Henry Kissinger, Former Secretary of State, Dead at 100

Henry Kissinger, one of the most prominent secretaries of state, has died at the age of 100.

Before his death, Kissinger was the oldest living former member of the US cabinet and the last surviving member of President Richard Nixon’s cabinet.

“Dr. Henry Kissinger, an esteemed American scientist and statesman, died today at his home in Connecticut,” said a statement released through Kissinger Associates.

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Born in Germany in 1923, Kissinger and his family fled Nazi Germany in 1938. During World War II, Kissinger joined the US Army as a translator, becoming a naturalized citizen and eventually being awarded the Bronze Star for counterintelligence.

He would go on to attend Harvard University, where he earned both a master’s and a doctorate and began a career as a professor and national security adviser to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson.

In 1969, he was named national security adviser in the Nixon administration, eventually becoming secretary of state in 1973 (holding both roles then, a first in history). After Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal, Kissinger was retained as Secretary of State by President Gerald Ford.

Kissinger discovered that his new boss, Gerald Ford, had fewer ‘interruptions’ than Nixon

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Respected by many as perhaps the most influential Secretary of State in US history, Kissinger’s record as a statesman is rather mixed. Throughout his career, he has been widely criticized, most notably for his alleged toleration of war crimes in countries outside the US and his role in the Vietnam War.

He also criticized Kissinger for not informing Congress of the 1969 US covert bombing of Cambodia and Laos – incidents that escalated the war. He later played a key role in trying to end the war.

Kissinger participated in secret one-on-one meetings with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho that helped broker the Paris Peace Accords, which ended American involvement in the Vietnam War.

He and Tho were eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for these efforts – although the prize would become one of the most contested in Nobel history, as the fighting would continue for more than a year.

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Kissinger left office after Jimmy Carter was elected president and has since held a myriad of positions, serving on various committees and in university teaching roles. He remains a political figure, often writing opinion pieces and appearing in a 2010 documentary Nuclear tipping point about his stance against nuclear weapons.

In 2016, Kissinger returned to the White House, this time to meet with President Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy. In a 2022 interview with PBS, Kissinger reflected on his meetings with Trump, saying he “had sympathy for him” in the infancy of his administration.

“But as his position developed so that he was so centrally focused on one person, turning problems into conflicts, I became less enthusiastic. I wasn’t enthusiastic, but I was hopeful,” Kissinger said. “And I met with him several times when he became president. In the end, for an American president to challenge the constitutional system and try to overthrow the constitutional system is a difficult thing. And I find no justification for that.”

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Kissinger had two children—Elizabeth and David—with his first wife, Ann Fleischer, whom he divorced in 1964. He married his second wife, Nancy Maginnes, in 1974. He is survived by Maginnes and his two children, as well as five grandchildren. .

A lifelong soccer fan, Kissinger was an honorary member of his hometown soccer club, SpVgg Fürth.

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In a 2000 interview, journalist Barbara Walters, who was close to Kissinger, told a story about when she and the diplomat once traveled to his small hometown in Germany.

At the time, Kissinger told Walters that he loved football but was banned from the games because he was Jewish.

Thinking they wouldn’t be noticed, the two went to watch the game being played, only to witness an incredible reaction. Walters recalled, “We walked in — unannounced, we thought — at a football game, and he was recognized. The football team stopped, and everyone in the stadium stood up.”

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