JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: ONE ON ONE
WITH GUEST, DR. HENRY KISSINGER
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

RECORDED THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1988
TO BE AIRED THE WEEKEND OF MARCH 12-13, 1988

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Rioting in Israel's West Bank and Gaza Strip continued into its fourth month this week, with no end in sight. Nine American hostages remain in captivity in Lebanon. The war between Iran and Iraq continues to rage. Will the tortured Middle East ever have peace? This foreign policy expert will speak to that.

Born: Bonn, Germany; emigrated to US in 1938 at age 15; naturalized, 1943; 64 years of age. Wife: Nancy, 13 years; son and daughter from a previous marriage. US Army, staff sergeant, counter-intelligence corps, three years. Harvard University, BA, summa cum laude; MA and Ph.D., History. Harvard University, Departments of Government and the Center for International Affairs, faculty member, 18 years. Kennedy Administration, National Security Council, consultant to, two years. Johnson Administration, Department of State, consultant to, four years. Nixon and Ford Administrations, National Security Council, seven years; Secretary of State, four years. Numerous decorations, including Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1977; Nobel Peace Prize, 1973. Kissinger & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm, chairman, six years and currently. Henry Alfred Kissinger, it's One on One.

Dr. Kissinger, were you pleased with your biography that you just saw?

DR. KISSINGER: That was fine. It was --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You can use that, if you want, if you decide to run for President.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first you have to make the (inaudible) state of the union to make me a native-born American.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Or we could change the Constitution of the United States.

DR. KISSINGER: Or change the Constitution.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Would you recommend that we amend the Constitution to permit you to run for President?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I'm tempted by that thought.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: (Laughs.)

DR. KISSINGER: It'd be a noisy campaign, I'll tell you that.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Would it? Because of what you would say?

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DR. KISSINGER: Because of my nature.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I hope we can hear some of that noise here today. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir comes to the United States shortly, and he will talk to George Shultz about the Mideast peace proposal of Mr. Shultz, the centerpiece of which is an international conference involving the Soviet Union and Israel and the United States, and representatives presumably from the Palestinian people. Do you think that Mr. Shamir will consent to the peace proposal?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I'd separate peace proposal and peace conference. I would be surprised if he accepted it in an unqualified way.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that the fact that he's willing to go with earlier elections is signalling some softening of his position? Because the earlier elections presumably would be a referendum --

DR. KISSINGER: I think --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- on the peace conference.

DR. KISSINGER: Two things. First, I think there should be elections in Israel. It's desirable. You have a prime minister and a foreign minister who are cutting each other up and not (?) using the United States. Each side is trying to line up the United States and other foreign countries in their support. It's an intolerable situation. So the earlier they have an election and get unified, the more important it is. Secondly, I would separate the notion of a peace conference from the notion of peace. Those two are not necessarily related.

I have consistently, over the years, had the gravest doubts about an international peace conference that includes the members of the Security Council, four or five Arab countries, Israel, and of course the United States, as a member of the Security Council. The only country that can really deliver is the United States. And I hate to see us in the position when, unless we know ahead of time what the parties are going to say, where everybody beats on the United States. We are isolated, in the end (?) get accused by Israel of betraying it, and by the Arabs of being Israel's lawyers, and having the Soviet Union take a free ride. They have no responsibility. They can make any proposal they want.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you opposed to an international conference, then?

DR. KISSINGER: I would prefer for the United States to handle it directly. Everything that has worked in the Middle East -- in the Nixon Administration, in the Ford Administration and in the Carter Administration -- was handled under American auspices.

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DR. KISSINGER: For cover of what?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, he needs it, apparently, to provide him
with the --

DR. KISSINGER: But let's be realistic. Let's be serious about this. What is said is that there be an international conference which meets once after which Jordan and Israel and Syria and Israel go off and settle things. In the whole history of Arab-Israeli relations, the Arabs and Israelis have never settled anything bilaterally, so it is guaranteed that they will deadlock and then come back to the conference. At the conference we have, then -- everybody going to the conference will already be committed before the conference, with the exception of the United States, to the '67 borders of Israel. I think those will guarantee the destruction of Israel. Between Haifa and Tel Aviv a distance of 50 miles. The -- that border establishes a corridor that is, at most, nine miles wide. On the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the border was about 100 yards from the road. That is an impossible situation. Israel cannot (stay away of this?). It must give up some territory.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Gaza?

DR. KISSINGER: It certainly must give up Gaza. And it certainly must give up a heavily populated part of the West Bank. On the other hand, the Arabs cannot get the '67 borders. I think that principle ought to be established before we ever go into a conference, otherwise they're going to get beaten to death.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Gaza is a coastal strip. It's tiny. It's 28 miles long. It's six miles wide. It fronts the Mediterranean. So you would see that going to the Arabs?

DR. KISSINGER: To Jordan. I'd give it to Jordan.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: To Jordan?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right. And you'd give part of the West Bank to Jordan?

DR. KISSINGER: At least for an interim period, yes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that idea would go anywhere?

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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Dr. Kissinger, do you believe that the current conflict in Israel is qualitatively different than anything that has gone before.

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, because it is different, in the sense that Israel is in occupation of a territory where the population is conducting an uprising, that has not happened before.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So, it's a national uprising -- using the word, national, loosely -- it's a national uprising, it's also, it's indigenous, and it's propelled by youth for the first time. In fact, the youth has caught the PLO leadership, it appears, off guard. Correct?

DR. KISSINGER: Certainly it is, everybody seems to agree, including the Israelis, that it is largely indigenous.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Largely indigenous, so therefore, the Israelis are probably going to have to give up some land for peace?

DR. KISSINGER: That -- by that, there is no question in my mind, but --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you told them that?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, I haven't told them directly because I am not in touch with the Israeli government. I've written it.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Can you clear up something, and tell us why you cause so much commotion? About six weeks ago, you were at a breakfast and a memorandum of that breakfast says that you made the following point, quote, "Israel should bar the media from entering into the territories involved in the present demonstrations, accept the short-term criticism of the world press for such conduct and put down the insurrection as quickly as possible, overwhelmingly, brutally and rapidly -- just a moment -- the insurrection must be quailed immediately and the first step should be to throw out television, a la South Africa. Did you say it?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did you say anything like it?

DR. KISSINGER: I said nothing -- I said nothing like it, and this was a memorandum written by one person who was putting -- I'm sure the letter -- whom I don't even know --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Julius Berman, the former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Org -- he sounds like a very distinguished chap.

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DR. KISSINGER: But, since then five equally distinguished chaps who were all presidents of Jewish organizations have written a letter to the New York Times which published the original memorandum which the New York Times has not yet seen fit to publish which states what--

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What you said?

DR. KISSINGER: What is my recollection of what was said.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was Laurence Tisch there?

DR. KISSINGER: I won't go into who was there. It was -- we're talking here about a breakfast which was done at their invitation, in which there was a general discussion. The major theme of the discussion was to tell these leaders (1) that there was no sense second guessing the day to day incidents on the West Bank, because nobody knew enough about that. That they should put their weight on

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helping establish a negotiating position for the diplomacy that was inevitable in which Israel would agree unilaterally to give up Gaza and a major part of the West Bank. This was before the Shultz initiative, and I was urging them to get Israel to offer to give up territory. That was the major part of the ---

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Who were "they?" Prominent American Jews?

DR. KISSINGER: These were prominent American Jews who had invited me. I didn't ---

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you displeased with the present attitude of American Jewry towards what's going on -- by the conduct of the Israeli government and the management of these demonstrations?

DR. KISSINGER: No. That wasn't the point of that meeting. My advice to them was that they could be most influential in dealing with middle- and long-range things. As far as the press was concerned, I really think one ought to read that letter, if the New York Times ever considers to publish it.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You want to say categorically that you did not say "bar-the television cameras?"

DR. KISSINGER: I could tell you exactly what happened. Somebody complained about the parameters of television coverage. I said -- this was in a private conversation on the way out. I said that television is inherently unfair in these things because it can only cover the action. It cannot cover the provocation and it cannot cover the context. Maybe it would have been best to exclude the press at the beginning, like America did in Grenada. But this is water over the dam now, and there's no sense in arguing about it.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: This is what you said then?

DR. KISSINGER: That is what I said then. This was about a thirty-second conversation in a three-hour meeting, and I think this whole reporting has been grotesque.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You said nothing about putting down the insurrection brutally?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I said that, under the pressure of insurrection, it is very difficult to make concessions. But I also said that, during this year, I thought they should put their influence, use their influence for Israel to indicate which territories it was willing to give up and to indicate, in principle, agreement to the concept of territory-for-peace. In fact, I even said they didn't have to insist on peace, that they should simply give up territories in return for security arrangements.

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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Dr. Kissinger, you signed a Memorandum in 1975 -- September the 20th between the government of Israel and the United States. It was signed in Geneva, wasn't it?

DR. KISSINGER: It was probably signed in Jerusalem.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It says:

> The United States will continue to adhere to its present policy with respect to the Palestine Liberation Organization whereby it will not recognize or negotiate with the PLO so long as the PLO does not recognize Israel's right to exist and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

First question: Does that leave any room for maneuver for the United States with the PLO?

DR. KISSINGER: I'm sort of tired of people who take a memorandum that was never ratified by the Congress and 13 years ago and deal with it as if it were one of the Ten Commandments.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You wish to abjure this memorandum?

DR. KISSINGER: No, not at all. But I told the Administration that -- and several administrations that if they want to -- to put forward a different position on their merits, I'm not going to do it because --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But --

DR. KISSINGER: But wait a minute. Let's see what this Memorandum says. All the PLO has to do to be eligible for conversation with the United States under the provisions of this Memorandum is recognize the state of Israel and recognize the peace process by which the negotiations are taking place. It is not an excessive demand. It is an absurdity --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay, now --

DR. KISSINGER: -- to say that they should be talked to while their program is to destroy an American ally and when they don't accept the Security Council's resolutions.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: In 1982, I interviewed Arafat in Beirut, and Arafat told me that he has done this -- that he has done it equivalently, and he has done with sufficient explicitness to satisfy anybody -- that is, accepted 242 and 338.

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DR. KISSINGER: Well, if that is true, it has escaped me. But if it is true, all he has to do is say it and then this provision no longer applies.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Here -- here's the problem. Shultz goes over there and he talks to, I guess, Hussein on his trip. He talks to Mubarak. He talks to Assad. They didn't start this violence. It was started by the Palestinians. He ought to be talking to the Palestinians. I don't think he is talking to the Palestinians --

DR. KISSINGER: No, he's not talking --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- because all of the Palestinians you know and I know recognize the PLO as their legitimate spokesman and collective leadership.

DR. KISSINGER: He offered to speak to Palestinians in Jerusalem in the Arab part of Jerusalem where no American secretary of state has ever gone. All the PLO has to do according to this provision is to recognize the existence of the state of Israel and to recognize the Security Council resolutions on the basis

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of which all other Arab states are participating in the
negotiations.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, but --

DR. KISSINGER: Why should that -- why is that such an
incredible demand?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, assuming -- notwithstanding what I said
about Arafat -- that that cannot come about. This is providing a
fire wall against which no one appears to be able to move, because
even if you found leadership on the West Bank among the
Palestinians, they would not emerge as --

DR. KISSINGER: I know, but --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- true leaders without the legitimacy of the
PLO recognition.

DR. KISSINGER: But with all due respect, the fire wall is not
created by what was said here. It is not an unreasonable
proposition for the United States to say they will not talk to a
country or to a group that has, as its basic program, the
destruction of its ally, with whom it's supposed to be negotiating.
All we are asking for is that the PLO recognize the existence of the
state of Israel -- they don't have to accept particular frontiers --
the existence of the state of Israel and the relevant Security
Council resolutions, on the basis of which everybody else, including
the Soviet Union --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And you don't believe that they have yet done
that.

DR. KISSINGER: No. And if they want to do it, why don't they
say it explicitly. Then this thing becomes irrelevant.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me ask you a couple of questions about a
different scene (?), and that's Panama. You saw, at the top of the
biography, your picture with Omar Torrijos. I didn't realize that
you were a close friend of Omar Torrijos.

DR. KISSINGER: I wasn't a close friend of Omar Torrijos. I
met him once, when I was down there to sign the principles which
were the basis for the Panama Canal negotiations.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did you know -- did you know that he was a
drug trafficker?

DR. KISSINGER: I met him once, for one specific purpose.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: His brother --

DR. KISSINGER: And it might have been --

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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: His brother Moises (?) --

DR. KISSINGER: I did not know he was a drug trafficker.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: His brother Moises was --

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know whether he was one --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- indicted by a grand jury in New York on a sealed indictment for drug trafficking. And then it was revealed to the Justice Department --

DR. KISSINGER: I met --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- that Omar Torrijos was drug trafficking, too.

DR. KISSINGER: This picture was from 1974. I don't think that was true then.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I think it was. And Noriega was his head of the CIA down there.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, this might -- all I've been saying is, this picture, which my office gave you --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You can't shed any light on the Panama situation?

DR. KISSINGER: No, because my only relation to it was when I went down there for three hours to sign the basic principles which initiated the Panama Canal negotiation.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right, we will relieve you of this line of questioning, but we'll be right back.

(Commercial announcements.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Dr. Kissinger, which presidential candidate is best equipped to handle the foreign policy of the United States, as president -- Bush, Dole, Robertson, Dukakis, Gephardt, Gore?

DR. KISSINGER: I will support the Republican candidate, because I think they stand for a more responsible foreign policy.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How would you grade Ronald Reagan's administration's foreign policy, on a scale of A to D, A being the kind of grades you got when you were at Harvard, and D being those --

DR. KISSINGER: I give them very high marks in the first six years, and I'm very disappointed by the last two years.

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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why?

DR. KISSINGER: Because I think he is undoing a lot of what he achieved in East-West --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You're not referring to Iran-contra.

DR. KISSINGER: No, Iran-contra, that was a sort of mistake --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: An aberration.

DR. KISSINGER: -- that anyone can make. You know, it was a grievous mistake.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What were you referring to, the INF Treaty?

DR. KISSINGER: The whole -- the conduct of negotiations with the Soviets, including the INF Treaty.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thanks for being my guest on One on One, Dr. Kissinger.

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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Dr. Kissinger, on the subject of the rising now going on in Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Soviets have repelled this by force, 30, at least are dead. But this is a real problem in the Soviet Union. You've got 100 nationalities and ethnic groups, they've got problems in the Baltic area --

DR. KISSINGER: And soon over half of the population will be non-Russian.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Non-Russian?

DR. KISSINGER: Non-Russian by the year 2000.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You've got problems, insurrections, or uprisings in Estonia, Latvia. Do you think this is the biggest problem the Soviet Union is now facing?

DR. KISSINGER: No, the Soviet Union has a whole series of problems, all related to the same thing, namely that they have to give up the centrally run economy in order to keep from becoming an underdeveloped country. But the minute they start decentralizing they run into all these nationalist tendencies, autonomous tendencies, and in the whole history of the Russian state there has never been a decentralized administration.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that these uprisings are due to perestroika or glasnost? Or do you think that they were there anyway?

DR. KISSINGER: They were there anyway, but I think the new conditions have made them easier, and because Gorbachev trouble(?).

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is there any reason to believe that these riots have been instigated by Gorbachev's foes who are opposed to perestroika and glasnost?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think so. That would be much too dangerous.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that Gorbachev is hurt by these uprisings?

DR. KISSINGER: Definitely.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You do?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that in this critical June planum(sp?), this meeting that's taking place in the Soviet Union,

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that this will be advanced as a reason for arguing that glasnost has
gone too fast -- too fast and too far?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think sooner or later it will be used
against him. But I would also warn against putting that much
emphasis on the personality of Gorbachev. Our problem is not
glasnost. Our problem is Soviet foreign policy. And we shouldn't
get so obsessed with Soviet internal developments.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Which Soviet foreign policy?

DR. KISSINGER: What America needs from the Soviet Union is restrained international conduct. What they do at home is interesting, may have some effect on it, but we -- it is not our major concern.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You don't see restraint being exercised by the
Soviet Union, or reform? For example, the withdrawal of troops
scheduled for -- from Afghanistan?

DR. KISSINGER: If they withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and
if, within a measurable time the communist government in Kabul
collapses, then, indeed, that will be a major event.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You know that George Shultz, in supporting an
international peace conference in the Middle East, at which the USSR
will be present, is an implicit, even explicit quasi-blessing of
Gorbachev.

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You don't think so?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It helps Gorbachev, does it not?

DR. KISSINGER: It may or it may not.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It would help him internally.

DR. KISSINGER: But that's not the problem. I am -- I have
always thought

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that we were better off pursuing our policy in the Middle East unilaterally because the Soviet Union can make no contribution to it unless we know in advance that they will ask the same sacrifice of their friends in the Arab world that we will be asked to demand of our friends in Israel.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I understand that. But I have a proposition. The proposition is that this administration, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz principally, are dedicated now to helpy Gorby make it, to helping Gorby survive. One way --

DR. KISSINGER: I'm not sure that that is correct, but if it were, I don't agree with that.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay. The one way is that, if there is an international peace conference in the Middle East of which the USSR is present, that can only help him. Furthermore, the President went to Brussels. He went to Brussels to reassure our allies at the summit that the INF was in their interests and to get their cooperation. That also helps to relieve the anxieties of the hawks in the Soviet Union who fear that the NATO allies will re-arm their short- and mid-term -- mid-range weaponry because the INF Treaty is now secure. Those hawks were opposed to excluding the nuclear weapons from -- to excluding from the treaty the nuclear weapons of Great Britain and France. So to quiet them down, Reagan goes over there. Here also --

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I don't --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- in an attempt to help Gorby.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I don't believe that is fair to the President.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the central proposition that I have stated true?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first of all, I don't think he quieted down the Europeans. I think that there was a sort of a tacit nonagression pact. The Europeans want the President to go out with dignity. He didn't make any demands on them. They didn't make any demands on him. So it was a good exercise in --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You're the father of detente, right? That was Detente I. We now have Detente II. Can it be argued that Detente II is more "detentish" than Detente I? We've got five seconds.

DR. KISSINGER: It's more psychiatrically inclined. President Nixon and I were more -- (end of audio feed)

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