Henry Kissinger

German-American government official, advisor, negotiator and Secretary of State under President Nixon who was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Urbane, multilingual and brilliant, he served as Director of the Harvard University Defense Study Programs (1958-1969) and was a Professor of Government at Harvard in 1962. His books include Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957), The White House Years (1979), For The Record (1982), Years of Upheaval (1982) and Diplomacy (1994).

Kissinger's legacy remains controversial and polarizing in U.S. politics. He is both considered an effective Secretary of State and condemned for allegedly turning a blind eye to war crimes committed by American allies.

The man who shaped American foreign policy in the late '60s and early '70s and who coined the phrase "power is the greatest aphrodisiac," spent a traumatic boyhood in Nazi Germany in an Orthodox Jewish family that marked Kissinger with "an odd mixture of ego and insecurity that can come from growing up smart yet persecuted." Escaping further persecutions, the family emigrated to America in 1938 where, living in New York, the 15-year-old Heinz changed his name to Henry and displayed great eagerness to please his teachers. Attending Harvard University, he joined the faculty in 1958 where he remained until Nelson Rockefeller drafted him from the classrooms of academia to become his advisor in 1969. That same year, he was appointed as assistant to President Nixon for National Security Affairs. Upon meeting First Lady Patricia Nixon for the first time, he praised her husband highly. "Haven't you seen through him yet?" she replied.

While Kissinger privately referred to Nixon as "meatball mind" and "a basket case," he became the foremost American figure in negotiations to end the Vietnam War during the Nixon administration.