A statement from his consulting firm, Kissinger Associates Inc., announced that Kissinger died on Wednesday, at his home in Connecticut.
Born as Heinz Alfred Kissinger to a Jewish family on May 27, 1923, in Fürth, a city in the Bavaria region of Germany, he faced intense antisemitism as a child, and in 1938 his family emigrated to the US to escape Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
A Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Kissinger became a naturalised US citizen on June 19, 1943. He joined the US Army that year, serving as an interpreter and intelligence officer on the European front during World War II. He then entered Harvard University, earning a bachelor’s degree (1950), a master’s (1952) and a doctorate (1954).
Kissinger reached the pinnacle of the American political establishment and in turn, became an unlikely household name. He was secretary of state and national security adviser under two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and advised powerful leaders in both American political parties for decades.
Kissinger came to be seen as one of the leading diplomats and international relations intellectuals of the 20th century, an exponent of “realpolitik” who orchestrated the normalisation of relations with China and helped ease tensions between the US and the Soviet Union.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the settlement that ended the Vietnam War, jointly receiving the award with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, who refused the honour.
Kissinger helped open diplomatic relations between the US and China during the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. He was also one of the most singularly reviled public figures of his age, one whose legacy is inextricably bound up with bloodshed around the world.
In the eyes of his critics, he was synonymous with the brutality of American power and some of the costliest foreign policy decisions in modern history.
Kissinger’s detractors denounced him for the central role he played in expanding US military involvement in Vietnam, bringing a wide-scale bombing campaign to Cambodia and supporting brutal regimes in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and Pakistan. His most vociferous opponents labelled him a war criminal, and some called on him to face charges at the Hague.
In academia and politics, Kissinger strove to “project the myth of being a no-nonsense, half-European realpolitiker capable of explaining to naive America how to behave on the international stage,” according to Mario Del Pero, who wrote the 2009 book, “The Eccentric Realist: Henry Kissinger and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy.”
Kissinger’s worldview revolved around “great power competition,” the idea that decisions made by the US, its allies and rivals are generally motivated by their national interests, rather than concerns about others or even accepted moral norms.
 | ReplyReply allForward |
About the Author
