As Leaders Praise Kissinger, Others Denounce 'War Criminal'

In death as in life, Henry Kissinger is a polarizing figure. After the former secretary of state died Wednesday at 100, world leaders and others, including Richard Nixon's daughters, issued statements praising his accomplishments, the AP reports. But he was strongly condemned on social media and in outlets including Rolling Stone, which gave its obituary the headline "Henry Kissinger, war criminal beloved by America's ruling class, finally dies." Some reactions:

• George W. Bush. The former president said America has lost "one of the most dependable and distinctive voices" on foreign affairs. "I have long admired the man who fled the Nazis as a young boy from a Jewish family, then fought them in the United States Army," Bush said. "When he later became Secretary of State, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did America's greatness."

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken: Kissinger "really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job. I was very privileged to get his counsel many times, including as recently as about a month ago. He was extraordinarily generous with his wisdom, with his advice. Few people were better students of history. Even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger,"
• Travis Waldron and George Zornick, Huffington Post: Historians have long debated Kissinger's legacy, but "what is undeniable, on the occasion of his death, is that millions of Argentinians, Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Chileans, East Timorese and others cannot offer their opinion on Henry Kissinger's legacy or the world he helped create, because they died at the hands of the tyrants Kissinger enabled."
• Xi Jinping: A message of condolence the Chinese leader sent to President Biden was read out by an anchor on state TV, the Washington Post reports. Xi praised Kissinger as "a world-renowned strategist, and a good old friend of the Chinese people," adding, "Half a century ago, he made a historic contribution to the normalization of China-US relations with brilliant strategic vision, benefiting both countries as well as changing the world."

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: "With his détente and disarmament policy, Henry Kissinger laid the foundation for the end of the Cold War and the democratic transition in eastern Europe."
• Cambodian American scholar Sophal Ear: "The rise of the murderous regime that forced my family to leave was, in part, encouraged by Kissinger's policies," Ear writes at the Conversation. "The cluster bombs dropped on Cambodia under Kissinger's watch continue to destroy the lives of any man, woman, or child who happens across them."
• Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower: In a statement released by the Richard Nixon Foundation, Nixon's daughters said Kissinger's partnership with their father "produced a generation of peace for our nation." Kissinger "played an important role in the historic opening to the People's Republic of China and in advancing détente with the Soviet Union, bold initiatives which initiated the beginning of the end of the Cold War," they said.
• Vladimir Putin. The Guardian reports that in a message to Kissinger's widow, the Russian leader praised Kissinger as a "wise and far-sighted statesman" and said his name "is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions."

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• Yale historian Greg Gardin, author of Kissinger's Shadow: With Kissinger's death, accusations of war crimes will get a fresh look and reporters, historians, and lawyers will be "eager to provide background on any of Kissinger's actions in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, East Timor, Bangladesh, against the Kurds, in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cyprus, among other places," Grandin writes at the Nation. "Kissinger has many devotees, and many of his obituaries will no doubt urge balance," he writes. "Transgressions, they'll say, need to be weighed against accomplishments: détente and subsequent arms treaties with the Soviet Union, opening up Communist China, and his shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. It's at this moment that the consequences of many of Kissinger's policies will be redefined as 'controversies' and consigned to opinion rather than to fact."

(More Henry Kissinger stories.)