Henry Kissinger, dominant U.S. diplomat of the Cold War era, dies at the age of 100

Henry Kissinger, dominant US diplomat of the Cold War era, dies at the age of 100

1)
WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Henry Kissinger, the most potent US diplomat of the Cold War era, helped Washington open up to China, forge arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, and end the Vietnam War. Still, it was reviled by critics over human rights and has died aged 100.

Kissinger, a German-born Jewish refugee whose career took him from academia to diplomacy and who remained an active voice in foreign policy into his later years, died at his home in Connecticut on Wednesday, his geopolitical consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, said.

2)
Kissinger was at the height of his powers in the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, when he served as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Republican President Richard Nixon.

After Nixon's resignation in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, he remained a diplomatic force as secretary of state under Nixon's successor, President Gerald Ford.

Kissinger was the architect of the US diplomatic opening to China, the landmark US-Soviet arms control talks, expanded relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam.

3)
While many hailed Kissinger for his brilliance and statesmanship, others branded him a war criminal for his support of anti-communist dictatorships, particularly in Latin America. In his later years, his travels were restricted by efforts by some countries to arrest or question him about past US foreign policy.

Democratic US President Joe Biden waited nearly 24 hours after Kissinger's death was announced to issue a statement saying that while they often disagreed, Kissinger's "fierce intellect and deep strategic focus were evident".

4)
Earlier, Biden's national security spokesman, John Kirby, said of Kissinger: "Whether you agreed with him on every issue, there's no question that he shaped foreign policy decisions for decades, and he certainly impacted America's role in the world".

Kissinger won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for ending US involvement in the Vietnam War, but it was one of the most controversial. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection as questions arose about the secret US bombing of Cambodia. North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho, who had been chosen to share the prize, turned it down.

5)
As tributes poured in from around the world, Beijing called him a "good old friend of the Chinese people" who had made historic contributions to normalising relations between the two countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Kissinger as a "wise and far-sighted statesman", while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his meetings with Kissinger had been "a masterclass in statesmanship."

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abdul Momen, however, recalled Kissinger's role in the bloody 1971 war between West and East Pakistan, which eventually led to East Pakistan becoming an independent Bangladesh.

6)
"Henry Kissinger was an iconic diplomat ... but unfortunately, in 1971, he was dead against the people of the then East Pakistan," Momen told WION News. "It's unfortunate for such an intelligent man to do such inhumane things ... He should have apologised to the people of Bangladesh for what he did."

With his distinctive German accent, Kissinger was never afraid to speak his mind. Ford called him a "super secretary of state" but noted his prickliness and self-assurance: "Henry never made a mistake in his mind."

7)
"He had the thinnest skin of any public figure I have ever known," Ford told an interviewer shortly before he died in 2006.

Current US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "Few people were better students of history - and even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger." At the same time, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called him "a rare scholar turned strategist."

8)
HARVARD FACULTY
Born in Fürth, Germany, on May 27 1923, Heinz Alfred Kissinger moved with his family to the United States in 1938, before the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jewry.

Kissinger, who anglicised his name to Henry, became a naturalised US citizen in 1943, served in the army in Europe during World War II, and attended Harvard University on a scholarship, earning a doctorate in 1954 and remaining on the faculty for the next 17 years.

9)
For much of that time, Kissinger worked as a consultant to government agencies, including in 1967 when he acted as the State Department's intermediary with North Vietnam. He used his connections with the Democratic administration of President Lyndon Johnson to pass information on peace negotiations to the Nixon camp.

10)
When Nixon's pledge to end the Vietnam War helped him win the 1968 presidential election, he brought Kissinger as national security adviser.

But the process of "Vietnamisation" - shifting the burden of the war from US forces to the South Vietnamese - was long and bloody, punctuated by the massive US bombing of North Vietnam, the mining of the North's harbours and the bombing of Cambodia.

11)
Kissinger declared in 1972 that 'peace is at hand' in Vietnam, but the Paris Peace Accords signed in January 1973 were little more than a prelude to the final Communist takeover of the South two years later.

In 1973, in addition to his role as National Security Adviser, Kissinger was appointed Secretary of State - giving him unchallenged authority in foreign affairs.

12)
An intensifying Arab-Israeli conflict launched Kissinger on his first "shuttle" mission, a highly personal, high-pressure diplomacy for which he became famous.

Thirty-two days of shuttling between Jerusalem and Damascus, they helped Kissinger forge a long-term withdrawal agreement between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

13)
To reduce Soviet influence, Kissinger reached out to its main communist rival, China, and made two trips there, including a secret one to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai. The result was Nixon's historic 1972 summit in Beijing with Chairman Mao Zedong and the eventual formalisation of relations between the two countries.

Former US ambassador to China Winston Lord, who served as Kissinger's special assistant, called his former boss a "tireless advocate for peace" and said: "America has lost a towering champion of the national interest."

14)
STRATEGIC ARMS TREATY
As secretary of state, Kissinger travelled with Ford to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union in 1974, where the president met Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and agreed on the basic framework for a strategic arms pact. The agreement capped Kissinger's pioneering efforts at détente, which led to an easing of US-Soviet tensions.

But Kissinger's diplomatic skills had their limits. In 1975, he was blamed for failing to persuade Israel and Egypt to agree to a second disengagement stage in the Sinai.

15)
In the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, Nixon and Kissinger were heavily criticised for siding with Pakistan. Kissinger was overheard calling the Indians "bastards" - a remark he later said he regretted.

Like Nixon, he feared the spread of left-wing ideas in the Western Hemisphere, and his actions in response led to deep distrust of Washington by many Latin Americans for years to come.

16)
In 1970, he plotted with the CIA on how best to overthrow the Marxist, democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, and in a memo after the 1976 coup in Argentina, he said that military dictators should be encouraged.

When Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, Kissinger's days in government were essentially over. The next Republican in the White House, Ronald Reagan, distanced himself from Kissinger, seeing him as out of step with his conservative constituency.

17)
After leaving government, Kissinger set up a high-priced, high-powered consulting firm in New York, advising the world's corporate elite. He served on corporate boards and various foreign policy and security forums, wrote books and became a regular media commentator on international affairs.

After the attacks of Sept 11 2001, President George W. Bush chose Kissinger to head a commission of inquiry. But an outcry from Democrats, who saw a conflict of interest with many of his consulting firm's clients, forced Kissinger to resign.

18)
He remained active late in life, attending White House meetings, publishing a book on leadership and testifying before a Senate committee on the North Korean nuclear threat. In July 2023, he surprisedly visited Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He divorced his first wife, Ann Fleischer, in 1964 and married Nancy Maginnes, an aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in 1974. He had two children with his first wife.

A memorial service will be held in New York, and Kissinger will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, a source familiar with the arrangements said.

Henry Kissinger Is Dead at 100; Shaped the Nation's Cold War History

The most powerful secretary of state of the postwar era, he was both celebrated and reviled. His complicated legacy still resonates in relations with China, Russia and the Middle East.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/us/henry-kissinger-dead.html

Henry Kissinger - Secrets of a Superpower - DW Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWVMTKeAwlA&t=2967s