Closing summary
Awestruck tributes and blistering takedowns: the world’s most famous diplomat drew them all out, as indeed he was able to do his entire life, commanding an audience of world leaders and the fury of civil society groups in dozens of countries who saw him as a war criminal.
If anything, when trying to read the legacy of this controversial herald of the world’s greatest democracy, perhaps it’s the gushing tributes from autocratic leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that speak loudest.
How the reaction played out:
Political leaders in western Europe took a careful tone, of respect for a consequential figure. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted: “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”
Widely reviled in Latin America his support of brutal rightwing dictatorships during the late 1960s and 70s, Kissinger was described by Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the United States, as: “A man whose historical brilliance could never conceal his profound moral wretchedness.”
China paid tribute to an ‘old friend’, as Kissinger was often described in the country. It was after a secret trip to China in 1971 to meet with the then-premier, Zhou Enlai that he started to cede rhetorical ground on the Taiwan issue, eventually leading to the US severing ties with Taiwan and formally recognising the government in Beijing instead.
In Taiwan, by contrast, some people there praised his death as “good news”. “Bless him for being Chinese in his next life,” one online commenter said.
Vladimir Putin hailed a ‘wise statesman’. In a message to Kissinger’s wife, the Russian leader said Kissinger’s name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security”.
A (supportive? damning?) word from the former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose invasion of Iraq was supported by Kissinger. Blair said Kissinger left him “in awe”:
Of course, like anyone who has confronted the most difficult problems of international politics, he was criticized at times, even denounced. But I believe he was always motivated not from a coarse ‘realpolitik’, but from a genuine love of the free world and the need to protect it. He was a problem solver, whether in respect of the cold war, the Middle East or China and its rise.”
But the last word, for now, to Rolling Stone’s headline – less for journalistic rigour than for pure heat:
Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies”
Thank you for reading. Chris Michael, US editor (GMT)
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I’ll say it again – Kissinger was the real-life Forrest Gump, present at so many key historical moments in the 20th century that he sometimes seemed like a svengali of world leaders.
Look back at 10 decades of life on the international stage – as captured by photographers:
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