The Portuguese head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, sent a telegram of condolences this Thursday to the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, on the death of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
According to a note by the President of the Republic on the Internet, in the message he sent to Joe Biden, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “recalled Henry Kissinger’s contribution to North American diplomacy, emphasizing his qualities as a diplomat, an academic, a multifaceted personality who marked, like few others, international relations over the past fifty years.”
“In this hour of sorrow, the President of the Republic recalls the life and work of Henry Kissinger, appreciating his contributions, theoretical and practical, to the understanding of international relations and diplomacy,” says the same note published on the official website of the President of the Republic on the Internet.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an indispensable figure in global diplomacy during the Cold War who dominated the foreign policy of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died Wednesday at age 100 at his home in Connecticut.
The controversial diplomat remained active until the end of his life, despite his advanced age. In July, at the age of 100, he visited China, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923, in Fürth, Germany, to a Jewish family that moved to New York City to escape Nazism.
He received the Nobel Peace Prize along with his Vietnamese colleague Le Duc Tho for secret negotiations to end the Vietnam War and normalize diplomatic relations between the United States and China during the presidency of Richard Nixon (1969-1974).
However, Kissinger will also be remembered for his support of dictatorships, such as those in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, the final years of Francisco Franco’s regime in Spain, and the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.