Nobel Prize Winner, Ex-Secretary of State of US, Henry Kissinger Dies at 100

Henry Kissinger, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former United States Secretary of State, passed away at the age of 100 on Wednesday, informed the Kissinger Associates Inc.

He was a key diplomatic think tank under two US presidents. His impact on the US foreign policy has always been a point of discussion.

Kissinger breathed his last at his home in Connecticut. Till May this year he was active and attending meetings in the White House, publishing a book on leadership styles, and testifying before a Senate committee about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. In July 2023, he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the 1970s, serving as Secretary of State under Republican President Richard Nixon, this German-born Jewish refugee’s efforts led to the diplomatic opening of China, landmark US-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam.

In 1973, he was awarded Nobel Peace Prize jointly with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who declined it.

Born as Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Germany, on May 27, 1923, he migrated to the United States with his family in 1938. Kissinger became a naturalised US citizen in 1943, served in the Army in Europe in World War II, and went to Harvard University on scholarship, earning a master’s degree in 1952 and a doctorate in 1954. He was on Harvard’s faculty for 17 years.

When Nixon’s pledge to end the Vietnam War won him the 1968 presidential election, he brought Kissinger to the White House as national security adviser.