Biography | Henry Kissinger — The East Room Oath That Made Him Secretary of State

People often remember Henry Kissinger as a diplomat whose influence operated behind closed doors.

This ceremony made that influence constitutional and public.

On 22 September 1973, Chief Justice Warren Burger administered the oath of office in the White House East Room. President Richard Nixon stood beside Kissinger, with Kissinger's mother among those present.

The office was the fifty-sixth secretaryship of state. Kissinger entered it while retaining his position as assistant to the president for national security affairs, a combination no predecessor had held.

That overlap concentrated foreign-policy access in one person at a tense moment. Egypt and Syria would attack Israel two weeks later, beginning a war that immediately tested the new secretary and led to months of shuttle diplomacy.

The setting also carried an immigration story. Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Germany, he fled Nazi persecution with his Jewish family in 1938, became an American citizen during the Second World War, served in the United States Army, and later earned two degrees at Harvard.

The presidential record identified him as the first naturalized citizen to become secretary of state. The milestone was institutional rather than symbolic alone: a refugee from state-sponsored antisemitism now directed the diplomatic department of his adopted country.

Kissinger's dual role continued until 3 November 1975, when President Gerald Ford replaced him as national security adviser while retaining him as secretary of state. He remained at the State Department through 20 January 1977.

The authority formalized here produced a record that remains sharply divided. His tenure included Middle East disengagement diplomacy and détente with the Soviet Union, alongside policies toward Chile, Angola, Vietnam, and other countries that generated lasting criticism.

The pin marks the White House Executive Residence using the Library of Congress building coordinate. Archival sources identify the East Room inside it, but no unsupported indoor coordinate is claimed.

The attached photograph is the exact 1973 oath ceremony preserved by the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff. It shows Nixon, Kissinger, his mother, and Chief Justice Burger rather than a later reenactment.

Photo: Nixon Presidential Materials Staff / United States National Archives, public domain