Call Henry Kissinger what you want, statesman, presidential advisor, or murderous scumbag, the one thing that doesn’t jump to mind for most people is sex symbol. Yet in the early 1970s, he stood toe to toe with Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford for that title.

Although affairs of the state and war-mongering get top billing when people remember the recently deceased Kissinger this bewitching bachelor managed to find time for affairs of the heart as well. Equally at home in the limelight and the candlelight, he cut a dashing political figure.

This beguiling Berliner with his wiry chestnut hair and a bit of poundage protruding over his pants belt was called “Cuddly Kissinger” squiring around some of the most beautiful actresses and models of the day.

1972 Time Magazine Henry Kissinger (R) Harvard Lampoon Cosmopolitan Cover with Kissinger as nude foldout 1972

As Richard Nixon’s top banana Kissinger made the cover of Time Magazine 15 times including their Man of the Year but it was his 1972 centerfold in Cosmo that I most remember, when the world got an eyeful of the man known as Nixon’s White House Sex Symbol.

He would follow in the ground-breaking taboo-busting footsteps of Burt Reynolds and the world waited with baited breath.

Burt Reynolds’s iconic centerfold for Cosmopolitan Magazine April 1972

Anticipation was more than just a popular song by Carly Simon in 1972. It was the collective breathless feeling of suspense opening up the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and seeing Burt Reynolds naked. From teenage girls like myself to PTA Housewives, female pulses were set racing at the sight of a mischievous grinned,  mustachioed stud splayed out nude on a bearskin rug.

Sure, Burt was hunky in a ho-hum Hollywood sort of way, but as a titan of foreign policy, Henry was hot. How could Cosmopolitan not choose him for their follow-up fold-out?

So hot in fact that, it’s no wonder that in a 1972 poll of the Playboy Club Bunnies, Kissinger topped the list when the women were asked to choose “the man I would most like to go out on a date with.”

“And what prompted Henry to make his gatefold appearance in Cosmo? ‘If the decision had been up to me I probably would have refused. I was only following orders!'” Henry Kissinger Cosmo Fold Out National Lampoon 1972

Well, the bespectacled Kissinger didn’t disappoint the ladies when he bared it all in the buff.

Sure it wasn’t the real Helen Gurley Brown magazine, but a National Lampoon spoof of Cosmopolitan that featured the national security advisor aka “The Playboy of the Western Wing” as their gatefold. Seeing “Cuddly Kissinger” splayed out a’ la Burt Reynolds was pulse-racing stuff!

Henry Kissinger with actress Samantha Eggar outside the Le St. Germain Restaurant, Hollywood Nov. 1971 Photo Frank Edwards

A globe-trotting lothario, his job as President Nixon’s  Advisor on National Security Affairs took him to Paris and it wasn’t just for the peace talks. This amorous ambassador with a taste for high living gorged himself on the moveable feast including les girls.

The glamour of his position and his captivating wit combined to make him one of the most eligible bachelors in Washington and a sought-after guest of fashionable Georgetown parties.

Women’s Wear Daily even ran an article in September 1971 entitled  “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Now?” where Henry expressed his lustful enthusiasm for both hot pants and his murderous bombing in Cambodia.

Henry Kissinger and actress Jill St John attend a party at the Bistro in Hollywood 1970 photo Frank Edwards/Fotos International

Kissinger and Shirley MacLaine at a dinner given by the NY Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Science

As a highly eligible bachelor, gossipmongers linked him romantically with lovelies such as Bond girl Jill St. John, Diane Sawyer, and Liv Ullman. He even dated democratic peaceniks like Shirley MacLaine and Candice Bergen both vocal in their anti-war actions.

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” Henry was fond of saying.

Who knew perpetrating war crimes could be a turn-on?

Perhaps his sex symbol moniker is no less incongruous than being a  Nobel Peace Prize winner who was also a war criminal.

Along with leaving a trail of broken hearts, he left a bloodstained legacy of destruction that is still playing out across the world.