November marked the end of an era, plagued by corruption, war, heightened tensions and political turmoil, yet shaped by moments of progress, diplomacy, and resilience. November witnessed the passing of two influential figures, each playing a distinct role in shaping the narrative of their time.
Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady of the United States and political partner to Jimmy Carter, and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, as well as a close advisor to twelve U.S. Presidents, passed away just 10 days apart. Their deaths left behind intertwined legacies of the Cold War era.
Rosalynn Carter’s life began as Eleanor Rosalynn Smith, born on August 18, 1927. She spent her entire childhood in poverty in a small town in Georgia. It was there that she first met a 3-year-old Jimmy Carter, the future President of the United States and her future husband. However, it would take eighteen years before the two would truly connect.
On the continent of Europe, Henry Kissinger had quite different beginnings. Born in 1923 to a Jewish family in Bavaria, Germany, he was raised by a homemaker mother and a father who was a school teacher.
During his family’s time in Germany, and amid a global economic depression and political disarray, the Nazi Party rapidly gained support. In 1933, Adolf Hitler won the election as chancellor and began implementing anti-Jewish laws, segregating Jews with the eventual goal of their complete disappearance from the country.
Kissinger and his friends were regularly harassed and beaten by Hitler Youth gangs. In 1938, after Kissinger’s father was eventually dismissed from his teaching job, he and his family fled Germany to avoid further Nazi persecution.
Kissinger quickly assimilated into American culture. He graduated from a local high school and began his part-time studies of accounting at City College of New York in 1941. However, in 1943, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.
Back in Georgia, at the onset of the Second World War in 1940, Rosalynn faced a family tragedy. Her father passed away from leukemia when she was just thirteen years old. Rosalynn described the loss as the end of her childhood, prompting her to take on parental roles to assist her mother in raising her younger siblings. Yet, motivated by her father’s dream of seeing her attend college, Rosalynn dedicated herself to excelling in high school.
Rosalynn excelled in high school, graduating as valedictorian of her senior class. She continued her education at Georgia Southwestern College, where she first became attracted to Jimmy Carter in 1945. They began dating and later married in the summer of 1946.
As the Carters were falling in love, Kissinger found himself in the midst of war. Assigned to the U.S. Army’s intelligence division, he participated in combat during the Battle of the Bulge and witnessed the liberation of the Hannover-Ahlem concentration camp in 1945. He described the experience in his journal: “I had never seen people degraded to the level that people were in Ahlem. They barely looked human. They were skeletons.”
During the American advance into Germany, even though he held the lowest military rank as a private, Kissinger was assigned the responsibility of administering the city of Krefeld due to a shortage of German speakers on the division’s intelligence staff. Despite having absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger later remarked that he took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King as a civilian employee following his separation from the army. Reflecting on his entire experience in the army, Kissinger noted that it “made me feel like an American.” This experience would be the bedrock of his future foreign policy career.
In 1970, Jimmy Carter won the governorship of Georgia, with Rosalynn by his side as the state’s First Lady. Her focus on mental health led to her appointment to the Governor’s Commission to Improve Services for the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped. She embarked on a statewide tour of mental health facilities in 1971, describing her efforts as her proudest achievement during her entire tenure. Meanwhile, Kissinger continued in academia, earning a bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees from Harvard. He also became involved in various international-relations organizations. In 1956, Kissinger assumed the role of director of the Special Studies Project at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, marking his entry into politics.
KKissinger initially advised Nelson Rockefeller in his presidential campaigns of 1960, 1964, and 1968. While serving as Rockefeller’s foreign policy advisor, Kissinger opposed Nixon’s Republican nomination, labeling him as the “most dangerous” candidate. However, he later changed his stance, expressing full support for Nixon. Following Nixon’s win in 1969, Kissinger became National Security Advisor, holding the position under President Gerald Ford. Later, he assumed the role of Secretary of State under Nixon. It was observed that the relationship between Nixon and Kissinger grew so close that the State Department was relegated to a backseat role in developing foreign policy.”
During his tenure, Kissinger played a pivotal role in détente with the Soviet Union, opening relations with China, and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War. These were seen as significant achievements in foreign relations both at the time and in retrospect.
However, controversies arose, including accusations of war crimes and support for dictatorial regimes. Notably, Kissinger was directly implicated in carpet bombing Cambodia, causing civilian casualties, despite Nixon’s public denial of active bombing in the region.
Yet, the most contentious aspect of Kissinger’s tenure remains the 1973 overthrow of the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, leading to a military dictatorship responsible for the deaths, disappearances, and torture of as many as 40,000 Chileans.
Kissinger left office as National Security Advisor when Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Republican Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. And that’s where Carters’ and Kissinger’s legacies intertwined.
In the White House, Rosalynn became an influential figure, attending Cabinet meetings and acting as Jimmy’s equal partner. She represented the administration in diplomatic roles, achieving success in Latin America. Additionally, she led a delegation to Thailand in 1979 to address the problems of Cambodian and Laotian refugees—a crisis caused in part by the actions of Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger, post-White House, criticized the Carters’ international and foreign policy. Similarly, Jimmy Carter did not have a fond view of Kissinger, stating, “he’s a liar, and everyone in the Mideast knows he lies,” and proceeded to name heads of state. The Carters continued their public life, co-founding The Carter Center in 1982, advocating for various causes. In 1991, Rosalynn launched Every Child By Two, a nationwide campaign aimed at increasing early childhood immunizations. She is credited as the catalyst behind the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, which provides access to free vaccines to the nation’s uninsured and underinsured children. Meanwhile, Kissinger continued to advise presidents during controversial times, he notably offered counsel during the Iraq War. Kissinger often advised George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on strategy, asserting that “victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.”
Rosalynn Carter passed away on November 19th, followed by Henry Kissinger on November 29th. Henry A. Kissinger, despite reshaping American diplomacy, leaves a legacy tainted by controversy and war crimes. In contrast, Rosalynn Carter is remembered without much controversy, celebrated for her achievements before, during, and after the White House.