- Henry Kissinger was the Harvard professor who became the archetypal U.S. diplomat, master political manipulator and pop culture icon — loved by admirers and loathed by detractors.
- As President Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy aide, Kissinger negotiated America’s exit from the disastrous Vietnam War, winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
- He also masterminded the détente policy that thawed the Cold War with the Soviet Union and helped break down the diplomatic great wall that surrounded Communist China for 2½-decades.
Henry Kissinger circa 1976 in New York City.
PL Gould | Archive Photos | Getty Images
Henry Kissinger, the Holocaust survivor and Harvard professor who became a towering U.S. diplomat, master political manipulator and pop culture icon — loved by admirers and loathed by detractors — has died. He was 100.
He died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut, according to Kissinger Associates.
As President Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy aide, Kissinger helped set out the nation’s grand international strategy of extricating itself from an unpopular war and plotting its relations with two rival communist powers. In Nixon’s second term, Kissinger had to navigate against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal that engulfed his commander in chief’s attention and eventually forced the president out. All the while, he fiercely defended his own political turf.
President Richard Nixon with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1972.
Richard Corkery |…
