Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who influenced the country's Cold war history, died on thursday at the age of 100. During the Nixon and ford administrations, he was America's chief diplomat and national security adviser. Kissinger Associates, the political consulting business he established, announced in a statement that the German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut. Mr Kissinger had an important, and often contentious, role in US foreign and security policy over his decades-long career.

Kissinger was a controversial yet very important individual. His influence spanned decades, from the vietnam war to the aftermath of 9/11, during his time as national security adviser from 1969 to 1975, and overlapping/concurrent service as Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. He leaves a mixed legacy: he was once named the most admired man in America in a Gallup poll in 1973, the same year he was controversially named the joint recipient of a Nobel Peace prize for the paris Peace Accords with North Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho, but he has also been harshly criticized as a war criminal.

He was noted as Secretary of State for pioneering a détente approach with the Soviet Union and supporting an open-door policy towards China. He is also credited for bringing America out of the vietnam war, albeit rather belatedly. His detractors allege that his actions caused millions of deaths by allowing heavy bombing in cambodia and Laos, preventing the accession of a democratically elected government in Chile, allowing genocides in east Timor and Bangladesh, and allowing civil war in southern Africa.

Heinz alfred Kissinger, born in 1923 near Nuremberg, Germany, and his Jewish family escaped the Nazis in 1938. (When he arrived in America, he changed his name to Henry.) As a new American citizen, he fought in the united states Army for three years before returning to europe to fight in World war II, where he was awarded the Bronze Star in 1945. Kissinger went on to acquire bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees from Harvard, where he taught from 1954 until 1969.

Kissinger was a strong proponent of realpolitik, claiming that pragmatism, rather than idealism, should guide America's foreign policy. He once famously stated that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," a mindset that some detractors claimed expressed itself in a calculated and opportunistic attitude to his work relationships.
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Henry Kissinger

SIBY JEYYA

30/11/2023 07:43 AM