From Beijing, the praise was unstinting. Henry Kissinger was an “old friend” of China, said President Xi Jinping. In Russia, Vladimir Putin spoke of the “wise and far-sighted statesman”. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog hailed Kissinger for having “laid the cornerstone of the peace agreement” with Egypt “and so many other processes around the world I admire”.
From the White House, however, the reaction to Kissinger’s death on Wednesday was somewhat less effusive.
It took nearly a full day for Joe Biden to respond. And when the US president did, on Thursday evening, his statement on the passing of the legendary and deeply controversial diplomat was brief and hardly laden with praise.