She was 92. Nancy Kissinger, who transformed from a foreign policy specialist into a force beside her diplomat husband, Henry, and helped cement their place among New York’s social elite, has died.
She met her future husband in the summer of 1964 when both worked for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, he as foreign policy adviser for Rockefeller’s presidential campaign, she as a researcher. Henry was 50, and Nancy 39, when they married on March 30, 1974, in Arlington, Virginia. In 1983, the couple bought a home in Kent, and Nancy oversaw its decoration and gardens. Kissinger was a trustee of the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in Manhattan for about 30 years and helped make its Top Dog Gala a hit on the social calendar.
The New York Times reported, “Although there had been rumors of Mr. Her eye for beauty prized peonies, clothes by Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta and classic statement jewels. The couple shared a love of dogs. Theirs included Tyler, a golden retriever who was a descendant of President Ford’s dog, Liberty; and Labrador retrievers Amelia and Abigail. “You can really tell the people who care about animals at those events, and she was one of them, not worrying about dog hair or the dogs jumping up on her. She was dedicated and down to Earth.”
“Nancy Kissinger was one of the most gracious, lovely women I ever met,” Bruce Tully, who protected her for the State Department Diplomatic Security Service, said in an interview with the Association for Diplomatic Services and Training. “It didn’t matter if she was in a $50,000 gown, she’d stand there with the dogs we’d be honoring, bend down and pet them,” Kathryn Coyne, the center’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. Kissinger’s wedding plans for a long time, he gave no indication that he was about to be married when he met with newsmen shortly before noon today to comment on his talks yesterday and this morning with Defense Minister Moshe Dayan of Israel.
