Henry Alfred Kissinger [ a ] May 27, โ November 29, was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from to and the 7th national security advisor from to , serving in the presidential administrations of both Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He served in the U. Army during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University , where he excelled academically. He later became a professor of government at the university and earned an international reputation as an expert on nuclear weapons and foreign policy.
He acted as a consultant to government agencies, think tanks , and the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller and Nixon before being appointed as national security advisor and later secretary of state by President Nixon. For his role in negotiating the accords, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize , which sparked controversy. After leaving government, Kissinger founded Kissinger Associates , an international geopolitical consulting firm which he ran from until his death.
He authored over a dozen books on diplomatic history and international relations. His advice was sought by American presidents of both major political parties. He had a younger brother, Walter, who was a businessman. Kissinger's family was German-Jewish. In a BBC interview, Kissinger vividly recalled being nine years old in and learning of Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor of Germany , which proved to be a profound turning point for the Kissinger family.
On August 20, , when Kissinger was 15 years old, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution. Kissinger later downplayed the influence his experiences of Nazi persecution had had on his policies, writing that the "Germany of my youth had a great deal of order and very little justice; it was not the sort of place likely to inspire devotion to order in the abstract.
Kissinger spent his high-school years in the German-Jewish community in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced German accent , due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak.
