Henry Kissinger dies: Controversial former secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner turns 100

Henry Kissinger, who became one of the most influential, famous and controversial diplomats of the 20th century as national security adviser and secretary of state to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this evening at his home in Connecticut at the age of 100.

Kissinger has been an adviser to almost every president of the United States since leaving the State Department in 1977 and was instrumental in the historic opening to China in 1972. He was also a hawk during the Vietnam War, a master strategist of geopolitics and Beltway rulers, and architect of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. The pragmatic and cynical German-born Kissinger has a realpolitik legacy as complex as any American statesman and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role in ending the war in Southeast Asia and was criticized.

The Jewish young man, born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923 in Fürth, Bavaria, fled the Nazis and Germany in 1938 with his family. Kissinger was naturalized as an American citizen in 1943 and served in the US Army in his final days. World War II before going to Harvard on a scholarship. The ambitious Kissinger earned his doctorate in foreign policy in 1954 and served on the Harvard faculty for nearly two decades.

But Kissinger, who liked to tell enemies and friends alike that “power is the great aphrodisiac,” had ambitions that went beyond academia. In the 1950s, Nelson Rockefeller, who had just served as special assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, tapped then-graduate student Kissinger to lead a special Rockefeller Brothers project. In the late 1960s, after Kissinger served as Rockefeller’s foreign policy adviser during his presidential campaigns, Richard Nixon selected him as his national security adviser.

It was a strange and sometimes competitive relationship between the two men that would change world history. Kissinger played a central role in Nixon’s most important foreign policy achievement: the establishment of American relations with China. After his re-election in 1972, Kissinger gained additional influence when Nixon also selected him as Secretary of State. He was a central figure in negotiations to end American involvement in Vietnam early the following year, which earned him the Nobel Prize along with LêĐức Thọ of North Vietnam. But Kissinger was a central figure in the administration’s escalation of the Vietnam conflict early in the Nixon presidency, as well as in the bombing of Cambodia, and was condemned by critics and accused of being responsible for war crimes. A Christmas bombing in North Vietnam in late 1972, intended to bring Hanoi back to the negotiating table, once again alarmed peace activists in the United States.

In 1973, Kissinger also led diplomatic efforts to end the Yom Kippur War; His influence became perhaps even more evident when Nixon was drowned in the Watergate scandal. Also under scrutiny was the American role in the military coup that overthrew the Marxist government in Chile – and the role played by Kissinger. According to NPR, a Senate report concluded that there was no evidence that the U.S. was directly “covertly” involved in the coup, but Kissinger told Nixon five days after the government was overthrown: “We didn’t not done.” , we helped them. [Word missing] “To create the best possible circumstances.” When Nixon resigned, President Gerald Ford retained Kissinger as Secretary of State, although the new president eventually appointed Brent Scowcroft as his national security adviser.

While he became known for his shuttle diplomacy, Kissinger, ever aware of the power of perception, enjoyed his celebrity status in the 1970s when he attended the world premiere of ” The godfather in 1972 and appeared on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast by Bob Hope in 1974. As he remained in the public eye decades later as an elder statesman, he even took over the weather for the CBS morning show in 1991.

The much-caricatured Kissinger, a close friend of Paramount CEO Robert Evans, has been portrayed in dozens of television shows. Films and more over the decades – some less flattering than others. Paul Sorvino played Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s 1995 film Nixon, while Thomas Hammons played him in his 1987 debut in John Adams’ opera Nixon in China, to name a few. Most recently, Liev Schreiber was Kissinger in the film directed by Helen Mirren Gouda cheese, when the Israeli prime minister and US cabinet member tried to stem the tide of the widespread Soviet-backed attack on the Jewish state in 1973.

Kissinger married Nancy Maginnes, a Rockefeller employee, in 1974.

Although somehow never far from the center of power, after leaving government employment, Kissinger took on roles on various boards and universities and wrote his memoirs.

Kissinger was instrumental in getting Iran’s deposed Shah, a longtime friend, admitted to the United States for cancer treatment in 1979 — an event that led in part to the hostage crisis that crippled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and captured dozens of Americans for 444 in left severe imprisonment. days. under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1982 he opened Kissinger Associates. The firm’s Park Avenue offices (one of the largest private museums of Chinese art, we can tell you from personal experience) represented not only the Middle Kingdom and other countries, but also the pinnacle of the American economy, with clients such as Coca- Coke. Coke, American Express and ExxonMobil.

Kissinger continued to appear in public until earlier this year, when he gave interviews on the occasion of his 100th birthday and expressed his views on topics such as artificial intelligence.

In addition to his wife, Kissinger is survived by his children Elizabeth and David, the president of the television company Conaco from his first marriage to Ann Fleischer, and five grandchildren.

Kissinger will be buried at a private family service. A memorial service will be held at a later date in New York City. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to: Animal Medical Center, Development Office, 510 East 62^EN Street, New York, NY 10065 or Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036.