The New York Times reported that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (pictured), a giant of American diplomacy, passed away on the 29th (local time). He died at the age of 100.
Former Secretary Kissinger, who played a leading role in ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ during the Cold War and led the normalization of relations with China, has shown active activity until recently, such as visiting China in July and meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
There are few politicians who have left as great a mark on U.S. diplomatic history as former Secretary Kissinger. He lifted the ‘Bamboo Curtain’ in the early 1970s, when the Cold War conflict dominated the world.
In order to put the brakes on the arms expansion race with Russia, it sought détente by concluding a strategic arms agreement, and led to an armistice agreement in the Vietnam War, which was the biggest headache for the United States at the time. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his contribution to world peace.
He was also close to Korea and received the Benfleet Award in 2009, given to a person who contributed to the development of Korea-US relations. Even after he was over 90 years old, he continued to travel abroad and showed his influence until his later years, regularly meeting with President Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Former Secretary Kissinger is respected not only for his diplomatic achievements. As a foreigner who came to the United States to escape Jewish persecution, he is also a symbol of the ‘American Dream’, standing tall as a giant in modern diplomatic history.
Former Secretary Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923 in Furth, northern Germany. Both of his parents were Jewish, his mother was from a wealthy family and his father was a teacher. As a child, he was a devout Jew who studied the Talmud, the book of Jewish law, for two hours a day.
He was a quiet and reserved student. His mother expressed her dissatisfaction by saying, “My son is immersed in books,” and “I wish he were more active.” He studied with the dream of entering Gymnasium, a liberal arts middle and high school where a small number of elite students enroll.
But his dreams were shattered with the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazism in Germany. Due to the discriminatory policy against Jews, admission to the Gymnasium became impossible. As a teenage boy, Kissinger endured persecution of Jews. Although he loved soccer, he was not allowed to join the boys’ soccer club because he was Jewish. He broke the ban on Jews and secretly entered the stadium to watch the game, but was harassed by Nazi party members.
Memories of that time had a great influence on former Secretary Kissinger’s life. He said, “Every time I passed on the street, I had to be called a ‘dirty Jew.’ “I was angry and unfair to be treated unfairly for no reason just because I was Jewish,” he recalled of his childhood. Even when he came to the United States, he walked backwards in crowded places. It was because of memories of being beaten by Nazi party members in Germany.
As Nazism gained momentum and persecution of Jews intensified, his parents decided to move to the United States in 1938. Kissinger was 15 years old. He took his family by boat to New York via London. His family came to the United States with no money and worked in a factory. Former Secretary Kissinger also worked at a factory that made shaving brushes. He gave up his German-sounding middle name, Heinz, to assimilate into American society. He entered George Washington High School in New York and quickly learned English. He was a good student, so much so that he was known around school. After entering the City College of New York in 1940, he had a simple dream of becoming an accountant and helping his family.
Participation in World War II changed Kissinger’s dreams. He became an American citizen in 1943 and was immediately drafted into the war. Five years after coming to the United States, he began fighting against his native Germany. He was initially sent to France as a rifleman, but thanks to his fluency in German, he was soon assigned to a German intelligence-gathering mission.
Kissinger was in charge of infiltrating Hanover, Germany and intercepting war secrets from Gestapo officers. He volunteered to collect information on the German attack at the famous Battle of the Bulge and contributed greatly to the Allied victory in the battle. He joined the military as a private first class, was quickly promoted to commander, and received the Bronze Military Merit Medal. In recognition of his outstanding intelligence collection and analysis abilities, he continued to serve as an intelligence instructor even after the war ended.
Former Secretary Kissinger, who witnessed the diplomatic struggle at the front line of the war, decided to become a scholar in the field of diplomacy and transferred to Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1950. The fact that he wrote a 383-page research paper on the topic ‘The Meaning of History’ as his college graduation thesis at the time remains a famous anecdote at Harvard University. The authorities at Harvard University, who were surprised by former Secretary Kissinger’s grand thesis, went so far as to establish the ‘Kissinger Rule’ that from then on, university graduation thesis should be around 100 pages. Although not well-polished, his college thesis, which shows his outstanding analytical and intuitive abilities, is still housed in the Harvard University Museum.
After receiving his doctorate from Harvard University in 1954, he was immediately appointed as a professor of government at Harvard University and became a tenured professor five years later. While he was a professor at Harvard University in 1957, he published a famous book called ‘Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy’. In the book, he argues against President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Deles’s policy of ‘massive nuclear retaliation’ against Soviet aggression, arguing that a UN response strategy using conventional weapons and tactical nuclear weapons alone could win a confrontation with the Soviet Union. claimed that there was. While he was a professor at Harvard University, he was appointed as a special advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and exerted influence on foreign policy.
Kissinger left Harvard University in 1969 and worked as national security adviser and secretary of state in the Richard Nixon administration until 1975, and later served as secretary of state until 1977 in the Gerald Ford administration. He resigned from his position as minister in 1978 when the Democratic Party’s Jimmy Carter administration took office. He later served as a professor at Columbia University and George Washington University and served as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Advisory Committee under the Ronald Reagan and George W.H. Bush administrations.
Former Secretary Kissinger founded a political consulting and lobbying firm called Kissinger Associates in 1982. He was appointed as chairman of the National Committee for Terrorist Attacks Against the United States (NCTAUUS), which investigated the September 11 terrorist attacks, under the George W. Bush administration in 2002, but voluntarily resigned as a possible conflict of interest with a Kissinger Associates client was raised.
Former Secretary Kissinger once said, “Looking back on my life, who would have imagined that I would become Secretary of State for the most powerful country in the world?” In Germany, he was unable to properly attend school due to the persecution of Jews, and even when he came to the United States, he had to work at a factory to earn tuition at a young age. He said he could not believe that he had stood tall as a diplomat who would be remembered in world history.
He wrote three autobiographies and left behind 14 books during his lifetime. The autobiography ‘White House Years’ is so rich that it was selected as the best history book by the National Library Committee in 1980. Among the policy books, ‘American Foreign Policy (1969)’, ‘Diplomacy (1994)’, and ‘China Story (2011)’ are Kissinger’s 3rd. It is considered a great book. His most recent books include ‘World Order’ (2014).
Former Secretary Kissinger, who was married twice, has one son and one daughter. David Kissinger, his son with his first wife, entered the broadcasting industry instead of being a diplomat and is working as a producer. Even when he was minister, he was such an avid soccer fan that he followed the performance of the soccer team in his hometown, Perth, Germany, every week. He was emotional when he visited his hometown in 2012 and watched the Perth team play in person.
In an interview after leaving office, former Secretary Kissinger was asked, “What is your favorite sports game?” and answered “Diplomacy.” He was an American who loved diplomacy throughout his life.
In early 2013, a grand celebration of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s 90th birthday was held in New York. It was an event that showed how great his diplomatic influence was. A large number of political and business figures attended, including former President Bill Clinton, former French President Giscard D’Estaing, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Senator John McCain, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Current and former U.S. secretaries of state, including George Shultz, James Baker, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, also attended. Rep. McCain delivered a congratulatory speech, saying, “He shone the light on diplomacy at a time when the United States and the world were at their most chaotic,” and “I have never seen a person more respected than former Secretary Kissinger.”
In response, former Secretary Kissinger said, “The United States cannot be the world’s policeman. However, the United States must be the last bastion that the world can rely on when a crisis arises,” he said, adding, “I went wherever American diplomacy was needed for world peace.”
In November 2016, less than 10 days after Donald Trump, then President-elect, won the election, he invited Kissinger to Trump Tower to ask for his opinion on the world situation, which was enough to show Kissinger’s power. In 2015, when Foreign Policy (FP), a foreign policy magazine, asked, ‘Who was the most effective Secretary of State over the past 50 years?’, 32.2% of 1,615 international political scientists working in the United States chose Kissinger. It overtook 2nd place ‘I don’t know (18.3%)’ and 3rd place James Baker (17.7%).
In fact, the period from 1969 to 1977, when former Secretary Kissinger was the head of diplomatic affairs, was the peak period of American diplomacy. There was almost no country, including Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, Israel, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, and Africa, that was not under the reach of the United States.
Kissinger, a realist who emphasized the importance of the values of liberal democracy supported by the United States, emphasized the importance of pursuing value-neutral strategic interests that exclude emotions in order to establish an effective foreign policy. His three major diplomatic achievements are his visit to China, the arms control agreement with the Soviet Union, and the Vietnam War armistice agreement.
In 1971, former Secretary Kissinger, who was the White House National Security Advisor, visited China after receiving a secret message from former President Richard Nixon to ‘reestablish relations.’ It was a secret visit that the State Department did not know about. China was a shrouded country with no significant contact with the United States after World War II, but the United States needed to reset its relationship with China to keep the Soviet Union in check. During his visit to Pakistan, former Secretary Kissinger secretly went to China and met with Premier Zhou Enlai and Chairman Mao Zedong, making President Nixon’s visit to China the following year. The stay of just 17 hours was a new starting point for the relationship between the two countries.
Former Secretary Kissinger emphasized in his report on his secret visit to China, “We should not deal with communist countries in the abstract.” You need to be able to distinguish between ideology and real politics. He argued, “We must break with the Cold War-era diplomacy that put ideology first.”
Former Secretary Kissinger also visited China in December 2016 and engaged in active diplomatic activities, including meeting President Xi Jinping. He visited China more than 40 times. In his 2011 book ‘China Story’, he argued, “The United States and China, which have emerged as two major countries (G2) on the international stage, should form a relationship of resonance that moves forward together rather than a partnership.” In line with each other’s international status, we must cooperate whenever possible and adjust our relationships to minimize conflict.
Previously, in 1969, former Secretary Kissinger signaled the overture to détente by leading to the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT) with the Soviet Union, a Cold War rival. Through the SALT negotiations, he froze the increasing number of strategic offensive missiles of the United States and the Soviet Union. At the time, he negotiated secretly with Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin and Communist First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, leaving the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense completely unaware.
Former Secretary Kissinger initially maintained a hard-line stance, opposing withdrawal from the Vietnam War, but pushed for a policy of ‘Vietnamization’, which involved withdrawing U.S. troops from South Vietnam and replacing them with South Vietnamese troops. After months of secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese government in Paris, he negotiated an armistice in 1973 that withdrew American troops and laid the foundation for a peace settlement between North and South Vietnam. In recognition of his contribution to resolving the Vietnam conflict, former Secretary Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize along with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho (黎德壽). To declined the award, but former Secretary Kissinger accepted the award, saying, “I will accept the award humbly.” However, the peace agreement became useless when South Vietnam fell due to an attack by North Vietnam in 1975 and became communist.
Former Secretary Kissinger’s diplomacy shone in the Middle East. When the Middle East War broke out in 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in the same year that the Vietnam War peace agreement was signed, former Secretary Kissinger conducted ‘shuttle diplomacy’ by visiting several Middle Eastern countries several times to induce a ceasefire. Relations between the United States and Egypt, which had cooled since the 1950s, normalized as former Secretary Kissinger urged Israel to return some of the occupied Egyptian territory.
Former Secretary Kissinger, who left a significant mark on diplomatic history, chose Clemens von Metternich, the Austrian chancellor of the early 19th century, as the politician he most respected. Former Secretary Kissinger also wrote a doctoral thesis at Harvard University on the topic of Metternich. Metternich’s political skills, who led the alliance of four neighboring countries against Napoleon of France, had a great influence on former Secretary Kissinger’s foreign policy. Kissinger’s ‘Realpolitik’, which states that maintaining the ‘balance of power’ and protecting the world order through cooperation, no matter how imperfect an alliance, is better than chaos and revolution, originated from Metternich.
Political scientist Robert Caplin commented on former Secretary Kissinger as “a person who pursued a foreign policy that the United States had to pursue, not what it wanted to pursue.” Former Secretary Kissinger focused on broadening America’s interests and maintaining the balance of world order based on a cool-headed perception of reality rather than idealism. The New York Times commented, “No one can deny that former Secretary Kissinger expanded the horizons of U.S. diplomacy and that under his leadership, U.S. diplomacy enjoyed a golden age.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Harvard University in April 2012 and gave a special lecture. This visit was former Secretary Kissinger’s ‘homecoming’ after 43 years.
Former Secretary Kissinger served as a professor at Harvard for 15 years until he was appointed White House national security adviser in 1969. However, Harvard University did not accept him when he tried to return as a professor after retiring as minister in 1977. He did not even give the opportunity to give a graduation speech to most famous alumni. Former Secretary Kissinger also spent his days building a wall with Harvard University, which treated him coldly. At the lecture that day, some audience members opposed Kissinger’s return to Harvard, shouting, “Kissinger is a war criminal.”
The nearly half-century long cold war between Harvard University and former Secretary of State Kissinger was due to Kissinger’s foreign policy. Kissinger’s pragmatic diplomacy based on national interests has caused much controversy not only at progressive Harvard University but also in American society as a whole. The criticism was that ‘there are as many mistakes as there are many achievements.’
When left-wing President Salvador Allende was elected in Chile in 1970, former Secretary Kissinger supported Pinochet’s military uprising to oust Allende under the pretext of preventing communism in South America. As numerous innocent citizens were sacrificed under Pinochet’s dictatorship, Kissinger’s support for Pinochet was heavily criticized internationally.
During the Vietnam War, he was criticized for creating a killing field by carrying out indiscriminate violence against Cambodia, which was neutral during the Vietnam War, in order to block the North Vietnamese army invading Cambodian territory.
In addition, there is controversy that former Secretary Kissinger condoned the 1975 attack on East Timor by ally Indonesia and the massacre of its residents. American journalist Christopher Hitchens also argued, “Former Secretary Kissinger should be indicted by the International Court of Justice on charges of committing crimes against humanity,” and added, “It is an irony of history that the Nobel Peace Prize winner is actually a war criminal.”
Former Secretary Kissinger explained this controversy in a speech at Harvard University, saying, “Academics can suggest the best solution, but policymakers have no choice but to make the best choice among a limited number of options.” Experts say, “Despite the mistakes of Kissinger’s foreign policy, it is clear that much of the international order he created is still maintained.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.