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Henry Kissinger, singular US diplomat, dead at 100
Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state whose unapologetic promotion of raw American power shaped the post-World War II world, died on Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100.
“Dr Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut,” Kissinger Associates announced in a statement late on Wednesday.
It said that Kissinger’s family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York, where Kissinger grew up after his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany.
The statement did not provide a cause of death. Kissinger had remained active even as a centenarian, travelling to China in July to meet President Xi Jinping.
China was one of Kissinger’s most lasting legacies. Hoping to shake up the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, Kissinger secretly reached out to Beijing, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by president Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with the then-isolated country, which has soared into the world’s second-largest economy and growing competitor with Washington.
After the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon, Kissinger served under his successor, Gerald Ford. In an unprecedented arrangement, Kissinger served both as secretary of state and national security adviser.
Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiations to end the Vietnam War, even though the conflict did not immediately end and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, declined to accept the prize.
Despised in much of the world, Kissinger as an elder statesman enjoyed the respect even of the rival Democratic Party, with incumbent Secretary of State Antony Blinken attending his 100th birthday party in New York.
“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs with the passing of Henry Kissinger,” former president George W. Bush said in a statement.
Realpolitik and its consequences
While Kissinger’s intellectual gifts were begrudgingly acknowledged even by his critics, he remains deeply controversial for his ruthless philosophy of realpolitik — the cold calculation that nations pursue their own interests through power.
In 1970, he plotted with the CIA on how best to topple the Marxist, democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende, and in a memo after Argentina’s bloody coup in 1976 he said that the military dictators should be encouraged.
Kissinger also supported Indonesia, a close anti-communist ally, as it seized East Timor in 1975. More than 100,000 East Timorese died from the start of the invasion — launched one day after Kissinger and Ford met Indonesian leader Suharto — until Indonesia ended its occupation in 1999.
In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Nixon and Kissinger drew heavy criticism for tilting toward Pakistan. Kissinger was heard 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.
Seeking to pull out of Vietnam but with a stronger hand at the negotiating table, Nixon and Kissinger authorised a secret 1969-1970 bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia aimed at disrupting rebel movement into South Vietnam.
The bombing did not halt the infiltration, killed thousands of civilians and helped spawn the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
Kissinger similarly showed little concern over Cyprus when Greece’s military junta deposed the elected leader, Archbishop Makarios, and Turkey in 1974 invaded the island, which remains divided.
When Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in 1976, Kissinger’s days in government power were largely over. The next Republican in the White House, Ronald Reagan, distanced himself from Kissinger, viewing him as out of step with his conservative constituency.
After leaving government, Kissinger set up a high-priced, high-powered consulting firm in New York, which offered advice to the world’s corporate elite. He served on company boards and various foreign policy and security forums, wrote books, and became a regular media commentator on international affairs.
After the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, US president George W. Bush picked Kissinger to head an investigative committee. But outcry from Democrats who saw a conflict of interest with many of his consulting firm’s clients forced Kissinger to step down.
He remained active late in life, attending meetings in the White House, publishing a book on leadership, and testifying before a Senate committee about North Korea’s nuclear threat. In July 2023, he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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