Life and work of Henry Kissinger in photos

When Henry A. Kissinger, the powerful former Secretary of State, died on Wednesday at the age of 100left behind a complicated legacy: He advised 12 presidents and transformed the United States’ relationship with China, but came under fire for what his critics said was a fundamental disregard for human rights.

Mr. Kissinger transformed almost every global relationship he touched, and he was variously hailed as an ultra-realist who reshaped diplomacy to reflect American interests and concerns. denounced for abandoning American valuesif he thought it served the purposes of the country.

Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923 in Germany, he fled to the United States in 1938 to escape the Nazis. After studying and then teaching at Harvard, he entered the Nixon White House in 1969.

He shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for ending American involvement in Vietnam, an honor that outraged his critics. After leaving the State Department, Mr. Kissinger remained in the spotlight as an advisor and writer.

Here is a selection of images from Mr. Kissinger’s life.

11-year-old Heinz Kissinger left with his arm around his brother Walter, 10. He was 15 when the family fled Nazi Germany. Heinz became Henry in high school in Upper Manhattan.

Mr. Kissinger in 1968. The following year he would become national security adviser under President Richard Nixon.

Nixon and Mr. Kissinger in the Oval Office in 1971. Mr. Kissinger became secretary of state two years later, but unusually retained the title of national security adviser.

Mr. Kissinger and his children, Elizabeth and David, in 1974 in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany.

Nixon and Mr. Kissinger met with Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader, in Beijing in 1972. Mr. Kissinger had paved the way for a thaw in relations with the Chinese communist government — Nixon’s most famous foreign policy achievement — by secretly visiting the year before.

Mr. Kissinger sat with President Gerald Ford, under whom he remained secretary of state, on a train in Russia in 1974 during a visit for talks with Soviet leaders. Mr. Kissinger had helped lead a first round of arms limitation talks into a treaty in 1972.

Mr. Kissinger before the international press in Salzburg, Austria, 1974. When Nixon descended into the Watergate scandal, Mr. Kissinger achieved a global fame that few of his successors have matched.

Nancy and Henry Kissinger during a flight between Egypt and Israel in 1975. His shuttle diplomacy at the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur War convinced Egypt to begin direct talks with Israel, an opening for the later peace agreement between the two nations. .

Mr. Kissinger signs the arms limitation treaty, known as SALT, at a ceremony in the Moscow Kremlin in 1972 as Nixon and his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev look on. The treaty opened decades of arms control agreements that significantly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

Mr. Kissinger spoke to the press outside the Élysée Palace in Paris in 1976.

Mr. Kissinger shook hands with Le Duc Tho, leader of the North Vietnamese delegation, after signing a Vietnam War ceasefire in Paris in 1973.

Mr. Kissinger and Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Defense Minister, in Washington in 1974.

Mr. Kissinger looks out his office window at the White House in 1973.

Mr. Kissinger is sworn in as Secretary of State by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in 1973. President Nixon stands behind him, and Mr. Kissinger’s mother holds the Bible.

Mr. Kissinger with Premier Zhou Enlai of China in Beijing in 1971. Over two days, in 17-hour talks with Mr. Zhou, he arranged a historic presidential trip for Nixon.

Chiao Kuan Hua, a Chinese diplomat, Mr. Kissinger and Deng Xiaoping, who would later serve as China’s leader, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1974.

Mr. Kissinger and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in Alexandria during the Sinai II negotiations, which resulted in the return of land to Egypt, in 1975.

Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, with Mr Kissinger in Kinshasa in 1976.

Mr. Kissinger sat on the floor of the Iranian embassy in Washington with Polly Bergen, an actress, during a party in 1976.

Mr. Kissinger at the signing of autographs at Georgetown University in 1977.

Mr. Kissinger was working on his memoirs at home in 1978.

Mr. Kissinger with Diana, Princess of Wales, at the United Cerebral Palsy of New York dinner in the 1990s.

Mr Kissinger with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Shimon Peres, Israeli Foreign Minister, at a UNESCO event in 1994.

Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Mr Kissinger and John Kerry, then the US Secretary of State, broke ground for the US Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington in 2014.

Protesters marched behind Kissinger, George Shultz and Madeleine Albright, all former secretaries of state, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on global challenges and U.S. national security in Washington in 2015.

President Xi Jinping of China and Mr Kissinger met at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing in January this year.

Mr. Kissinger at home in Connecticut in 2022.