Kissinger, Henry

A scholar and government official of the twentieth century. As an adviser and later secretary of state under President Richard Nixon , Kissinger prepared for the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China . During the Vietnam War , he helped Nixon plan and execute a secret bombing of Cambodia , and his negotiations with the government of North Vietnam helped produce a cease-fire in that war. He was cowinner of the Nobel Prize for peace in 1973.