Henry Kissinger, the powerful and influential former Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, has died

The former secretary of state Henry Kissinger A diplomat who dominated foreign policy as the United States split from Vietnam and broke down barriers with China, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said in a statement. He was 100 years old.

With his gruff but commanding presence and his behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Kissinger exerted unusual influence on world affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, earning him both defamation and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Decades later, his name still sparks passionate debate about milestones and critical events in past U.S. foreign policy.

In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon appointed him National Security Advisor and he later served as Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.

Kissinger was synonymous with American foreign policy in the 1970s.

He received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping end American military involvement in the Vietnam War. and is credited with secret diplomacy that helped President Richard Nixon open communist China to the United States and the West, highlighted by Nixon’s visit to the country in 1972.

But he was also vilified by many for the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. which led to the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime and for his support of a coup d’état against the democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

Kissinger’s secret negotiations with what was then still called Red China led to the Nixon’s most famous foreign policy achievement.

Conceived as a decisive Cold War step to isolate the Soviet Union, it paved the way for the world’s most complex relationship, between the United States and China, two countries that at Kissinger’s death were the largest economy and the second largest in the world, completely intertwined and yet constantly at odds as a new Cold War loomed.

A powerful figure, praised and criticized

Kissinger, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany with his family as a teenager, in his later years cultivated a reputation as a respected statesman, giving speeches, offering advice to both Republicans and Democrats and running a global consulting business.

He appeared in President Donald Trump’s White House on multiple occasions.

But the Nixon-era documents and tapes, as they emerged over the years, brought revelations, many of them in Kissinger’s own words, which sometimes they cast it in a harsh light.

Never without his detractors, Kissinger, after leaving government, was persecuted by critics who argued that He should be held accountable for his policies in Southeast Asia and his support for repressive regimes in Latin America, which caused thousands of deaths.

When asked during a CBS interview on the eve of his centennial about those who see his foreign policy conduct over the years as a kind of “criminality”Kissinger was more than dismissive.

“That is a reflection of their ignorance,” Kissinger said. “It wasn’t conceived that way. “It wasn’t carried out that way.”

His consulting firm said that Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut. and that he will be buried in a private family service. There will be a memorial service in New York City at a later date. In lieu of flowers, his family suggests considering donations and pointed out some of the institutions they suggest for this.

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