BREAKING: Henry Kissinger Has Passed Away at 100

by J Pelkey
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Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a significant figure in shaping American foreign policy, passed away at the age of 100 on Wednesday.

Kissinger has been accused of war crimes for his role in a bombing campaign on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War.

Kissinger died inside his Connecticut home.

No details regarding the cause of Kissinger’s death were given by his consulting firm. However, his death is expected to be from natural causes.

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From NBC News:

Henry Kissinger, the toweringly influential former secretary of state who earned a reputation as a sagacious diplomat but drew international condemnation and accusations of war crimes for his key role in widening the American presence in Vietnam and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, died Wednesday.

He was 100.

Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, reached the pinnacle of the American political establishment and in turn became an unlikely household name. He was secretary of state and national security adviser under two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and advised powerful leaders in both American political parties for decades.

Kissinger’s detractors denounced him for the central part he played in expanding U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, bringing a wide-scale bombing campaign to Cambodia and supporting brutal regimes in Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and Pakistan. Kissinger’s most vociferous opponents labeled him a war criminal, and some called on him to face charges at the Hague.

More from BBC:

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who played a pivotal and polarising role in US foreign policy during the Cold War, has died at the age of 100.

He served as America’s top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Despite leaving office in the mid-1970s, he continued to be consulted by generations of leaders for decades.

The German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut.

Kissinger’s Realpolitik style made him a controversial figure, with critics accusing him of war crimes when he and President Richard Nixon conducted a bombing campaign against Vietnamese communists in Cambodia.

And over the years, he was subject to scathing criticism from those who accused him of prioritising rivalry with the Soviet Union over human rights and supporting repressive regimes across the world, including that of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

Former US President George W Bush led tributes, saying the US had “lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs”.

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