How Kissinger became the nexus of US political foreign policy: From negotiating with the USSR to back channel talks with China and a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Vietnam War
- Kissinger, a diplomatic powerhouse whose roles under two presidents left an indelible mark on US foreign policy and earned him a controversial Nobel Peace Prize, died on Wednesday at age 100
For eight restless years — first as national security adviser, later as secretary of state, and for a time as both — Henry Kissinger played a dominant role in US foreign policy.
The Austrian-native, who died at the age of 100 on Wednesday, conducted the first ‘shuttle diplomacy’ in the quest for Middle East peace. Between October and December 1973, Kissinger visited 26 countries.
He used secret negotiations to restore ties between the United States and China.
He initiated the Paris talks that ultimately provided a face-saving means to get the United States out of war in Vietnam.
As a result of these efforts, Kissinger, alongside his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Though Le Duc Tho did not attend the ceremony.
And he pursued détente with the Soviet Union that led to arms-control agreements.
President Nixon and Kissinger toasting with Leonid Brezhnev, and Grmyko during Kremlin seven-day summit conference with the USSR Communist Party
Kissinger accepts food from Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing
Kissinger’s enormous sway in US affairs began when President Richard Nixon appointed him national security advisor in 1969. Prior to that, Kissinger was teaching international relations at Harvard.
Arguably, Kissinger is most revered and reviled in Asia. Upon his death, Chinese state media called him ‘an old friend of the Chinese people.’ He is the only American who dealt with every leader of the Communist country from Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping.
Famously, Kissinger traveled to China in 1972, meeting Mao and then-premier Zhou Enlai, Kissinger, a show of solidarity that would spread fear in the Soviet Union.
His carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1970 saw him dogged until his death, and afterwards, with allegations that he was a ‘war criminal.’ Around 50,000 civilians are thought to have been killed.
That-in-turn saw the rise of the brutal dictatorship of Pol Pot.
These policies were part of a strategy to drive the North Vietnamese leadership to the negotiation table by planting the idea that Nixon was a ‘madman’ who was capable of anything.
In the Middle East, his reopening of diplomatic relations between the US and Egypt helped to pave the way for the Camp David accords, which were signed by President Jimmy Carter after the Republicans left the White House.
His policy of shuttle diplomacy is believed to have brought the 1973 Arab-Israel war under control after Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack on the Jewish state.
Just days after reopening diplomatic ties with Egypt, the country’s military leaders signed a peace agreement with Israel at Kilometer 1010 on the Cairo-Suez highway in the Sinai peninsula.
Kissinger receiving his Nobel Peace Prize from Mr Thomas Byrne, US Ambassador to Norway, at Claridge’s Hotel, London in 1973
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reads on September 2, 1975 in Jerusalem the Sinai Interim Agreement, also known as the Sinai II Agreement
Israelis forces withdraw from positions west of the Suez Canal on March 1, 1974, after a disengagement agreement between Egypt and Israel
When Gerald Ford took office in the summer of 1974 after Watergate, Kissinger went with the new president to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, where the president met Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
The group agreed to a basic framework for a strategic arms pact. The agreement capped Kissinger’s pioneering efforts at détente that led to a relaxing of US-Soviet tensions.
In South America, Kissinger supported the military regimes in Chile and Argentina.
In the former, the then-Secretary of State directed the CIA to support Augusto Pinochet’s leadership, overthrowing democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende in the process.
‘I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves,’ Kissinger said in 1975.
The Argentine military believed that Kissinger had given them the go-ahead to conduct their ‘dirty war’ against leftist dissidents, later declassified documents showed.
He said the military should be encouraged at the time of the 1976 coup and later praised them for wiping out ‘terrorist forces.’
There were fears within the US intelligence community that Chile would be used as a conduit by the USSR to spread communism throughout the Americas.
Following the US withdrawal from Vietnam, Kissinger’s policies in Asia remained he aggressive, supporting Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor.
And in the India-Pakistan War of 1971, Nixon and Kissinger were heavily criticized for tilting toward Pakistan. Kissinger was heard calling the Indians ‘bastards’ – a remark he later said he regretted.
During this period, Kissinger was accused of turning a blind eye to atrocities that were carried out by Pakistani soldiers.
While in Africa, Kissinger backed apartheid-South Africa’s incursions into Angola. At the same time, he advised the Rhodesian-white minority government to give up power.
Upon the election of Carter in 1976, Kissinger left the White House though he remained in the public eye.
He was supportive of President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In an interview this year, Kissinger said of his critics during an interview with CBS News: ‘That’s a reflection of their ignorance.’
He was equally bullish about his diplomatic career in a 2022 interview with ABC News.
‘I’ve been thinking about these problems all my life. It’s my hobby as well as my occupation. And so the recommendations I made were the best of which I was then capable.’
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