Henry Kissinger, a brilliant master of the art of statecraft and one of the most polarizing figures of the Vietnam War era, died Wednesday at his home in Connecticut. He was 100.
A man of towering intellect who shaped U.S. foreign policy during one of the most dynamic and explosive eras in the nation's history, Kissinger was both revered and reviled for his work in the Nixon White House, as he opened up China, eased relations with the Soviet Union and both enflamed and ended the Vietnam War.
Kissinger's career in politics began with work as an unofficial advisor to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, before Richard Nixon tabbed him as head of the National Security Council from 1969 to 1974, and Secretary of State from 1973 until 1977.
Tributes for Kissinger from prominent U.S. officials poured in immediately upon word of his death on Wednesday.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
Former President George W. Bush said the U.S. “lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs” and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Kissinger was “endlessly generous with the wisdom gained over the course of an extraordinary life.”
In a post on X, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Kissinger was "a titan among America’s most consequential statesmen." McConnel also praised Kissinger's diplomacy skills, which he said "changed the course of history."
The Vietnam War would come to define Kissinger's White House career. The war was already a decade old with no end in sight when the Nixon Administration inherited it, and one their first moves was to try to get the South Vietnamese to take control of their side of the war with the North, while beginning the draw down of U.S. troops.
U.S. & World
"I'm uniting Vietnam and both halves are screaming at me," Kissinger once said.
But at the same time, the U.S. was expanding the battlefield by running secret bombing missions over Cambodia and Laos.
In 1971, Kissinger began a series of secret meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, eventually leading to the Paris Peace Accords, which called for an end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, as well as a ceasefire by the North and South. For their efforts, Kissinger and Tho were awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most controversial choices in the organization's history.
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize," said songwriter Tom Lehrer at the time.
Tho would refuse his share of the award on the grounds that there was not yet real peace in Vietnam.
Though Kissinger spent countless hours negotiating for peace, and managed to withdraw more than 500,000 U.S. troops out of Vietnam, he would occasionally infuriate those on the left with his professorial mien, formidable ego and condescension.
"The very people who shout 'power to the people' are not going to be the people who will take over this country if it turns into a test of strength," Kissinger said in the early '70s, as anti-war protests were rocking the nation's college campuses.
Kissinger's efforts as a globetrotting mediator would lead to the birth of the term "shuttle diplomacy," as he flew back and forth between Israel and Arab nations, trying to smooth over differences, and had a hand in ending the Yom Kippur War.
"Realpolitik" was another hallmark of the Kissinger worldview, encouraging Nixon to approach foreign powers on a practical level rather than an ideological one. Instead of shunning the Soviets and Chinese for being communist, he engaged them as global powers with whom the U.S. had to coexist.
Kissinger was a key force behind the détente between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that lead to the first SALT treaty (Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty) in 1972. But the greatest foreign policy success during the Kissinger era was the normalization of relations with China. Nixon's 1972 meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong was the first ever visit by a U.S. president to the People's Republic of China.
"What we are doing now with China is so great, so historic, that the word 'Vietnam' will be only a footnote when it is written in history," said Kissinger that year.
For all of his achievements, Kissinger's time in the White House was so controversial that his appearances drew protesters for years after the war in Vietnam ended, and in 2001, journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote "The Trail of Henry Kissinger," a 145-page volume outlining the statesman's alleged war crimes. Hitchens accused Kissinger of planning, arming or signing off on assassinations, coups and massacres in Chile, Cyprus, Kurdistan and East Timor, among other faraway lands.
“It goes on and on and on until one cannot eat enough to vomit enough,” wrote Hitchens.
When he wasn't shaping U.S. foreign policy in the late '60s and early '70s, Kissinger earned a reputation as something of a ladies' man, hitting the town with the likes of Jill St. John, Candace Bergen, Liv Ullman, Marlo Thomas and Zsa Zsa Gabor among others, and he was a frequent patron at Studio 54 in New York.
"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," Kissinger famously explained when asked about his success with some of the world's most beautiful women.
After leaving the State Department in 1977, Kissinger retreated to private practice, working as a consultant. Though he held no official title in the U.S. government, Kissinger enjoyed almost diplomatic-level access to world leaders. As such, he drew criticism for leveraging his relationships into millions of dollars in fees from clients eager to do business in China and other far off lands.
In 2002 Kissinger again was a lightning rod for controversy, when the Bush Administration appointed him to head the 9/11 Commission. Just two weeks later amid accusations of a possible conflict of interest, he resigned from the commission, rather than reveal his client list.
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923, in Furth, Germany, the son of a teacher and a homemaker. The Jewish family fled Nazi Germany in 1938, stopping first in London, before heading on to America.
Kissinger began attending City College in New York in 1941, but was drafted two years later, serving as a translator for U.S. Army intelligence in Germany until 1946.
Upon returning home, Kissinger enrolled in Harvard University as a sophomore in 1947, graduating summa cum laude three years later. He would go on to earn a masters in '52 and his doctorate in '54 from there as well.
Kissinger is survived by his wife Nancy, whom he met when she was a student at Harvard, and his two children, Elizabeth and David, from a previous marriage.
