Henry Kissinger (1923 – 2023), R.I.P.

An era has passed.? On the Twentieth Century’s Cold War chessboard, Henry Kissinger was definitely a bishop, and perhaps even a rook.? Although he dressed adequately and rubbed elbows with the world’s heavyweight politicians, diplomats and military brass, he didn’t cut an exactly elegant figure; and his gravelly, heavily accented speech was easy fodder for several generations of chat show hosts and impersonators.

Purely by force of his intellect – and an uncanny talent for dodging political scandals – Dr. Kissinger was a one-man foreign policy for two presidents as well as a trusted back-channel advisor to all US presidents beginning with JFK during a critical period in American and world history.

Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on 23 May 1923 into a family of German Jews, they emigrated to the United States for obvious reasons in 1938.? Henry (as he was now known) graduated Harvard College only to remain at Harvard to pursue his master’s degree and Doctor of Philosophy.? Perhaps most portentously, Kissinger’s doctoral thesis explored the ramifications of a school of foreign relations known as Realpolitik, the most widely recognized adherent of which was Prince Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the Prussian Empire during the Hohenzollern crown’s rapid consolidation of assorted semi-independent duchies, baronies and principalities into what is today the modern German state.

Kissinger earned a reputation as the Cardinal Wolsey to no less than twelve US presidents – as well as to a discreetly undisclosed number of foreign leaders.

His record on the geopolitical world stage is decidedly mixed, but nonetheless impressive.? His most noteworthy accomplishment by far was achieving a fundamental recalibration of the Cold War’s geopolitical dynamic by reaching out successfully to Mao’s Communist China.

His analytical and diplomatic prowess notwithstanding, Kissinger’s resuscitation of Bismarck’s amoral (as some would have it) policy of Realpolitik nonetheless cut against America’s deep seated vision of itself as being a light unto the nations and the modern home of democracy.? Kissinger’s thickly accented English also emphasized his inherent foreignness.? It will take at least a generation before Kissinger’s place in American history reaches any consensus.