Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser who became one of the most influential and controversial foreign policy figures in American history, has died.
He lived to see his 100th birthday on May 27 this year. His death was announced by his consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, with no cause of death given immediately. “Dr Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut,” Kissinger Associates said yesterday evening. It said that Kissinger’s family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York.
Kissinger is survived by his wife of nearly 50 years, Nancy Maginnes Kissinger, two children by his first marriage, David and Elizabeth, and five grandchildren.
Kissinger – a towering foreign policy diplomat was both celebrated and reviled
Henry Kissinger, the Holocaust survivor and Harvard professor who became a towering U.S. diplomat, played a pivotal and polarizing role in US foreign policy during the Cold War. He won a premature Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war that kept going.
Considered the most powerful secretary of state in the post-World War II era, he served as a secretary of state and national security adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and helped reshape diplomacy to reflect American interests. Kissinger’s contributions to the diplomatic thaw between China and the US, significant US-Soviet arms agreements, and peace efforts between Israelis and Arabs are widely acknowledged.
At the same time, he was closely associated with some of the most controversial U.S. foreign policy moves such as promoting intensive bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia and turning a blind eye to human rights abuses by governments perceived to be supportive of U.S. interests.
The erudite strategist was both – a Nobel Peace Prize holder and a warmonger. In his 2001 book-length indictment, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” British American journalist Christopher Hitchens called for Kissinger’s prosecution “for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture” from Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile and East Timor to Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Uruguay. The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger’s Shadow, estimates that Kissinger’s actions from 1969 through 1976 meant the end of between three and four million people. “The Cubans say there is no evil that lasts a hundred years, and Kissinger is making a run to prove them wrong,” Grandin was quoted as saying by Rolling Stone.
Kissinger is among the few diplomats who have been both celebrated and reviled passionately. “There is no doubt he’ll be hailed as a geopolitical grand strategist, even though he bungled most crises, leading to escalation. He’ll get credit for opening China, but that was De Gaulle’s original idea and initiative. He’ll be praised for detente, and that was a success, but he undermined his own legacy by aligning with the neocons. And of course, he’ll get off scot free from Watergate, even though his obsession with Daniel Ellsberg really drove the crime,” Grandin said.
Kissinger’s death met with celebrations on social media
Kissinger, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating a cease-fire in Vietnam in 1973, was strongly criticized on social media, where many condemned the legacy of the 100-year-old and others posted celebratory posts in reaction to his death.
“Henry Kissinger’s bombing campaign likely killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians — and set (a) path for the ravages of the Khmer Rouge,” wrote Sophal Ear, a scholar at Arizona State University. “The cluster bombs dropped on Cambodia under Kissinger’s watch continue to destroy the lives of any man, woman or child who happens across them.”
A Rolling Stone magazine headline said, “Henry Kissinger, war criminal beloved by America’s ruling class, finally dies.”
Historian and author David Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger Associates, described the former secretary of state as “complicated as he was famous.” Rothkopf wrote that Kissinger influenced world affairs for six decades as no other. “Condemn him, applaud him—he deserves both reactions—but if you care about foreign policy you will study him and you should.”
Key facts about Henry Kissinger
- Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born May 27, 1923, in Germany to an Orthodox Jewish family. His family fled Nazi Germany and came to America in 1938.
- After he became an American citizen in 1943, Dr. Kissinger served in the 84th Army Division from 1943 to 1946 and was awarded the Bronze Star for his meritorious service.
- Kissinger earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees at Harvard University, where he taught international relations for almost 20 years.
- In 1969, President Nixon appointed him National Security Advisor. He subsequently served as Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford.
- Dr. Kissinger played central roles in the opening to China, negotiating the end of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, helping to bring America’s role in the Vietnam War to a close and reaching key arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.
- Considered one of America’s great statesmen, Dr. Kissinger was consulted by American presidents of both political parties as well as foreign leaders after he finished government service in 1977. But he remained active well into his 100th year.
- Dr. Kissinger has written 21 books on national security matters. In 2021, at the age of 98, Kissinger co-authored a book on artificial intelligence with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and MIT computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher.
Global leaders pay tribute to Henry Kissinger
World leaders paid tribute to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger amid criticism by the public on social media where he was widely called a warmonger.
United States
“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices” on foreign affairs, said former President George W. Bush. “I have long admired the man who fled the Nazis as a young boy from a Jewish family, then fought them in the United States Army,” Bush said in a statement. “When he later became Secretary of State, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Kissinger “really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job.” Blinken shared that he was “privileged to get his counsel many times, including as recently as about a month ago,” adding that Kissinger was “extraordinarily generous with his wisdom, with his advice.” He added that “Few people were better students of history — even fewer people did more to shape history — than Henry Kissinger.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Kissinger “a titan among America’s most consequential statesmen.” McConnell said on X “His ideas, his diplomatic skill, and his sheer force of will in service to our country changed the course of history.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called Kissinger’s contributions to U.S. foreign policy immeasurable. “Kissinger was a statesman who devoted his life in service to the United States, and should be remembered for his efforts to ensure global peace and freedom abroad,” Johnson wrote on X.
China
Kissinger was the only American to deal with every Chinese leader from Mao to Xi Jinping. In July this year, he met Xi and other Chinese leaders in Beijing, where he was treated like visiting royalty even as relations with Washington had turned adversarial.
China’s President Xi Jinping sent President Joe Biden a message of condolence. “Dr. Kissinger will always be remembered and missed by the Chinese people,” the message said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Further, “China is ready to work with the United States to carry on the cause of friendship between the Chinese and American people, to promote the healthy and stable development of China-United States relations for the benefit of the two peoples, and to make due contributions to world peace and development.”
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called Kissinger an “old friend and good friend of the Chinese people, and a pioneer and builder of China-U.S. relations.”
Russia
Vladimir Putin hailed a ‘wise statesman’. In a message to Kissinger’s wife, the Russian leader said Kissinger’s name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security”.
Europe
Political leaders in Western Europe opted for a careful tone and words for the consequential figure. French President Emmanuel Macron posted: “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”
Leaders of Kissinger’s native Germany paid tribute to the former diplomat. “His commitment to the transatlantic friendship between the USA and Germany was significant, and he always remained close to his German homeland,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X.
Latin America
Widely reviled in South America for his support of military dictatorships during the late 1960s and 70s, Kissinger was described by Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the United States, as: “A man whose historical brilliance could never conceal his profound moral wretchedness.” Chile’s leftist President Gabriel Boric retweeted the post.
