(1923–    ), American scholar, statesman, and Nobel laureate, secretary of state under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. Kissinger was born in Fürth, Germany, May 27, 1923. He was brought to the U.S. by his parents in 1938, became a naturalized citizen five years later, and was educated at Harvard University. From 1943 to 1946 Kissinger served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army.

He began to teach in the department of government at Harvard in 1954, the year in which he was awarded a Ph.D. In the 1950s and ’60s he served as an occasional foreign-policy adviser to Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson; he also conducted studies for several government agencies, as well as for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Brookings Institution. In his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957), Kissinger advocated flexibility in U.S. foreign military activities; it is regarded as a primary sourcebook in American foreign policy.

In 1969 Kissinger became the assistant to President Nixon for national security affairs. In this post he became influential in establishing and implementing U.S. foreign policy. He accompanied President Nixon to China and the USSR in 1972, and was an architect of Nixon’s détente policy (see Cold War). He also represented the U.S. in negotiations toward settlement of the war in Indochina. In January 1973 Kissinger’s efforts finally resulted in an agreement establishing a cease-fire in Vietnam. For this achievement he shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with the North Vietnamese Communist leader Le Duc Tho. He was also involved in some of the Nixon administration’s most controversial foreign initiatives, including the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War and the destabilization of a leftist government in Chile headed by Salvador Allende Gossens.

In August 1973 President Nixon appointed Kissinger secretary of state; he was the first foreign-born citizen to hold this post. When Ford succeeded Nixon as president a year later, Kissinger continued both as head of the National Security Council (until November 1975) and as secretary of state. Staking his personal prestige on shuttle diplomacy, Kissinger negotiated a disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt in September 1975. In 1976 he worked without success to arrange a racial settlement in southern Africa, particularly Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

After leaving office in 1977, Kissinger established an influential consulting firm with a highly placed clientele; he has also served as a commentator and writer on foreign affairs and national security issues. His memoirs of government service include The White House Years (1979), Years of Upheaval (1982), and Years of Renewal (1999); in addition to his 1957 book, his works on foreign affairs include Diplomacy (1994) and Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (2001). In November 2002 President George W. Bush appointed Kissinger to head an independent commission investigating the intelligence and security failures that led to the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001; under pressure over possible conflicts of interest, he resigned the appointment in December rather than reveal his client list.