Henry Kissinger: farewell to the leading figure in US foreign policy in the 20th century
Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, died at the age of 100 at his home in Kent, Connecticut, leaving behind a political legacy as impressive as it was controversial.
Born in the Bavarian town of Fürth, Germany, into a Jewish family under the name Heinz, he became America's most important diplomat of the 20th century after an impressive rise.
Henry Kissinger came to the United States at the age of 14 after his mother persuaded his father to leave Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1938, which was suffering a wave of persecution of Jews, a terrible scenario that led to the consolidation of the Nazi regime, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and the ignominious Holocaust against the Jews.
A young Kissinger lived the so-called "American dream" and rose to elite status despite being a foreigner and arriving with limited resources. He started working at the age of 16 in a paintbrush factory and learned English quickly, although he would never give up his German accent, which became the main feature of his public image. He was drafted at the end of World War II and decorated for his organisational skills when the war was over. He entered Harvard after leaving the Armed Forces and stood out as a brilliant student with a keen interest in international politics. He went on to earn a doctorate at Harvard University, where he even taught as a professor.
Richard Nixon recruited him to run US foreign policy under his presidency and established his political model for diplomacy, which was based on a balance of power game and the pursuit of what he understood to be global stability, with three major powers, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as the main poles of power, and a rising China, which was encouraged by Kissinger himself to do something to oppose the Soviet Union within the communist sphere, following the tactic of "divide and rule". His scale of power was clear to him, and he was even partly contemptuous of Europe, leaving in his day a famous statement about his doubts as to which telephone number he should call to speak to Europe.
Almost 47 years ago he stepped down from his active post as US foreign minister after Jimmy Carter took over as president from Gerald Ford, but his elongated figure has continued to loom large over the American giant and the country's geopolitical position.
Henry Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under Republican Presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon and, for a period of time, held both positions at the same time, between January 1969 and January 1977.
Lights and shadows
His greatest political success was bringing the United States and China, which had not enjoyed diplomatic relations since the Communists led by Mao Zedong came to power in 1949, closer together. Then President Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the idea of attacking the Chinese enemy with atomic bombs to safeguard Taiwan's independence in the 1950s, which led to a major confrontation with the communist orbit represented at the time by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the People's Republic of China, but Kissinger's subsequent intervention years later brought about a rapprochement between the two powers and Beijing's attraction to capitalism, something that also marked Chinese history, since the current mixture of a capitalist economic model with a single-party communist political model, led with an iron fist by the Communist Party of China, is currently leading the Asian giant to parameters of economic growth and geopolitical positioning with which it aspires to dethrone the United States as the world's leading power.
Although the figure of Henry Kissinger was also controversial because of his firm alignment against communism and his strong stance to achieve greater diplomatic benefit for his country and to preserve what he understood to be global stability, a stance that led to episodes of bloodshed and suffering.
As was the case in Chile; in this case a famous sentence is still remembered: "I don't know why we have to stand by and watch a country go towards communism because of the irresponsibility of its own people. The stakes are too high to leave it to the Chilean voters to decide". A political stance that was to some extent supportive of what was to become Pinochet's subsequent coup d'état in Chile in 1971 against the legitimate president Salvador Allende.
His alignment with the military coup d'état in Argentina in 1976 and the subsequent repression, in which tens of thousands of people disappeared under the Argentine dictatorship of sinister characters such as Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera and Orlando Ramón Agosti, was also noted at the time.
It was also a major supporter of President Richard Nixon's launch of a land invasion accompanied by the largest bombing campaign in history over Cambodia, in which more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Or the even more famous episode of the Vietnam War, where the struggle against the Vietnamese communists went on for many years, leaving thousands dead and a country devastated by a war that ended with the US Army leaving through the back door and the consolidation of communist power in Vietnam after the US withdrawal.
Despite these dubious episodes, Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for his negotiations for the US withdrawal from Vietnam.
His ideology was based on stability without being a dogmatist of one political line or another. He saw himself as an intellectual and historian, whose goal was to maintain stability in the world whatever the price to be paid. This stability was best exemplified by the good relationship established between the United States and China through his diplomatic intervention.
In 1975 he lost power and his post as Secretary of State to his successor, Donald Rumsfeld, who 28 years later would lead the invasion of Iraq under George Bush. Two years later, in 1977, he left the White House with a fall from grace that was comparable to his meteoric rise.
Ronald Reagan's accession to the White House separated him even further from power despite the fact that they were both members of the Republican Party. It was clear that Henry Kissinger had enemies in the Republican Party itself and obviously in the rival, more left-wing Democratic Party.
Kissinger was very pragmatic and his political enemies criticised him mainly for being unprincipled and allowing almost anything to achieve his goals.
Among his major successes were the aforementioned peace agreement for the Vietnam War, the stabilisation of Israel's relations with its Arab neighbours after the 1973 war, and his good relations with the antagonistic USSR and China. A figure who was admired and hated in equal parts and who had great influence on the world.
Kissinger leaves a legacy of an incomparable statesman for some and a war criminal for others. What is certain is that no one shaped international politics in modern history more than he did, for better or worse. And many leaders took him into account; indeed, he advised twelve presidents - from John Fitzgerald Kennedy to Joe Biden -, had dealings with all of China's leaders - from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping - and, when he left his political responsibilities, was much in demand as a consultant, lecturer and adviser.