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.