WASHINGTON: Henry Kissinger, the relentlessly ambitious US diplomat whose unapologetic promotion of raw American power helped shape the post-World War II world, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100.
Kissinger, arguably the most identifiable secretary of state of modern times, died at his home in Connecticut, announced Kissinger Associates, through which the late diplomat grew wealthy helping businesses for decades after his government career, foreign media reported.
It said that Kissinger’s family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York, where Kissinger grew up after his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany.
The statement did not provide a cause of death.
Kissinger had remained active even as a centenarian, traveling to China in July to meet President Xi Jinping.
China was one of Kissinger’s most lasting legacies. Hoping to shake up the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, Kissinger secretly reached out to Beijing, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by president Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with the isolated country, which has soared to become the world’s second-largest economy and a growing competitor with Washington.
While Kissinger was despised in much of the world, China’s foreign ministry on Thursday hailed the late US diplomat as an “old and good friend of the Chinese people”.
Kissinger “had long been concerned about and supported the development of China-US relations, visiting China more than a hundred times and making historic contributions to promote the normalisation of China-US relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Fumio Kishida, prime minister of US ally Japan, credited Kissinger for his “significant contributions” to peace and stability in Asia, “including the normalisation of diplomatic ties between the US and China”.
At home, Kissinger also enjoyed deference across the political mainstream, with incumbent Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a member of the rival Democratic Party, attending his 100th birthday party in New York.
“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs with the passing of Henry Kissinger,” former president George W. Bush, a Republican, said in a statement.
The former US Secretary of State was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiations to end the Vietnam War, even though the conflict did not immediately end and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, declined to accept the prize.
After the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon, Kissinger served under his successor, Gerald Ford. In an unprecedented arrangement reflecting his influence, Kissinger served simultaneously as secretary of state — the country’s top diplomat — and national security advisor, the president’s right-hand aide.
While Kissinger’s intellectual gifts were begrudgingly acknowledged even by his critics, he remains deeply controversial for his ruthless philosophy of realpolitik — the cold calculation that nations pursue their own interests through power.
