Henry Kissinger, Who Shaped Cold War Diplomacy, Dies At 100

Henry Kissinger, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and diplomatic powerhouse whose service under two presidents left an indelible mark on U.S. foreign policy, died on Wednesday.

Washington:
Henry Kissinger, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and diplomatic powerhouse whose service under two presidents left an indelible mark on U.S. foreign policy, died on Wednesday, according to Kissinger Associates Inc. Henry Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut, Kissinger Associates said.

With his gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Henry Kissinger exerted uncommon influence on global affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, earning both vilification and the Nobel Peace Prize. Decades later, his name still provoked impassioned debate over foreign policy landmarks long past.

Kissinger’s power grew during the turmoil of Watergate when the politically attuned diplomat assumed a role akin to co-president to the weakened Nixon.

Kissinger had been active past his centenary, attending meetings in the White House, publishing a book on leadership styles, and testifying before a Senate committee about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. In July 2023 he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the 1970s, he had a hand in many of the epoch-changing global events of the decade while serving as secretary of state under Republican President Richard Nixon. The German-born Jewish refugee’s efforts led to the diplomatic opening of China, landmark U.S.-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam.

Kissinger’s reign as the prime architect of U.S. foreign policy waned with Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Still, he continued to be a diplomatic force under President Gerald Ford and to offer strong opinions throughout the rest of his life.

While many hailed Henry Kissinger for his brilliance and broad experience, others branded him a war criminal for his support for anti-communist dictatorships, especially in Latin America. In his later years, his travels were circumscribed by efforts by other nations to arrest or question him about past U.S. foreign policy.

His 1973 Peace Prize – awarded jointly to North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who would decline it – was one of the most controversial ever. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection and questions arose about the U.S. secret bombing of Cambodia.

Ford called Kissinger a “super secretary of state” but also noted his prickliness and self-assurance, which critics were more likely to call paranoia and egotism. Even Ford said, “Henry in his mind never made a mistake.”

“He had the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew,” Ford said in an interview shortly before his death in 2006.

With his dour expression and gravelly, German-accented voice, Kissinger was hardly a rock star but had an image as a ladies’ man, squiring starlets around Washington and New York in his bachelor days. Power, he said, was the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Voluble on policy, Kissinger was reticent on personal matters, although he once told a journalist he saw himself as a cowboy hero, riding off alone.

Henry Kissinger declared in 1972 that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam but the Paris Peace Accords reached in January 1973 were little more than a prelude to the final Communist takeover of the South two years later.

Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Long Beach, California and Don Durfee, Kanishka Singh, David Brunnstrom, Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott, Diane Craft, Rosalba O’Brien, Tomasz Janowski, Frances Kerry, Jonathan Oatis and Stephen Coates

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