EDITORIAL: Henry Kissinger lives to look back on his century

Few public figures, least of all a diplomat, have made as lasting an impression on the modern world as Henry Alfred Kissinger, the archetypal Cold War warrior who turns 100 tomorrow. 

The German-born former US secretary of state, who is the only surviving member of Richard Nixon’s cabinet, was at the helm of US foreign policy during the Vietnam crisis and had a hand in developments in countries and regions as diverse as the Middle East, China, Russia, Chile, former Zaire and even SA for a period in the early 1990s. His legacy, as wide-ranging as it was controversial, will be debated for decades.  

Kissinger’s is the quintessential American success story. Born in humble circumstances in Bavaria in 1923, as a boy he witnessed the Nazis’ rise to power as Germany crumbled under the weight of reparations imposed by the Allies after World War 1 and the disintegration of the Weimar Republic with a currency rendered worthless by hyperinflation.  

Kissinger brought a towering intellectualism to American politics. At first, he was drawn to the Democrats but later, driven by ruthless ambition, he switched to the Republicans. He became Nixon’s national security adviser, a post he retained upon becoming secretary of state. The urbane and witty Kissinger proved the perfect foil to Nixon’s sometimes paranoid and vengeful worldview.  

His studies convinced him that agreement between the major powers in any conflict is sufficient to ensure peace, regardless of justice or morality. He called it legitimacy and it became the basis for the view of the world he was busy shaping.  It was his brand of realpolitik.

Kissinger can be credited in no small part for opening China to the rest of the world, setting up the first meeting between Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1972. It was a classic Kissingerian power play designed to drive a wedge between China and Russia. At the same time, it opened the way for China to emerge as a global economic and military powerhouse. Coherent and sharp as ever at age 100, Kissinger has looked on in dismay as the US and China have pushed each other to the brink of all-out conflict.  

He has been consulted by kings and presidents the world over, and in a recent interview he said he was confident that the leaders of Russia and China would take his calls to hear him out on the Ukraine crisis. Such is the influence he retains. 

But to his critics, Kissinger was a “war criminal” who ordered the bombing of Cambodia and who, among other things, backed the coup in Chile that brought Gen Augusto Pinochet to power. His record in Southern Africa, where he viewed developments strictly through a Cold War lens, also attracted criticism. 

Yet love him or hate him, Kissinger’s imprint on the modern world is unmistakable. Regarded by some as a man of war, he was the consummate deal-maker and believer in the American Dream. As a refugee from Nazi Germany, he embraced the American Century like none had before. We are still living in a world shaped by Kissinger, and more is the wonder that he’s here to observe it too.