.
As a young man of 23, he was assigned to manage a squad to hunt down former Gestapo officers and was given absolute authority to arrest and detain suspects.
After returning to the United States, he began studying political science at Harvard University. After earning his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees, he taught international relations at the same university.
In 1957 he published a book entitled “Nuclear War and Foreign Policy” in which he argued that it was possible to win a limited nuclear war. He stated, in no uncertain terms, that the “tactical” and “strategic” use of a new generation of smaller missiles might be rationally acceptable.
The book attracted attention. Kissinger’s long path to fame and influence began, and the “small nuclear war” theory remains an influential theory.
Kissinger became assistant to New York governor and presidential candidate Nelson Rockefeller. When Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968, he offered Kissinger the position of national security advisor.
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Kissinger and Nixon
National Security Advisor
In 1969, President Nixon named him national security advisor, a position that gave him enormous influence over U.S. foreign policy.
The eight years he spent as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State between 1969 and 1977 saw the United States end its participation in the Vietnam War, open relations with China and cease hostilities in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, between Egypt and Syria on the one hand, and Israel on the other. It was this effort that created the whole idea of shuttle diplomacy.
However, over the years Kissinger came to be sharply criticized by those who accused him of competing with the Soviet Union on human rights and of supporting repressive regimes around the world, including Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
Anger at many of his policies, including those relating to Cambodia and Argentina, followed him until his death.
But Kissinger didn’t care about the criticism.
In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, who refused to accept it.
The prize led to the resignation of two members of the Nobel Committee.
Kissinger’s peace efforts in the Middle East became known as “shuttle diplomacy”.
Although Kissinger left government service in 1977, he continued to comment on public affairs. Dozens of US presidents have sought his advice – from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden – as have lawmakers in Washington.
Kissinger was the only American to deal directly with every Chinese leader, from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping.
He also served on the boards of several companies and was a regular panelist on foreign policy and security forums, as well as being the author of 21 books.
Long active life
Even after turning 100, Kissinger continued to be active in his life, including a surprise visit last July to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, where he was honored despite cooling relations between China and the United States.
The visit angered the White House and prompted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby to express regret, saying, “It’s unfortunate that an ordinary citizen” was able to reach out to Chinese leaders while the U.S. government he was unable to do so.
During an interview with ABC in 2022 – when he was 99 – he was asked if he would reverse any of his decisions.
“I’ve been thinking about these issues all my life,” he said. “It’s my hobby as well as my profession. So the recommendations I gave were the best I could give at the time.”
Kissinger has been married twice and has a son and daughter, Elizabeth and David, and five grandchildren.
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Opinions on this matter are divided
Opinions were divided on Henry Kissinger: he was described as a staunch practitioner of “realism” in foreign relations and won the Nobel Peace Prize, but was roundly condemned as a war criminal.
When he was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the United States, he earnestly sought to pursue a policy of détente, which led to melting the ice in his country’s relations with the Soviet Union and China.
His shuttle diplomacy helped end the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1973, and his negotiations on the Paris Peace Accords extricated America from its involvement in Vietnam.
But what his supporters praised for his “realistic politics” was condemned by his critics, who described it as immoral.
Kissinger supporters say he played an important role in American relations during the presidencies of Presidents Nixon and Ford at the height of the Cold War. They also pointed out that he was the mediator in ending hostilities with the Soviet Union, paved the way for Nixon’s historic visit to China and addressed the spread of the “communist threat” in Latin America.
Regarding the Middle East, Kissinger summarizes his position by saying: “Every war in the Middle East becomes a global crisis, and depriving the Arabs of their rights makes the Soviets a source of threat.”
If there is anyone who praises his efforts for peace in the Middle East, his critics believe that he was responsible for the concentrated American aerial bombing of Cambodia, a neutral country, during the Vietnam War, and that he also supported the repressive tendencies of the governments of Pakistan, Greece, Indonesia and Chile at the time.
In 2015 Kissinger told CNN: “The United States must assume that Iran is actively involved in preparing to produce nuclear weapons,” the year the nuclear deal was concluded between Iran on the one hand and the group P5+1.
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A passion for power
Controversy dogged him after he left office in 1977: his professorship at Columbia University was taken away following student protests.
He became a vocal critic of the foreign policies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, saying that the two presidents wanted to move too quickly toward peace in the Middle East. For Kissinger, this doesn’t happen except inch by inch.
After the events of September 11, George W. Bush asked him to lead the investigation into the attacks in New York and Washington, but he was forced to resign within a few weeks – after refusing to reveal the list of his company’s clients consultancy, and answer questions about conflicts of interest.
He held meetings with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to advise them on Iraq policy after the 2003 invasion. “Victory over the insurgency is the only exit strategy,” he told them.
He has always been influential, briefing Donald Trump on foreign affairs after his election in 2017 – and pointing to, among other things, Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of the occupation of Crimea.
By the time he turned 100 in 2023, he had changed his view of Ukraine. After the Russian invasion, he said that President Zelensky’s country should join NATO after ensuring peace.
Henry Kissinger was linked to a large list of influential people and liked to say that “power is the most powerful aphrodisiac.”
He was an influential figure who held a position of power during the most important events of the last century.
What angered many people was that he never apologized for his serious pursuit of US interests.
He once said: “A state that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.”