KUALA LUMPUR – Controversial Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut. He was 100.
Kissinger, who was once known as the “super secretary of state”, served two US presidents and left a huge mark on American foreign policy.
In the 1970s, he served as secretary of state under Republican President Richard Nixon and later under President Gerald Ford, reported Reuters.
He was also national security adviser under Nixon, and the only person to ever serve in both positions at the same time, highlighting his preeminent position over US foreign policy of the time.
The Watergate scandal that brought down Nixon did not affect Kissinger, who was never implicated in the cover-up. However, both were lambasted for being pro-Pakistan in the 1971 war with India. Kissinger was heard calling the Indians “bastards”, which he later regretted saying.
Kissinger was known to play a big part in opening diplomatic ties with China, US-Soviet Union arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and the Middle East, and the peace accords with North Vietnam.
A man of such influence is not without controversy, especially when he and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Le declined the award and later two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection after questions surfaced over US’ secret bombing of Cambodia.
Before Ford’s death in 2006, he described Kissinger as a “super secretary of state” but has the “thinnest skin of any public figure”.
When Republican Ronald Reagan took office after Democrat Jimmy Carter, Kissinger’s influence had waned, and he went on to start a pricey high-powered consulting firm in New York.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Kissinger was picked by President George W. Bush to head an investigative committee but backlash over his firm’s conflict of interest forced him to relinquish the post.
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in Furth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, and moved to the US with his family in 1938 before the Nazi’s rise to power.
Anglicising his name to Henry, he became a naturalised US citizen in 1943, serving in the army in Europe in World War Two.
Later, he studied at Harvard University on scholarship, earning a master’s degree in 1952 and a doctorate in 1954.
He divorced his wife, Ann Fleischer, in 1964, and married Nancy Maginnes in 1974. He had two children with his first wife. – November 30, 2023