Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut after blowing out 100 candles last May. Author of the famous phrase “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” the Machiavellian statesman’s legacy continues to be debated between those who consider him a diplomatic genius and those who consider him an evil genius. A shrewd manipulator and influential until his final days, for the former fifteen-year-old Jew who fled Europe on the eve of World War II, the world was a gigantic puzzle in which each piece played an important and distinct role toward a single goal: that The USA as an international superpower, even at the price of realpolitik interventions on the world stage that are viewed by many as brutal and illegitimate, such as the bombing and invasion of Cambodia and the support of Augusto Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Salvador Allende repressed.
Video farewell to Henry Kissinger
In the last few weeks since the war broke out in Gaza, Kissinger has never intervened, despite being one of the protagonists of the Yom Kippur conflict in which Israel was victorious in 1973. Among his most recent public engagements was a meeting at the ambassador’s residence in Washington, Italy’s Mariangela Zappia with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last July.
For the political scientist Robert Kaplan, Kissinger was the greatest Bismarckian statesman of the 20th century. With a keen eye also on Italy, whose role Kissinger, a close friend of Gianni Agnelli, valued in the Atlantic Pact, even though he had the most powerful Communist Party in the West. On the occasion of his centenary in the Washington Post, his son David, marveling at the extraordinary physical and mental vitality of a man who, despite a diet based on bratwurst and Wiener schnitzel, buried admirers and critics, identified the recipe with inexhaustible paternal curiosity existential challenges of the present: from the threat of atomic bombs in the 1950s to artificial intelligence, about which he wrote the penultimate book “The Age of AI: and Our Human Future” two years ago, which was followed by “Leadership: Six” studies on World strategy.
As a child, it was said, he was too shy to speak in public. A stranger in his new home after escaping Germany in 1938, Heinz became Henry and learned to express himself in perfect English, always retaining his German accent. He first made his way to Harvard, then to Washington, until, thanks to Nelson Rockefeller, he reached the roof of the world in the service of two presidents: Richard Nixon and, after Watergate, Gerald Ford.
Kissinger concentrated all negotiations in his hands and made the work of the diplomatic network unnecessary: from the first détente with the USSR to the thaw with China, culminating in Nixon’s trip to Beijing. The Paris agreements on the ceasefire in Vietnam after almost 60,000 US deaths earned him the controversial Nobel Peace Prize: two jurors resigned in protest.
In fact, Kissinger was a shadow president, even if the Oval Office desk always remained an impossible mirage for him because he was not born in the United States. Ford’s defeat and the election of Democrat Jimmy Carter marked the end of his public career, rather than his foreign policy involvement through groups like the Trilateral. After leaving government in 1977, Kissinger founded the famed consulting firm Kissinger Associates, through whose revolving door of ministers and undersecretaries they rotated and whose clients included large and small governments around the world. And it was his studio that spread the news of his death.
Bush was one of the most heard voices in US foreign policy
Former American President George W. Bush paid tribute to the memory of Henry Kissinger by declaring that with the death of the former Secretary of State, America had lost “one of the safest and most heard voices in foreign policy.” The fact that a refugee from Nazi Germany managed to become the head of American diplomacy “speaks to both his greatness and the greatness” of the United States, the Republican added in a statement.
China’s ambassador to the USA: “old friend dead”
Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng said he was “deeply” saddened by the news of the death of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who played a central role in establishing relations between Beijing and Washington, and expressed his sadness “deepest condolences” to his family.
“It is a tremendous loss for both our countries and the world,” Xie wrote in a post on X, Beijing’s first official comment on the issue. “History will remember Kissinger’s contribution to Sino-American relations” and “he will always remain alive in the hearts of the Chinese people as a treasured old friend.”
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died on Wednesday at the age of 100, made “historic contributions” to the establishment and development of diplomatic relations between China and the US. That’s what he said Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the daily briefing. Kissinger “has long been concerned about and supported the development of relations between China and the United States, visiting China more than a hundred times and making historic contributions to promoting the normalization of bilateral relations,” said the spokesman, for whom “during the course of his Lebens Kissinger placed great emphasis on the relationship between China and the United States and believed that it was vital to the peace and prosperity of the two countries and the world.
“Both China and the United States should adopt and carry forward Kissinger’s strategic vision, political courage and diplomatic wisdom,” Wang noted, adding that the two countries “consistent with the importance of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win- “Win cooperation should hold on to consensus,” promoted by the former US Secretary of State.
President Xi Jinping, who met Kissinger in Beijing last July, sent “a message of condolence to US President Joe Biden on his death,” Wang continued. Prime Minister Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi also “sent condolences,” the spokesman added.
Putin, “Kissinger, a wise and far-sighted statesman”
“An extraordinary diplomat, an intelligent and far-sighted statesman who enjoyed deserved authority around the world for many decades.” This is how Russian President Vladimir Putin defined Henry Kissinger in a message of condolence to the family published on the Kremlin website. This was reported by Tass.
“The name of Henry Kissinger – writes Putin in the message – is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line that once allowed for a détente in international relations and the conclusion of the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to strengthening global security. “Putin recalls that he had many personal contacts with this man, whom he describes as a “profound and extraordinary man,” adding that he will keep “his fondest memory.” According to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Kissinger “dedicated to his country served faithfully for many years, but at the same time was a pragmatist who had an eye on reality”, while now “there is no trace of such people in the American government and in the Western world”. In a post picked up by Tass on his
Grigory Karasin, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council (Russian Senate), defined Kissinger as “a great politician” and “a man with common sense and a practical approach who did not think in stereotypes, and this is very important in politics.” . According to Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma (the lower house of parliament), “Kissinger knew how to negotiate with opponents and even be friends with them, having an excellent command of the levers of real diplomacy, without blackmail, sanctions, etc .” Threats, and is that what American politicians are missing today?
Tony Blair praises him for being an “artist of diplomacy”
“No one was like him.” With these words, Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister and leader of the New Labor Party, today paid tribute to the figure of the former American Secretary of State, who died at the age of 100 in his Connecticut residence, and joined in the praise to the Conservative government of Rishi Sunak and another former tenant of Downing Street such as the current Secretary of State of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. “I was always in awe of him,” admitted Sir Tony, “if it is possible for diplomacy at the highest level to be an art form, then Henry was an artist.” “As is anyone who has faced the most difficult problems in international politics “, he was not free from criticism and even condemnation,” emphasized Blair, who was again overwhelmed by unpopularity at the end of his government career due to highly controversial foreign policy decisions that discouraged him from joining the US invasion of Iraq. “But I believe,” he added, rejecting the image of Kissinger as an absolute lover of sometimes cynical political realism, “that he was always motivated not by a crude realpolitik but by a genuine love of the free world and the need to to protect them.” It “.
Scholz was committed to German-American friendship
Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote in “
Podemos, “Kissinger ideologue of US terror policy”
“The ideologue of America’s terrorism-based foreign policy is dead. Kissinger supported dictatorships in Latin America, such as Pinochet’s coup that ended Allende. An imperialist legacy that continues to affect US foreign policy today.” This was written in X Podemos, the Spanish far-left party that has so far been the only one in Spain to comment on the disappearance of the former American Secretary of State.
EU heads of state and government: “Kissinger is a great strategist, his legacy continues”
“Henry Kissinger’s strategy and diplomatic excellence shaped world politics throughout the 20th century. His influence and legacy will continue to have an impact in the 21st century.” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in the X. “My deepest condolences go out to the American people and his family on the death of Henry Kissinger. I had the privilege of meeting Henry several times. A kind person and a brilliant mind who shaped the destinies of some of the most important people for over a hundred years.” Events of the century. A strategist who pays attention to the smallest details,” wrote EU Council President Charles Michel.
Macron: “He was a giant of history”
“Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. “His century of ideas and diplomacy had a long impact on his era and on our world”: this is the message from French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of the death of the former minister of the US state. “France expresses its condolences to the American people,” he concludes. For Secretary of State Catherine Colonna, Kissinger was “a master of diplomacy, an extraordinary personality, a Nobel Peace Prize winner” and he “marked the century in which he lived.”
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