Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger answers a question during a press conference at David Lipscomb College Dec. 9, 1988. © Rick Musacchio / The Tennessean
(Kent, CT) – Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State and noted advisor to several US presidents, is dead at the age of 100. He passed away at his home in Connecticut. After being born to Jewish parents in 1923, Kissinger and his family fled amid Hitler’s rise to power — and eventually settled in New York.
Kissinger is credited with helping to negotiate the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He also negotiated a ceasefire agreement between the US and Vietnamese Democratic Republic, earning him the 1973 Nobel Peace Price. Having earned both a master’s degree and a PhD at Boston’s Harvard University, Kissinger also served there as a faculty member for years.
Despite the negotiated ceasefire agreement with Vietnam, the war took two more years to end — concluding with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Still, Kissinger is considered a titan of US politics and diplomacy, and he was a major player within the Nixon administration. He also served under President Ford and as an advisor for former President Trump. In addition to his work negotiating during bloody conflicts, Kissinger accelerated US-China diplomacy.
