Henry Kissinger is one of the most fascinating, enigmatic, brilliant, paradoxical, and infuriating figures in recent US history. Born in Germany in 1923, he emigrated to the US with his family in 1938 and was naturalised in 1943. After army service and picking up a Harvard PhD, he became an academic there and an adviser to various think-tanks on global strategy and defence. He owed his introduction to government work, surprisingly, to Nelson Rockefeller, leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, but attained superstar status working for Rockefeller’s bête noire, Richard Milhous Nixon. He was Nixon’s Assistant for National Security Affairs 1969–75 and Secretary of State 1973–77, continuing under Gerald Ford after Nixon’s forced resignation over Watergate, in August 1974. He shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc Tho, who refused it for his efforts, premature as it turned out, to end the Vietnam War.