Henry Kissinger dies aged 100 a look at one of the US s most controversial diplomats

He was one of the world s most powerful and most controversial diplomats celebrated and reviled in equal measure. Former US secretary of State Henry Kissenger, the man who shaped America s Cold War policy has died at the age of a hundred. To his admirers, he was an arch pragmatist who made nice with Mao s China and helped prepare America s exit from the disastrous war in Vietnam. His critics branded him a war criminal, who ordered the carpet bombing of Laos and helped overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile.