Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State between 1973 and 1977, has died at the age of 100. His influence in politics extended beyond his time in office. He was an academic at Harvard between 1952 and 1969, National Security Advisor between 1969 and 1975 and, through his firm continued to offer consultancy services on geopolitical matters to several corporate entities.
He was also a renowned author and a popular speaker who continued to comment on current affairs until his death.
Kissinger’s obituaries will undoubtedly look at the many facets of his life. He remains a controversial figure.
He is praised by some for his role in the rapprochement between China and the US, détente between the US and the Soviet Union and for laying the foundation blocks for peace between Egypt and Israel, thus contributing to a more secure Middle East.
For others many of his policies were unforgivable: Kissinger ordered inhumane carpet bombings in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, he supported fascist regimes in Latin America such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet, and he gave the go-ahead for the brutal Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
Kissinger became emblematic of what many people love – and hate – about the United States.
Born in Furth in Bavaria on May 27, 1923, to a family of German Jews, Kissinger experienced harassment from the very start. Hitler Youth gangs regularly attacked his family, and he was denied entry to the Gymnasium – the German post-secondary institution. Aged 15, his family fled Germany and arrived in the United States.
Kissinger enrolled in the US Army and became a naturalised US citizen. After the war, he enrolled at Harvard and successfully completed his BA, MA, and PhD. Eventually, he was recruited by the same university where he taught in the very influential Department of Government.
His rise in academic circles caught the attention of policymakers, who immediately made use of his prodigious intellect. He was a foreign policy advisor to the campaign of Republican candidate Nelson Rockefeller. In 1967, a chance introduction to Richard Nixon continued to cement this meteoric rise in the circles of government.
He received several awards for his work: a Bronze Star from the US Army for meritorious service (1945), the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Medal of Liberty – given to 10 foreign-born American leaders in 1986. He was also the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
In this respect, he represented everything the American dream stood for, where every individual can succeed through hard work and without much state intervention putting barriers in the way.
Yet, concurrently, he also represented what most people perceive the United States to be: bullish, selfish, and hawkish in its foreign policy, ruthless in securing its own interests and reckless in achieving such aims.
The kindest of his detractors described him as “overrated”; the harshest mourn the fact that he was never prosecuted for war crimes.
His critics were not just journalists, historians, or politicians.
Celebrities, too, joined the fray. For example, the late chef Anthony Bourdain wrote that after visiting Cambodia, “you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands”.
Yet, supporters and detractors can agree that Kissinger was a consequential leader whose decisions shaped much of the world we live in today.
His policies, and the consequences of his policies, will be debated for years to come.