As the title says, who is Henry Kissinger?

I read this from Wikipedia:

“Kissinger pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated an opening of relations with China, engaged in what became known as shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East to end the Yom Kippur War, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, which ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. He has also been associated with controversial policies, such as the U.S. bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, U.S. involvement in the 1973 Chilean military coup, a “green light” to Argentina’s military junta for their Dirty War, and U.S. support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War despite a genocide being perpetrated by Pakistan.”

It sounds like he was a bad guy, but I know there’s more to the story than that with the collective hate I see for him here on Lemmy.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Without all the editorializing here, I think the important part is he was extremely influential in American foreign policy for decades. I checked the Wikipedia article and presumably it’s accurate but that understates now influential he was and for how long

    He was great, meaning effective at what he did. My summary of all the rest posted here is that he never seemed to let morals get in the way of serving his goals or that of his president or country. He may have driven a lot of these atrocities, but we all hopped in the car and rode along