(b. May 27, 1923) Secretary of state during the Nixon and Ford administrations, national security adviser during the Nixon administration, and architect of U.S. foreign policy.

As a Harvard University government professor, national security adviser to President Richard Nixon, and as secretary of state for both Nixon and President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger was an influential architect of U.S. policy during the Cold War (1946–1991). Born in Fürth, Germany, Kissinger immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Kissinger enrolled in Harvard University in 1947. For the next twenty-five years, Harvard would be the base of his influence over U.S. foreign policy.

The ideas that formed the core of Kissinger's thinking on international relations took shape in his doctoral dissertation on Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Congress of Vienna, written...