Henry Kissinger played a key role in the administration’s foreign policy from Vietnam to China to the Soviet Union and elsewhere around the world. He served first as Nixon’s national security advisor, and then in 1973 became Nixon’s secretary of state. He helped negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, which effectively ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. For this, he won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, along with North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho, who refused the award. Kissinger also crafted the policy of détente (the easing of strained relations) with the Soviet Union and prepared the way for Nixon’s historic visit and agreement with China. Kissinger stayed on as President Gerald Ford’s secretary of state.