Former diplomat and presidential adviser Henry Kissinger celebrates his 100th birthday on Saturday, surpassing many of his political contemporaries who guided America through some of its most tumultuous periods, including the presidency of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.
Born in Germany on May 27, 1923, Kissinger remains best known for his key role in American foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s, including eventual attempts to pull the US out of Vietnam, but not before being inextricably linked to many of the most contested conflicts. shares
David Kissinger, writing in The Washington Post on Thursday, said his father’s centennial “may have an air of inevitability to anyone familiar with his strength of character and love of historical symbolism. He has not only survived the most of his peers, eminent detractors and students, but he has also remained tirelessly active throughout his 90s.”
The elder Kissinger will celebrate this week with visits to New York, London and his hometown of Fürth, Germany, wrote David Kissinger.
In recent years, Kissinger has continued to dominate Washington’s power brokers as an elder statesman. He has advised Republican and Democratic presidents, including the White House during the Trump administration, while maintaining an international consulting business through which he delivers speeches in the German accent he has not lost since fleeing the Nazi regime with his family when he was a teenager.
As recently as this month, Kissinger opined that the war in Ukraine is reaching a tipping point with China entering into negotiations. He told CBS News that he expects negotiations to reach an end point “by the end of the year.” He has called for peace through negotiation to end the conflict.
Kissinger also co-authored a book on artificial intelligence in 2021 called “The Age of AI: And Our Human Future.” He warned that governments should prepare for the potential risks associated with the technology.
During eight years as national security adviser and secretary of state, Kissinger was involved in major foreign policy events, including the first example of “launch diplomacy” seeking peace in the Middle East, secret negotiations with China to thaw relations between the emerging superpowers and instigate the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam conflict and the US military presence there.
Kissinger, along with Nixon, also bore the brunt of criticism from US allies when North Vietnamese communist forces took Saigon in 1975, when remaining US personnel fled what is now known as Ho Chi Minh .
Kissinger was also accused of orchestrating the expansion of the conflict into Laos and Cambodia, allowing the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians.
Among his endorsements, Kissinger was recognized as a central driver in the period of détente, a diplomatic effort between the US and the Soviet Union that began between 1967 and 1979 to reduce Cold War tensions with trade and investment negotiations. weapons, including strategic arms limitation treaties.
Kissinger remained one of Nixon’s most trusted advisers during his administration from 1969 to 1974, his power only growing through the Watergate affair that brought down the 37th president.
Gerald Ford, who as vice president ascended to the Oval Office after his predecessor’s resignation, awarded Kissinger the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, saying that Kissinger “exercised the great power of the United States with wisdom and compassion in the service of peace”.
Others have accused Kissinger of being more concerned with power than harmony during his tenure in Washington, enacting realpolitik policies favoring American interests while aiding or emboldening repressive regimes in Pakistan, Chile, and Indonesia.
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Associated Press writer Patrick Whittle contributed to this report.
