Henry Kissinger is dead

According to a statement published by the company, Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut. No further details were provided. Kissinger lived to be 100 years old.

As stated in a release from Kissinger Associates, burial Kissinger will take place as part of a private ceremony. A memorial service will be held in New York later to honor the deceased.

This German-born statesman is one of the most influential but controversial public figures in the United States. He became famous primarily as advisor to President Richard Nixon and author of the opening of relations between Washington and Chinese communists in 1972

Who is Henry Kissinger? Biography

A self-made cowboy

Kissinger, was born in 1923 as Heinz Alfred Kissinger into a family German Jew from Bavaria, came to the United States in 1938 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. He began his studies in the US, and at the age of 20, after obtaining American citizenship, he fought in World War II, taking part in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he began his academic career as a political scientist Harvardearned a doctorate, and in the 1960s he began to become actively involved in politics, and after Richard Nixon’s victory in the 1968 presidential election, he became national security advisor and then Secretary of State in the administration of his and his successor, Gerald Ford.

He was later considered the chief architect of US foreign policy and practitioner “real politics”and named himself “a cowboy who works alone”.

Opening with China

At the turn of 1971 and 1972, he played a major role in opening diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, ending the communist regime’s policy of isolation, wishing to exploit the split between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. . A year later, thanks to talks with communist North Vietnam, he led the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. For this, in 1973, together with the North Vietnamese general Le Duc Tho, he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which neither general received. He also played a role in ending the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East and sought a thawing of relations with the Soviet Union.

After Ford lost the election, despite losing his influence, Kissinger remained an influential figure in international politics until the end of his life, informally advising the next president.

The only president who did not invite him to the White House was Joe Biden, although his 100th birthday at the New York Public Library was attended by, among others, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other representatives of the political and cultural elite. Kissinger also advised and met with foreign leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on numerous occasions. He last met the latter in July this year. in Beijing.

Controversy surrounding Kissinger

Despite his significant influence and reputation as an effective diplomat, he was also a controversial figure. Before accused of war crimes: devastating bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War, supporting a coup in Chile, or encouraging the Argentine military junta to carry out bloody repression as part of the so-called “dirty war”. (PAP)

osk/zm/