Henry Kissinger, US Statecraft Giant Faulted For Disregard To Human Rights

Henry Kissinger's Critics have faulted his disregard for human rights and democracy in the Vietnam War and elsewhere.

Brilliant, abrasive and ruthlessly ambitious, Henry Kissinger towered over post-World War II US foreign policy like no one else and shaped a fateful new course for the world's relationship with China.

As secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger was a master tactician whose intellectual gifts were begrudgingly acknowledged even by his many critics, who nevertheless faulted his disregard for human rights and democracy in the Vietnam War and elsewhere.

Instantly recognisable for a sharp-witted monotone that never lost a touch of his native German as well as his bookishly thick glasses, Kissinger -- the author of several weighty tomes -- became viewed by the public as the epitome of an international power-broker, an image he capitalized upon as a consultant for decades after leaving office.