When I was 17 years old, I went to see philosopher Bernard Henri Lévy discuss his upcoming film on human rights abuses. Before the presentation began, I snuck backstage and spoke with him. A couple of minutes in, Henry Kissinger came in to talk with Lévy. “When else am I going to talk to the guy who reopened relations with China?” I thought. 

I crept towards him, introduced myself and said that I wanted to be a diplomat when I grew up. He took a couple of seconds, then shouted: “WHAT?” After repeating myself a couple of times, he looked at me like he was trying to collect his thoughts, only to answer with “good.” Then he waddled towards the stage. 

He was 98 then and still actively involved in U.S. foreign policy. Less than a month ago, Kissinger was advising Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In November, he was invited by Xi Jinping to discuss the future of U.S.-China relations — and send a subtle message of détente to Washington amid rising tensions. More than 50 years after his departure from government  — and now from this mortal plane — he’s still shaping global affairs.

Kissinger died last Wednesday. While reading about him, I recalled a quote from Anthony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour”: “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.” 

In 1969, Kissinger advised Richard Nixon to bomb Cambodia and Laos to destroy Northern Vietnam’s supply lines. Instead, the bombings killed 150,000, destabilized Cambodia and led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, who killed millions — and we lost in Vietnam anyways. Look at a globe and you can see the impact of Kissinger’s diplomacy in blood. Argentina, Chile and  Indonesia are a few examples. 

By any sane definition of the label, Kissinger was a war criminal. In international relations, there are often no good choices on the table; diplomats are forced to make tough choices and pick the least bad one. The Dayton Accords, which ended the Bosnian war, are a classic example of this. From 1992 to 1995, a complex conflict erupted between ethnic Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks, with atrocities committed by both sides. Richard Holdbrooke, U.S. peace negotiator for Bosnia, was able to put an end to a bloody conflict. But in order to cut a deal, he had to reward Republika Srpska — the Serbian majority state in Bosnia — with territory. 

This is not to say that Kissinger’s actions were the least bad ones; the New York Times obituary paints him as a man who all too often viewed populations as chess pawns in some grand game. But in the fog of the Cold War, when the U.S. was scrambling to counterbalance an increasingly assertive and well-armed Soviet Union, he saw his actions as necessary to sustain Pax Americana.

National security is a tricky and dirty game, and everyone who plays it soils their hands to some extent. But a fair assessment of a leader’s actions must involve consideration of their alternatives. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was harshly criticized in mainstream media at the time, but the alternative option — stay and send more troops to fight a war that we could not win — was given little attention. Kissinger’s choices were often Machiavellian and sometimes reprehensible, but imagine the world without them. Would America have opened diplomatic relations with China, our primary geopolitical rival? How stable would the world order be? Would we have overcome the Cold War?

Henry Kissinger was far from a saint and farther still from a good man, but we should not evaluate his actions outside their historical context. From normalizing relations with Beijing,  ushering in a new era of backchannel diplomacy and propping up dictators in Latin America, he was the most influential — for good and ill — American diplomat of the 20th century. We cannot escape his legacy, but we will never see the likes of him again. Thank God.

LUCA GIRODON is a sophomore in Branford College. Contact him at luca.girodon@yale.edu.