Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who played a pivotal and polarising role in US foreign policy during the Cold War, has died at the age of 100, writes BBC.

He served as America’s top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Despite leaving office in the mid-1970s, he continued to be consulted by generations of leaders for decades. The German-born former diplomat died at his home in Connecticut.

Wednesday night’s statement from Kissinger Associates, the policy consultancy he founded, did not give a cause of death.

Born in Germany in 1923, the school teacher’s son first came to the US in 1938 when his family fled the Nazis. He never quite lost his native Bavarian accent. He became a US citizen in 1943 and went on to serve three years in the US Army and later in the Counter Intelligence Corps. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a PhD, he taught international relations at Harvard. In 1969, then-President Nixon appointed him national security adviser, a position that gave him enormous sway over US foreign policy.