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Former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, perhaps the most distinguished American geopolitical strategist – in part thanks to his enormous vanity – since the war in Vietnam until now, died yesterday at his home in Connecticut at the age of 100. , reported his association.
“Dr. Henry Kissinger, a respected American scholar and statesman, died today at his residence in Connecticut,” Kissinger Associates announced in a statement in the evening.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State (1969-1977) Henry Kissinger was a great promoter of wars throughout his career in government and as a private advisor.
He participated in the coup d’état against President Salvador Allende, the secret bombing of Cambodia, his disdain for human rights and support for dirty and genocidal wars abroad, documented in these pages by La Jornada correspondents, David Brooks. and Jim Cason (https://t.ly/0XNBj).
Also in a memo after the bloody coup in Argentina in 1976, Kissinger stated that military dictators had to be encouraged. And in the India-Pakistan war of 1971, then-president Richard Nixon and Kissinger were harshly criticized for leaning in favor of Pakistan. Kissinger was heard calling the Indians “bastards,” a comment he later said he regretted.
In an effort to diminish Soviet influence, Kissinger reached out to his main communist rival, China, and made two trips to that country, including a secret one to meet with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The result was Nixon’s historic summit in Beijing with Chairman Mao Zedong and the subsequent formalization of relations between the two countries.
When Gerald Ford lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, Kissinger’s days in the suites of government power were largely over. The next Republican in the White House, Ronald Reagan, distanced himself from Kissinger, whom he considered out of step with his conservative electorate.
After leaving the government, Kissinger created a high-net-worth consulting firm in New York that offered advice to the global business elite. He served on company boards and in various foreign policy and security forums, wrote books and became a regular commentator on international affairs in the media.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush chose Kissinger to head an investigative committee. However, protests from Democrats, who saw a conflict of interest with many of the clients of his consulting company, forced him to resign from office.
He was born in Germany and moved to the United States in 1938; He became a naturalized American in 1943.
Divorced from his first wife, Ann Fleischer, in 1964, he married Nancy Maginnes, advisor to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in 1974. He had two children by his first wife.
Source: Ap, Afp and Reuters
