At the age of 100, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger passes away

Henry Kissinger, a former US secretary of state and national security adviser who escaped Nazi Germany as a child, died. His age was 100.

Kissinger Associates, his consulting firm, said Kissinger died Wednesday at his Connecticut home. The firm could not disclose a death cause.

Kissinger embodied 1970s US foreign policy. He got a Nobel Peace Prize for ending US military involvement in the Vietnam War and secret diplomacy that helped President Richard Nixon open communist China to the West, highlighted by Nixon's 1972 visit.

However, many despised him for bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War, which established the Khmer Rouge rule, and for supporting a coup against a democratic government in Chile.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Kissinger used “shuttle diplomacy” to divide Israeli and Arab forces. His “détente” approach to US-Soviet ties, which eased tensions and led to arms limitation agreements, shaped US policy until Reagan.

However, many members of Congress criticized Nixon-Kissinger's clandestine foreign policy, and human rights groups criticized Kissinger's neglect of human rights abroad. Nothing complicated Kissinger's legacy more than Vietnam. Nixon assumed power in 1969 after pledging a “secret plan” to finish the war. About 30,000 Americans had died in Vietnam.

The fall of Saigon in 1975 and more than 58,000 American deaths ended US involvement in South Vietnam, despite Nixon and Kissinger's efforts to delegate more combat duties.

Kissinger remained an independent diplomat whose diplomatic ideas were always heard after Nixon's Watergate scandal.

Nancy, two children from his first marriage, Elizabeth and David, and five grandchildren survive Kissinger.