Henry Kissinger, Cold War Foreign-Policy Visionary, Dies at 100

Henry Kissinger, the legendary diplomat who played a central role in advising Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford on foreign policy, died at his home in Connecticut late Wednesday at age 100.

Kissinger was the only person to simultaneously be secretary of state and hold the position of White House national-security adviser. In 1973, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho for their work in brokering the 1973 Paris Agreement ending America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923. Three months before Kristallnacht, his family fled, bound for New York City. Kissinger served in the Army during World War II and was assigned to the 84 Infantry Division, voluntarily staying behind at the Battle of the Bulge to reportedly conduct “hazardous counter-intelligence duties” while also “making good use of his German.”

In a recent interview in Maariv published ahead of his birthday this year, Kissinger reflected on his upbringing and religion:

I am Jewish, so it doesn’t take anything for me to respect the Jewish people. I lost 11 members of my immediate family in the Holocaust and untold numbers of people with whom I went to school, maybe 50%. So for me, it is as a matter of course that I take the survival of the Jewish people and of the Israeli state as a personal objective.

In 1960, Kissinger served as a senior policy adviser to then–New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, during his Republican presidential bid. When the campaign didn’t pan out, the Harvard foreign-policy wonk migrated to Richard Nixon’s camp after Nixon secured the nomination.

Kissinger played a pivotal role in opening relations with China, paving the way for President Nixon’s famous visit in 1972 and achieving breakthrough arms-control talks with the Soviet Union, culminating in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT1) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The following year, Kissinger engaged in “shuttle diplomacy,” traveling rapidly between Middle Eastern capitals after Egypt and Syria’s surprise invasion of Israel on Yom Kippur and eventually brokering a cease-fire.

Kissinger’s conduct during the Vietnam War, particularly his authorization of carpet-bombing campaigns throughout Cambodia in 1969 and into 1970, has led many to accuse him of war crimes. In one notorious directive, Kissinger told American military forces to destroy “anything that flies or anything that moves.” More than 50,000 civilians were believed to have been killed in the operation against a neutral country thought to have been harboring pro-Communist forces. Similarly, the Cold War strategist’s arming of Pakistan in a brutal war against Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan, reportedly led to the deaths of 300,000 people and the flight of as many as 10 million refugees to India.

After the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation, Kissinger stayed on in the White House for a brief stint under President Gerald Ford. At the time, in 1975, he supported Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, fearful that its government had communist sympathies.

After leaving the White House, Kissinger parlayed his reputation as a foreign-policy expert and became a bestselling author, writing books such as Diplomacy, World Order, and On China. These works burnished his credentials as a calculating Cold War veteran and sought-after elder statesman in the international arena.

Some, however, notably former president Barack Obama, remained highly critical of Kissinger’s handling of the Cold War. “We dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World War II,” then–President Obama told the Atlantic in 2016. “Yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris, and all we left behind was chaos, slaughter, and authoritarian governments that finally, over time, have emerged from that hell. . . . In what way did that strategy promote our interests?”

Upon hearing the news of Kissinger’s passing, pro-Palestinian crowds protesting the Christmas-tree lighting in Manhattan broke into cheers.

“You’re not supposed to say anything bad about the dead. Henry Kissinger is dead. Good,” Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali posted on X. He followed it up by posting a Rolling Stones article confirming the report of Kissinger’s death. “More! Mooooore!!!!” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation remembered Kissinger’s contribution to America:

Secretary Henry Kissinger was a foreign policy icon whose work to establish relations with China was a notably historic achievement. The George and Barbara Bush Foundation extends its condolences to Nancy Kissinger and their family as they mourn his passing.