Henry Kissinger, 100, dies at home in Connecticut

KENT (Connecticut, US), Nov 30: Renowned diplomat and Nobel prize winner Henry Kissinger died at his home in Kent in Connecticut on Wednesday night at the age of 100, his consulting firm, Kissinger Associates Inc. announced on Thursday. The statement did not mention the immediate cause of death.

Active in his role till the last breath, in July last he had met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and a month earlier, he came to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address at the luncheon at the State Department jointly hosted by Vice-President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He was in a wheelchair.

He had in his long career visited India several times. There was a thaw in US relations with India in 1974 after it sided with Pakistan in the Indo- Pakistan war of 1971. Kissinger arrived in Delhi in 1974 on an invitation by his counterpart, YB Chavan. The then Indian Prime Minster Indira Gandhi had remarked that India was considered "marginal" to US' global strategy. She left for a Kashmir visit but he was given a warm welcome to the surprise of diplomatic circles. Kissinger himself said the Indo-US relations had sharply improved. Communists protested against his visit.

That was a time when the world was small and security as seen today was unheard of for VIP movements. After his arrival he came to the only cultural centre Delhi had then, Mandi House, to address a gathering in a small auditorium where this writer then in his early twenties rubbed shoulders with him (physically). He used to carry a brief case of the shape and size of the branded VIP suitcase and people used to say it had the nuclear button within. He wielded the American power then! The US was one of the just two nuclear powers.

A statesman who used his academics as the driver of his career in diplomacy and security, whose brilliance shaped American foreign policy direction and laid the foundation of a strong national security architecture whose power is perceptible in every nook and corner today. Which has in fact come to shape up today's robust foreign policy of power and persuasion. Kissinger's progress can be easily illustrated by a flowchart.

He brilliantly utilised his academic background as the foundation to build his career with phenomenal outcome. Holding both the offices of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State at the same time under Republican President Richard Nixon, which is a rare thing to happen in American history, he was able to integrate the national security architecture with foreign relations and diplomacy.

With the result that after John F. Kennedy and his successor, the American power structure is energised today by the invisible internal security architecture integrated with foreign relations Kissinger built up from his opportunity Nixon provided him unhesitatingly, rather than the persona of a President. Irrespective of who the President is, the system works to perfection. American security, both internal and overseas, is today automated!

Kissinger became the National Security Adviser after Nixon won the 1968 presidential election as he had occasion to serve Nixon's interests earlier. He took office in January 1969 as National Security Adviser and, after his appointment as Secretary of State in 1973, kept both titles, a rarity in American history. That was the pinnacle of his career.

He continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in 1974 amidst the Watergate crisis.

His career is decorated by the Vietnam accord, opening of diplomatic relations with China, the historic arms control talks with the erstwhile Soviet Union and bringing to an end the Cold War. He received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Vietnam war. The Paris Peace Accord was signed in January 1973. He was made Secretary of State. His career bloomed around this time.

In the initial period he tried to overthrow Chilean President Salvador Allende in the early 70s. In the India-Pakistan war of 1971, Nixon and Kissinger criticised India and sided with Pakistan forcing the Soviet Union to launch its warships in support of India.

The shuttle diplomacy during the Arab-Israeli conflict brought him fame. His spadework and secret China visit led to Nixon's historic summit with Chairman Mao Zedong. That was another landmark in his career.

The arms talks made progress with Ford and Kissinger visiting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. It was then that the concept of detente took shape in international relations. The tense US-Soviet relations started easing.

When Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, succeeded Ford in 1976, Kissinger's powerplay came to an end. He later set up a consulting firm in New York, started writing books and worked in the international arena on his own terms. He continued to be a figure to reckon with till end.

He was just brilliance personified. There was always a German influence in his speaking and writing as in his voice. He excelled in academics as in diplomacy and statecraft. Although people called him egoistic he was less vocal on personal matters. He advocated American interests and was a messiah of peace in the comity of nations.

A Germany-born Jewish refugee in the US, he strove for closer ties with Israel. He was born in Furth in Germany on May 27, 1923 and shifted to the US with family in 1938. He took a doctorate from Harvard University in 1954 and was on its faculty for 17 years.

He divorced his first wife Ann Fleischer in 1964 and married Nancy Maginnes in 1974. He had two children by his first wife.