00:12Corrupt politicians make the other 10% look bad
00:19Henry Kissinger
00:20Henry Alfred Kissinger was the 56th Secretary of State of the United States
00:27from 1973 to 1977
00:30continuing to hold the position of assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
00:36which he first assumed in 1969 until 1975
00:41After leaving government service he founded Kissinger Associates
00:46an international consulting firm of which he is chairman
00:50Henry Kissinger was born on May 27th 1923 in Firth
00:56a city in the Bavaria region of Germany
00:59Kissinger's mother, Paula Stern, came from a relatively wealthy and prominent family
01:05and his father, Louis Kissinger, was a teacher
01:08Kissinger grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household
01:11and during his youth he spent two hours each day diligently studying the Bible and the Talmud
01:18As a child Kissinger encountered anti-Semitism daily
01:22As an avid soccer fan he defied laws banning Jews from professional sporting events to attend matches
01:30receiving several beatings at the hands of the stadium guards
01:35Sensing the impending tragedy of the Holocaust
01:38His family decided to flee Germany for the United States in 1938 when Kissinger was 15 years old
01:47He was naturalized a United States citizen on June 19, 1943
01:54From 1954 until 1971 he was a member of the faculty of Harvard University
02:01both in the Department of Government and the Center for International Affairs
02:06Christmas 1972 saw heavy bombing raids carried out over the North Vietnamese capital Hanoi
02:14by American B-52 bombers
02:17All over the world thousands of people took to the streets in protest
02:22The man who ordered the bombing was at the same time spearheading cease-fire negotiations
02:29The armistice took effect in January 1973
02:34and the same autumn Henry Kissinger was awarded the Peace Prize together with his counterpart Le Duc Thore
02:42The latter refused to accept the prize and for the first time in the history of the Peace Prize
02:48two members left the Nobel Committee in protest
02:52During the war in Vietnam he prepared the peace negotiations with North Vietnam in Paris
02:59for President Lyndon B Johnson, a Democrat
03:02But when the Republican Richard Nixon won the election in 1968
03:08Kissinger changed sides and became Nixon's closest foreign policy advisor
03:13Kissinger went in for negotiations while the USA at the same time was putting North Vietnam under severe military pressure
03:22Secretary Kissinger has written many books and articles on United States foreign policy, international affairs and diplomatic history
03:33Among the awards he has received are the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book in the fields of government, politics and international affairs
03:45Henry Kissinger stands out as the dominant American statesman and foreign policymaker of the late 20th century
03:53With his intellectual prowess and tough, skillful negotiating style, Kissinger ended the Vietnam War and greatly improved American relations with its two primary Cold War enemies, China and the Soviet Union
04:08Regardless of whether they praise or despise him, commentators agree that the current international order is the product of Kissinger's policies
04:19As Kissinger himself put it
04:21Only rarely in history do statesmen find an environment in which all factors are so malleable
04:29Before us, I thought, was the chance to shape events to build a new world harnessing the energy and dreams of the American people and mankind's hopes
04:59For us, this is not just a chance to build a new world harnessing the energy of the world
05:18To the future, I look at the new world's opportunity of a new world-time world to be on stage
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