'someone responsible for unapologetic promotion of raw American power' .....Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State under Nixon, expires :::: He was 100

Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon who became one of the most prominent and controversial figures of US foreign policy in the 20th century, has died. He was 100.  

With his gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Kissinger exerted uncommon influence on global affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. No wonder he was honoured with Nobel Peace Prize and also vilification. 

No wonder yet again, he had famously said:  “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.  and ... “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”  

'The Washington Post' wrote in 1985 -- "Henry Kissinger's contribution to the current flood tide of remembrance of the Vietnam War would be noteworthy simply because no other policymaker (presidents included) had more influence on the outcome over a longer span." 

The paper also stated: "Leave aside his analysis of how the war itself went wrong: a flawed strategy of attrition and gradual escalation unsuited to guerrilla warfare; a traditional American inability to understand why you can't bomb and talk at the same time; a collapse of public support beginning with "fringe" groups seeking "radical transformations of society"; a divisive Congress carrying dissent to excess; the ravages of Watergate; and, of course, the media."  

The New Yorker' magazine wrote the following in 2020 under the mystical title- 

'The Myth of Henry Kissinger' ::::

"For Cold War liberals, who saw the stirrings of fascism in everything from McCarthyism to the rise of mass culture, Weimar was a cautionary tale, conferring a certain authority on those who had survived. Kissinger cultivated the Weimar intellectuals, but he was not impressed by their prospects for influence. 

Although he later invoked the memory of Nazism to justify all manner of power plays, at this stage he was building a reputation as an all-American maverick. He appalled the émigrés by running an article in Confluence by Ernst von Salomon, a far-rightist who had hired a getaway driver for the men who assassinated the Weimar Republic’s foreign minister. 

“I have now joined you as a cardinal villain in the liberal demonology,” Kissinger told a friend afterward, joking that the piece was being taken as “a symptom of my totalitarian and even Nazi sympathies.”

Kissinger will be also remembered as someone responsible for an unapologetic promotion of 'raw American power' that helped shape the post-World War II world. 

The celebrity diplomat, as he would be always remembered, has advised a dozen presidents over his long career, including Joe Biden, and won a shared Nobel prize for negotiating the end to the Vietnam war.

But his legacy was also defined by his contempt for human rights and efforts to protect US corporate interests at all costs, with opponents across the world casting him as a war criminal. He supported Indonesia’s military dictator in the invasion of East Timor, backed the invasion of Angola by the apartheid regime in South Africa and worked with the CIA to overthrow the democratically-elected president of Chile. 

"He also authorized wiretaps of reporters and his own staff," - says The Guardian.

In 2019, PM Narendra Modi tweeted about his meetings with the visiting leaders including former US secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice and former US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates. 

"Moments with Kissinger, former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Howard, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates. Excellent discussions with these global thought leaders," he wrote said adding,  "Great discussions with former British PM Tony Blair. He has made a long-lasting contribution to his nation and has insightful views on a wide range of global issues. 

Glad to have met Dr Henry Kissinger. He has made pioneering contributions to international politics and diplomacy".  

In July 2005, the US Department of State declassified taped conversations between former US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shortly before the India-Pakistan war in 1971 war that would lead to the birth of Bangladesh.

In the tapes, the two are heard talking about former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi shortly after a meeting with her. During the heated conversation, Nixon refers to Mrs Gandhi as an "old witch". Kissinger calls her a "b***c" and says the "Indians are bastards anyway". The tapes also brought to light Nixon's derogatory remarks against Indian women and his description of Indians as "most sexless" and "pathetic".

Soon after the remarks became public, Kissinger said he regretted his remarks and that he respected Mrs Gandhi. "[The foul language has] to be seen in the context of a cold war atmosphere 35 years ago, when I had paid a secret visit to China when President Nixon had not yet been there and India had made a kind of an alliance with the Soviet Union," he then told NDTV in an interview.