Henry Alfred Kissinger, born on the 27th of May 1923, is an American diplomat and political scientist known for his efforts in shaping the foreign policy of the United States, and made famous when he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending the Vietnam War.
So how much is Kissinger’s net worth? As of early 2016 it is reported to be $10 million, gained mostly from his long political career, and from the dozens of books that he has written.
Henry Kissinger Net Worth $10 Million
Born in Furth, Germany to parents Louis and Paula, Kissinger’s family was of Jewish decent. When Hitler rose to power and more and more Jews were being killed by the Nazis, their whole family flew to New York in 1938.
Upon arriving in the United States, Kissinger attended the George Washington High School, where he worked in the morning and studied at night. In college, he attended the City College of New York to become an accountant. In 1943, Kissinger was granted his US Citizenship, and only a few months later he joined the military. During his deployment in Germany, Kissinger decided that he didn’t want to be an accountant but instead an academic focusing on political history. Upon his return to the United States, Kissinger realized that dream and studied at Harvard University to get his Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in the Department of Government.
His early career started as a member of the faculty of Harvard University, where he built his reputation challenging ideas in Foreign Policy, while adding to his net worth. After 15 years, he left Harvard and served the public when President Richard Nixon appointed him as National Security Advisor, a position he held for six years, and then in 1973 he started working as the Secretary of State, until 1977.
During his time working for Nixon, Kissinger accomplished considerable achievements in terms of United States foreign relations with other countries. He helped ease the relations between the United States and China; he also brought détente with the Soviet Union which led to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, to name a few. However, his most notable work was his effort in the “Vietnamization Policy” where after years of the United States being involved in the Vietnam War where thousands of soldiers died and lots of finance was wasted, he was able to put an end to the war. He was able to create a plan and negotiated a cease fire with Vietnam. His efforts paid off and led to him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
Even after his service as Secretary of State, he still served as a political adviser to later presidents, and as a consultant with some foreign governments, sometimes through his Kissinger company Kissinger Associates. Kissinger also authored numerous books which helped in his net worth. Some of the books were “The White House Years”, “Years of Upheaval”, and “On China” among others.
In terms of his personal life, Kissinger has two children with his first wife Ann Fleischer who he married in 1949, but they divorced in 1964. In 1974 he married his second wife Nancy Maginnes.
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TV Shows
Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow
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Quote
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The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
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The most fundamental problem of politics is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.
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[to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping] I think if we drink enough Moutai, we can solve anything.
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[on Xi Jinping, the new President of China, 2013] Xi is convinced his generation's hardships gave it the strength to face the challenges of adapting China to the consequences of its success. He has put forward a sweeping reform program designed to move millions to the cities, streamline bureaucracy, reorient the economy away state-owned enterprises and fight corruption.
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Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.
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Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
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Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy.
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Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem. I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time. The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
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Fact
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Was good friends to former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
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Subject of a book by Christopher Hitchens.
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Mentioned in a song by Monty Python's Flying Circus.
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Henry Kissinger is a third cousin, twice removed, of actor Ben Barnes, as Henry is a third cousin of Ben's maternal grandfather, Emil Becker. Henry's great-great-grandfather, Meyer Loeb Kissinger, was Ben's great-great-great-great-grandfather. Henry and Ben are each descended from a different wife of Meyer's, Henry from Meyer's second wife and Ben from Meyer's first wife (his wives, Schoenlein David-Stahl and Marianne David-Stahl, were sisters).
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While in Russia negotiating the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) treaty, he jokingly suggested that perhaps the cameras in the chandelier overhead could duplicate a few pages that he needed copied.
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Received the "Bayerischer Verdienstorden" (highest Bavarian state decoration) (14 July 2005).
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Played tennis with Jimmy Connors at producer Robert Evans' Beverly Hills estate, where he was a frequent VIP guest.
Has received many awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1965-1966), the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book in the fields of government, politics and international affairs (1958), the American Institute for Public Service Award (1973), the International Platform Association Theodore Roosevelt Award (1973), the Hope Award for International Understanding (1973), and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Medal (1973). Has two children, Elizabeth and David. While not a handsome man, he became an unlikely sex symbol during the 1970s, and was often photographed in public with models and film actresses.