kissinger, henry

A scholar and government official of the twentieth century. As an adviser and later secretary of state under President Richard Nixon, Kissinger prepared for the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. During the Vietnam War, he helped Nixon plan and execute a secret bombing of Cambodia, and his negotiations with the government of North Vietnam helped produce a cease-fire in that war. He was cowinner of the Nobel Prize for peace in 1973.