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Henry Kissinger, American Diplomat and Nobel Winner, Dead at 100 (reuters.com) 155

Henry Kissinger, a diplomatic powerhouse whose roles as a national security adviser and secretary of state under two presidents left an indelible mark on U.S. foreign policy and earned him a controversial Nobel Peace Prize, died on Wednesday at age 100. From a report: Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut, according to a statement from his geopolitical consulting firm, Kissinger Associates. No mention was made of the circumstances. It said he would be interred at a private family service, to be followed at a later date by a public memorial service in New York City. Kissinger had been active past his centenary, attending meetings in the White House, publishing a book on leadership styles, and testifying before a Senate committee about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. In July 2023 he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During the 1970s in the midst of the Cold War, he had a hand in many of the epoch-changing global events of the decade while serving as national security adviser and secretary of state under Republican President Richard Nixon. The German-born Jewish refugee's efforts led to the U.S. diplomatic opening with China, landmark U.S.-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam. Kissinger's reign as the prime architect of U.S. foreign policy waned with Nixon's resignation in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. Still, he continued to be a diplomatic force as secretary of state under Nixon's successor, President Gerald Ford, and to offer strong opinions throughout the rest of his life.

While many hailed Kissinger for his brilliance and broad experience, others branded him a war criminal for his support for anti-communist dictatorships, especially in Latin America. In his latter years, his travels were circumscribed by efforts by other nations to arrest or question him about past U.S. foreign policy. His 1973 Peace Prize - awarded jointly to North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho, who would decline it - was one of the most controversial ever. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection as questions arose about the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia.
Further reading: Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies.
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Henry Kissinger, American Diplomat and Nobel Winner, Dead at 100

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  • by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @10:54PM (#64042913)
    ...finally...
    • A Cold War relic.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        worse, a cold war war criminal.
      • that's like calling Hitler a very naughty boy. Kissinger was his own special kind of government sanctioned evil that cost millions of lives and caused suffering on a scale not outside of world wars.
        • What did he do exactly to put him on that level?

          • by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @01:52AM (#64043099)
            Cost the lives of millions of people, intentionally prolonged the Vietnam war for his own personal political ambitions killing many Vietnamese and Americans and thousands from allies as well. Cambodia bombings. Those alone are enough to put him alongside some of the worst mass murderers, dictators and warmongers in history and that is just a few years of his many many wrongdoings.
          • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @02:05AM (#64043111)

            What did he do exactly to put him on that level?

            He conspired with Nixon to sabotage the Vietnam peace process in 1968 to help Nixon win the election.

            He planned the disastrous invasion of Cambodia.

            He supported Augusto Pinochet's coup in Chile that involved murdering thousands of people.

            He supported the right-wing dictatorship in Argentina that killed thousands of opponents.

            He gave the green light to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.

            He supported West Pakistan's invasion of East Pakistan, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

            Depending on how you count, his actions resulted in the deaths of between two and four million people.

            On the plus side, he helped to start detente with the Soviet Union, leading to a significant reduction in nukes, and opened up China.

            • Opening up China wasn't a good thing. I'd have kept them inside their little box.

              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

                Opening up China wasn't a good thing. I'd have kept them inside their little box.

                Your entire currently cushy western life is built upon the foundation of opening up to China. You have gained many orders of magnitude more out of this relationship than you lost. They say hindsight is 20:20 but you seem like you really need corrective lenses.

                • They can keep their cheap plastic crap.
                  • Maybe people should stop buying so much of it.

                    • Maybe we would actually have alternatives if we didn't expect all our manufacturing to China.

                    • I'm not sure they do. I don't see a lot of chotskies for adults anymore. There was the spinner craze but as someone who follows the toy collecting biz just a little their sales are way, way down. Probably doesn't help that anyone under 40 doesn't have a house to put them in. I've been stuck in apartments for years and long since stopped collecting figures and model kits. I've seen a few kits I wanted (especially those Rayearth modeloid ones) but I thought "I'm just gonna build 'em and stick 'em in a box som
                    • Feel free to pick up Amish made furniture for your entire house. It's always been available. You don't actually have to buy a flat pack filled with plastic and sawdust shipped over the Pacific ocean. Well I mean you have a choice if you have money, if you don't have money then well there are a lot of things in life outside of your control.

                • and even then a very specific boomer. Cheap Chinese goods kept the yuppie boomers fat and happy. But deindustrialization meant that everyone else got screwed as the Unions collapsed (all our Union laws were designed for big factory jobs and when those jobs went away the jobs that replaced them were easy to Union bust).

                  And if you were Gen XMZ? Man, you got *screwed*. Deindustrialization hit you like a ton of bricks. What little was left was automated. And now that China has emptied out it's rural village
                  • I don't agree with on at least half the stuff you post but in this post, you nailed it. This is exactly how it panned out and we probably would of been better off keeping those jobs here.

                    • I keep coming back to this article that shows 70% of middle class jobs were taken by automation [businessinsider.com].

                      I don't think those jobs could be saved, but I *do* think the taxable income could be inside our borders and used for better things. Also I don't like how we're supporting a dictatorship for the sake of cheap labor. We should be doing the opposite. We should demand that everyone on the world is treated as well as Americans and that Americans are treated better.

                      No more race to the bottom bullshit.
              • Opening up China wasn't a good thing. I'd have kept them inside their little box.

                China's rise was inevitable.

                Without reconciliation with America, they would've focused on building ICBMs instead of iPhones.

                • by DMJC ( 682799 )
                  What reconciliation? China is dramatically expanding their ICBM stockpile to over 1200 warheads. They're also fortifying their islands and preparing for a conflict over Taiwan. Only now because America has lost their manufacturing plants and heavy press program China holds all the cards in a conflict.
                  • "America has lost their manufacturing plants"

                    Right. The country that exports the most heavy equipment lost its manufacturing plants. The country that sells the most armaments lost its manufacturing plants. You're so right.

                    • America manufactures more than ever.

                      What has declined is manufacturing employment.

                    • by Rei ( 128717 )

                      And labour efficiency is absolutely critical to any country that wants to have a high per-capita GDP (aka, "ability to buy stuff"). You can't pay people developed-world standard wages while requiring developing-world amounts of labour per unit of product produced.

                    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday November 30, 2023 @07:14AM (#64043403) Homepage Journal

                      And labour efficiency is absolutely critical to any country that wants to have a high per-capita GDP (aka, "ability to buy stuff").

                      I don't really give a fuck until we institute some policies that make trickle down happen. A higher GDP doesn't help me buy food or pay rent, it only helps me buy cheap crap from China. That's nice and all, but not a substitute for being able to pay for the necessities of life.

                    • I don't really give a fuck until we institute some policies that make trickle down happen.

                      Since 2019, incomes have been rising fastest for people in the bottom quintile.

                      My neighborhood McDonalds has a starting wage of $18/hr.

                    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday November 30, 2023 @08:32AM (#64043529) Homepage Journal

                      Since 2019, incomes have been rising fastest for people in the bottom quintile.

                      Which takes very little money since they make so little money, and isn't keeping pace with inflation.

                    • Which takes very little money since they make so little money

                      First you complain that money isn't trickling down, then you shift the goalposts to saying it doesn't matter if it is. Whatever.

                      If low-income people really believe that their raises don't matter, they are welcome to decline them.

                      and isn't keeping pace with inflation.

                      Bullcrap. Since 2019, incomes are rising faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom.

                    • First you complain that money isn't trickling down, then you shift the goalposts to saying it doesn't matter if it is. Whatever.

                      What I said but you failed to understand is that very little money is getting to those people, they weren't meeting their needs by a lot before and now they aren't meeting their needs by less, but are still largely going into debt to survive. I didn't shift the goalposts, you did.

                      Since 2019, incomes are rising faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom.

                      And yet, inflation has risen much more than those incomes over the last decade, and the incomes have yet to catch up to the inflation. This is a continuation of the first point that you failed to understand, probably because you ar

                    • by haruchai ( 17472 )

                      "Since 2019, incomes have been rising fastest for people in the bottom quintile"

                      Why is that?

                    • In order to buy food or pay rent, you have to give in exchange something of equal value.

                      We The People give not rising up and burning the whole thing down in exchange for having our needs met. And our needs are increasingly not being met.

                    • "Since 2019, incomes have been rising fastest for people in the bottom quintile"

                      Why is that?

                      Supply and demand.

                      Labor markets are tight.

                      If McDonalds doesn't pay well, people will go work for Burger King.

                    • Is the GINI coefficient getting better or worse?
                    • "I don't know about you, but if I wasn't making enough money to pay for my life, I'd not work in a profession like that."

                      If you are in the position to not do that, that's great, and I'm glad for you. But there are a lot of people out there with nothing in the bank and no real hope for improvement. If they go back to school to improve their employability they cannot even get SNAP unless they work more than half time or get certain types of financial aid, for example. Except in California that is, where they

                  • China is dramatically expanding their ICBM stockpile to over 1200 warheads.

                    America has over 5,000.

            • by gtall ( 79522 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @06:33AM (#64043335)

              You mean he sold Taiwan down the river. Some opening.

            • What did he do exactly to put him on that level?

              He conspired with Nixon to sabotage the Vietnam peace process in 1968 to help Nixon win the election.

              He planned the disastrous invasion of Cambodia.

              [ I deleted many other things listed ]

              I'm not disputing what you say, but I find it interesting that in all such similar posts, nobody blames Presidents Nixon and Ford for anything. Somehow everything was all Henry K's fault. I guess there is no need to actually be president when you are believed to have more power than the actual president does.

              • by haruchai ( 17472 )

                "I'm not disputing what you say, but I find it interesting that in all such similar posts, nobody blames Presidents Nixon and Ford for anything"
                Nixon gets plenty of blame, deservedly so

              • "nobody blames Presidents Nixon and Ford for anything"

                In the very quote you included "conspired with Nixon" is very clearly blaming Nixon for his part.

              • What did he do exactly to put him on that level?

                He conspired with Nixon to sabotage the Vietnam peace process in 1968 to help Nixon win the election.

                He planned the disastrous invasion of Cambodia.

                [ I deleted many other things listed ]

                I'm not disputing what you say, but I find it interesting that in all such similar posts, nobody blames Presidents Nixon and Ford for anything. Somehow everything was all Henry K's fault. I guess there is no need to actually be president when you are believed to have more power than the actual president does.

                Kissinger was the duly-appointed advisor/diplomat/strategist of the duly-elected representatives of the citizens of the United States of America.
                None of those citizens will so much as scrape their knee while retroactively crucifying a dead man in today's Two-Minutes Hate.
                Democracy is a process, not a principle. Democracy can produce death and suffering just as it can produce liberty and equality.

                Kissinger is ours.
                We made him.
                We paid him.
                We empowered him.
                We rewarded him and sheltered him.
                Kissinger is us, and

          • by chill ( 34294 )

            The podcast Behind the Bastards did a 6-part series on Kissinger. SIX FUCKING PARTS! Most of their subjects only need 2 or 3 parts to cover their bastardness. A rare few need 4. But Kissinger is in a class by himself -- and not it a good way.

            Check it out wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

    • We're all human. Props for making it to 100, but good riddance for all he did.
  • by honestmonkey ( 819408 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @11:16PM (#64042941) Journal
    to a nicer guy. No, wait, what I meant was good riddance to bad rubbish.
    • What couldn't have happened to a nicer guy? A long full life ultimately dying of old age well beyond the average life expectancy of an American?

      • What couldn't have happened to a nicer guy? A long full life ultimately dying of old age well beyond the average life expectancy of an American?

        "Only the good die young. All the evil seem to live forever." --Iron Maiden.

  • by Klync ( 152475 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @11:23PM (#64042951)

    Those who don't already know may want to search his name +"Christopher's Hitchens" and/or read Rolling Stone's obit:

    https://www.rollingstone.com/p... [rollingstone.com]

  • Ding Dong (Score:2, Informative)

    The mass murderer is dead!
  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2023 @11:52PM (#64042989)

    Nixon: Accompanying you will be our top peace negotiator, Henry Kissinger.

    Kissinger: How are you?

    Bender: Is he any good?

    Nixon: Looking like that, he talked his way into Jill St. John's bed. Nuff said!

  • by Anonymous Coward
    The Trial of Henry Kissinger [wikipedia.org]:

    The Trial of Henry Kissinger is a 2001 book by Christopher Hitchens which examines the alleged war crimes of Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor and later, the U.S. Secretary of State for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Acting in the role of prosecutor, Hitchens presents Kissinger's involvement in a series of alleged war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus and East Timor.
  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @12:24AM (#64043021)

    the Nobel Peace Prize is a load of BS at best, and a giant cynical fuck you to war victims:

    Kissinger was a war criminal
    Arafat was a terrorist
    Obama hadn't even done anything, and later didn't do anything to deserve it

    • Wish I had some points! +1 What He Said!

    • Please don't make me defend Obama. The Nobel Committee laid out the reasons that they voted to give Obama the award. In 2009, Obama began drawing down troops from Iraq, and also gave a well-regarded speech in Cairo to the Muslim world, promising a reset after the Iraq war and mutual respect. He also not only gave a speech at the UN calling for a world completely free of nuclear weapons but he started organizing UN security council meetings to try and get unanimous agreement to reduce the world nuclear weapo

      • Even Obama can't defend the prize. Don't even need to try.
      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        I think those were less justified reason and more rationalization of a premature celebration. I think the contributing factors were:
        -A way to "reward" American voters for voting out the Republicans after Bush spearheaded the unjustified war in Iraq. Going from that to voting in someone that was publicly against the Iraq war was something they felt rewarding. However that only has significance in the context of a misbehaving prior administration.

        -Getting caught up in the mood of his campaign. We had an i

      • Please don't make me defend Obama. The Nobel Committee laid out the reasons that they voted to give Obama the award.

        Their reasons were fluff. Utter noise.

        They gave it to Obama as a Fuck YOU to Dubya. Nothing else.

    • Obama was given the prize simply because he wasn't Bush.

    • Obama hadn't even done anything, and later didn't do anything to deserve it

      That prize wasn't for Obama, it was for Bush... or rather Obama not being Bush. I wouldn't get my panties in a twist over it. Not worth it.

      (lol, CAPTCHA: tilting (at windmills?))

    • you forgot Al Gore and Paul Krugman in that list
    • Obama hadn't even done anything, and later didn't do anything to deserve it

      Oh now, come on. Don't sell the man short. He conducted more drone strikes than any other president.

    • by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      one of these is not like the others.
  • News of Kissinger dying is blowing up like Cambodia in the 1970s.

  • generally I don't like people piling on after someone is dead and buried where they can't defend themselves. But Kissinger is one MF that deserves every bad word ever said about him, It is only sad he got to live such a long life, goes to show being a evil heartless cunt isn't punished.
  • Just think (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cfalcon ( 779563 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @01:24AM (#64043071)

    One day soon in 2029, we will finally have a president who Kissinger did NOT advise.

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday November 30, 2023 @01:51AM (#64043097)

    An interesting book and recommended read by the late great Christopher Hitchens.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @02:57AM (#64043157)

    I mean, if you were allmighty, wouldn't you want to do whatever you can to spend as little of eternity as possible with that bastard?

  • as they say...

  • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @04:31AM (#64043237)

    Successfully containing the Communist Bloc was far more important than any war crimes. Necessity knows no law and destroying Communists was necessary unless one is not Communist. I certainly don't approve of his mistakes, but because they were mistakes.

    The early Cold War was far too serious to let sentiment interfere.
    We have that luxury today because there is currently no Warsaw Pact or USSR, and Chinese nationalism now has a capitalist profit motive for acceptable if not good behavior.

    Kissinger and men like him were necessary to preserve secular democracy. They succeeded.

    • I hope you're next :)

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30, 2023 @07:36AM (#64043429)
      Yes, nothing quite says "preserving secular democracy" like helping the army overthrow a democratically elected president. Let's hear it from the man himself:

      I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

      Truly a great democrat.

    • You are an evil bastard, just like Kissinger.

      • by stwrtpj ( 518864 )

        You are an evil bastard, just like Kissinger.

        So he's just as evil as Kissinger for stating a historic fact?

        Seriously, grow up.

    • by _merlin ( 160982 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @08:08AM (#64043483) Homepage Journal

      So you're saying "secular democracy" is an ideology that required mass murder and war crimes to prop up, and that's somehow justified. If that's the case, how is it better than Communism? You're happy for war crimes to happen as long as the victims chose or lived under a different ideology to you? You're no better than Hitler or Pol Pot.

      • Anti-communism was a religion in America. It was a matter of faith, you did not question it lest you be branded a heretic. So much a religion that even unions were seen as gateway drugs to full on communism. This anti-communist religion even had its own inquistion under McCarthy.

        There are still people today who call Nixon and Kissinger traitors for not finishing the war. Granted, they're not normal sane people but they are out there.

    • The cold war would have fizzled out fine without him.

    • Successfully containing the Communist Bloc was far more important than any war crimes.

      The ends justify the means? Hm. We could kill off the planet and claim we made world peace. Worth it?

      Of course not. There would be nobody left to enjoy the peace.

      Personally, I suspect that people like you evaluate the world FAR differently than me. All things being equal, I would rather live in a Capitalist society rather than a Communist society. That being said, the fight wasn't really against Communism or Capitalism. It was about Fascist Dictators who are Capitalists worried about Fascist Dictators who a

    • Russia was on the verge of collapse post WWII and never recovered. The most they could do it take over a few worthless eastern Europe countries nobody wanted. They couldn't even take Poland in the shape they were in. They literally dragged their tanks back home with Horses because they didn't have fuel for fuck's sake.

      China was not and never became communist. Mao was a violent fascist who borrowed Marx's rhetoric to trick the rubes. Just another right wing Authoritarian type using populist Rhetoric to w
  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Thursday November 30, 2023 @04:31AM (#64043239)
    In case anyone is unaware of the key context of this lowlife's low life, he spoke to the North Vietnamese during the Paris peace talks under President Lyndon Johnson and convinced them to not make peace so that Richard Nixon would have a campaign issue. Millions of deaths followed, including tens of thousands of American lives. Hopefully I don't have to explain that that is literally treason.
  • Tom Lehrer's comment [wikiquote.org] in 1973: Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

  • He was responsible for the deaths of many thousands.
  • Otherwise the only realistic outcome was her grave would be robbed and her carcass put on trial, with copies of the footage circulated between everyone who owned a VHS north of Newcastle.

    With Kissinger it's a similar problem. They will have to dispose of that leather skinned haemovorous shrike's carcass like it is nuclear waste that could be looted for the public relations equivalent of a dirty bomb.

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