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Important personalitiesBack

Henry Alfred Kissinger27.5.1923

Wikipedia (17 Apr 2013, 16:06)

Henry Alfred Kissinger (pron.: /ˈkɪsɪndʒər/; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger [haɪnts alfʁɛt kɪsɪŋəʁ]; May 27, 1923) is a German-born American writer, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought by some subsequent US presidents and other world leaders.

A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Kissinger is still considered an influential public figure. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.


Early life

Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, in 1923 during the Weimar Republic, to a family of German Jews. His father, Louis Kissinger (1887–1982) was a schoolteacher. His mother, Paula (Stern) Kissinger (1901–1998) was a homemaker. Kissinger has a younger brother, Walter Kissinger. The surname Kissinger was adopted in 1817 by his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb, after the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen. As a youth, Heinz enjoyed playing football, and even played for the youth side of his favorite club and one of one of the nation's best clubs at the time, SpVgg Greuther Fürth. In 1938, fleeing Nazi persecution, his family moved to London, England, before arriving in New York on September 5.

Kissinger spent his high school years in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan as part of the German Jewish immigrant community there. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced Frankish accent, due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. Following 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.


Army experience

Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he was naturalized on June 19, 1943. The army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, but the program was cancelled, and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer, a fellow immigrant from Germany who, despite the age difference, 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, only a private, was put in charge of the administration of the city of Krefeld, owing to 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, with the 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 de-Nazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.

In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King, continuing to serve in this role as a civilian employee following his separation from the army.


Academic career

Henry Kissinger received his A.B. degree summa cum laude in political science at Harvard College in 1950, where he lived in Adams House and studied under William Yandell Elliott. He received his M.A. and PhD degrees at Harvard University in 1952 and 1954, respectively. In 1952, while still at Harvard, he served as a consultant to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich)."

Kissinger remained at Harvard as a member of the faculty in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs. He became Associate Director of the latter in 1957. 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 he worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project. He was Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971. He was also Director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971. Outside of academia, he served as a consultant to several government agencies, including the Operations Research Office, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Department of State, and the Rand Corporation, a think-tank.

Keen to have a greater influence on US foreign policy, Kissinger became a supporter of, and advisor to, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, who sought the Republican nomination for President in 1960, 1964 and 1968. After Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968, he made Kissinger National Security Advisor.


Foreign policy

Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, and continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford.

A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. In that period, he extended the policy of détente. This policy led to a significant relaxation in U.S.-Soviet tensions and played a crucial role in 1971 talks with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The talks concluded with a rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China, and the formation of a new strategic anti-Soviet Sino-American alignment. He was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to establish a ceasefire and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. The ceasefire, however, was not durable. As National Security Advisor, in 1974 Kissinger directed the much-debated National Security Study Memorandum 200.


Later roles

Kissinger left office when a Democrat, former Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter, defeated Republican Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. Kissinger continued to participate in policy groups, such as the Trilateral Commission, and to maintain political consulting, speaking, and writing engagements.

Shortly after Kissinger left office in 1977, he was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University. There was significant student opposition to the appointment, which eventually became a subject of wide media commentary. Columbia cancelled the appointment as a result.

Kissinger was then appointed to Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kissinger published a dialogue with the Japanese religious leader, Daisaku Ikeda, On Peace, Life and Philosophy. He taught at Georgetown's Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service for several years in the late 1970s. In 1982, with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus and Company, Kissinger founded a consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, and is a partner in affiliate Kissinger McLarty Associates with Mack McLarty, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. He also serves on board of directors of Hollinger International, a Chicago-based newspaper group, and as of March 1999, he also serves on the board of directors of Gulfstream Aerospace.

In 1978, Kissinger was named chairman of the North American Soccer League board of directors. From 1995 to 2001, he served on the board of directors for Freeport-McMoRan, a multinational copper and gold producer with significant mining and milling operations in Papua, Indonesia. In February 2000, then-president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid appointed Kissinger as a political advisor. He also serves as an honorary advisor to the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.

From 2000 – 2006, Kissinger served as chairman of the board of trustees of Eisenhower Fellowships. In 2006, upon his departure from Eisenhower Fellowships, he received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service.

In November 2002, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to chair the newly established National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to investigate the September 11 attacks. Kissinger stepped down as chairman on December 13, 2002 rather than reveal his business client list, when queried about potential conflicts of interest.


Public perception

At the height of Kissinger's prominence, many commented on his wit. In one instance, at the Washington Press Club annual congressional dinner, "Kissinger mocked his reputation as a secret swinger." He was quoted as saying "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

Kissinger has shied away from mainstream media and cable talk shows. Recently, he granted a rare interview to the producers of a documentary examining the underpinnings of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt entitled Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace. In the film, a candid Kissinger reveals how close he felt the world was to nuclear war during the 1973 Yom Kippur War launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel.

A feature length documentary titled Kissinger, by British historian Niall Ferguson and produced by Chimerica Media, was released in 2011 on the National Geographic Channel.

Since he left office, some efforts have been made to hold Kissinger responsible for perceived injustices of American foreign policy during his tenure in government. These charges have at times inconvenienced his travels. Christopher Hitchens, the late British-American journalist and author, was highly critical of Kissinger, authoring The Trial of Henry Kissinger, in which Hitchens called for the prosecution of Kissinger "for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture".

On April 8, 2013, WikiLeaks published what they said were 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic and intelligence documents from 1973 to 1976, calling them the Kissinger cables. The release is part of information that was already previously available from the National Archives and Records Administration, but now contain several corrections of errors introduced by the NARA, the U.S. State Department and other parties, along with updated meta data to assist in searching and organization of the cables.


Family and personal life

Kissinger first married Ann Fleischer, with whom he had two children, Elizabeth and David. They divorced in 1964. Ten years later, he married Nancy Maginnes. They now live in Kent, Connecticut and New York City. David Kissinger was an executive with NBC Universal before becoming head of Conaco, Conan O'Brien's production company.

Since his childhood, Kissinger has been a fan of his hometown's football club, SpVgg Greuther Fürth. Even during his time in office he inquired after the team's results every Monday morning. He is an honorary member with lifetime season tickets. In September 2012, Kissinger attended a home game in which SpVgg Greuther Fürth lost 0-2 against Schalke after promising years ago he would attend a Greuther Fürth home game if they were promoted to the Bundesliga, the top football league in Germany, from the 2. Bundesliga.

Kissinger described Diplomacy as his favorite game in a 1973 interview.


Awards, honors and associations

Secretary of State Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were jointly awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Paris Peace Accords which prompted the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam war. (Tho declined to accept because the war itself had not ended.)

In 1976 Kissinger became the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.

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 1995 he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1998 his hometown of Fürth granted him honorary citizenship.

In 2000, Kissinger was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award at West Point and also became an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee.

He served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary from February 10, 2001 to the summer of 2005.

In 2005 Kissinger was awarded a Gold Medal at the annual Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Gold Medal Gala.

In April 2006 he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution.

In June 2007, Kissinger received an award from the Hopkins–Nanjing Center for his contributions to reestablishing Sino–American relations.

In September 2007, he was honored as co-Grand Marshal of the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City, celebrated by tens of thousands of spectators on Fifth Avenue. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, meant to share the honor, had to cancel due to health problems and was represented by German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth.

Kissinger was the first recipient of the Munich Conference on Security Policy's Ewald von Kleist Award.

In June 2011 the American Council on Germany gave Kissinger a McCloy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to transatlantic relations.

On March 1, 2012, Kissinger was awarded Israel's President's Medal.

Kissinger was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford.

Kissinger is also known to be a member of the following groups:
- Aspen Institute
- Bilderberg Group
- Bohemian Club
- Council on Foreign Relations

   
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