FORMER US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday (US time) at the age of 100, his consultancy firm, Kissinger Associates Inc, confirmed.

The controversial Nobel Peace Prize winner died at his home in Connecticut.

In the 1970s, he had a hand in many of the global events of the decade as he served as Secretary of State under Republican President Richard Nixon.

The German-born Jewish refugee’s efforts led to the diplomatic opening of China, landmark US-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam.

Mr Kissinger’s reign as the prime architect of US foreign policy waned with Mr Nixon’s resignation in 1974 but remained a diplomatic force under President Gerald Ford.

His 1973 Peace Prize - awarded jointly to North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who declined it - was one of the most controversial ever. Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection and questions arose about the US secret bombing of Cambodia.

Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born in Furth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, and moved to the US with his family in 1938 before the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jews.

After he left government, Mr Kissinger set up a high-priced, high-powered consulting firm in New York, which offered advice to the world’s corporate elite.

Divorced from his first wife, Ann Fleischer, in 1964, he married Nancy Maginnes, an aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in 1974. He had two children by his first wife.