Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who played a pivotal and polarising role in US foreign policy during the Cold War, has died at the age of 100.
He served as America’s top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Despite leaving office in the mid-1970s, he continued to be consulted by generations of leaders for decades.
The German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut.
Former US President George W Bush led tributes, saying the US had “lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs”.
Meanwhile, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair described him as an artist of diplomacy, saying Kissinger was motivated by “a genuine love of the free world and the need to protect it”.
President Richard Nixon’s daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, said that Kissinger’s life story was “so unique – and so thoroughly American”.
“Henry Kissinger will long be remembered for his many achievements in advancing the cause of peace,” the statement said. “But it was his character that we will never forget.”
Born in Germany in 1923, the school teacher’s son first came to the US in 1938 when his family fled the Nazis. He never quite lost his native Bavarian accent.
He became a US citizen in 1943 and went on to serve three years in the US Army and later in the Counter Intelligence Corps.
After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a PhD, he taught international relations at Harvard.
In 1969, then-President Nixon appointed him national security adviser, a position that gave him enormous sway over US foreign policy.
His eight years as both national security adviser and secretary of state between 1969-77 saw the US finally end its involvement in the Vietnam War, open up relations with China and bring about a cessation of hostilities in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Middle East between Egypt and Syria on the one hand and Israel on the other. It was an effort that created the whole idea of shuttle diplomacy.
