Henry Kissinger, US foreign policy titan, dies at 100

Born into a Jewish family that fled persecution in Nazi Germany, Heinz Kissinger moved to the US at the age of 15 where he worked in a shaving brush factory before serving in the 84th Infantry Division of the Ninth Army during World War II.

He would be later decorated for participating in the November 1944 attack on Germany's Siegfriend defence Line, facing France's famed Maginot Line. Upon discharge from the US army, he applied to both Princeton and Columbia but was rejected and ended up studying at Harvard University on scholarship.

As a student, he greatly admired the works of German polymath and historian Oswald Spengler, who argued that human cultures and civilisations were akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable, and deterministic lifespan.

Kissinger's doctorate dissertation was on the diplomacy of Austrian chancellor Clements von Metternich in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars – diplomacy that famously restored the balance of power in Europe after decades of war and revolution.

And it is probably his admiration for Metternich that molded him into the world-famous politician that he is today, striving — with much success — to walk in Metternich's footsteps.  

From academia to politics

Kissinger began his career teaching at Harvard University, earning acclaim as a prominent academic and editor of the journal Confluence. Although a staunch Republican, he occasionally advised the National Security Council under two Democrat presidents, John K. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Few had ever heard of him beyond the university campus, with the notable exception of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller — a two-time Republican presidential candidate who was preparing for his third and final bid for the White House in 1968.

Rockefeller was the grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller and had served under the Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower administrations. He hired Kissinger as a consultant, and although that didn't help him become president, they were to remain lifelong friends.

Kissinger enters politics

Kissinger would eventually be hired by Rockefeller's main challenger, Richard Nixon, who won by a slight margin and was sworn in as president in January 1969. On the very same day, he named Kissinger National Security Adviser.

Four years later he would be appointed Secretary of State in September 1973, while keeping his job as National Security Adviser — first under Nixon and then under his successor, Gerald Ford. He remains the only person in history to hold both offices simultaneously.

Recalling that moment many years later, Kissinger would write:

"I had come to America as a refugee from persecution. America had been a distant dream when, as a young boy, I experienced intolerance and hatred under totalitarian rule. Now I was being given the responsibility to help steer my adopted country. I felt a stirring emotion, and not a little awe."

Until then, the rule of thumb in Cold War politics was the aggressive containment of communism and the Soviet Union — everywhere and anywhere through every possible means. It was this policy — pursued since the late 1940s — that got the US entangled in the bloody Korea and Vietnam wars that resulted in staggering casualties.

Kissinger's approach was different. He argued for a US-mediated balance of power between the major players in the international system; namely the US, USSR, and China, calling it "triangular diplomacy."

Much of it focused on engaging with both communist states to pit one against the other, always for the end benefit of the United States.

His much-applauded work would eventually lead to a détente with the USSR, establishing of relations with China, ending American involvement in Vietnam, and negotiating an end to the Arab-Israeli October War of 1973.

China and Vietnam

In 1971, Kissinger travelled secretly to China to negotiate the highly-publicised visit of President Nixon to Beijing in 1972.

Read more: 51 years after Nixon's groundbreaking visit, China-US relations at an all-time low

One of the defining challenges of his career was the Vietnam War, which had dragged on since the mid-1950s. As the most senior strategist in the Nixon administration, Kissinger wanted to extricate the US from the conflict while maintaining a semblance of stability in Southeast Asia.

He engaged in secret talks with North Vietnamese officials, which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. The accords sought to secure a viable peace settlement and facilitate the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

Kissinger's earlier mishandling of the war and the secret bombing of eastern Cambodia in March 1969-May 1970 (Operation Menu) threatened to bring down his legacy as the wise man of Washington.

Critics accused him of war crimes and inflicting massive human suffering, but he always managed to defend his decisions, saying that everything he did was in America's best national interest. 

Shuttle Diplomacy

But within the Middle East, his legacy is strikingly different from that of Vietnam. This is where his now famous "Shuttle Diplomacy" played out masterfully, negotiating disengagement agreements between Israel and Egypt on one front, and Israel and Syria, on the other.

His efforts laid the groundwork for the historic Camp David Accords of 1978, prompting Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat to comment: "As a statesman, I admire him, really."

One key by-product of his engagement in the Middle East was weakening Soviet influence in the Arab World. But even here, he was not immune to criticism.

His approach further fragmented an already divided Arab world, drove a wedge between Cairo and other Arab stages, paved the way for the Lebanese civil war, and gave a rise to radical Islamists, and eventually led to the assassination of President Sadat in 1981. 

Kissinger's emphasis on strategic stability and balancing power dynamics resonates with policymakers of today grappling with the challenges of the 21st century. The rise of new global powers, transnational threats, and complex conflicts necessitate nuanced diplomatic approaches that acknowledge the realities of the new world order.

Critics still raise concerns about the ethical implications of his realpolitik approach, accusing him of prioritising stability over human rights and democratic values.

In June 1974, Kissinger stopped in Austria while heading for the Middle East where he gave a press conference saying: "When the record is written one may remember that perhaps some lives were saved and perhaps some mothers can rest more at ease, but I leave that to history. What I will not leave to history is a discussion of my public honour."

Retirement from politics and memoirs

Kissinger left government in January 1977, literarily unscathed by the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon Administration and serving under his successor, Gerald Ford.

He spent the next two years teaching at Georgetown University while writing the first two volumes of his gripping memoir White House Years, which were released in 1979. The book was dedicated to his old friend Nelson Rockefeller, who died that January.

White House Years was an instant success and was followed three years later by another bestseller: its second volume Years of Upheaval, about Nixon's second and aborted term.

Unlike many former staffers and officials who turned their back on Nixon, Kissinger would describe him confidently a "great patriot… who took conspicuous acts of courage." 

Banking on the wide scope of his international contacts, and his personal influence on nearly every single one of them, he set up Kissinger Associates in 1982, which became one of the most successful international geopolitical consulting firms.

In 1994, while still working on the third volume of his memoir, he wrote the seminal book Diplomacy, this time establishing himself as both a historian and scholar, instead of just another former secretary of state.

In Diplomacy, he tackled the career statesmanship of men who preceded him on the world stage, like Germany's Otto Von Bismarck, France's Cardinal Richelieu and Great Britain's Winston Churchill.

Five years later, he came out with the third and last volume of his memoir Years of Renewal, covering his service under the Ford White House. He once again showered Nixon with praise, crediting him with setting the stage for America's subsequent victory in the Cold War.

In 2000, Kissinger was appointed an honourary member of a special sub-committee with the International Olympic Committee, before being chosen to succeed former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as chancellor of the College of William and Mary until 2005.

Following the 11 September 2001 twin attacks in New York City, President George W. Bush appointed him chair of the 9/11 Commission, a post that he resigned from in December 2002 when asked to reveal the names of his business clients at Kissinger Associates, for fear of potential conflict of interest.

Under US lobbying laws, his firm was not allowed to disclose the identity of its clients, although a number of its clients were already well-known but had nothing to do with 9/11, like Coca-Cola, Ericsson, Fiat, and Volvo.

Kissinger for president

Since the mid-1970s Americans began toying with the idea of nominating Kissinger for the presidency and articles in that favour began to appear in US newspapers.

Kissinger never gave it serious consideration given that Article II, Section 1 of the US constitution requires a president be a "natural-born" American citizen, which doesn't apply to him given that he was born in Germany and only came to the US as a teenager.

New York Democratic Congressman Jonathan Bingham went as far as to introduce a bill calling for a constitutional amendment that would make cases like that of Kissinger eligible for the presidency.

"Why should a citizen of Dr. Kissinger's talents be barred from the presidency?" asked Congressman Bingham. "More importantly, why should the American people be denied the right to elect a Kissinger to any office?"

Still active at 100

Age hasn't slowed down Henry Kissinger although he is blind in one eye and hard of hearing. He still goes to work daily to his office on the 33rd floor of an Art Deco building in midtown Manhattan.

Speaking to CBS News just weeks before his 100th birthday, Kissinger was asked: "If you had one of your aides here pick up the phone and call Beijing and say, 'Dr. Kissinger would like to speak with President Xi,' would he take your call?"

"There's a good chance that he'd take my call, yes," he replied.

"And Russian President Vladimir Putin?"

"Probably, yes."

"If a president were to come to you and say, 'Henry, would you fly to Moscow and talk to Putin?'"

"I would be inclined to do it, yes."

But he also said: " I would be an advisor, not an active person," adding: "There's some advantages in maturity. There are dangers in exhaustion, and a limited capacity to work."

Days before that, Kissinger had given another interview, saying that China and the US must learn to live together, giving them less than 10 years to achieve that objective or else face "a great-power confrontation."

In February 2022 he advised against Ukraine's Nato membership bid, saying that the bloc's eastward expansion was threatening Russia's safety belt, only to change his position in mid-2023, saying: "For the safety of Europe, it is better to have Ukraine in Nato."

In recent years, Kissinger became fascinated by artificial intelligence – which is very rare of somebody his age. In 2021, he collaborated with two co-authors on a book entitled, "The Age of AI and Our Human Future."

That book, in particular, proved that nothing slows down Henry Kissinger, or limits his understanding of technology, politics, war, and the ever-changing world around him.