Nancy Kissinger, the foreign policy specialist, philanthropist and widow of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, died Thursday at her home in South Kent, Connecticut at the age of 92. Her family confirmed the death.
She is survived by her two stepchildren, Elizabeth and David Kissinger, and five step-grandchildren.
Born Nancy Sharon Maginnes in Manhattan in 1934 and raised in White Plains, New York, she studied history at Mount Holyoke College, then at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Her path to Henry Kissinger ran through Nelson Rockefeller, she worked as an aide to the New York governor, who introduced the couple at Harvard, where Henry was a professor.
She became a foreign policy specialist for Rockefeller's Commission on Critical Choices for Americans. They married in March 1974 when Henry was serving as Secretary of State.
She traveled the world with him on diplomatic missions, was universally described as his closest and most trusted adviser and was, by all accounts, a significant presence in her own right in global policy circles.
She was never officially a diplomat. She was often more influential than those who were.
"She was the ultimate diplomat, as wise as she was discreet," Mike Bloomberg wrote on X. "I know how completely Henry admired and loved her."
Henry Kissinger died in 2023 at 100. She outlived him by nearly three years.