WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 All these years later, the scene still is almost too bizarre to imagine: a tearful president and his perplexed aide, neither very religious, kneeling in prayer on the floor of a White House bedroom in the waning hours of a shattered presidency.
Until the embittered end, was one of the trusted few of a distrusting . That trust, combined with Kissinger鈥檚 intellectual heft and deft manipulation of power, made him a pivotal player in a tense period in American history, a giant of U.S. foreign policy and a fixture in international relations for decades to come.
The German-born diplomat who got the U.S. out of Vietnam after bloody, costly years of delay and into China in a sudden burst of secret diplomacy died Wednesday. He was 100.
With his brusque yet commanding public presence and behind-the-scenes maneuvers, exerted extraordinary influence on global affairs under Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford.
His power grew during the turmoil of , when the politically attuned diplomat took on a role akin to co-president to the discredited Nixon.
鈥淣o doubt my vanity was piqued,鈥 Kissinger later wrote of his expanding influence during Watergate. 鈥淏ut the dominant emotion was a premonition of catastrophe.鈥
Ford, in awarding Kissinger the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, called him a brilliant negotiator who 鈥渨ielded America鈥檚 great power with wisdom and compassion in the service of peace.鈥
A Jew who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his teens and never lost his accent, Kissinger in his later years cultivated the reputation of respected elder statesman, giving speeches, offering advice to Republican and Democratic presidents alike and managing a lucrative global consulting business as he traveled the world.
He turned up in Donald Trump鈥檚 White House on multiple occasions. Initially, he told 鈥淧BS NewsHour鈥 last year, he had some sympathy with Trump鈥檚 views about America鈥檚 national interests. But he lost enthusiasm as Trump became 鈥渟o centrally focused on one person鈥 鈥 himself 鈥 and turned issues into confrontations.
鈥淎t the end,鈥 he said, 鈥渇or an American president to challenge the constitutional system and to try to overthrow the constitutional system is a grave matter. And I find no excuse for that.鈥
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. He had to think twice before traveling to certain countries to be sure that he would not be summoned by judges seeking to question him about Nixon-era actions.
For eight restless years 鈥 first as national security adviser, later as secretary of state, and for a time in the middle holding both titles 鈥 Kissinger ranged across the breadth of major foreign policy issues. He conducted the first 鈥渟huttle diplomacy鈥 in the quest for Middle East peace. He used secret negotiations to restore ties between the United States and China, ending decades of isolation and mutual hostility.
He initiated the Paris talks that ultimately provided a face-saving means 鈥 a 鈥渄ecent interval,鈥 he called it 鈥 to get the United States out of Vietnam. Two years later, Saigon fell to the communists, leaving a bitter taste among former U.S. allies who blamed Nixon, Kissinger and Congress for abandoning them.
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.
Historian Robert Dallek, in a 2011 interview, singled out as Kissinger鈥檚 signature achievement his work with Nixon to create 鈥渁 culture of peace, a set of conditions that could reduce the prospect of nuclear war.鈥
His failings, added Dallek, were that he was 鈥渢oo egotistical, too convinced of his own brilliance.鈥
Kissinger was a practitioner of realpolitik 鈥 using diplomacy to achieve practical objectives rather than advance lofty ideals. Supporters said his pragmatic bent served U.S. interests; critics saw a Machiavellian approach that ran counter to democratic ideals.
He was faulted for authorizing telephone wiretaps of reporters and his own 香港六合彩挂牌资料 Security Council staff to plug news leaks in Nixon鈥檚 White House. He was denounced on college campuses for the bombing and allied invasion of Cambodia in April 1970, intended to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines to communist forces in South Vietnam.
That 鈥渋ncursion,鈥 as Nixon and Kissinger called it, was blamed by some for contributing to Cambodia鈥檚 fall into the hands of Khmer Rouge insurgents, who later slaughtered some 2 million Cambodians.
Nixon sent mixed messages about Kissinger鈥檚 influence.
Biographer Walter Isaacson wrote that Kissinger sputtered with rage after Nixon, in his 1977 interviews with David Frost, played down Kissinger鈥檚 role. But when Nixon heard of Kissinger鈥檚 displeasure, Isaacson wrote, the ex-president scrawled a conciliatory letter to Kissinger friend Susan Mary Alsop, saying that 鈥渨ithout Henry鈥檚 creative ideas and diplomatic skill, we would never have succeeded with our China initiative, the Soviet SALT I agreement, the Vietnam Peace Agreement and the progress toward reducing tensions in the Middle East.鈥
Historian Stanley Kutler said in a 2011 interview that while Nixon ran his own foreign policy shop, 鈥淗enry Kissinger was always a willing accomplice and an enabler of the politicization of decisions in foreign policy. Certainly the decision on when and whether to end the war in Vietnam was done with a domestic political calculus in mind.鈥
Kissinger, for his part, made it his mission to debunk what he referred to in 2007 as a 鈥減revalent myth鈥 鈥 that he and Nixon had settled in 1972 for peace terms that had been available in 1969 and thus had needlessly prolonged the war at the cost of tens of thousands of American lives.
He insisted that the only way to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops 鈥渨as to overthrow the government鈥 of South Vietnam.
鈥淭hat we weren鈥檛 willing to do,鈥 he said at a 2010 forum on Vietnam at the State Department. 鈥淲as that a mistake? I don鈥檛 think so.鈥
But historian Jeffrey Kimball, who wrote 鈥淭he Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy,鈥 concluded that Kissinger鈥檚 record 鈥渋s one of persisting in a deadlocked war for the sake of appearances 鈥 i.e. salvaging an elusive and false U.S. credibility.鈥
Kissinger was pudgy and messy but incongruously acquired a reputation as a ladies鈥 man in the staid Nixon administration. Kissinger, who divorced his first wife in 1964, called women 鈥渁 diversion, a hobby.鈥 Hollywood executives were eager to set him up with starlets, whom Kissinger squired to premieres and showy restaurants, according to Isaacson. Jill St. John was a frequent companion. Others he dated included Shirley MacLaine, Marlo Thomas, Candice Bergen and Liv Ullmann.
In a poll of Playboy Club Bunnies in 1972, the man whom Newsweek dubbed 鈥淪uper-K鈥 finished first as 鈥渢he man I would most like to go out on a date with.鈥
Kissinger鈥檚 explanation: 鈥淧ower is the ultimate aphrodisiac.鈥
Nixon at first found Kissinger鈥檚 image as a swinger amusing, but later tired of it. Chief of staff H.R. Haldeman in 1971 issued a memo stating that 鈥渋n seating at State Dinners, the President feels that Henry should not always be put next to the most glamorous woman. ... It鈥檚 starting to cause unfavorable talk that serves no useful purpose.鈥
It turned out that Kissinger鈥檚 real love interest was Nancy Maginnes, a tall, glamorous researcher for Nelson Rockefeller whom he dated for years before they married in 1974.
Gallup found he was the most admired man in America in 1972 and in 1973, the year he won the Nobel Prize with Le Duc Tho, North Vietnam鈥檚 chief negotiator, for the accord under which America pulled out of South Vietnam. (Tho declined the award.)
And yet Kissinger was reviled by many Americans for his conduct of wartime diplomacy. When Columbia University proposed to give Kissinger a teaching post after he left government in 1977, the idea drew such strong protest among students and faculty that the job never materialized. He was still a lightning rod decades later: In 2015, an appearance by the 91-year-old Kissinger before the Senate Armed Services Committee was disrupted by protesters demanding his arrest for war crimes and calling out his actions in Southeast Asia, Chile and beyond.
Kissinger was smart, self-deprecating, a master at cultivating the right people. He also was arrogant, hot-tempered and manipulative.
His brother, Walter, was said to have been asked why he had no accent when Henry did. 鈥淪ometimes I listened,鈥 Walter replied.
Kissinger told colleagues at the White House he was the one person who kept Nixon, 鈥渢hat drunken lunatic,鈥 from doing things that would 鈥渂low up the world,鈥 according to Isaacson, who wrote the 1992 biography 鈥淜issinger.鈥
The two men shared an ambivalent personal relationship, Kissinger writing in his memoirs that 鈥渄eep down one could never be certain that what one found so disturbing in Nixon might not also be a reflection of some suppressed flaw within oneself.鈥
Ford, in a 2004 interview with The Washington Post published after his death in 2006, said Kissinger had 鈥渢he thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew.鈥 He said Kissinger routinely would threaten to resign after receiving critical press coverage, and Ford would literally have to hold his hand and tell him, 鈥淣ow, Henry, you鈥檝e got the nation鈥檚 future in your hands and you can鈥檛 leave us now.鈥
鈥淚 often thought, maybe I should say: 鈥極kay, Henry. Goodbye,鈥樷 Ford said with a laugh.
鈥淚 think he was a super secretary of state,鈥 Ford added, 鈥渂ut Henry in his mind never made a mistake, so whatever policies there were that he implemented, in retrospect he would defend.鈥
Kissinger wasn鈥檛 one to anguish over past decisions.
In 2002, as protesters in London staged a demonstration against his appearance at a business convention there, Kissinger told the audience that 鈥渘o one can say that he served in an administration that did not make mistakes. The decisions made in high office are usually 51-49 decisions so it is quite possible that mistakes were made.鈥
At age 99, in the summer of 2022, he was still out on tour for his latest book on leadership. Asked in July by ABC鈥檚 George Stephanopoulos whether he wished he could take back any of his decisions, Kissinger demurred, saying: 鈥淚鈥檝e been thinking about these problems all my life. It鈥檚 my hobby as well as my occupation. And so the recommendations I made were the best of which I was then capable.鈥
Even then, he had mixed thoughts on Nixon鈥檚 record, saying 鈥渉is foreign policy has held up and he was quite effective in domestic policy鈥 while allowing that the disgraced president had 鈥減ermitted himself to be involved in a number of steps that were inappropriate for a president.鈥
Nixon-era tapes and documents lay bare the calculations of Kissinger and others within the suspicious and secretive Nixon White House.
In a taped 1973 conversation, Kissinger, the first Jewish secretary of state, is dismissive of pleas to push the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate.
鈥淭he emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,鈥 Kissinger tells Nixon. 鈥淎nd if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.鈥
After the tape came out in December 2010, Kissinger released a statement saying his comments should be taken 鈥渋n the context of the time,鈥 when Jewish emigration was dealt with separately from foreign policy.
Other documents confirmed Kissinger鈥檚 and Nixon鈥檚 support for the 1973 coup that deposed Chile鈥檚 Marxist president and ushered in 17 years of dictatorship.
In one telephone exchange, Kissinger harrumphs that if the coup had happened 鈥渋n the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.鈥 Nixon responds, 鈥淲ell, we didn鈥檛 鈥 as you know 鈥 our hand doesn鈥檛 show on this one though.鈥 Kissinger: 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 do it. I mean, we helped them.鈥
In other declassified transcripts, Kissinger plays down concern over Chile鈥檚 human rights record, even as the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet was torturing and killing thousands of opponents. Meeting with Chile鈥檚 ambassador in September 1975, Kissinger joked that U.S. officials focusing on human rights violations had 鈥渁 vocation for the ministry.鈥 And in a June 1976 meeting with Pinochet himself, Kissinger gently encouraged the dictator to release more prisoners while stressing that 鈥渨e are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here.鈥
Peter Kornbluh, author of 鈥淭he Pinochet File,鈥 which summarized some of the more than 25,000 U.S. declassified documents, says the records related to Kissinger 鈥減aint a picture of a U.S. foreign policymaker for whom morality was not an issue.鈥
Asked to describe his approach to foreign policy, Kissinger told The New York Times in 2011, 鈥淚 try to understand, without pessimism or optimism, the world in which I find myself.鈥
But he added: 鈥淲hen one has practiced diplomacy for much of one鈥檚 adult life, one always runs the danger that one doesn鈥檛 set the goals high enough. Others will have to judge that, but that鈥檚 how I would define myself without a specific label. But there are certainly lots of people who are defining me, so there is no shortage of adjectives and even of epithets.鈥
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in the Bavarian city of Fuerth on May 27, 1923, the son of a schoolteacher who lost his job because of anti-Jewish discrimination. Kissinger鈥檚 family left Nazi Germany in 1938 and settled in a Jewish neighborhood in upper Manhattan, where Heinz changed his name to Henry.
The young Kissinger studied accounting in night school and worked days in a cousin鈥檚 shaving brush factory, falling 鈥渦nder the spell of Joe DiMaggio鈥 from the 55-cent bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium in his spare time. Drafted during World War II, he was assigned to Army counterintelligence and worked on reorganizing municipal governments in occupied Germany.
After his military service, Kissinger went to Harvard, where his doctoral thesis argued that the foremost objective of diplomacy was 鈥渟tability based on an equilibrium of forces.鈥
His belief in the importance of stability above all other considerations would endure for a lifetime.
Early on, Kissinger鈥檚 1957 book 鈥淣uclear Weapons and Foreign Policy鈥 established his reputation as an expert on global diplomacy, and he was tapped to be a consultant to the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
In 1968, Kissinger offered himself as speechwriter and adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, who was competing for the Republican presidential nomination. When Nixon won the election, he invited Kissinger to be his national security adviser. Kissinger took the job, although he鈥檇 鈥渟pent 12 years of my life trying to keep him from becoming president,鈥 he later recalled.
From the start, Kissinger and Nixon maneuvered to keep control over foreign policy in their hands 鈥 and away from Secretary of State William Rogers and the State Department career diplomats, whom they both scorned.
In plotting Vietnam strategy, they together, until the last hours, kept from Rogers and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird the decision to invade Cambodia.
Former defense official Townsend Hoopes later said of Kissinger: 鈥淚n a more open and discursive administration, he would have been only one of several competing advisers with his influence correspondingly diluted. Under Nixon, he became the principal keeper of the keys 鈥 the adviser, spokesman and negotiator on all major foreign policies.鈥
During his 39 months as secretary of state between 1973 and 1977, Kissinger flew hundreds of thousands of miles, conferring with world leaders and trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The naturally serious Kissinger learned the value of humor and became skilled at deflating himself. He could easily be drawn into reminiscences of playing soccer as a boy in Germany, and he styled himself a 鈥渞abid fan鈥 of baseball.
The onetime Manhattan schoolboy playfully, correctly and without hesitation once ticked off the New York Giants鈥 wartime lineup at a reporter鈥檚 request on the way to baseball鈥檚 All-Star game.
In 1972, asked how fame had changed his life, Kissinger replied, 鈥淣ow, when I鈥檓 boring at a party, people think it鈥檚 their fault.鈥
A year earlier, armed with a hat and sunglasses in case he needed them, Kissinger feigned a stomach illness during a visit to Pakistan and vanished on a secret trip to Beijing that laid the groundwork for Nixon鈥檚 historic visit to China in 1972. Kissinger, in his memoirs, recalled his secret trip to China as 鈥渁 truly extraordinary event, both novel and moving, both unusual and overwhelming,鈥 that restored 鈥渢he innocence of the years when each day was a precious adventure in defining the meaning of life.鈥
One of the strangest moments in Kissinger鈥檚 life occurred on Aug. 7, 1974, the night before Nixon gave up his fight to retain the presidency. Nixon summoned Kissinger to the family quarters in the White House, and they spent 90 minutes together.
As Kissinger was leaving, Nixon steered him into the Lincoln Bedroom and suggested they kneel in prayer. And so they did 鈥 the Quaker-born Nixon, the Jewish-born Kissinger, on the floor, Nixon in tears about the unfairness of his fate. Returning to his office, Kissinger told his closest aides, 鈥淗e is truly a tragic figure,鈥 Isaacson wrote.
After Democrat Jimmy Carter succeeded Ford, Kissinger served in government as an adviser, but he was viewed with suspicion by conservatives in Ronald Reagan鈥檚 presidency.
In his life after government, the ex-diplomat鈥檚 Kissinger Associates earned him millions as a statesman-for-hire who offered foreign policy advice and diplomatic introductions for private corporations that paid $200,000 or more a year for his services.
In 2002, President George W. Bush selected Kissinger to lead an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks, saying he would bring 鈥渂road experience, clear thinking, and careful judgment鈥 to the job. But Kissinger soon stepped down from the position rather than reveal his clients.
Long after he left government service, Kissinger was sought out for his opinions, and didn鈥檛 hesitate to share them 鈥 in books, columns, speeches and media appearances.
In a 2010 speech, Kissinger said the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan set a pattern that he predicted would end 鈥渂ecause, in the future, the American public will insist on clarity of objectives and unambiguous definitions of attainability. Wars will be risked only for specific outcomes, not for abstractions, like nation-building and exit strategy.鈥
Addressing the war in Iraq specifically, Kissinger told The New York Times a year later that Bush 鈥渨anted to turn Iraq into a showcase of the possibility of a democratic evolution inside the Arab world. That was a huge objective, and that argument was difficult to sustain.鈥
As for his own politics, Kissinger in 2011 described himself as 鈥渙n the Republican side,鈥 but not 鈥渞ight wing.鈥 He said the philosophy of the current GOP wasn鈥檛 well-defined.
Although he had abandoned Jewish observances, Kissinger married Anneliese Fleischer in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony in 1949 to please his parents. He was 25, she 23, also a German refugee. They had two children, Elizabeth and David. They drifted apart, separated in 1962 and divorced two years later.
In September 2022, Kissinger made an appearance at the Nixon presidential library to accept an award and used the occasion to extol Nixon as 鈥渁 president who combined vision and courage in an extraordinarily complex period.鈥
As for how he personally would like to be remembered, Kissinger told the audience great leaders instead focus on where their countries need to go, adding, 鈥渨hat I would feel America needs most importantly, it鈥檚 faith in a national future.鈥
___
The late AP Diplomatic writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report.
