Henry Kissinger

World leaders have offered condolences and praise for Henry Kissinger, a former US secretary of state, who died on Wednesday at the age of 100, as his death elicited sharply divided responses over his legacy.Kissinger shared the 1973 Nobel peace prize for his role in negotiating an end to the Vietnam war but his foreign policy efforts in support of US interests were controversial, and his involvement in foreign conflicts and in overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world saw him branded by opponents as a war criminal.A Rolling Stone magazine headline said: “Henry Kissinger, war criminal beloved by America’s ruling class, finally dies.”The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Kissinger was a “wise and talented statesman”.“I had the opportunity to personally communicate with this deep, extraordinary man many times, and I will undoubtedly retain the fondest memory of him,” Putin wrote in a telegram to Kissinger’s widow. The text was posted to the Kremlin’s website.“The name of Henry Kissinger is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security,” Putin said.China hailed Kissinger as an “old friend”. Kissinger was central to the US’s decision to switch diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in the 1970s, recognising the communist People’s Republic on the mainland rather than the government in exile on Taiwan as the legitimate power. Kissinger visited China more than 100 times, most recently in July, when he held talks with President Xi Jinping.“It is a tremendous loss for both our countries and the world,” the Chinese ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, said in a post on the social media platform X.“History will remember what the centenarian had contributed to China-US relations, and he will always remain alive in the hearts of the Chinese people as a most valued old friend,” he added.After leaving office, Kissinger grew wealthy advising businesses on China, and had warned against a hawkish turn in US policy. Chinese officials have struggled in recent years to hide their nostalgia for the days of rapprochement under Kissinger.In a lengthy obituary on Thursday, Beijing’s state broadcaster CCTV hailed his “historic contribution to the opening of the door to US-China relations”. Kissinger, it said, was “an important witness who experienced the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States and the development of the relationship between the two countries”.A hashtag on the social media platform Weibo had about 770,000 views, with the discussion highly complimentary. “Epic diplomat, I hope the US-China relationship gets better and better,” said one comment.“Commemorating Mr Kissinger, the greatest secretary of state in the history of the United States. Mr Kissinger, an old friend of the Chinese people, at the age of 100, passed away peacefully at his home,” said another.However, in Taiwan some people called his death “good news”, citing his involvement in starting the rush of nations to switch ties to Beijing. “Bless him for being Chinese in his next life,” one said.Foreign ministry officials in Taipei described Kissinger as a “towering figure in the history of American diplomacy”, while the opposition Kuomintang party, which ruled the island as a Chinese government-in-exile at the time of the US switch, offered its condolences to his family.“We recognise Kissinger’s efforts to bring about peace and prosperity in the Indo Pacific throughout his career in and outside government,” it said in a tweet, prompting incredulity and scorn from some users.“He takes away your UNSC seat and you mourn his death. That’s … a choice,” said one.While Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his role in negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1973, many in the region accuse him of prolonging the conflict, and point to his authorisation of secret bombing campaigns in Laos and Cambodia.Dr Sophal Ear, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird school of global management, who was born in Cambodia and who, as a child, fled the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, described Kissinger’s legacy in the country as “one of horror”.“Kissinger’s impact on Cambodia is in the deaths and continuing unexploded ordnances littering the country, the physical maiming, loss of human capital, and the mental health toll that millions suffer. The bombing took a heavy, heavy toll and destabilised the country at a critical juncture,” he said.Vu Minh Hoang, a faculty member in history and Vietnam studies at Fulbright University Vietnam, said he believed Kissinger had “prolonged a very bloody war unnecessarily from 1968-1973, which may also have denied the Vietnamese a more peaceful and inclusive reunification and national reconciliation”.How others in Vietnam feel about Kissinger’s death is hard to say, he added. “Mostly, I think people who care will be happy to hear of it, but most would have moved on. Some will be sad, as they always are with the passing of any sort of celebrity, particularly western celebs.”No government officials in Vietnam commented on his death on Thursday, and news coverage was mostly translations of foreign stories. Among the public, sentiments were mixed. On social media one user wrote: “I have been waiting for this moment for too long. He is the enemy of Vietnamese people”, adding laughing emoji. But another commented: “A legend! American will never have someone like him again.”In Japan, the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, hailed Kissinger’s “significant contributions” to peace and stability in Asia. In the 1970s Kissinger referred to the Japanese as “treacherous sons of bitches” for wanting normal relations with China when he was national security adviser to Nixon, according to documents declassified in 2006.Kissinger “made significant contributions to the regional peace and stability, including the normalisation of diplomatic ties between the US and China”, Kishida told reporters. “I’d like to express my most sincere respect to the great achievements he made,” Kishida added. “I also would like to offer my condolences.”Political leaders in western Europe took a largely respectful tone for a consequential figure. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted: “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said that with the death of the German-born Kissinger, who retained his Bavarian accent, the world had lost “a great diplomat”.“His commitment to the transatlantic friendship between the USA and Germany was significant, and he always remained close to his German homeland.”The former British prime minister Tony Blair said he was “in awe” of Kissinger.In Latin America, where Kissinger is widely reviled for his support of brutal right-wing dictatorships during the late 1960s and 70s, the former US secretary of state was remembered in far harsher terms.Critics recalled the key role Kissinger had played in helping usher in 17 years of military dictatorship in Chile after the US-backed coup against Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973 brought GenAugusto Pinochet to power.Reacting to the news of Kissinger’s death, Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the US, tweeted: “A man whose historical brilliance could never conceal his profound moral wretchedness.”Daniel Jadue, a prominent leftwing politician in Chile, tweeted: “Another criminal who dies in total impunity,” calling Kissinger “an instigator and accomplice of slaughters in Asia, Africa and Latin America”.The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, paid tribute to Kissinger’s role in laying the groundwork for the historic 1979 peace deal with Egypt. He said the diplomat “laid the cornerstone of the peace agreement, which was later signed with Egypt, and so many other processes around the world I admire”.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure to end military activity that has killed tens of thousands in Gaza, launched after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October, said he had met Kissinger on many occasions, describing them as lessons in diplomacy and statesmanship. “His understanding of the complexities of international relations and his unique insights into the challenges facing our world were unparalleled,” he said.Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, described Henry Kissinger as a stalwart of strategic politics and world diplomacy, saying: “It has been a privilege to have recently engaged with him on various issues on the international agenda. His passing saddens us, and I express my personal condolences, as well as those of the Italian government, to his family and loved ones.”The Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, wrote on X: “I want to remember Kissinger, Nobel Peace prize laureate, as a friend of Italy and a staunch supporter of transatlantic relations. A pillar of diplomacy, the younger generation will learn from his writings the art of dialogue and negotiation, always striving for the benefit of global equilibrium.” More

‘All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure.” So said Enoch Powell – yet to this famous aphorism, Henry Kissinger, cold war strategist, US secretary of state, counsellor to 12 American presidents and alleged war criminal – who has died aged 100 – is a notable exception.The man who invented shuttle diplomacy, promoted the concept of hard-eyed realpolitik and pursued fleeting mirages of detente between hostile superpowers paradoxically lived a life of multiple professional failures that ended happily, marked by generally high international regard.Kissinger was, throughout his long career, a champion for an American global hegemony that is now unravelling. He and his emulators gave to imperialism a new, post-colonial face, pursuing perceived national interest regardless of the costs – which were principally levied on others.And yet the three pillars of Kissinger’s achievement – the opening to communist China in 1979, a less confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union, and the quest for common ground between Israel and the Arabs – were built on weak foundations that subsequently crumbled.Spiriting Richard Nixon to Beijing in 1972, where he met Mao Zedong, was seen as a breathtaking feat at the time. The manoeuvre, a not-so-subtle attempt to outflank the Russians, became known as “playing the China card”. In theory anyway, it piled pressure on the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev.But in the longer term, it was post-revolutionary China, not the US, that benefited immensely from this first, tentative engagement and the subsequent, rapid and unparalleled economic, business and investment boom.Deng Xiaoping, seizing power in 1978 after Mao’s death two years earlier, took full advantage of normalisation to begin to build the global superpower that today rivals and, some say, existentially threatens Kissinger’s American hegemony.It would be absurd to blame him for modern China’s transformation into an aggressive, expansionist predator with scant regard for democracy and human rights. On the other hand, President Xi Jinping, whom he met in July, is clearly following the Kissinger model.Detente with the Soviet Union, and a raft of nuclear arms control treaties undertaken by Nixon’s Republican successors, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush (both advised by Kissinger), are conventionally viewed as additional feathers in the his cap.But the eventual Soviet collapse and the ending of the cold war in 1989-91 – the key, triumphalist aim of western policymakers who took their cue from Washington – visited humiliation upon the Russian people.Rather than help Moscow’s new leaders build a functioning, prosperous democratic state, Bush and then Bill Clinton cashed in on the “peace dividend” and, in Vladimir Putin’s view, broke their word about Nato enlargement to the east. In retrospect, this was a doom-laden failure.Whether Putin is a student of Kissinger-ian pragmatism and realpolitik – the two men met in the Kremlin in 2017 – is an open question. What is plain is that Russia’s present leader is deeply familiar with the “China card” trick.Weeks before the invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Putin and Xi held a summit meeting at which they declared a “no limits” partnership. The tables had turned. Now it was the US that was diplomatically wrongfooted.China: a bigger problem than ever, challenging US leadership and values around the world. Russia: a bitterly resentful, resurgent power now once again threatening peace in Europe. Both are legacies of Kissinger’s world and the maximalist thinking that often informed his actions.It is hardly necessary to cast a glance at the appalling suffering in Gaza, and or hear the grief of Israeli relatives of more than a thousand people who died on 7 October, to know that the successes of American Middle East peace-making, under Kissinger and since, are mostly illusory.For sure, Kissinger helped mediate an end to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. But the basic conundrum – how may Jews and Palestinians live side by side in a disputed land – remains fundamentally unaddressed 50 years on. And the abiding perception of American political one-sidedness unfairly favouring Israel dates back to his time in office.In lasting so long and continuing to contribute to foreign policy debates, Kissinger became a unique witness to the conflicts, travails and triumphs of what came to be known as the American century – the US-dominated, post-1945 international order.But in many respects, he seemed, Canute-like, to resist, and stand in opposition to the rising tide of world affairs, which increasingly emphasised the importance of national self-determination and human rights.His support for the murderous military coup in Chile in 1973 that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende, and ushered in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, still stands out as a dreadful monument to the myopic, destructive American neo-imperialism of that era.US support for violent cold war nationalist groups amid proxy wars with the Soviet Union, such as Unita in Angola or later, the Contras in Nicaragua, and Washington’s propping up of the worst kind of African and Middle Eastern dictators – because it supposedly suited US geopolitical interests – were policies that owed much to Kissinger’s thinking.And then there was Vietnam. Although Kissinger is credited with helping to end the war, what he bequeathed, not unlike Donald Trump in Afghanistan, was a broken, shattered country that swiftly succumbed to a totalitarian takeover, rendering previous sacrifices futile.For some who can remember it, Kissinger will never be forgiven for the secret carpet-bombing of neutral Cambodia in 1969-70, as part of the Vietnam campaign. Kissinger reportedly told the US air force to strike “anything that flies or anything that moves”. About 50,000 civilians were killed.His actions were examined in Christopher Hitchens’ 2001 book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, which accused him of committing numerous war crimes. But as the decades rolled by and he gradually assumed the role of eldest elder statesman, such horrors – and all his multiple failures – were mostly set aside.Kissinger was a man of a different age. It would be good to believe that, with him, that age has passed.
Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator. He has been a foreign leader writer, foreign editor and US editor for the Guardian
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