Nancy Kissinger


Nancy Sharon Kissinger is an American philanthropist, and the wife of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The couple married on March 30, 1974, in Arlington, Virginia.

Life and career

Kissinger was born in Manhattan and raised in White Plains, New York. Her parents were Agnes and Albert Bristol Maginnes, a wealthy lawyer. She received a B.A. in history in 1955 from Mount Holyoke College.
Before her marriage, she was a long-time aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, recommended to him in 1964 by her future husband, then a professor at Harvard, where she was a student. Her first job was as Professor Kissinger's researcher on a Rockefeller task force; she continued working for Rockefeller at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund after the task force finished its work. She later became director of international studies for Rockefeller's Commission on Critical Choices for Americans.