Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is dead

 

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age 100.

He served as America's top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

In a statement, Kissinger Associates, a political consulting firm he founded, said the German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut.

During his decades long career, Mr Kissinger played a key, and sometimes controversial, role in US foreign and security policy.

The statement from Kissinger Associates did not give a cause of death.

Born in Germany in 1973, Kissinger first came to the US in 1938 when his family fled Nazi Germany.

He became a US citizen in 1943 and went on to serve three years in the US Army and later in the Counter Intelligence Corps.

After earning bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees, he taught international relations at Harvard.

In 1969, then-President Richard Nixon appointed him National Security Adviser, a position which gave him enormous influence over US foreign policy in two administrations.

BY  BBC NEWS