Henry Kissinger, Dead at 100, on China, Israel and Nuclear War

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut at the age of 100.

A former national security adviser and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923, in Fürth, Germany. A Jewish refugee, he fled Nazi Germany in 1938 with his family and immigrated to the U.S. His death on Wednesday was confirmed in a statement to Reuters by Kissinger Associates, Inc., the New York City-based geopolitical consulting firm founded by Kissinger in 1982.

Newsweek reached out via email on Wednesday night to Kissinger Associates for comment.

He became an American citizen and served in the U.S. Army as a German interpreter during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University, earning a B.A. in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1954, according to his biography on the State Department's website.

Kissinger, a prominent diplomat who served as secretary of state under two presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, remained heavily involved in U.S. politics throughout his life. He was also a soccer superfan who helped "change the landscape" of the sport in the U.S., David Kilpatrick, the club historian of the New York Cosmos, told Newsweek in an email interview on Thursday. Kilpatrick said Kissinger was vital in soccer legend Pelé playing for an American team.

"He was a lifelong soccer fanatic who understood the utility of sport for diplomacy," Kilpatrick said.

Here is Kissinger, in his own words, on the pages of Newsweek over the years:

China, April 15, 2001

"At this writing negotiations between American and Chinese officials are said to be moving toward a climax," Kissinger wrote. "The formal obstacle is whether China will continue to insist on an apology or whether it will settle for the expressions of regret of both Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W. Bush. Yet the body language on both sides suggests that neither nation wants a prolonged confrontation."

Israel, August 10, 2003

"Early on Saturday morning, Oct. 6, 1973, as Israelis celebrate their holiest day of Yom Kippur, [he] is awakened in a New York hotel room," Kissinger wrote. "He is informed that Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had just privately warned the Americans that Egypt and Syria are about to wage a surprise attack on Israel. Couldn't the United States forestall the attack by reassuring the Arabs about Israeli intentions? Kissinger is worried that the Americans, siding with Israel, will be thrown into confrontation with the Soviets, who will back their Arab allies."

Nuclear proliferation, February 6, 2009

"The basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern weapons into some moral or political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued," Kissinger wrote. "Any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign-policy objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application have never succeeded, from the doctrine of a geographically limited nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s to the 'mutual assured destruction' theory of general nuclear war in the 1970s."

Along with his foreign-policy interests, the former secretary of state was also a passionate soccer fan: he persuaded legendary player Pelé to play in the U.S., fueling the sport's growth in Kissinger's adoptive home country.

Update 12/2/2023, 11:10 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Kilpatrick.