Henry Kissinger, the towering American diplomat, dies at age 100

Henry
Kissinger,
the
Holocaust
survivor
and
Harvard
professor
who
became
a
towering
U.S.
diplomat,
master
political
manipulator
and
pop
culture
icon
—
loved
by
admirers
and
loathed
by
detractors
—
has
died.
He
was
100.

He
died
on
Wednesday
at
his
home
in
Connecticut,
according
to

Kissinger
Associates.

As
President
Richard
Nixon’s
top
foreign
policy
aide,
Kissinger
helped
set
out
the
nation’s
grand
international
strategy
of
extricating
itself
from
an
unpopular
war
and
plotting
its
relations
with
two
rival
communist
powers.
In
Nixon’s
second
term,
Kissinger
had
to
navigate
against
the
backdrop
of
the
Watergate
scandal
that
engulfed
his
commander
in
chief’s
attention
and
eventually
forced
the
president
out.
All
the
while,
he
fiercely
defended
his
own
political
turf.

“My
predominant
concern
during
Watergate
was
not
the
investigations
that
formed
the
headlines
of
the
day.
It
was
to
sustain
the
credibility
of
the
United
States
as
a
major
power,”
Kissinger
wrote
in
his
1982
memoir
“Years
of
Upheaval.”
“I
became
the
focal
point
of
a
degree
of
support
unprecedented
for
a
nonelected
official.
It
was
as
if
the
public
and
Congress
felt
the
national
peril
instinctively,
and
created
a
surrogate
center
around
which
the
national
purpose
could
rally.”

Kissinger
negotiated
America’s
exit
from
the
disastrous
Vietnam
War,
sharing
the
1973
Nobel
Peace
Prize
with
North
Vietnam’s
Le
Duc
Tho
for
a
cease-fire
agreement
that
year.
Nearly
two
years
later,
Nixon’s
self-described
“peace
with
honor”
collapsed
with
the
fall
of
Saigon
to
the
Viet
Cong
during
the
administration
of
President
Gerald
Ford.

Kissinger
also
crafted
the
détente
policy
that
thawed
the
Cold
War
with
the
Soviet
Union,
and
he
played
a
pivotal
role
in
breaking
down
the
diplomatic
great
wall
that
surrounded
Communist
China
for
2½
decades.
Through
his
shuttle
diplomacy,
he
wrung
out
agreements
between
Israel
and
Egypt
and
Syria
in
the
wake
of
the
Arab
countries’
surprise
launch
of
the
1973
Yom
Kippur
War.

And
in
his
diplomatic
chess
game
against
the
Soviets,
he
supported
brutal
regimes
that
were
accused
of
human
rights
abuses,
including
in
Chile
and
Pakistan.

Three
months
after
the
Watergate
break-in
on
June
17,
1972,
Nixon’s
national
security
advisor
was
confirmed
as
his
secretary
of
State,
becoming
the
first
foreign-born
head
of
that
Cabinet
department.
He
continued
to
serve
as
national
security
advisor
until
three
months
after
Nixon’s
resignation
in
August
1974,
and
remained
as
secretary
of
State
until
Ford
left
office
in
1977.

In
the
1983
book
“The
Price
of
Power,”
journalist
Seymour
M.
Hersh
bashed
Kissinger
as
a

double-dealing
deceiver.
Journalist
Walter
Isaacson’s
1992
biography
“Kissinger”
portrayed
the
former
secretary
of
State
as
a
complicated
pragmatist
who
mastered
the
art
of
nuance.
In
his
2001
book
“The
Trial
of
Henry
Kissinger,”
social
critic

Christopher
Hitchens
called
him
a
war
criminal.
In
the
2015
book
“Kissinger’s
Shadow,”
leftist
historian
Greg
Grandin
said
never-ending
wars
show
the
U.S.
was
still
paying
the
price
of
Kissinger’s
policies.
But
the
same
year,
a
massive
biography
by
conservative
historian
Niall
Ferguson
portrayed

Kissinger
as
an
idealist
who
followed
the
vision
of
Kant
rather
than
the
realpolitik
of
Clausewitz
or
Bismarck.

To
Barry
Gewen,
a
New
York
Times
Book
Review
editor,
Kissinger’s
idealism
was
based
on
negativism
and
pessimism.

 “The
task
for
policymakers
in
his
view
is
a
modest,
essentially
negative
one
—
namely,
not
to
steer
the
world
along
some
preordained
path
to
universal
justice
but
to
pit
power
against
power
to
rein
in
the
assorted
aggressions
of
human
beings
and
to
try,
as
best
they
can,
to
avert
disaster,”
Gewen
said
in
his
2020
book
“The
Inevitability
of
Tragedy:
Henry
Kissinger
and
His
World.“

More
recently,
Kissinger
was
among
the
high-profile
board
members
in
Elizabeth
Holmes’
Theranos
Inc.
before
the
blood-screening
company
melted
down
in
2018
amid
fraud
charges.
Another
board
member
was
Kissinger’s
fellow
Nixon
administration
colleague
George
Shultz,
whose
grandson
worked
at
Theranos
and
turned
out
to
be
a
key
whistleblower
against
Holmes.

And
Kissinger
kept
up
with
geopolitics
even
late
in
his
life.
He
drew
criticism
for

suggesting
in
May
2022
that
Ukraine
should
cede
some
land
to
Russia
to
achieve
a
peace
deal.
Those
comments
came
about
three
months
after
Russian
forces
invaded
Ukraine.
Later,
speaking
via
video
link
in
January
2023
to
the
World
Economic
Forum
in
Davos,
Switzerland,
Kissinger
said
Russia
must
be
given
the
opportunity
to
one
day
rejoin
the
international
system
following
any
peace
deal
in
Ukraine
and
dialogue
with
the
country
must
be
ongoing.

“This
may
seem
very
hollow
to
nations
that
have
been
under
Russian
pressure
for
much
of
the
Cold
War
period,”
he
said.
However,
he
added
that
it
was
important
to
avoid
an
escalation
of
conflict
between
Russia
and
the
West
as
a
result
of
it
feeling
the
war
had
become
“against
Russia
itself.”

Heinz
Alfred
Kissinger
was
born
May
27,
1923,
in
Fuerth,
Germany,
an
industrial
suburb
of
the
Bavarian
city
Nuremberg,
into
an
Orthodox
Jewish
family.
His
father,
Louis,
was
a
school
teacher
and
his
mother,
Paula,
was
a
homemaker.
The
couple
also
had
another
son,
Walter,
who
was
born
a
year
after
the
future
American
diplomat
and
died
in
May
2021
at
age
96.

Five
years
after
Hitler
came
to
power,
the
Kissingers
fled
Nazi
Germany
in
1938
—
just
in
time,
first
to
London,
then
to
New
York.
It
was
only
2½
months
before
Kristallnacht,
when
antisemitic
mobs
spread
terror
throughout
Germany
by
burning
and
rampaging
through
synagogues
and
Jewish
homes
and
businesses
on
Nov.
9-10,
1938.
Kissinger
was
15.

After
graduating
from
George
Washington
High
School
in
the
New
York,
where
he
attended
night
classes
while
working
at
a
shaving
brush
factory
during
the
day,
Kissinger
enrolled
in
City
College
of
New
York,
planning
to
become
an
accountant.
Three
years
later,
in
1943,
he
was
drafted
into
the
Army
and
soon
became
a
naturalized
U.S.
citizen.
He
eventually
returned
to
Germany
to
battle
Hitler’s
murderous
regime,
whose

victims
included
Kissinger’s
grandmother
and
12
other
members
of
his
family.

He
first
served
in
the
infantry.
In
April
1945,
he
and
comrades
in
the
84th
Infantry
Division
discovered
a
small
concentration
camp
at
Ahlem
near
Hanover, liberating
the
remaining
35
emaciated
prisoners
in
an
event
he
recalled
six
decades
later
as

“the
single-most
horrifying
experience
I
have
ever
had.”

With
help
from
another
German
émigré
in
the
U.S.
military,
Fritz
Kraemer,
Pvt.
Kissinger
was
assigned
to
military
intelligence,
put
in
charge
of
the
denazification
of
the
western
German
city
of
Krefeld.
Later,
as
a
sergeant,
he
led
efforts
to
track
down
a
sleeper
cell
of
Gestapo
officers
in
the
Hanover
region,
earning
a
Bronze
Star,
and
led
denazification
efforts
in
southern
Hesse.

After
the
war,
he
turned
to
history
and
the
nascent
field
of
strategic
studies,
winning
acceptance
at
Harvard
in
1947
with
financing
enabled
by
the
GI
Bill.
There,
he
found
another
mentor,
historian
William
Yandell
Elliott.
Kissinger’s
senior
thesis,
“The
meaning
of
history:
reflections
on
Spengler,
Toynbee
and
Kant,”
was
388
pages,
inspiring
a

150-page
limit
for
length
of
government
studies
papers
—
informally
known
as
“The
Kissinger
Rule.”

After
graduating
summa
cum
laude,
he
pursued
his
Ph.D.
at
Harvard,
writing
his
dissertation
on
the
aftermath
of
the
French
Revolution:
“A
World
Restored:
Metternich,
Castlereagh,
and
the
Problems
of
Peace,
1812-1822.”
In
1951,
he
started
Harvard’s
summer
International
Seminar
and
the
following
year,
he
began
publishing
the
quarterly
journal
Confluence.

He
joined
the
faculty
of
the
school
of
government
in
1954,
and
gained
wide
attention
for
his
1957
book
“Nuclear
Weapons
and
Foreign
Policy,”
in
which
he
proposed
that
a
policy
based
on
the
declared
willingness
to
engage
in
limited
nuclear
war
was
a
greater
deterrent
in
a
bipolar
world
than
the
Eisenhower
administration’s
strategy
of
massive
retaliation.

“Our
current
military
policy
is
based
on
the
doctrine
of
massive
retaliation:
that
we
threaten
an
all-out
attack
on
the
Soviet
Union
in
case
the
Soviet
Union
engages
in
aggression
anywhere.
This
means
that,
against
almost
any
form
of
attack,
we
base
our
policy
on
the
threat
that
will
involve
the
destruction
of
all
mankind;
and
this
is
too
risky,
and
I
think
too
expensive,”
the
professor
told

Mike
Wallace
in
a
1958
interview,
speaking
in
his
dry
Germanic
basso
profundo
voice.

“American
strategy
has
to
face
the
fact
that
it
may
be
confronted
with
war,
and
that
if
Soviet
aggression
confronts
us
with
war,
and
we
are
unwilling
to
resist,
it
will
mean
the
end
of
our
freedom.
…
It
boils
down,
then,
to
a
value
choice.
In
these
terms,
yes,
I
think
war
must
be
made
a
usable
instrument
of
policy.”

In
the
Cold
War
battle
over
hearts
and
minds,
Kissinger
viewed
American
capitalism
as
a
weapon
against
communism.

“A
capitalist
society,
or,
what
is
more
interesting
to
me,
a
free
society,
is
a
more
revolutionary
phenomenon
than
19th-century
socialism,”
Kissinger
told
Wallace.
“I
think
we
should
go
on
the
spiritual
offensive.
We
should
identify
ourselves
with
the
revolution.
We
should
say
that
freedom,
if
it
is
liberated,
can
achieve
many
of
these
things.”

Kissinger
served
in
advisory
roles
in
the
Kennedy
and
Johnson
administrations
and
became
a
top
advisor
to
billionaire
moderate
Republican
Nelson
Rockefeller
before
the
1968
presidential
campaign.

Just
ahead
of
the
Republican
National
Convention
that
year,
Kissinger
said:
“Richard
Nixon
is
the
most
dangerous
of
all
the
men
running
to
have
as
president.”
But
after
Nixon
won
the
nomination
over
Rockefeller
and
Michigan
Gov.
George
Romney
and
defeated
Democrat
Hubert
Humphrey
in
the
election,
he
appointed
Kissinger
as
national
security
advisor
in
1969.

In
an
attempt
to
extricate
itself
from
Vietnam
during
the
first
year
of
the
Nixon
administration,
the
U.S.
conducted
a
secret
bombing
campaign
against
Cambodia
to
clear
North
Vietnamese
and
Viet
Cong
staging
areas.
In
1970,
the
United
States
conducted
an
“incursion”
into
Cambodia,
provoking
huge
anti-war
protests
in
the
U.S.

Less
than
two
weeks
before
the
November
1972
U.S.
presidential
election,
in
which
Nixon
was
challenged
by
Democratic
Sen.
George
McGovern,
Kissinger
declared
that

“we
believe
that
peace
is
at
hand.”

“It
is
inevitable
that
in
a
war
of
such
complexity
that
there
should
be
occasional
difficulties
in
reaching
a
final
solution,”
he
added.
“But
we
believe
that
by
far
the
longest
part
of
the
road
has
been
traversed
and
what
stands
in
the
way
of
an
agreement
now
are
issues
that
are
relatively
less
important
than
those
that
have
already
been
settled.”

Nixon
swept
the
election,
with
McGovern
winning
only
in
Massachusetts
and
the
District
of
Columbia.

South
Vietnam
President
Nguyen
Van
Thieu,
however,
objected
to
the
draft
of
an
agreement.
To
gain
leverage
in
the
Kissinger-led
peace
talks,
Nixon
sent
in
B-52s
to
carpet
bomb
North
Vietnam
days
before
Christmas
1972
and
ordered
the
mining
of
North
Vietnamese
waterways,
eventually
including
Haiphong
harbor
in
1973.

Early
in
1973,
Kissinger
and
Tho
agreed
to
the
Paris
Peace
Accord,
which
enabled
the
U.S.
to
end
its
direct
participation
in
the
war.
(The
North
Vietnamese
diplomat
refused
to
accept
the
Nobel
prize
for
the
agreement.)
Fighting
between
the
South,
North
and
Viet
Cong
persisted,
however,
until
Thieu
resigned,
nine
days
before
the
chaotic
fall
of
Saigon
on
April
30,
1975.

One
of
the
biggest
triumphs
of
the
Nixon-Kissinger
policy
was
the
ground-breaking
opening
to
Mao
Zedong’s
communist
China.
Washington
had
long
supported
the
Chinese
Nationalist
government,
which
fled
the
mainland
to
Taiwan
in
1949.
Despite
Mao’s
Cultural
Revolution
in
the
mid-1960s,
Nixon
and
Kissinger
viewed
Mao
as
ready
for
deal-making
after
China
fought
a
border
war
with
the
Soviet
Union
in
1969.

A
key
country
that
aided
the
Washington-Beijing
rapprochement
was
Pakistan,
which
fought
Moscow-backed
India
in
1971
in
a
war
in
which
East
Pakistan
seceded
and
became
Bangladesh.

During
the
upheavals,
Pakistani
military
strongman
Gen.
Agha
Muhammad
Yahya
Khan
was
accused
of
killing
at
least
200,000
people
starting
in
March
1971.
Despite
the
genocide,
Kissinger
and
Nixon
tilted
toward
Pakistan,
which
along
with
Romanian
dictator
Nicolae
Ceausescu
provided
secret
channels
of
communication
with
communist
China.
In
fact,
Kissinger
in
July
1971
made
his
first
secret
trip
to
Beijing,
flying
directly
from
Pakistan.

In
February
1972,
Nixon
made
his
monumental
trip
to
China,
meeting
with
the
ailing
Mao
and
being
wined
and
dined
by
Premier
Zhou
Enlai
at
the
Great
Hall
of
the
People
in
what
ushered
in
the
normalization
of
relations
between
the
two
countries.
In
the
Shanghai
Communique,
which
Kissinger
negotiated
and
ended
the
Nixon
visit,
the
two
sides
agreed
on
a
“One
China”
policy
—
that
Taiwan
and
the
mainland
were
part
of
China
and
not
separate
countries
—
and
to
open
trade
and
other
relations.
Full
U.S.-China
diplomatic
relations
came
seven
years
later.

The
thaw
with
Beijing
gave
Kissinger
leverage
against
the
United
States’
main
adversary,
the
Soviet
Union.
Three
months
after
the
Shanghai
deal,
Washington
and
Moscow
signed
the
Strategic
Arms
Limitation
Talks
Agreement,
the
culmination
of
2½
years
of
negotiations,
and
an
Anti-Ballistic
Missile
Treaty
at
a
summit
in
Moscow
between
Nixon
and
Soviet
leader
Leonid
Brezhnev
in
May
1972.

Kissinger
had
hoped
that
because
of
the
improved
relations
with
Moscow
and
Beijing,
the
two
communist
powers
could
help
extricate
the
U.S.
from
Vietnam.

So
tenacious
was
Kissinger’s
focus
on
improving
relations
with
Moscow
that
he
strongly
advised
Nixon
to
disregard
the
persecution
of
Jews
who
sought
to
emigrate
from
the
Soviet
Union.
At
the
time,
Sen.
Henry
Jackson,
D-Washington,
and
Rep.
Charles
Vanik,
D-Ohio,
worked
to
block
the
easing
of
trade
with
the
Soviets
unless
they
permitted
Jews
to
leave.
In
a
1973
taped
conversation
with
the
president,
released
in
2010,
Kissinger
told
Nixon:
“The
emigration
of
Jews
from
the
Soviet
Union
is
not
an
objective
of
American
foreign
policy,
and
if
they
put
Jews
into
gas
chambers
in
the
Soviet
Union,
it
is
not
an
American
concern.
Maybe
a
humanitarian
concern.”

Despite
the
détente
with
Moscow,
Brezhnev
threatened
to
unilaterally
send
in
Soviet
troops
to
rescue
the
embattled
Egyptian
Third
Army
during
a
cease-fire
violation
in
the
1973
war
with
Israel.

The
confrontation
came
one
month
after
Kissinger
became
secretary
of
State.
It
was
also
two
weeks
after
Spiro
Agnew
pleaded
no
contest
to
tax
evasion
and
resigned
as
Nixon’s
vice
president
and
days
after
the
“Saturday
Night
Massacre”
in
which
top
Justice
Department
officials
resigned
rather
than
fire
Watergate
special
prosecutor
Archibald
Cox.
On
Nixon’s
order,
Cox
was
then
fired
by
Solicitor
General
Robert
Bork.

With
Nixon
preoccupied
by
those
monumental
problems,
Kissinger,
White
House
chief
of
staff
Alexander
Haig
and
other
aides
engineered
the
response
to
Moscow:

raising
the
U.S.
military
alert
to
DefCon
III
—
the
highest
state
of
readiness
during
peacetime.
They
also
sent
a
conciliatory
note
and
Moscow
backed
down.

But
the
U.S.
also
resupplied
Israel’s
military,
leading
to
the
Saudi-led
Arab
oil
embargo
against
the
West
and
Japan.

Four
days
later,
Egypt
and
Israel
reached
a
temporary
cease-fire,
and
in
another
week,
Kissinger
embarked
on
his
shuttle
diplomacy.
Even
before
that
diplomatic
whirlwind,

he
visited
at
least
26
countries
in
his
first
3½
months
as
secretary
of
State,
from
October
to
December
1973.

During
a
trip
to
Cairo,
Kissinger
reached
an
agreement
with
Egyptian
President
Anwar
Sadat
on
Nov.
7,
1973,
to
restore
diplomatic
relations,
which
had
been
severed
during
Arab
world’s
humiliating
defeat
in
the
1967
Six-Day
War.
Four
days
after
the
U.S.-Egypt
restoration
of
relations,
Egyptian
and
Israeli
military
leaders
signed
a
cease-fire
accord
at
Kilometer
101
on
the
Cairo-Suez
highway
in
the
Sinai
peninsula.
That
agreement
laid
the
groundwork
for
Sadat’s
historic
visit
to
Israel
and
eventual
peace
treaty
with
Israel
in
1979.
Further
disengagement
of
forces
agreements
were
reached
in
January
1974
between
Egypt
and
Israel
and
in
May
1974
between
Syria
and
Israel.

In
the
Americas,
Nixon
and
Kissinger
were
faced
with
the
1970
election
of
Marxist
Salvador
Allende
Gossens
as
president
of
Chile.
The
election
raised
questions
about
an
alliance
between
Santiago
and
Washington
nemesis
Fidel
Castro’s
communist
Cuba.

“I
don’t
see
why
we
have
to
stand
by
and
watch
a
country
go
Communist
because
of
the
irresponsibility
of
its
own
people,” Kissinger
said
at
one
point,
according
to
Gewen’s
book.

In
congressional
testimony,
Kissinger
denied
that
the
goal
was
to
subvert
Allende,
saying
the
administration
was
concerned
with
a
free
election
in
1976
in
Chile.
But
declassified
White
House
documents
showed
that
Kissinger
pressed
for
destabilizing
Allende’s
government.

In
a

secret
memo
on
Nov.
5,
1970,
Kissinger
warned
that
$1
billion
in
U.S.
investments
in
Chile
could
be
lost.

“The
election
of
Allende
as
President
of
Chile
poses
for
us
one
of
the
most
serious
challenges
ever
faced
in
this
hemisphere,”
Kissinger
wrote,
underlining
that
sentence.

“What
happens
in
Chile
over
the
next
six
to
twelve
months
will
have
ramifications
that
will
go
far
beyond
just
US-Chilean
relations,”
he
added
in
the
memo.
“They
will
have
an
effect
on
what
happens
in
the
rest
of
Latin
America
and
the
developing
world;
on
what
our
future
position
will
be
in
the
hemisphere;
and
on
the
larger
world
picture,
including
our
relations
with
the
USSR.
They
will
even
affect
our
own
conception
of
what
our
role
in
the
world
is.”

The
memo
continued:
“Our
failure
to
react
to
this
situation
risks
being
perceived
in
Latin
America
and
in
Europe
as
indifference
or
impotence
in
the
face
of
clearly
adverse
developments
in
a
region
long
considered
our
sphere
of
influence.”

After
Chile
fully
nationalized
its
copper
industry
in
1971,
the
U.S.
cut
off
credits.
Two
years
later,
on
Sept.
11,
1973,
the
military
overthrew
Allende
days
after
the
CIA
was
given
advanced
word
about
the
coup
plan.
The
plotters,
led
by
Gen.
Augusto
Pinochet
Ugarte,
announced
that
Allende
died
by
suicide.
Pinochet
remained
in
power
until
1990.

Kissinger
married
fellow
German-Jewish
émigré
Ann
Fleischer
in
1949.
The
couple
had
two
children,
Elizabeth
and
David,
before
divorcing
in
1964.
The
same
year,
he
began
dating
Nancy
Maginnes,
a
former
Harvard
student
who
was
hired
by
Rockefeller
at
Kissinger’s
recommendation.
Before
they
were
married
in
1974,
Kissinger
had
the
reputation
as
a
swinging
single.
He
was
known
as
“the
sex
symbol
of
the
Nixon
administration”
and
“the
playboy
of
the
Western
Wing,”
whose
dates
reportedly
included
the
actresses
Jill
St.
John,
Candice
Bergen,
Shirley
MacLaine
and
Liv
Ullman
and
former
Nixon
aide-turned-newswoman
Diane
Sawyer.

​”Power
is
the
ultimate
aphrodisiac,”
Kissinger
boasted,
paraphrasing
Napoleon.

On
the
day
he
married
Maginnes
on
March
30,
1974,
he
gave
a
midday
news
conference
to
talk
about
his
discussions
the
previous
day
with
Israeli
Defense
Minister
Moshe
Dayan.
At
the
ceremony
performed
at
the
judge’s
law
office
in
northern
Virginia,
the
nearly
6-foot-tall
Maginnes
towered
over
the
5-foot–9
Kissinger,
who
was
11
years
her
senior.

But
it
was
Nixon
and
Kissinger
who
were
the
odd
couple
of
Washington.
The
former
traced
his
roots
to
an
early
English
settler,
grew
up
in
a
Southern
California
Quaker
town
and
often
spouted
crude
antisemitic
slurs.
Many
of
them
were
directed
at
Kissinger,
whom
he
occasionally
called
his
“Jew
boy,”
according
to
a
review
of
White
House
recordings
by

Robert
Dallek,
author
of
the
2007
book
“Nixon
and
Kissinger:
Partners
in
Power.”
Kissinger
had
his
own
insults
for
Nixon,
referring
to
him
privately
as
“that
madman,”
“our
drunken
friend”
and
“the
meatball
mind,”
according
to
Dallek.

Nevertheless,
as
the
two
rivaled
each
other
for
power
and
attention,
they
also
benefited
in
a
symbiotic
relationship
that
enabled
each
other
to
carry
out
policy.
Two
nights
before
Nixon’s
resignation
on
Aug.
9,
1974,
the
two
tearfully
embraced,
kneeling
and
praying
together
in
the
Lincoln
Sitting
Room,
according
to
“The
Final
Days”
by
Bob
Woodward
and
Carl
Bernstein.

Two
years
earlier,
with
Nixon
looking
on,
Paula
Kissinger
proudly
held
the
Bible
for
her
son
as
he
was
sworn
in
as
secretary
of
State.
On
one
subsequent
trip
back
to
Germany,
when
Kissinger
was
being
honored
by
the
government
of
his
native
country,
she
told
a
reporter:
“They
say,
‘My
son
the
doctor.’

What
should
I
say?
My
son
the
Aussenminister?'”‘

—


Jenni
Reid

and


Michele
Luhn

contributed
to
this
report.

Correction:
This
story
was
updated
to
reflect
the
correct
spelling
for
Elizabeth
Holmes