- This is breaking news
President George W. Bush was among the first to pay tribute to Henry Kissinger, calling him “one of the most trusted and distinctive voices in foreign policy” after the former secretary of state died tonight at the age of 100.
The 43rd president said he had “long admired the man who, as a young boy from a Jewish family, fled the Nazis and then fought against them in the U.S. Army.”
“When he later became secretary of state, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did about the greatness of America,” Bush wrote on the website bushcenter.org.
“He served in the administrations of two presidents and advised many more.” I am grateful for that service and advice, but most of all I am grateful for his friendship.
“Laura and I will miss his wisdom, his charm and his humor.” And we will always be grateful for the contributions of Henry Kissinger.”
News organizations were among the first to offer their assessment of his decades-long tenure under successive U.S. presidents.
Bloomberg described him as the “child refugee who rose to become U.S. Secretary of State and defined American foreign policy in the 1970s with his strategies to end the Vietnam War and contain communist countries.”
CNBC described him as “the preeminent American diplomat,” and the Washington Examiner called him “one of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century.”
Many initial online comments were hostile, reflecting his controversial role during the Vietnam War, and Rolling Stone Magazine called him the “notorious war criminal.”
It quoted historian Greg Grandin of Yale University as saying, “The Cubans say there is no evil that lasts a hundred years, and Kissinger is trying to prove them wrong.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer said his “gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford exercised unusual influence on global affairs.”
The Chicago Tribune said Kissinger was a “practitioner of realpolitik – he used diplomacy to achieve practical goals rather than advance lofty ideals.”
The LA Times described him as “a preeminent intellectual force in world affairs for more than half a century.”
“Kissinger’s unique diplomatic style and the force of his personality made him an international media star,” it continued.
The New York Daily News called him an “indispensable foreign policy adviser to four presidents and a front-row witness to history in the crumbling Nixon White House.”
Reactions around the world were no less mixed.
The French newspaper Le Monde placed him “between cynicism and seduction, brutality and skill”.
“This architect of American realpolitik and détente with the USSR favored global stability over democracy and human rights,” it says.
Many on social media pointed out that Kissinger had actually outlived some of the journalists who wrote his obituaries, including David E. Sanger of the New York Times.