Henry Kissinger, who shaped US foreign policy, dies at 100

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, November 30

Henry Kissinger, world’s longest-serving consigliere on foreign affairs, died at his home in Connecticut at the age of 100.

Oped: Contentious legacy

Derided for pushing genocidal wars in several nations across continents, including in Bangladesh, Kissinger was credited with the Sino-US patch up which helped sidestep hostility with the West for almost four decades. For decades till his death, the portly, genial-appearing Kissinger was a counsellor for presidents, sheikhs and mega corporates the world over with sage advice long after he had hung up his boots as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

It was during his active service in the US executive, that Kissinger rubbed PM Indira Gandhi the wrong way on her decision to intervene militarily in then West Pakistan to avert a genocide. Kissinger was also accused of green signalling covert or active operations in Argentina, Chile, East Timor, Cambodia, Laos, Uruguay and Vietnam that led to millions of deaths of combatants and civilians alike. Only in one case, was a summoning issued by a French court which Kissinger did not attend. Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for a brief truce he had midwifed in Vietnam but which unravelled later, leading to an undignified exit for the US army.

For the past 40 years or more than half of his working life, Kissinger headed an international consulting group that would hire top outgoing officials of the US administration to help corporates liaison with the government. Kissinger cut deals for or sat on the boards of American Express, Daewoo, Volvo, Ericsson, Heinz and Fiat. He was on the US President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board for six years and on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board for 15 years.

Kissinger had last come to India in 2019 during which he met PM Narendra Modi of whom he professed to be a fan. He had travelled to Washington despite his ill-health to listen to an address by the PM during his state visit in June. But his disdain for the Indian leadership had turned into admiration for the Indian strategy a decade after the Cold War got over in 1991.