Kissinger, Henry (1923–)

U.S. statesman, scholar, and author who played a key role in formulating U.S. foreign policy in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon. Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Germany, in May 1923, at a time when Jewish families like his were just beginning to feel the effects of Nazi persecution. His family left Germany for New York when he was 15 years old, and he made every effort to assimilate—including adopting the name Henry.

Early Career

Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, Kissinger's talents were recognized early and he was recruited for the Army Specialized Training Program. When the program was canceled the following year, he competed unsuccessfully for a spot in the medical training program. Instead, he was sent to a training camp in Louisiana, in which he gave fellow soldiers informal briefings about world events. While there, he met Fritz Kraemer, who became a sort of mentor and helped get Kissinger assigned to intelligence and administrative posts rather than combat after he was shipped to Germany.

Returning from the war, Kissinger attended Harvard University and began studying government and philosophy. While at Harvard, he actively courted influential people around the world and learned to play both sides of a rivalry. His doctoral thesis was on the creation of a stable balance of power in the world system—the key tenet of the political realist philosophy that informed his political and scholarly thinking.

The publication of a brilliant piece on national security policy in April 1955 won Kissinger admiration from the academic and policy communities. Offered a position on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), he served as the study director of a group investigating nuclear weapons and foreign policy. He helped publicize, but not develop, the theory of limited nuclear wars.

Kissinger returned to Harvard between 1957 and 1968, finally becoming a tenured professor in 1959. He also worked part time as a consultant to Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and to the Kennedy White House. He began his rise to prominence with trips to Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, serving as a consultant. In 1967, he began what became a career trademark—helping launch secret negotiations—as he enlisted two Frenchmen to serve as liaisons between the United States and North Vietnam.

Kissinger and Nixon

Although Kissinger had supported Nelson Rockefeller's bid for the 1968 presidential nomination, newly elected President Richard Nixon appointed him head of the National Security Council. In that capacity, Kissinger had unprecedented power to shape foreign policy, as both he and Nixon were eager to shift decision making and policy making from the Departments of State and Defense to the White House, supported by the National Security Council (NSC). In this capacity, Kissinger developed his famous bombshell diplomacy, in which successful results of secret negotiations were “dropped” unexpectedly on the public.

The first major challenge to Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy was management of the unpopular war in Vietnam, which Nixon had pledged to end as part of his presidential campaign. Kissinger was aware that the war was unsustainable, politically and practically. His primary concern was that America should not lose credibility and damage its superpower status or reputation in withdrawing from the conflict.

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