Henry Kissinger facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Henry Kissinger
|
|
|---|---|
Official portrait, c. 1973
|
|
| 56th United States Secretary of State | |
| In office September 22, 1973 – January 20, 1977 |
|
| President | |
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | William Rogers |
| Succeeded by | Cyrus Vance |
| 7th United States National Security Advisor | |
| In office January 20, 1969 – November 3, 1975 |
|
| President |
|
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | Walt Rostow |
| Succeeded by | Brent Scowcroft |
| 22nd Chancellor of the College of William & Mary | |
| In office July 1, 2000 – October 1, 2005 |
|
| President |
|
| Preceded by | Margaret Thatcher |
| Succeeded by | Sandra Day O'Connor |
| Chair of the 9/11 Commission | |
| In office November 27, 2002 – December 14, 2002 |
|
| President | George W. Bush |
| Deputy | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Kean |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Heinz Alfred Kissinger
May 27, 1923 Fürth, Weimar Republic (now Germany) |
| Died | November 29, 2023 (aged 100) Connecticut, U.S. |
| Citizenship |
|
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouses |
|
| Children | 2 |
| Education | |
| Occupation |
|
| Civilian awards | Nobel Peace Prize (1973) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1943–1946 |
| Rank | Sergeant |
| Unit |
|
| Battles/wars | |
| Military awards | Bronze Star |
Henry Alfred Kissinger ( kiss-IN-jər; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat, political scientist, geopolitical consultant, and politician who served as United States secretary of state and national security advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.
Kissinger's legacy remains polarizing in U.S. politics, both venerated by some as a highly effective U.S. secretary of state and condemned by others for allegedly tolerating or supporting war crimes committed by allied nation states during his tenure.
Contents
Early life and education
Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923, in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, the son of homemaker Paula (née Stern; 1901–1998, from Leutershausen), and Louis Kissinger (1887–1982), a schoolteacher; he had a younger brother, Walter, who was a businessman (1924–2021). Kissinger's family was German-Jewish, his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb having adopted "Kissinger" as his surname in 1817, taking it from the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen. In his childhood, Kissinger enjoyed playing soccer. He played for the youth team of SpVgg Fürth, which was one of the nation's best clubs at the time.
In a 2022 interview, Kissinger vividly recalled being nine years old in 1933 and learning of Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor of Germany, which proved to be a profound turning point for the Kissinger family. During Nazi rule, Kissinger and his friends were regularly harassed and beaten by Hitler Youth gangs. Kissinger sometimes defied the segregation imposed by Nazi racial laws by sneaking into soccer stadiums to watch matches, often resulting in beatings from security guards. As results of the Nazis' anti-Semitic laws, Kissinger was unable to gain admittance to the Gymnasium and his father was dismissed from his teaching job.
On August 20, 1938, when Kissinger was 15 years old, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution. The family briefly stopped in London before arriving in New York City on September 5. Kissinger later downplayed the influence his experiences of Nazi persecution had had on his policies, writing that the "Germany of my youth had a great deal of order and very little justice; it was not the sort of place likely to inspire devotion to order in the abstract." However, many scholars, including Kissinger's biographer Walter Isaacson, have disagreed and argued that his experiences influenced the formation of his realist approach to foreign policy.
Kissinger spent his high-school years in the Washington Heights section of Upper Manhattan as part of the German-Jewish immigrant community that resided there at the time. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced German accent, due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. After his first year at George Washington High School, he began attending school at night and worked in a shaving brush factory during the day.
Following high school, Kissinger enrolled in the City College of New York, studying accounting. He excelled academically as a part-time student, continuing to work while enrolled. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.
U.S. Army
Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On June 19, 1943, while stationed in South Carolina, at the age of 20 years, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, but the program was canceled and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer, a fellow immigrant from Germany who noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect and arranged for him to be assigned to the military intelligence section of the division. Kissinger saw combat with the division and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge.
During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger, though only a private (the lowest military rank), was put in charge of the administration of the city of Krefeld because of a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Within eight days he had established a civilian administration. Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), where he became a CIC Special Agent holding the enlisted rank of sergeant. He was given charge of a team in Hanover assigned to tracking down Gestapo officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of the Bensheim metro CIC detachment, Bergstrasse district of Hesse, with responsibility for denazification of the district.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King and, as a civilian employee following his separation from the army, continued to serve in this role.
Kissinger would later recall that his experience in the army "made me feel like an American".
Academic career
.jpg)
Kissinger graduated from Harvard College in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively.
Kissinger remained at Harvard as a member of the faculty in the Department of Government where he served as the director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971. In 1955, he was a consultant to the National Security Council's Operations Coordinating Board. During 1955 and 1956, he was also study director in nuclear weapons and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He released his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy the following year.
From 1956 to 1958, Kissinger worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project. He served as the director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971. In 1958, he also co-founded the Center for International Affairs with Robert R. Bowie where he served as its associate director. Outside of academia, he served as a consultant to several government agencies and think tanks, including the Operations Research Office, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Department of State, and the RAND Corporation.
Foreign policy advisor
Kissinger became foreign policy advisor to the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller, supporting his bids for the Republican nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968.
After Nixon became president in January 1969, Kissinger was appointed as National Security Advisor. He continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford.
The relationship between Nixon and Kissinger was unusually close, and has been compared to the relationships of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House, or Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins.
A practitioner of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. He pioneering the policy of détente with the Soviet Union. This policy led to a significant relaxation in US–Soviet tensions.
Kissinger's trips to China paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou, and Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, as well as the formation of a tacit strategic anti-Soviet alliance between China and the United States. Kissinger's diplomacy led to economic and cultural exchanges between the two sides and the establishment of "liaison offices" in the Chinese and American capitals, though full normalization of relations with China would not occur until 1979.
.jpg)
Along with Lê Đức Thọ, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefire and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Thọ rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been restored in South Vietnam. Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility", and "donated the entire proceeds to the children of American servicemembers killed or missing in action in Indochina". After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Kissinger attempted to return the award.
Later years
After leaving government, Kissinger formed Kissinger Associates, an international geopolitical consulting firm. He wrote over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations.
A 2015 survey conducted by the College of William & Mary ranked Kissinger as the most effective U.S. Secretary of State in the 50 years to 2015.
Family and personal life
Kissinger married Anneliese "Ann" Fleischer (born November 6, 1925, in Fürth, Germany) on February 6, 1949. They had two children, Elizabeth and David, and divorced in 1964. In 1955 he met Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann during a symposium at Harvard; the two had a romantic relationship that lasted several years. On March 30, 1974, he married Nancy Maginnes. They lived in Kent, Connecticut, and in New York City. Kissinger's son David Kissinger served as an executive with NBC Universal Television Studio before becoming head of Conaco, Conan O'Brien's production company, in 2005. In February 1982, at the age of 58, Henry Kissinger underwent coronary bypass surgery. On May 27, 2023, Kissinger turned 100.
Soccer
Daryl Grove characterized Kissinger as one of the most influential people in the growth of soccer in the United States. Kissinger was named chairman of the North American Soccer League board of directors in 1978.
Death
Kissinger died on November 29, 2023, at the age of 100. He died at his home in Connecticut, survived by his wife, Nancy Maginnes Kissinger, two children, David and Elizabeth, and five grandchildren. His death was announced by his consulting firm.
Interesting facts about Henry Kissinger
- Since his childhood, Kissinger had been a fan of his hometown's soccer club, SpVgg Fürth (now SpVgg Greuther Fürth). Even during his time in office, the German Embassy informed him about the team's results every Monday morning.
- Kissinger described Diplomacy as his favorite game in a 1973 interview.
- Kissinger's senior undergraduate thesis was over 400 pages long, and was the origin of the current limit on length (35,000 words).
Awards, honors, and associations
- Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ were jointly offered the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Paris Peace Accords which prompted the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam war.
- In 1973, Kissinger received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
- In 1976, Kissinger became the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
.jpg)
- On January 13, 1977, Kissinger received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford.
- In 1980, Kissinger won the National Book Award in History for the first volume of his memoirs, The White House Years.
- In 1986, Kissinger was one of twelve recipients of the Medal of Liberty.
- In 1995, he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George.
- In 2000, Kissinger received the Sylvanus Thayer Award at United States Military Academy at West Point.
- In 2002, Kissinger became an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee.
- On March 1, 2012, Kissinger was awarded Israel's President's Medal.
- In October 2013, Kissinger was awarded the Henry A. Grunwald Award for Public Service by Lighthouse International.
- Kissinger was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford.
- Kissinger was a member of the following groups:
- Aspen Institute
- Atlantic Council
- Bilderberg Group
- Bohemian Club
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- World.Minds
- Bloomberg New Economy Forum
- Kissinger served on the board of Theranos, a health technology company, from 2014 to 2017.
- He received the Theodore Roosevelt American Experience Award from the Union League Club of New York in 2009.
- He became the Honorary Chair of the advisory board for the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in 2018.
- He also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
- In 2023, he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art from Minister-President of Bavaria Markus Söder.
Notable works
Memoirs
- 1979. The White House Years. ISBN: 0-316-49661-8 (National Book Award, History Hardcover)
- 1982. Years of Upheaval. ISBN: 0-316-28591-9
- 1999. Years of Renewal. ISBN: 0-684-85571-2
Public policy
- 1957. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. New York: Published for the Council on Foreign Relations by Harper & Brothers. Foreword by Gordon Dean (pp. vii–x).
- 1961. The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy. ISBN: 0-06-012410-5.
- 1965. The Troubled Partnership: A Re-Appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN: 0-07-034895-2.
- 1969. American Foreign Policy: Three Essays. ISBN: 0-297-17933-0.
- 1981. For the Record: Selected Statements 1977–1980. ISBN: 0-316-49663-4.
- 1985. Observations: Selected Speeches and Essays 1982–1984. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN: 0-316-49664-2.
- 1994. Diplomacy. ISBN: 0-671-65991-X.
- 1998. Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow, edited by William Burr. New York: New Press. ISBN: 1-56584-480-7.
- 2001. Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century. ISBN: 0-684-85567-4.
- 2002. Vietnam: A Personal History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. ISBN: 0-7432-1916-3.
- 2003. Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises: Based on the Record of Henry Kissinger's Hitherto Secret Telephone Conversations. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN: 978-0-7432-4911-9.
- 2011. On China. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN: 978-1-59420-271-1.
- 2014. World Order. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN: 978-1-59420-614-6.
Other works
- 2021. The Age of AI: And Our Human Future. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN: 978-0-316-27380-0.
- 2022. Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-241-54200-2.
Articles
- 2023. "The Path to AI Arms Control", Foreign Affairs, (co-authored with Graham Allison)
- 2012. "The Future of U.S.-Chinese Relations," Foreign Affairs
- 2001. "The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction," Foreign Affairs
- 1999. "Between the Old Left and the New Right," Foreign Affairs
- 1994. "Reflections on Containment," Foreign Affairs
Images for kids
-
Kissinger, shown here with Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, negotiated rapprochement with China.
-
Kissinger and President Richard Nixon discussing the Vietnam situation in Camp David, 1972 (with Alexander Haig)
-
President Ford, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, and Kissinger speaking informally at the Vladivostok Summit in 1974
-
Kissinger in the West Wing as National Security Adviser
-
Kissinger sits in the Oval Office with President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, 1973.
-
On October 31, 1973, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmi (left) meets with Richard Nixon (middle) and Henry Kissinger (right), about a week after the end of fighting in the Yom Kippur War.
-
Kissinger and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on March 19, 1975. In the far background behind Faisal is his half-brother, the future King Fahd.
-
Ford and Kissinger conversing on the White House grounds, August 1974
-
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet shaking hands with Kissinger in 1976
-
Suharto with Gerald Ford and Kissinger in Jakarta on December 6, 1975, one day before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor
-
Kissinger meeting with President Ronald Reagan in the White House family quarters, 1981
-
Kissinger and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the Munich Security Conference in February 2009
-
Kissinger with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 21, 2017
-
President Donald Trump meeting with Kissinger on May 10, 2017
-
President Barack Obama discussing the New START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia, 2010
-
Kissinger speaking during Gerald Ford's funeral in January 2007
-
Angela Merkel and Kissinger were at the state funeral for former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, November 23, 2015.
-
Henry Kissinger on April 26, 2016
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Henry Kissinger para niños
- List of foreign-born United States Cabinet members
