Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's secretary of state, dies at age 100

Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's secretary of state, has died at the age of 100.

The distinguished diplomat and Nobel laureate shaped decades of US foreign policy, but critics considered him a war criminal.

His consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, announced his death in a statement Wednesday evening, but did not disclose the cause.

Obituary of Henry KissingerRead more

During his long career, the famed diplomat advised a dozen presidents, including Joe Biden, and received the overall Nobel Prize for negotiating to end the Vietnam War.

But his legacy was also defined by his disregard for human rights and efforts to protect US corporate interests at all costs, with opponents around the world calling him a war criminal. He supported Indonesia's military dictator in invading East Timor, supported the apartheid South African regime's invasion of Angola, and worked with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected president of Chile. He also authorized wiretapping of reporters and his employees.

Kissinger was a Harvard academic before becoming national security adviser when Nixon won the White House in 1968. Working closely with the President, he influenced major decisions regarding the Vietnam War, including the secret bombing of Cambodia in 1969 and 1970. what Nixon called the «madman theory», an attempt to make North Vietnam believe that the US President would do absolutely anything to end the war.

He survived Nixon's fall in the Watergate scandal and served Gerald Ford, leaving the government after Jimmy Carter won the election in 1976. Kissinger's policy toward the Soviet Union was not confrontational enough for the Reagan administration, precluding any thoughts of a return to the 1980s.

From the perspective of the political and intellectual right and left, the legacy Kissinger varies.

On the right, he is considered a brilliant statesman, an outstanding diplomat, and a supporter of power politics deployed for the benefit of America, the country to which his family fled when leaving Germany in 1938.

On the left, hostility flares over about his record in Chile, where the CIA engineered the overthrow of Salvatore Allende; about Pakistan, where he and Nixon turned a blind eye to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people; in the Middle East; In Cyprus; about East Timor and much more.

Following the news of his death, prominent American officials paid tribute to Kissinger. George W. Bush said the US had «lost one of its most trusted and distinguished voices in international affairs» and Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said Kissinger was «endlessly generous with the wisdom acquired during an extraordinary life.» . Some on social media celebrated his death, mentioning the victims of his attacks.

A giant of the Republican Party, Kissinger remained influential until the end of his life, thanks in large part to the 1982 founding of a geopolitical consulting firm in New York and the author of several books on international affairs.

In fact, for negotiating the Treaty of Paris that ended the Vietnam War, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded a joint Nobel Prize, although the North Vietnamese negotiator refused to accept the award. His 1973 Peace Prize became one of the most controversial awards in Nobel history because Kissinger was revealed to have supported Nixon's 1969 bombing of Cambodia. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned due to this decision. The award prompted satirist Tom Lehrer to respond: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Kissinger's firm said Wednesday that he had died. at his home in Connecticut and will be buried in a private family service, with a memorial to be erected later in New York.

Fleeing Nazi Germany as a Jew As a teenager with his family, Kissinger In his later years, he developed a reputation as a respected statesman, giving speeches, offering advice to both Republicans and Democrats, and running a global consulting business. He made numerous appearances at Donald Trump's White House.

In May 2023, Kissinger turned 100 years old. During an interview with CBS on the eve of his birthday about those who considered his foreign policy a kind of «criminality,» Kissinger responded dismissively.

«It's a reflection of their ignorance,» he said. Kissinger. “It wasn't designed that way. It was not done that way.”

Sam Levine and agencies provided report