This story has been updated with more details. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the diplomat with the thick glasses and gravelly voice who dominated foreign policy as the United States extricated itself from Vietnam and broke down barriers with China, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100, reports the AP. With his gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Kissinger exerted uncommon influence on global affairs under Presidents Nixon and Ford, earning both vilification and the Nobel Peace Prize. Decades later, his name still provoked impassioned debate over foreign policy landmarks long past.
A Jew who fled Nazi Germany for the US with his family in his teens, Kissinger in his later years cultivated the reputation of respected statesman, giving speeches, offering advice to Republicans and Democrats alike, and managing a global consulting business. He turned up in President Trump's White House on multiple occasions. But Nixon-era documents and tapes, as they trickled out over the years, brought revelations—many in Kissinger's own words—that sometimes cast him in a harsh light. Never without his detractors, Kissinger after he left government was dogged by critics who argued that he should be called to account for his policies on Southeast Asia and support of repressive regimes in Latin America.
Kissinger conducted the first "shuttle diplomacy" in the quest for Middle East peace. He used secret channels to pursue ties between the United States and China, ending decades of isolation and mutual hostility. He initiated the Paris negotiations that ultimately provided a face-saving means—a "decent interval," he called it—to get the United States out of a costly war in Vietnam. Two years later, Saigon fell to the communists. And he pursued a policy of detente with the Soviet Union that led to arms control agreements and raised the possibility that the tensions of the Cold War and its nuclear threat did not have to last forever.
story continues below
Kissinger was a practitioner of realpolitik—using diplomacy to achieve practical objectives rather than advance lofty ideals. Supporters said his pragmatic bent served US interests; critics saw a Machiavellian approach that ran counter to democratic ideals. He was castigated for authorizing telephone wiretaps of reporters and his own National Security Council staff to plug news leaks in Nixon's White House. He was denounced on college campuses for the bombing and invasion of Cambodia in April 1970. Kissinger continued his involvement in global affairs even in his last months. He met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in July, as bilateral relations were at a low point. Kissinger's consulting firm said he died at his home in Connecticut. (More Henry Kissinger stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
