Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, at the age of 100 “at his home in Connecticut,” influencing United States foreign policy for nearly half a century. As a survivor of Nazi Germany, his unstoppable rise won him the ear of presidents and the respect of his opponents, a path not without controversy.
“The great powers have no principles, they only have interests.” This sentence is a perfect illustration of what realpolitik is in all its coldness and well summarizes its author Henry Kissinger, who died this Wednesday at the age of 100 and one one of the most influential men in foreign policy of the last fifty years. In almost a century of his existence, this learned and maneuvering diplomat has witnessed first hand all the upheavals of history, from Nazi Germany, from which he fled with his parents in 1938 at the age of 15, to the establishment of the new world order that has taken place since the fall of the USSR and the spread of international terrorism.
Heinz Alfred Kissinger – he would only become Henry when he emigrated to the United States – was born on May 17, 1923 in Bavaria, in Fürth, a town next to Nuremberg, to a teacher and a stay-at-home mother who took care of himself about him and his younger brother Walter. Heinz and Walter’s studies were abruptly interrupted when the new imperial laws blocked access to public schools for Jews, while their father Ludwig had already been forced into early retirement (he then received a pension, which he retained until his death in should receive in 1982). at the age of 95). Sensing the impending horror, the Kissingers set out from Le Havre, France, to New York on August 10, 1938, just three months before Kristallnacht, which heralded the genocide that some of their cousins, who thought they had been protected, did not survive would. by the fact that he had been decorated in German uniform during the First World War.
Once in New York, the Kissinger family settled in the Bronx, where the father found a job as an accountant while the two sons continued their studies in Manhattan. Heinz, who became Henry (and Harry to his relatives), was not yet 20 years old in February 1943 when, after his American naturalization, he interrupted his studies again to complete military training. His perfect command of his native language – he retained a very strong Germanic accent throughout his life – contributed to his superior intelligence and earned him the opportunity to be sent to Europe to do intelligence work within the 84th Infantry Division, to which he belonged joined two months later landing in September 1944. After being promoted to sergeant, he took part in the Battle of the Bulge and denazification in the Rhineland and then Hanover and was awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth highest decoration in the American armies.
First steps in the White House
The signing of the armistice in Vietnam earned Le Duc Tho (g) and Kissinger (d) the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
After returning to the United States, he went to Harvard, the center of American university education, where he spent the first part of his second life, initially as a brilliant student (degree in political science in 1950, master’s degree in 1952, doctorate in 1954). ), then as professor emeritus after a highly acclaimed dissertation on Metternich. While he had one foot in the university, he joined the University in 1955 National Security Council his first steps in the White House as an advisor. After becoming very close to New York Governor (and future Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford) Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger then evolved into the mysteries of power, reaching out to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson in turns.
In 1964, the man, already known as a womanizer, divorced Ann Fleischer, with whom he had a daughter and a son. It wasn’t until ten years later that he married again Nancy Sharon Maginnes, one of his former students at Harvard, who is notable, among other things, for being over 6 feet tall without heels, compared to his former professor’s 5 feet 7 inches. Meanwhile, Kissinger had told the New York Times one of his most famous lines: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” an observation apparently confirmed firsthand. He came a little closer to that power by becoming National Defense Advisor to new President Richard Nixon in January 1969, a Nixon who was very impressed by the depth of Professor Kissinger’s analysis of superpowers and nuclear weapons when they first met at a cocktail party in 1967. This good first impression was not mutual, as we later learned.
It should be noted here that this position of “adviser” is very high in the hierarchy of American power, since by law the National Security Council only includes four people around the President of the United States: the Vice President, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Defense Minister and thus the advisor Kissinger in this particular case. We are then in the middle of it all Vietnam War and in the midst of the Cold War, a time when we feel that the history and fate of the world takes place first and foremost in the White House and the Kremlin. Times are tough in Washington, as the Vietnam conflict is not easing but escalating, and Kissinger is quickly vying for Nixon’s ear to the detriment of the current Secretary of State, William P. Rogers. In the end, he will implement his exit strategy from Vietnam.
Henry, world star
Henry Kissinger popularized the word “détente” in his meetings with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s. AFP FILES / AFP
It was he, Kissinger, who updated the French word “détente” by negotiating with the USSR the SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, with the obvious aim of slowing the arms race… but also, to save money while Vietnam and the space program prove to be a dollar sink. At the same time, he secretly began a diplomatic rapprochement with China, a country on which he would become a wise expert over the years, as his 2011 book De La Chine attests. This work in the shadows led to this Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing At the end of February 1972, the first visit by an American president to the People’s Republic. Behind the necessary normalization of Sino-American relations lies a triangulation tactic aimed at angering Moscow.
When Nixon was re-elected in November 1972, the man who became “Dear Henry” put the finishing touches Paris Agreement which sealed the ceasefire between the United States and the various armed forces stationed in Vietnam in the French capital on January 27, 1973, putting an end to a ten-year conflict. The euphoria in the world was so great that a few months later Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize together with the North Vietnamese Le Duc Tho. This reward has since made many cough, especially on the South Vietnamese side, because in 1975 Le Duc Tho would lead the offensive that would lead to the establishment of the communist dictatorship as far as Saigon, the future Ho Chi Min City. After officially entrusting him with the post of Secretary of State, Nixon also gave him carte blanche to negotiate with Egypt and Israel following the Yom Kippur War in late October 1973, a conflict that raised new American-Soviet tensions and triggered the first oil shock to follow the embargo of Arab countries against Western countries.
In the mid-1970s, Henry Kissinger’s popularity in the United States and abroad reached its peak, especially since he was not directly or indirectly affected by itthe Watergate scandal forcing Nixon to resign on August 9, 1974. And if it hadn’t been for this unfortunate regulation that makes citizens not born in the United States ineligible to vote, the Fürth native would undoubtedly have tried his luck for the presidency of the United States, if only to satisfy an ego continental dimension if we can believe numerous testimonies. In the new administration of Gerald Ford, Kissinger, of course, retained his position as Secretary of State, which he held until January 1977, the day Democrat Jimmy Carter arrived at the White House.
A contradictory assessment
Henry Kissinger (here with Barack Obama in 2010) had the ear of presidents his whole life. Portal
The last two years in Washington will be less spectacular, as the first criticisms point to the actual results in Vietnam (illegal bombings in Cambodia and Laos), the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile (attributed to the CIA) and the… Invasion of East Timor by Suharto’s Indonesia (supported by the United States). These three historical tragedies are particularly criticized against him in two books: The crimes of Mr. Kissingerby the British Christopher Hitchens (2001), who accuses him of war crimes and The Flawed Architect (The Failing Architect) by the Finn Jussi Hanhimäki (2004). For the first time in nearly twenty years, the former secretary of state left the decision-making circles and then returned to teach at Georgetown, a university based in Washington. He continued to retain considerable influence and supported the election campaign of future President Ronald Reagan.
After his election, Reagan kept him at a distance because he found him too conciliatory toward the Russians. From then on, Henry Kissinger will use all his connections to begin a highly lucrative third life at the helm of Kissinger Associates, a legal consulting firm whose clients include multinational companies such as American Express, Coca-Cola, Lockheed and Fiat, notably the negotiation of their Contracts abroad. His partners in the law firm include: Paul Bremer, Lawrence Eagleburger, Timothy Geithner, Bill Richardson Or Brent Scowcroft, nothing but prominent personalities. At the same time, he joined the boards of numerous companies, but also the board of the now defunct North American Football League (NASL), because he was a big fan of Franz Beckenbauer (whom he brought to the New York Cosmos at the time). early 1980s) has maintained a passionate passion for football since his childhood in Bavaria.
Now in better control of his schedule than when he was in the White House, he published nine books between 1981 and 2014, including the very lengthy Diplomacy (900 pages) in 1994, The New American Power in 2001, From China to 2012 and The order of the world In 2014, all were considered reference works, each in its own field. Appointed by George W. Bush to the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks, he finally gave up when he was asked to reveal the names of his clients at Kissinger Associates to avoid conflicts of interest. In January 2023, he advocated continued support for Ukraine, which he said should join NATO. Still hyperactive despite his age and heart surgery in 2014, until his death today, he enjoyed a special status in the American and global diplomatic landscape, that of an outstanding negotiator who grew up under Hitler, served under Roosevelt, advised Nixon, met Mao and … faced Brezhnev on an extraordinary journey.