SHAH ALAM - Henry Kissinger – who has been dubbed the top American foreign policy official overlooking and at times perpetrated some of the most egregious war crimes ever committed by the United and its allies – died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut.
He lived to see his 100th birthday on May 27 this year.
The former US secretary of state’s death was announced by his consulting firm with no cause of death given immediately.
"Dr Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut," Kissinger Associates said yesterday evening. It said that Kissinger's family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York.
Kissinger served as secretary of state and national security adviser under two presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, positions that allowed him to direct the Vietnam War and the broader Cold War with the Soviet Union. This also enabled him to implement a stridently "realist” approach that prioritised American interests and domestic political success over any potential atrocity that might occur.
Kissinger had remained active even at as a centenarian, traveling to China in July to meet President Xi Jinping with China being one of his most lasting legacies. It was reported that in hopes to shake up the Cold War against the Soviet Union, Kissinger had secretly reached out to China, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by president Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with Beijing.
After the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon, Kissinger served under his successor – Ford, which in an unprecedented arrangement secured himself the role of both as secretary of state and national security advisor.
This led to possibly Kissinger’s most infamous crime committed: a four-year carpet bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War that killed thousands of civilians – the actual number was never confirmed, despite being a neutral nation that was not at war with the US. This led to the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.
Not only that, he had also directed illegal arm sales to Pakistan as it carried out the crackdown on its Bengali population in 1971, gave his blessing to a military coup to overthrow Chile's elected president Salvador Allende and later the 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet, gave the greenlight to Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, and backed Argentina’s repressive military dictatorship as it launched its "dirty war” against dissenters and leftists in 1976. His actions during the Ford administration contributed to the escalation of civil wars in Africa, with Angola being a notable example.
Despite all the war and destruction he enabled, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiations to end the Vietnam War, even though the conflict continued afterward. Meanwhile, his North Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho declined to accept the prize with him.
Amid all his "achievements”, many would ask – what was his back story? Well Kissinger’s life story had all the classic US immigration journey. He was born in 1923 in Furth, Germany, to devout Jewish middle-class parents. Faced by the rise of anti-Semitism, they fled and settled in New York in 1938.
He served in the US Army in Germany and plunged into the brutal Battle of the Bulge. Seeing that he was a native German speaker, they assigned him to counter-intelligence roles and earned himself a Bronze Star for tracking down former Gestapo officers.
He returned to States in 1947 and started his academic career Harvard University, which led to a part-time role White House advisory roles under President John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The rest – as people say it – was history.
Kissinger finally left the office at the end of Ford’s term but continued to advise presidents and set up his "secretive firm” Kissinger Associates, Inc, that counsel clients on business strategy.
He published a memoir in 1979 "White House Years”, winning a National Book Award for history.
Upon his death, former US President George W. Bush said the country had lost one of its "most dependable and distinctivevoices on foreign affairs”. He said Kissinger’s rise as a German refugee to the top of the US foreign policy decision-making seat says "as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness”.
Here are some key dates in the life of Henry Kissinger, dubbed the chief architect of US foreign policy during the Cold War.
- May 27, 1923: Birth of Heinz Alfred Kissinger at Fuerth in Bavaria into a German Jewish family.
- 1938: Emigrates at the age of 15 to the United States with his family to flee the Nazi regime, settling in New York.
- 1943: Is naturalised American.
- 1943: Drafted into the army, going on to work in an intelligence unit tasked with identifying Nazis in occupied Germany.
- 1954: Graduates at Harvard University with a doctorate in political science.
- 1957: His first book, "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy", is an instant best-seller.
- 1969-1975: National security adviser for Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
- 1971: Secretly flies to China and meets Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, paving the way for Nixon's 1972 breakthrough trip to the communist giant.
- 1973-1977: Secretary of State for Nixon and Ford.
- 1973: Awarded Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for negotiating an end to the Vietnam war.
- 1974: Second marriage to former Rockefeller aide Nancy Maginnes.
- 2014: Undergoes a heart operation in New York.
- Nov 29, 2023: Dies at the age of 100 at his home in Connecticut.