"Kissinger's legacy here is, in the United States, is more nuanced, if you will, than it is in China," says Gordon Gray, a former diplomat with 35 years in the foreign service, of the US diplomat who died Wednesday at the age of 100. "He was very active until the very end, I think part of that reflects his work ethic, part of it was to burnish his credentials and his historical legacy," the former US ambassador to Tunisia (2009-2012) tells AFP in an interview. China was one of Kissinger's most lasting legacies. Hoping to shake up the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, Kissinger secretly reached out to Beijing, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by President Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with the isolated country. SOUNDBITES