Henry Kissinger
American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant
1923 CE to 2215 CE
Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger; May 27, 1923) is an American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, he becomes National Security Advisor in 1969 and U.S. Secretary of State in 1973.
For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger receives the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances, with two members of the committee resigning in protest.
A practitioner of Realpolitik, Kissinger plays a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977.
During this period, he pioneers the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrates the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, engaged in what becomes known as shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East to end the Yom Kippur War, and negotiates the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Kissinger has also been associated with such controversial policies as U.S. involvement in the 1973 Chilean military coup, a "green light" to Argentina's military junta for their Dirty War, and U.S. support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh War despite the genocide being perpetrated by his allies.
After leaving government, he forms Kissinger Associates, an international geopolitical consulting firm.
Kissinger has written over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations.
Kissinger remains a controversial and polarizing figure in American politics, both condemned as an alleged war criminal by many journalists, political activists, and human rights lawyers, as well as venerated as a highly effective U.S. Secretary of State by many prominent international relations scholars.
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On October 24, the Soviet ambassador hands Kissinger a note from Brezhnev threatening that if the United States is not prepared to join in sending forces to impose the cease-fire, the Soviet Union will act alone.
The United States takes the threat very seriously and respond by ordering a grade-three nuclear alert, the first of its kind since President John F. Kennedy's order during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
The threat comes to naught, however, because a UN emergency force arrives in the battle zone to police the cease-fire.
After the initial confusion and near panic in Israel followed by the infusion of United States weaponry, Israel is able to counterattack and succeeds in crossing to the west bank of the canal and surrounding the Egyptian Third Army.
With the Third Army surrounded, Sadat appeals to the Soviet Union for help.
Soviet prime minister Alexei Kosygin believes he has obtained the American acceptance of a
cease-fire through Henry Kissinger, United States secretary of state.
On October 22, the UN Security Council passes Resolution 338, calling for a cease-fire by all parties within twelve hours in the positions they occupy.
Egypt accepts the cease-fire, but Israel, alleging Egyptian violations of the cease-fire, completes the encirclement of the Third Army to the east of the canal.
By nightfall on October 23, the road to Suez, the Third Army's only supply line, is in Israeli hands, cutting off two divisions and forty-five thousand men.
King Hussein again demands the return of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Israel in negotiations immediately following the 1973 war, i..
He is bitter that Israel—in response to pressure from Kissinger—has proposed a withdrawal of its forces from Israeli-occupied Egyptian territory but has made no such overtures to Jordan.
He quickly agrees, together with the Soviet Union, to call for a UN cease-fire.
Following Kissinger’s return to Washington, the Soviets announce that Israel has broken the terms of the cease-fire and is threatening to destroy the besieged Egyptian Third Army.
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev curtly warns Nixon of possible Soviet military intervention, which the United States moves to deter, perhaps recklessly, with a worldwide alert of its military forces.
Sadat persuades Kissinger that his country is ready to abandon both its Soviet and Syrian allies for a fresh start with the United States; only Washington, in Sadat’s view, can effectively influence Israel to return the Sinai without further bloodshed.
Kissinger, supported by Nixon, successfully pressures Israel to end the war short of a complete Egyptian military defeat.
Finally, Kissinger threatens a cutoff of arms deliveries unless Israel halts its offensive, and the final cease-fire takes effect on October 25.
The Yom Kippur War has a devastating effect on Israel.
More than six thousand troops have been killed or wounded in eighteen days of fighting.
The loss of equipment and the decline of production and exports as a consequence of mobilization come to nearly seven billion U.S. dollars, the equivalent of Israel's gross national product for an entire year.
Most important, the image of an invincible Israel that has prevailed since the June 1967 War is destroyed forever.
Whereas the June 1967 War had given Israel in general and the declining Labor Party in particular a badly needed morale booster, the events of October 1973 shake the country's self-confidence and cast a shadow over the competence of the Labor elite.
A war-weary public is especially critical of Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, (who nonetheless escapes criticism in the report of the Agranat Commission, a body established after the war to determine responsibility for Israel's military unpreparedness).
Egypt has not won the war of 1973 in any military sense.
Still, the initial successes had been sufficient to allow Sadat to pronounce the war an Egyptian victory and to seek, openly and honorably, peace with Israel, dictated by Egyptian interests as Sadat sees them.
The first direct Israeli-Egyptian talks following the war are held at Kilometer 101 on the Cairo-Suez road.
They deal with stabilizing the cease-fire and supplying Egypt's surrounded Third Army.
Following these talks, Henry Kissinger begins his highly publicized "shuttle diplomacy," moving between Jerusalem and the Arab capitals trying to work out an agreement.
Israel and Egypt sign a cease-fire agreement in November.
Kissinger, the dominant personality in the postwar settlement period, believes that the combination of Israel's increased dependence on the United States and Sadat's desire to portray the war as an Egyptian victory and regain Sinai allows for an American-brokered settlement.
The key to this diplomatic strategy is that only Washington can induce a vulnerable Israel to exchange territories for peace in the south.
As Kissinger puts it, "The Arabs can get guns from the Russians, but they can get their territory back only from us."
In January 1974, Henry Kissinger begins his shuttle diplomacy between Egypt and Israel.
On January 18, the first disengagement agreement is signed separately by Anwar as Sadat and Golda Meir.
Henry Kissinger achieves disengagement agreements on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts during 1974 through intensive travel between the various capitals—what soon is being called shuttle diplomacy.
The disengagement becomes known as the "step by step" process, which is intended to fulfill the intent of Security Council Resolution 242 that territory be exchanged for peace.
Despite almost immediate difficulties with Anwar Sadat's Syrian allies, Kissinger, along with Sadat and Moshe Dayan, devises the First Sinai Disengagement Agreement, which calls for thinning out forces in the Suez Canal zone and restoring the UN buffer zone.
The published plan is accompanied by private (but leaked) assurances from the United States to Israel that Egypt will not interfere with Israeli freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and that UN forces will not be withdrawn without the consent of both sides.
The accords, signed on January 18, 1974, provide for Israeli withdrawal into the Sinai west of the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Egypt is to reduce the size of its forces on the east bank of the canal.
A UN peacekeeping force is established between the two armies. (This agreement will be supplemented by another signed on September 4, 1975.)
After the signing of this agreement on January 18, 1974, Kissinger shuttles between Jerusalem ...