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# KISSINGER
## WHITE HOUSE YEARS

In office he always seemed to be at center stage: the brilliant foreign affairs analyst who never shrank from controversy, the patetic statesman who was forever soaring off to distant capitals on secret missions that, when revealed, sent seismic shocks through chancelleries around the world. Even out of power, he remains the subject of intense interest: heads of state seek his counsel, his support on issues is solicited, he is deferred to—even feared—as if he still strode the corridors of the White House and State Department.

During his eight years as Richard Nixon's Assistant for National Security Affairs and as Secretary of State to Nixon and Gerald Ford, he helped cast to a remarkable degree the policies, goals and international achievements of the Presidents he served. From the moment he left the Government, it was clear his memoirs could offer an extraordinary look at those turbulent times. Now, Henry Kissinger has completed the first volume of those memoirs, and the work is as discerning, engaging and in ways as controversial as the man himself.

TIME will excerpt *White House Years* (Little, Brown; $22.50) in three parts, beginning on the following pages and continuing for the next two weeks. The book covers a stormy period: from November 1968, when President-elect Nixon began assembling his team, to January 1973, when Kissinger concluded the Viet Nam negotiations that were to win him a Nobel Peace Prize. (The second volume, in preparation now, covers the four years ending in January 1977.) Kissinger's work is much concerned with the calculus of power: when and how it should be applied or withheld; how it affects a nation's conduct; how it must be in-

terwoven with concepts not only of national interest but of national honor. The book offers an unparalleled inside account of the high-stakes bureaucratic battles to control policy and of the forging of new relationships with old enemies. It shows how momentous events are swayed by the personalities of those engaged in them, with the personalities themselves profiled in shrewd, telling vignettes.

In this week's excerpts Kissinger describes his unexpected initial summons by Nixon, how the new President's distrust of the State Department led to secret missions to Peking and Moscow, and the subtle nuances of conducting simultaneous summitry with the Soviets and Chinese. Included is a section remarkably *à propos* today: what the U.S. did when the Soviets tried to build a nuclear submarine base in Cuba in 1970.

The entire second excerpt concerns what Kissinger calls "the agony of Viet Nam": the unannounced bombing of Cambodia and the attack on the sanctuaries there; the secret negotiations in Paris; how the premature "peace is at hand" statement came to be made; the Christmas bombing; the turmoil caused by antiwar protesters in the U.S.; and the peace agreement.

In the final week Kissinger writes of the near confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. over a crisis in Jordan; the reason for Nixon's famed "tilt" toward Pakistan in its 1971 war with India; and a secret decision to give major aid to Peking if the Soviets threatened China. Throughout all three parts (which, of course, represent only a fraction of the full, 1,521-page book), Kissinger offers unusual insights into that remarkable figure, Richard Nixon, "this withdrawn, lonely and tormented man."

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Photograph for TIME by Neil Leifer

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

World

SWEDEN

# A Vote for Instability

*Palme's last hurrah?*

After nearly a half-century of solid government, the placid, proudly enlightened Swedes are about as eager for political instability as they are for, well, chaperoned dating. Last week, however, the country was preparing for a long winter of insecure government, following an election that reconfirmed the nonsocialist parliamentary majority by a single seat and that may have ended the career of Sweden's most dynamic politician, former Social Democratic Premier Olof Palme.

The election was so close it took three days of counting the 5,322,688 votes to determine who had won. Finally, on the strength of mailed-in ballots, a grouping of Conservative, Center and Liberal parties emerged with a 5,000-vote margin and 175 seats in the 349-member Riksdag (parliament). The leftist opposition alliance had 174 seats—154 for the Social Democrats, still the country's biggest single party, and 20 for the Communists.

"I see no future for a parliament with such a tiny majority," scoffed Palme, who might have added that his own future appeared to be even more questionable. Ousted from office in 1976 when tax-weakry Swedes overturned 44 years of uninterrupted Social Democratic rule, the former Premier has now suffered his second defeat at the polls. Although he insisted he would not step down voluntarily "like a deserter," Palme acknowledged that

"my position as party leader is now open for disposal."

For the winners, the problem of forming a government with a single-vote majority was compounded by the fact that the three non-socialist parties are deeply divided on the country's two main political issues: nucle-

ar energy and taxes. The Conservatives support further construction of nuclear reactors, which the Center Party and half of the Liberal Party oppose. All three parties want to reduce Sweden's exorbitant income taxes, but cannot agree on how else to pay for Western Europe's most expensive welfare state. The most likely prospect seemed to be either another feeble minority government led by Premier Ola Ullsten, head of the Liberal Party, or a wobbly Center-Liberal coalition. But the betting was that neither could last much beyond next March, when a scheduled national referendum on nuclear energy might break the country's political stalemate wide open again. ■

UP

The Strelczyk family aboard the hot-air balloon that brought them to West Germany

EAST-WEST

# The Great Balloon Escape

*A dream of freedom was not just hot air*

As searchlights swept menacingly over the heavily guarded border between East and West Germany, a raggedy patchwork balloon, traveling at a leisurely 10 to 15 knots, floated across the wall of fortifications, minefields, self-firing explosives and guard towers. Minutes later, the bizarre craft crash-landed on West German soil. East Germans were aboard: Mechanic Hans Peter Strelczyk, Bricklayer-Günter Wetzel, their wives and four children. Once again, human ingenuity and the will to freedom had prevailed over Communist East Germany's determination to immune its citizens behind the most formidable frontier in history.

Ironically, the dramatic escape had been inspired by an East German television program on the history of ballooning. A onetime aircraft mechanic who had long been looking for a way to escape from his homeland, Strelczyk immediately set out to build a hot-air balloon in accordance with the principles established by France's pioneering Montgolfier brothers in the 1780s. Strelczyk and his friend Wetzel built a cast-iron platform with posts at the corners for handholds and rope anchors. Four propane cooking-gas cylinders were fastened to the center. Their wives stitched up a balloon, 72 ft. in diameter, out of 60 different pieces of canvas and bedsheets, which the families had bought in small amounts in different shops to allay suspicion.

On July 4, the Strelczyks and the Wetzelzs made their way under cover of darkness to a meadow 25 miles from the border. That first escape attempt aborted: the winds were wrong, the gas ran out, and they landed undetected, a few hundred yards short of the frontier. Last weekend

they tried again. This time the craft lifted off with ease, picking up a breeze that wafted them toward the border. The balloon, which soared as high as 8,000 ft., began to lose altitude as it neared the border. A searchlight picked out the balloon for a terrifying moment as it crossed the border at about 6,000 ft., but then moved on. At 100 ft., Strelczyk made out a piece of farm machinery in the gloom below. "I thought we were in the West then because it was a modern machine-unlike anything we have in the East." When the gas gave out at 15 ft., the balloon fell to earth in a blackberry thicket. The entire flight had taken 30 minutes.

The escapees were instant celebrities throughout West Germany. "What they did with what they had was fantastic," declared West Germany's champion balloonist, Arno Sieger. "It was like crossing the Atlantic in a raft." Museums vied with one another to exhibit the balloon. Residents of the Bavarian town of Naila, near the landing site, offered food, money, clothes, apartments and jobs.

The flight of the two families was only the most recent of several heroic attempts by East Germans to cross the hated Wall. In June an East Berlin engineer, while piloting a glider, suddenly changed course and rode thermal currents across to the West. In August a Dresden family stole a plane; though none of them had ever flown before, they managed to steer the craft across the border to a safe crash landing. Earlier this month, a driver assigned to U.S. Ambassador to East Germany David Bolen hid his family in the trunk of the envoy's official car, drove uninspected through "Checkpoint Charlie" and got political asylum in West Berlin. ■

Ex-Premier Palme

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

WHITE HOUSE YEARS

SUMMONS TO POWER

The Inauguration took place on a cold and windy day. I sat just behind the new Cabinet and watched Lyndon Johnson stride down the aisle for the last time to the tune of *Hail to the Chief*. Johnson stood like a caged eagle, proud, dignified, never to be trifled with, his eyes fixed on distant heights that now he would never reach. There was another fanfare and President-elect Richard Nixon appeared. His jaw jutted defiantly and yet he seemed uncertain, as if unsure that he was really there. He seemed exultant. Yet he also appeared spent, like a marathon runner who has exhausted himself in a great race. As ever, it was difficult to tell whether it was the occasion or his previous image of it that Nixon actually enjoyed.

My own feeling of surprise at being there was palpable. All my political experience had been in the company of those who considered themselves in mortal opposition to Richard Nixon. I had taught for over ten years at Harvard University, where among the faculty disdain for Richard Nixon was established orthodoxy. And the single most influential person in my life had been a man whom Nixon had twice defeated in futile quests for the presidential nomination, Nelson Rockefeller.

The rivalry between Rockefeller and Nixon was not without an ingredient of personal antipathy that transcended even that automatically generated by competition for a unique prize. Nixon thought of Rockefeller as a selfish amateur who would wreck what he could not control, a representative of the Establishment that had treated him with condescension. Rockefeller considered Nixon an opportunist without the vision and idealism needed to shape the destiny of our nation.

In 1968 I shared many of these attitudes toward Nixon, although I had little direct evidence on which to base a judgment. I attended the gallant press conference in which Rockefeller conceded to Nixon and I was sick at heart.

Some months after that depressing day—with Richard Nixon now President-elect—I was having lunch with Governor Rockefeller and a group of his advisers in New York City. We were discussing what attitude Rockefeller should take toward a possible offer to join the Nixon Cabinet. We were interrupted by a telephone call. It was a poignant reminder of Rockefeller's frustrating career in national politics that the caller was Nixon's appointments secretary, Dwight Chapin, who was interrupting Rockefeller's strategy meeting to ask me—not Rockefeller—to meet with his chief.

I presented myself at 10 a.m. on Nov. 25, at the Nixon transition headquarters in the Pierre Hotel. I thought it likely that the President-elect wanted my views on the policy problems before him. Chapin took me to a large living room and told me that the President-elect would be with me soon. I did not know then that Nixon was painfully shy. Meeting new people filled him with vague dread, especially if they were in a position to rebuff or contradict him. As was his habit before such appointments, Nixon was probably in an adjoining room settling his nerves and reviewing his remarks, no doubt jotted down on a yellow tablet that he never displayed to his visitors.

When at last Nixon entered the room, it was with a show of jauntiness that failed to hide an extraordinary nervousness. His subject was the task of setting up his new Government. He had very little confidence in the State Department. Its personnel had no loyalty to him; the Foreign Service had disdained him as Vice President and ignored him the moment he was out of office. He was determined to run foreign policy from the White House. He felt it imperative to exclude the CIA from the formulation of policy; it was staffed by Ivy League liberals who, be-

hind the façade of analytical objectivity, were usually pushing their own preferences. Nixon invited my opinion.

I replied that he should not judge the Foreign Service's attitude toward a President by its behavior toward a candidate or even a Vice President. In any event, a President who knew his own mind would always be able to dominate foreign policy. I knew too little about the CIA to have an opinion. I agreed that there was a need for a more formal decision-making process. It should avoid the rigorous formalism of the Eisenhower Administration, but a new

coherence and precision seemed to me essential.

Nixon outlined some of his foreign policy views. I was struck by his perceptiveness and knowledge so at variance with my previous image of him. He asked what in my view should be the goal of his diplomacy. I replied that the overriding problem was to free our foreign policy from its violent historical fluctuations between euphoria and panic, from the illusion that decisions depended largely on the idiosyncrasies of decision makers. Policy had to be related to some basic principles of national interest that would be maintained as Presidents changed.

At this point the conversation grew less precise. What I understood was that I had been asked whether in principle I was prepared to join his Administration in some planning capacity. I replied that in the event that Governor Rockefeller was offered a Cabinet post, I would be happy to serve on his staff.

In retrospect it is clear that my comment killed whatever minimal prospects existed for a Rockefeller appointment. Richard Nixon had no intention of having me join his Administration on the coattails of Nelson Rockefeller. One of my attractions for Nixon, I understood later, was that my appointment would demonstrate his ability to co-opt a Harvard intellectual; that I came from Rockefeller's entourage made the prospect all the more interesting.

The next day I received a phone call from John Mitchell's office, suggesting an appointment [to discuss] my position in the new Administration. It was not explained what position he was talking about.

I found Mitchell seated behind his desk puffing a pipe. Self-confident and taciturn, he came straight to the point: "What have you decided about the National Security job?"

"I did not know I had been offered it."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," said Mitchell, "he has screwed it up again." Mitchell lumbered out. He returned in five minutes with the information that the President-elect wished to see me.

This time it was clear what Nixon had in mind; I was offered the job of Security Adviser. The President-elect repeated his view of the incompetence of the CIA and the untrustworthiness of the State Department. The position of Security Adviser was therefore crucial to his plan to run foreign policy from the White House.

## Tensions on the Team

A few days after my own appointment, Nixon informed me that William Pierce Rogers was to be his Secretary of State. He said that he and Rogers had been close friends in the Eisenhower Administration when Rogers was Attorney General, although their friendship had eroded later. Nixon considered Rogers' unfamiliarity with the subject an asset because it guaranteed that policy direction would remain in the White House. At the same time, Nixon said, Rogers was one of the toughest, most cold-eyed, self-centered and ambitious men he

LAI—CAMERA PRESS

Henry Kissinger in his White House office

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

Copyright © 1979 by Henry A. Kissinger

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had ever met. As a negotiator he would give the Soviets fits. And "the little boys in the State Department" had better be careful because Rogers would brook no nonsense. Few Secretaries of State can have been selected because of their Presidents' confidence in their ignorance of foreign policy.

During his friendship with Nixon in the 1950s, Rogers had been much the psychologically dominant partner. He could not really grasp that now his was the subordinate position. Even less could he face the proposition that he might have been appointed, in part, because his old friend wanted to reverse roles.

This curious antipathic relationship between the two men had the consequence of enhancing my position, but my own role was clearly a result of that relationship and not the cause of it. From the beginning Nixon was determined to dominate the most important negotiations. Throughout his term, when a state visitor was received in the Oval Office by Nixon for a lengthy discussion, I was the only other American present.

As time went by, the President, or I on his behalf, came to deal increasingly with key foreign leaders through channels that directly linked the White House Situation Room to the field without going through the State Department—the so-called back channels. Nixon moved sensitive negotiations into the White House where he could supervise them directly, get the credit personally, and avoid the bureaucratic dispute or inertia that he

found so distasteful. In May 1971, the Secretary of State did not know of the negotiations in White House-Kremlin channels that led to the breakthrough in the SALT talks until 72 hours before a formal announcement. In July 1971, Rogers was told of my secret trip to China only after I was already on the way. In April 1972, my trip to Moscow was opposed by Rogers when he was told at the last minute.

Tensions in the Nixon policy machinery were produced also by an honest difference in perspective. Rogers had a shrewd analytical mind and outstanding common sense. But his perspective was tactical; as a lawyer he was trained to deal with issues as they arose "on their merits." My approach was strategic and geopolitical; I attempted to relate events to each other, to create incentives or pressures in one part of the world to influence events in another. Inevitably, Rogers must have considered me an egotistical nitpicker who ruined his relations with the President; I tended to view him as a neophyte who threatened the careful design of our foreign policy. The relationship was bound to deteriorate. Had both of us been wiser we would have understood that we would serve the country best by composing our personal differences and reinforcing each other. But Rogers was too proud, intellectually too arrogant, and Nixon saw to it that we were both too insecure to adopt such a course.

## THE SOVIET RIDDLE

"The riddle of relations with the other nuclear superpower has been a persistent preoccupation for postwar American foreign policy," Kissinger writes. And, difficult as it was to deal with the Soviets, the new Administration had no real choice but to give summary with Moscow a reasonable try.

The problem with U.S.-Soviet relations is not only that there are two competing bureaucracies with their assumptions and guesses; there are also conflicting conceptions of negotiation. Americans tend to believe that each negotiation has its own logic, that its outcome depends importantly on bargaining skill, good will and facility for compromise. Critics demand greater flexibility. No position is ever final. The other side has the maximum inducement to stand rigid to discover what else we may offer.

These attributes of American negotiators had complicated our efforts in 1969. Within the Administration we had to fight a seemingly endless battle against those who wanted to fuel the momentum of negotiations with unreciprocated gestures of good will. Not a few argued, for example, that we should forgo our programs on antiballistic missiles (ABM) and multiple independent-ly targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) lest we doom the prospects of strategic arms limitation—though, in fact, ABM and MIRV turned out to be among our few playable cards. Similarly, we were warned that an opening to China would cause relations with the Soviet Union to regress; in fact, the opening would break a logjam on several issues with the U.S.S.R.

Our internal divisions handed the Soviet leadership an irresistible opportunity to whipsaw us. The Kremlin would stress its eagerness to begin negotiations on SALT, for example. While the White House would try to gear our response to overall Soviet conduct, the rest of our Government would find innumera-

able ways, from press leaks to informal hints, to let it be known that it was ready, nay eager, to start talking. Thus the better part of our first year was spent in convincing both the Soviets and our own bureaucracy that we intended to base our negotiations on a calculation of the national interest, not abstract slo-gans, and on strict reciprocity, not "gestures" or "signals." By the end of 1969 it seemed that the careful fencing was about to end. My talks with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin—what came to be known as the Channel—had become increasingly active, usually on Soviet initiative. We had succeeded in making it clear to the Soviets, and with a little time lag to the bureaucracy, that the President's view was the decisive one.

### Face to Face

Sooner or later every President since Roosevelt has become convinced that he should take a personal hand in East-West relations through face-to-face meetings with the Soviet leaders. It is human to yearn to make a decisive breakthrough toward peace. Presidents are strengthened in this temptation by an American public that finds it difficult to accept the existence of irreconcilable hostility and tends to see international relations in terms of the play of individual personalities.

Nixon was less given to these tendencies than most. He was too skeptical to believe that one meeting could alter the course of events. He was too experienced in international politics not to appreciate that decades-long tensions between great powers are not the result of personal animosities. He did not much like face-to-face negotiating.

And yet in 1970, for one of the few times in his presidency, Nixon threw sober calculation to the winds and pressed for a summit. Tormented by antiwar agitators, he thought he could paralyze them by a dramatic peace move. Meeting the Soviet leaders in the wake of our offensive against the sanctuaries in Cambodia might show Hanoi that it could prove expendable in a larger game. He foresaw benefits for the congressional elections in the fall as well. As the year proceeded, what started as a maneuver reached a point of near obsession.

This was to be one of the rare times that I totally disagreed with Nixon on a major foreign policy question. The Soviets had given us no help in Viet Nam. SALT was still substantially dead-

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TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

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locked. The Soviets had introduced combat personnel into the Middle East—the first such Soviet action in the postwar period. Our China initiative could easily be wrecked by the appearance of collusion with the Soviets. A summit might thus easily fail; or, to rescue it, we would be induced to agreements we might later regret.

## Mission to Moscow

Fortunately, notes Kissinger, though Nixon was eager for a summit in 1970, the Soviets overreached themselves and Nixon "did not need it as desperately as Moscow reckoned." The U.S. bided its time, and soon the pendulum was swinging its way. In December 1970, trouble erupted on the Soviets' own doorstep with food-price riots in Poland. In July 1971 came the announcement of Nixon's trip to China. Less than four weeks later, the Soviets formally invited the U.S. President to visit Moscow in the spring of 1972. Kissinger served as a kind of diplomatic advance man.

I departed for Moscow on a presidential aircraft shortly after 1 a.m. on Thursday, April 20, 1972. My trip was secret; it was to be announced only after I had returned. The Soviets had pressed for months for a clandestine visit, almost certainly for the simple reason that Peking had had a secret trip and they were entitled to equality!

Several strands of policy, many of them interwoven, would be tested on my trip to Moscow. But overshadowing them all, when the time came for departure, was the offensive launched on March 30 by the North Vietnamese army. Could the Soviet Union be induced to pressure its client for the sake of the summit? Or were we ourselves in danger of being manipulated by the Soviet Union so that we would hesitate in responding militarily to North Viet Nam's challenges?

My first meeting with Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev was scheduled for 11 a.m. on April 21. He was awaiting us in the largest guesthouse of the complex of villas where we were staying. Obviously torn between the advice he must have re-

## Leonid Brezhnev

Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai represented a nation that had always been culturally pre-eminent in its region. Its leaders were aloof, self-asured, composed. Brezhnev represented a nation that had survived not by civilizing its conquerors but by outlasting them, a people suspended between Europe and Asia, with a culture that had destroyed its traditions without yet entirely replacing them. He sought to obscure his lack of assurance by boisterous-

ness, and his sense of latent inadequacy by occasional bullying. To be sure, no one reached the top of a Communist hierarchy except by ruthlessness. Yet the charm of the Chinese leaders obscured that quality, while Brezhnev's gruff heavyhandedness tended to emphasize it. The Chinese even amid the greatest cordiality kept their distance. Brezhnev, who had physical magnetism, crowded his interlocutor.

Brezhnev was quintessentially Russian. He was a mixture of crudeness and warmth; at the same time brutal and engaging, cunning and disarming. While he boasted of Soviet strength, one had the sense that he was not really all that sure of it. Having grown up in a backward society nearly overrun by Nazi invasion, he seemed to feel in his bones the vulnerability of his system. It is my nightmare that his successors, bred in more tranquil times and accustomed to modern technology and military strength, might be freer of self-doubt; with no such inferiority complex, they may believe their own boasts and, with a military establishment now covering the globe, may prove far more dangerous.

I believe that part of Brezhnev sincerely sought, if not peace in the Western sense, then surcease from the danger and risks and struggles of a lifetime. When I met him he had gone through the Stalin purges of the '30s (indeed, his first big jump up the ladder took place then), the Second World War, a new wave of purges, the power struggle following the death of Stalin and the intrigue that led to the overthrow of Khrushchev and catalyzed Brezhnev to the top. He seemed at once exuberant and spent, eager to prevail but at minimum risk. He had had enough excitement for one lifetime. None of this, of course, changed the realities of Soviet power, which he was augmenting energetically. And this would have to be balanced by our strength, whatever Brezhnev's intentions or professions. Détente could never replace a balance of power.

## Aleksei Kosygin

Among our own experts Kosygin had the reputation of being more liberal than Brezhnev. I considered that a superficial judgment. As Prime Minister, he was in operational control of day-to-day activities of the Soviet government—outside of the security and foreign policy fields. Inevitably, this produced a certain pragmatism. He could speak eloquently about the advantages of increased commerce with the United States, though he never failed to

claim that he was doing us the greater favor by opening up the Soviet market to our exports. But outside the economic area, Kosygin struck me as orthodox if not rigid. It seemed almost as if he compensated for managerial pragmatism by the strictest piety on ideological matters.

Kosygin was clearly more polished and better educated than his colleagues. He had functioned at the upper reaches of Soviet power for more than 30 years. Brezhnev, for example, was still a middle-level party official when Kosygin had joined the top group of 20 or so Soviet leaders. On the other hand, Brezhnev's capacity for survival may well have derived from the fact that he never aspired to the very summit of power. Successive leaders beginning with Stalin had valued his competence; none had seen him as a potential rival. His actions were not in service to personal ambition. His commitment to duty was vividly illustrated when his wife was fatally ill; Kosygin went ahead with his day's chores, even continuing to stand on Lenin's Tomb to review a Red Square parade after the message of her death reached him.

I saw little evidence of the sense of humor some of our experts had detected beneath the glacial exterior. Either my only attempt to strike a light tone backfired, or else Kosygin's humor was too subtle for me. At the end of the summit, we boarded a Soviet plane. To the considerable chagrin of our Soviet hosts, its engines refused to start. Kosygin stormed on the plane and said: "Tell us what you want to do with our Minister of Aviation. If you want him shot on the tarmac we will do so." He looked as if he might be serious. I attempted to ease his embarrassment by speaking of the wickedness of objects. When one dropped a coin, I said, it always rolled away, never toward one. Kosygin was not to be consoled by such transparent attempts to shift responsibility. "This is not my experience," he said, fixing me with a baleful glance. "I have dropped coins which rolled toward me."

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Drawings for TIME by Burt Silverman

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

WHITE HOUSE YEARS

ceived to behave discreetly and his own gregarious impulse, he
alternated between pummeling me and wearing a grave mien. I
thanked him for the warmth of the welcome. Brezhnev joked
that they hoped to make me feel warmer still. I asked whether
this was a threat or a pleasant prospect. Brezhnev replied that
the Soviet Union did not believe in threats—a welcome piece of
information that struck me as new.

Appearances meant a lot to Brezhnev. On my secret visit, he arranged with great pride a tour of the spacious and elegant Tsars' Apartments in the Kremlin, where Nixon would live. Along the corridor marble pedestals bearing huge vases stood between every two windows. All the vases were draped except one, which was shown to me as an example of the high polish that patient labors had achieved; the shrouds would stay on to preserve the sheen, it was explained, until an hour before Nixon's arrival. All this suggested an uneasy, quite touching meld of defensiveness and vulnerability. At this point the personalities of Nixon and Brezhnev intersected.

During our first encounter Brezhnev seemed nervous,
probably because he felt insecure dealing with senior
American officials for the first time, and partly because
of his copious consumption of tobacco and alcohol, his history
of heart disease and the pressure of his job. His hands
were perpetually in motion: twisting his watch; flicking
ashes from his ever-present cigarette (until he was put
on the regimen of a locked cigarette case that would open
only at preset intervals, which he found ingenious ways to get
around); clanging his cigarette holder against an ashtray. He
could not keep still. While his remarks were being translated
he would restlessly bound up, walk around, engage in loud
conversations with his colleagues or even leave the room with-
out explanation and then return. Negotiations with Brezhnev
thus included the bizarre feature that he might disappear at
any moment; or while you were being most persuasive, he
could be concentrating not on your remarks but on forcing
food on you.

Andrei Gromyko

He was a survivor. He had lived
through the Stalin period, the Mo-
lotov era at the Foreign Ministry,
and Khrushchev's roller coaster di-
plomacy. He had been Foreign Min-
ister since 1957.

The price of survival included
being the butt of the crude jokes of
whoever was the top Soviet leader.
Khrushchev once boasted to a for-
eign visitor that if Gromyko were
asked to sit on a block of ice with
his pants down, he would do so un-

questioningly until ordered to leave it. Brezhnev's humor, though less brutal, made the same point.

Gromyko's face would crease in smiles when he was the butt of this heavyhanded joshing. Only his eyes remained wary and slightly melancholy, like those of the beagle who has endured the inexplicable foibles of his master yet bent them to his own will. Through all this Gromyko preserved an aloof kind of dignity; he was loyal and compliant but not obsequious. He became the indispensable drive wheel of Soviet foreign policy, the consummate Soviet diplomat, well briefed, confident and tenacious. It was suicidal to negotiate with him without mastering the record or the issues. He had a prodigious memory that enabled him to bank every concession he believed we had made—or even hinted at. It would then become the starting point for the next round. Before he was elevated to the Polit-buro in 1973, he was an implementer, not a maker of policy. Afterward, he became visibly more influential and self-confident.

The American style of wisecracking at first eluded him. We met for the first time in September 1969. Gromyko walked up to me and said: "You look just like Henry Kissinger." I replied: "You look just like Richard Nixon." This took him a few seconds to hoist aboard. He soon absorbed the style. During the Moscow summit of 1972 one of our Xerox machines broke down. Knowing the KGB's reputation for Orwellian ubiquity, I asked Gromyko during a meeting in the Kremlin whether he could have some copies made for us if we held certain documents up to the chandelier. Gromyko replied without missing a beat that unfortunately the cameras were installed by the tsars; they were adequate for photographing people but not documents.

Within the framework imposed by the system he repre-
sented he was honorable. He was a man of his word. He stuck
to his bargains—or, if he was obliged to change course, he did
so with visible embarrassment.

Anatoli Dobrynin

Soviet ambassadors are the product of a bureaucracy that rewards discipline and discourages initiative; of a society historically distrustful of foreigners; of a people hiding its latent insecurity by heavyhanded self-assertiveness. With some Soviet diplomats one has the uneasy feeling that they report in a way to suit the preconceptions of their superiors. Most Soviet diplomats certainly cling rigidly to formal positions, for they can never be accused of unnec-

essary compromise if they show no initiative.

Dobrynin avoided these professional deformations. He was a classic product of the Communist society. The first member of his family to go to a university, he was trained as an engineer. Whether he owed his flexibility to his training in a subject relatively free of deadening ideology, or to a natural disposition, he was one of the few Soviet diplomats of my acquaintance who could understand the psychology of others. He was suave not just by Soviet standards—which leave ample room for clumsiness—but by any criteria. He knew how to talk to Americans in a way brilliantly attuned to their preconceptions. He was especially skilled at evoking the inexhaustible American sense of guilt, by persistently but pleasantly hammering home the impression that every deadlock was our fault.

I never forgot that Dobrynin was a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party; I never indulged in the conceit that his easy manner reflected any predisposition toward me or toward the West. I had no doubt that if the interests of his country required it he could be as ruthless or duclicitous as any other Communist leader. But I considered his unquestioning support of the Soviet line an asset, not a liability: it enabled us to measure the policies of his masters with precision. Occasionally he would give me his personal analysis of American politics; without exception it was acute and even wise. This gave us some confidence that the Kremlin would have at its disposal a sophisticated assessment of conditions here. An accurate understanding could not guarantee that Moscow would choose our preferred response, but it reduced the prospects of gross miscalculation.

Dobrynin was free of the tendency toward petty chiseling by which the run-of-the-mill Soviet diplomat demonstrates his vigilance to his superiors: he understood that a reputation for reliability is an important asset in foreign policy.

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In their talks Brezhnev and Kissinger prepared the ground for Nixon's visit, reaching agreement on several SALT provisions and on a mutual declaration of principles. A month after Kissinger's trip, on May 20, 1972, Nixon and his party set out for Moscow aboard Air Force One. The summit was on.

## Nixon in the Kremlin

The mood was one of optimism, even elation. Despite the assaults by both Hanoi and our critics we had stood our ground. We had behind us a rare public consensus produced by the stunning events of the preceding month. Conservatives reveled in the mining of North Viet Nam's harbors; they interpreted the summit as a Soviet retreat. Liberals were relieved that the summit was taking place at all.

We had a somewhat different perspective from either liberals or conservatives. In a memorandum for the President before leaving, I summarized Soviet policies and described the outlook starkly:

> "For reasons deeply rooted in the ideology of the regime and the structure of internal Soviet politics, Soviet foreign policy will remain antagonistic to the West and especially the U.S. The world-power ambitions of the Soviet leaders, and any likely successors, plus their confidence in their capability to support their ambitions with material resources, suggest that the U.S.S.R. will press their challenge to Western interests with increasing vigor and in certain situations assume risks which hereunto would have seemed excessively dangerous."

The Soviet summit never developed the uniform texture of the one in Peking; it was more random and jagged. The discussions between Nixon and the Soviet leaders lacked a central theme. On the whole what emerged were formal expressions of standard positions not significantly different from the written exchanges that had gone back and forth through the Channel.

The summit's jagged rhythm was compounded by the fact that schedules in the Soviet Union seem to have at best an approximate quality. We would sometimes be kept waiting for hours while the Soviet leaders caucused, attended Politburo sessions, or simply disappeared. It was never clear whether the numerous delays and the constant switching of topics were a form of psychological warfare or simply reflected the Soviet working style. When Brezhnev visited the U.S. in 1973, he sat on his vanda at Camp David in full view of Nixon's cabin, talking with his advisers right through a scheduled meeting with the President, whom he kept waiting for two hours without explanation or apology.

*There was one dramatic session during the summit—on Viet Nam. Held at Brezhnev's dacha outside Moscow, it pitted Nixon against a troika of Soviet leaders: Party Boss Brezhnev, Premier Aleksei Kosygin and President Nikolai Podgorny.*

The dacha, a 40-minute drive from the Kremlin, was set on a little rise in a heavily wooded area along the Moscow River. It was two stories high, comfortable without either appearing lavish or rising to elegance. On the ground floor was a small conference room furnished very sparsely with an oval table and a grandfather clock.

The Soviet leaders and Nixon faced each other across the oval table. The discussion started harmlessly enough but finally Nixon decided to put Viet Nam squarely on the table. If he had not, the Soviet leaders surely would have; they were loaded for bear.

Nixon began by arguing that the "collateral issue" of Viet Nam should not interrupt the basic progress in our relations which was being achieved. He was aware that the Soviet Union had an ideological affinity with Hanoi. But we did not choose this moment for the "flare-up" in Viet Nam [he was referring to Hanoi's 1972 Easter offensive]. We could not reconsider our policy unless Hanoi indicated new flexibility in its negotiating stance. Moscow, he needled, should use the influence it acquired through

## Babblers and Bugs

My secret trip to Moscow in 1972 marked my introduction to the use of the "babbler." This was a cassette tape I had brought with me, which played a bitarre recording of what seemed like several dozen voices talking gibberish simultaneously. If I wanted to confer with my colleagues without being overheard by listening devices, we would gather around the babbler, speaking softly among ourselves. Theoretically anyone listening in would be unable to distinguish the real conversation from the cacophony of recorded voices. Whether it worked or not we could never be sure. The only certainty was that anyone trying to talk through the mind-numbing babble for any length of time would lose his own sanity. Thus we used it sparingly. Usually we spoke elliptically or wrote notes to one another. A colleague and I sometimes took a walk in the garden, even there whispering to each other because Willy Brandt's security people had warned us that the trees contained listening devices. Our respect for the KGB was such that our secretaries used manual typewriters brought from home lest the "telemetry" of electric machines be read by our solicitous hosts.

supplying military equipment to make Hanoi think again.

Now that the subject was Viet Nam, the atmosphere clouded suddenly. Each of the three Soviet leaders in turn unleashed a diatribe against Nixon, who, except for two one-sentence interruptions, endured it in dignified silence. Not only was the substance tough but the tone was crudely hectoring. Brezhnev complained not only about our "cruel" bombing but about the whole history of our involvement in Viet Nam. He denied that military actions were needed to end the war. Hanoi was eager to negotiate; all we had to do was to get rid of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu and accept Hanoi's "reasonable" political program. There were several not too subtle allusions that barely stopped short of comparing American policy with Hitler's.

Where Brezhnev had been emotional, Kosygin was analytical; where Brezhnev had pounded the table, he was glacially correct, though in substance the most aggressive of the troika. He recalled his conversations with Lyndon Johnson, who had first predicted victory and failed. He implied the same fate for Nixon. He hinted that Hanoi might reconsider its previous refusal to permit forces of other countries to fight on its side—prompting Nixon to retort that we were not frightened by that threat. Kosygin suggested that we get rid of Thieu; he was reasonably sure such a proposal would be accepted by Hanoi. (So were we. We did not think we required Soviet help to surrender.) Podgorny concluded the presentations. His epithets were the equal of his colleagues', though his delivery was blander and his tone actually milder.

Suddenly the thought struck me that for all the bombast and rudeness, we were participants in a charade. While the tone was bellicose and the manner extremely rough, the Soviet leaders were speaking for the record, and when they had said enough to have a transcript to send to Hanoi, they would stop.

And so it was.

## Balancing Act

*The summit was back on the track. With some difficulty, a SALT understanding was concluded that limited defensive weapons like the ABM and put an outright freeze on deployment of new offensive missiles. The agreement quickly came under attack in the U.S. as too generous to the Soviets, who at the time enjoyed an advantage in certain categories of strategic missiles.*

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It seemed to be inherent in Nixon's life—it was his tragedy—that he was unable to find acceptance with any new departure. Every step he took was immediately subsumed again in the controversies and distrust he had accumulated over a lifetime. He soon found himself in the paradoxical position of a former cold war warrior accused of being too committed to easing relations with the Soviet Union. What was the reality?

The context as well as the content of the summit made it a major success for American policy. The fact that we had faced down Hanoi and yet completed major negotiations with Moscow (three months after the spectacular in Peking) evoked the prospect of a more hopeful future and thus put Viet Nam into perspective. But the fundamental achievement was to sketch the outline on which coexistence between the democracies and the Soviet system must be based. SALT embodied our conviction that a wildly spiraling nuclear arms race was in no country's interest and enhanced no one's security; a statement of "Basic Principles," agreed to with Brezhnev, gave at least verbal expression to the necessity of responsible political conduct. The two elements symbolized our conviction that a relaxation of tensions could not be based exclusively on arms control; the ultimate test would be restrained international behavior.

For as far ahead as we can see, America's task will be to recreate and maintain the two pillars of our policy toward the Soviet Union that we began to build in Moscow: a willingness to confront Soviet expansionism and a simultaneous readiness to mark out a cooperative future. A more peaceful world is prevented if we lean too far in either direction.

Unfortunately, the erosion of Nixon's domestic base prevented us from fully implementing our vision or our strategy. Relations with the Soviet Union grew increasingly controversial under an attack by both liberals and conservatives. Liberals who for three years had assaulted Nixon for bellicosity and intransigence now found it convenient to criticize, if not détente itself, then its "overselling" in America. Conservatives feared that the American people, in its historical alternation between

optimism and gloom about Soviet purposes, was swinging too far toward a euphoria that over time would sap its will. They doubted whether America could sustain both the willingness to confront and the readiness to cooperate at the same time.

They had a point; they had the historical record on their side. No period of coexistence with the Soviet system has proved permanent. Each has been used by the Kremlin as a springboard for a new advance. But we would not accept that the American people could maintain their vigilance only by a strict militance that conceded to our adversaries a monopoly on the global yearning for peace, and that would gradually maneuver the U.S. Government into isolation. We were determined to resist Soviet aggressiveness, but we thought the chances better if our policy also gave expression to hope. It remains to be seen whether, given our historical experience and the bitterness of our recent past, it is possible to walk this narrow path; whether we are doomed to oscillate erratically between excessive conciliation and excessive bellicosity. It continues as the fundamental task of any Administration.

## A Nose for News

As the Moscow summit got under way, Brezhnev proposed that there be a signing ceremony each afternoon for agreements reached beforehand. Nixon fell in step, observing that the Moscow morning papers would thus have something to report, while in the U.S. the signings would make the evening television shows. What Brezhnev thought of the proposition that the Moscow journals needed Nixon's help in finding news must be left to his autobiography.

## CRUDE TRICKS AT CIENFUEGOS

"In foreign policy," writes Kissinger, "crude tricks are almost always self-defeating." The Russians tried to get away with a grand deception in Cuba during the summer of 1970 (just as they may have tried again, this time to the discomfiture of the Carter Administration, which is negotiating this week over a brigade of Soviet troops identified last month in Cuba). On Aug. 4, 1970, the Soviet chargé in Washington called on Kissinger with an inquiry from Moscow: Was the 1962 Kennedy-Khrushchev understanding on Cuba, reached in the wake of the missile crisis, still in force? The timing of the question puzzled Kissinger, but he checked with Nixon and reported back that the understanding, which barred emplacement of any offensive weapon or offensive delivery system on Cuban soil, was indeed still in effect. Some three weeks later Kissinger discovered why the Russians were suddenly so interested.

On Cuba's southern coast there is a port named Cienfuegos. Its harbor can be reached only by a single channel leading to a bay dotted by a number of small islands. on one of these islands, Cayo Alcatraz, a U-2 on Aug. 26 photographed new construction activity that had not been evident during a flight eleven days earlier. All that could be definitely identified was work on a wharf and on some new barracks. In itself this was not unusual. What made it of more than passing significance was another piece of intelligence: a flotilla of Soviet ships was heading toward Cuba; a submarine tender, a guided-missile cruiser, a guided-missile destroyer, an ocean-going salvage tug, a heavy salvage ship, a merchant tanker and an amphibious landing ship carrying two 80-ft. barges. The tender

and the barges were of a type normally used for servicing nuclear submarines. The composition of this task force was so unprecedented that something more than a courtesy visit seemed to be involved. Suddenly, a succession of events over the better part of a year began to take on a new significance.

In July 1969 the Soviets undertook their first naval visit to Cuba. In November 1969, the Soviet Minister of Defense, An-drei Grechko, visited Cuba. In the months that followed, Soviet military activity in and around Cuba gradually increased—almost certainly to get us accustomed to a Soviet naval presence in the Caribbean.

The latest Soviet flotilla reached Cienfuegos on Sept. 9. Dai-ly U-2 reconnaissance flights were ordered, and the Cuban re-action to them showed that something unusual was afoot. MiG fighters scrambled after our first flight. A U.S. Navy anti-submarine aircraft was shadowed for 60 miles while a MiG made several strafing passes. I was sufficiently concerned to warn the Soviet Union publicly on Sept. 16 that operating missile-carrying submarines or nuclear weapons from Cuba or servicing them from there would have grave consequences. Since we did not yet have any concrete evidence, I stopped just short of making a direct charge.

As it happened, conclusive evidence was being collected that very day by a U-2. What the photography showed was that two new barracks, administrative buildings and recreation facilities had quickly risen on the island, including a soccer field. In my eyes this stamped it indelibly as a Russian base, since as an old soccer fan I knew Cubans rarely played soccer. More important, the tender was moored in permanent fashion

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Moscow's Cuban Surprise

Soviet Defense Minister Andrei Grechko (inset) visited Cuba in November 1969. The next summer, the U.S. learned that Moscow was building a base for nuclear-powered ballistic missile subs at the port of Cienfuegos in southern Cuba.

to four buoys in the bay and was in a position to service submarines. On the mainland, there had arisen a new dock, a fuel storage depot, and the early stages of a major communications facility, undoubtedly the radio link to Moscow, guarded by anti-aircraft missiles and surveillance radar. What we saw, in short, had all the earmarks of a permanent Soviet naval base.

The Washington Special Action Group met on Sept. 19. All agreed that a base capable of servicing nuclear submarines was being built and that the Soviets were seeking to skirt the Kennedy-Khrushchev understanding by placing most of the facilities offshore. I reminded the group that in 1962 President Kennedy had reacted not because the deployment of Soviet missiles to Cuba had been "illegal"—it was, in fact, then technically "legal"—but because he considered it a threat to the security of the U.S.

I saw the Soviet move as part of a process of testing. I strongly favored facing the challenge immediately lest the Soviets misunderstand our permissiveness and escalate their involvement to a point where only a major crisis could remove the base. But the President decided on a very low-key public posture, confined to noting that we were aware of what was happening and were watching. I was extremely uneasy. I thought the longer we waited the more difficult would be the decisions both for us and for the Soviets when we challenged them.

A few days later a Pentagon spokesman, asked by a newsman about Cienfuegos, gave out full details. The officer had misunderstood his instructions, which were to acknowledge the construction there but to offer as little elaboration as possible. In any case, the low-key posture had been blown out of the water.

I told the President that we had no choice now except to face the Soviets down, but in a manner that gave them a way out. I proposed to use a briefing already scheduled on Nixon's Mediterranean trip to issue a strong warning to the Soviets against building a sub base in Cuba; I would leave open whether the base already existed, so that a clear line of retreat was available. I would then call in Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin and confront him directly, telling him that we considered Cienfuegos an offensive base and would insist on its dismantlement.

When options were starkly defined, Nixon was always decisive. He approved my recommendation and suggested that a destroyer be moved near Cienfuegos to emphasize our warning. At my briefing, when the predictable question on Cuba came up, I said, among other things: "The Soviet Union can be under no doubt that we would view the establishment of a stra-

tegic base in the Caribbean with the utmost seriousness."

Two hours after my briefing, I met Dobrynin in the Map Room. I told him that we considered the construction at Cienfuegos unmistakably a submarine base; we would view continued construction with the "utmost gravity"; the base could not remain. We would not shrink from other measures if forced into it; if the ships—especially the tender—left Cienfuegos, we would consider it a training exercise.

Dobrynin, usually genial, was all business. Were we claiming that the 1962 understanding had been violated? I dismissed this as a legalistic quibble. Cuba, to us, was a place of extreme sensitivity. We considered the sequence of events as acts of extremely bad faith. The installations had been completed with maximum deception; they could not remain. Whatever the phraseology of the 1962 understanding, its intent could not have been to replace land-based with sea-based missiles.

The Soviets took us seriously. We returned to Washington on Oct. 5 from Nixon's trip. Dobrynin came in the next day with a message that concluded with a precise commitment that no base was being built in Cuba.

The Soviets' reply was clearly positive. After my press statement, construction of port facilities ceased. But nothing with the Soviets ever works this simply. The Soviet sub tender and salvage tug left Cienfuegos on Oct. 10, but rounded the island and arrived once again in Cienfuegos on Nov. 7. I protested angrily to Dobrynin on Nov. 14 and told him later that servicing submarines in or from Cuban ports would "lead to the most grave situation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union."

The tender quit the Caribbean on Jan. 3, 1971—only to be replaced by a second tender that arrived in Cuba on Feb. 14 with another Soviet naval task force, including a nuclear-powered attack sub. I handed Dobrynin a note on Feb. 22 saying that the presence of a tender in Cienfuegos for 125 of the last 166 days was inconsistent with the understanding. The tender and sub left. In May, a tender and a nuclear-powered cruise-missile sub made a visit. Every conceivable combination was being tried—except the most important one, the presence of a tender in conjunction with a nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub. We lodged another sharp protest. The tender left once more.

Rather than a dramatic confrontation on the order of 1962, we considered that quiet diplomacy was best suited to giving the U.S.S.R. an opportunity to withdraw without humiliation. We could not forget, of course, the deception that had been attempted. Nor would we be oblivious to the reality that Soviet restraint, when achieved, resulted only from our forcing of the issue and determined persistence.

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# THE CHINA CONNECTION

In negotiations, the Soviets tend to be blunt, the Chinese insinuating. The Soviets insist on their prerogatives as a great power. The Chinese establish a claim on the basis of universal principles and a demonstration of self-confidence that attempts to make the issue of power seem irrelevant. The Soviets, with all their stormy and occasionally duplicitous behavior, leave an impression of extraordinary psychological insecurity. The Chinese convey an aura of imperviousness to pressure; indeed, they pre-empt pressure by implying that issues of principle are beyond discussion. Chinese diplomats, at least in their encounters with us, proved meticulously reliable. They never stooped to petty maneuvers; they did not haggle; they reached their bottom line quickly, explained it reasonably, and defended it tenaciously. They stuck to the meaning as well as the spirit of their undertakings. As Chou was fond of saying, "Our word counts."

Kissinger had a chance to compare Soviet and Chinese negotiating styles because of a momentous development: the opening to China. As he notes, "policy emerges when concept encounters opportunity," and Nixon realized that the bloody border clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops in the summer of 1969 presented just such an opportunity. Fearful of a pre-emptive attack by Moscow or an all-out war, the Chinese were looking for a counterthreat to Soviet pressure. At that very moment, the U.S. was subtly signaling Peking that it was interested in a fundamental change in their relationship. There followed what Kissinger calls "an intricate minuet, so stylized that neither side needed to bear the onus of an initiative, so elliptical that existing relationships on both sides were not jeopardized." The complex maneuvers began paying off. In October 1970, Nixon asked Pakistan's President Yahya Khan, who was about to visit Peking, to let the Chinese know that the U.S. was ready to improve relations.

## Head to Head

On Dec. 8, Pakistan's Ambassador Agha Hilaly said that he had "a message" for me relating to Yahya's trip. I invited Hilaly to the White House the next day, where in my office a few minutes after 6 p.m. he produced an envelope containing a handwritten missive on white, blue-lined paper which had been carried to him by hand, Yahya not trusting the security of cable communications. (This was to be the form for all messages through the Pakistani channel.) Hilaly said he was not authorized to leave the document with me. He therefore had to dictate it as I copied it down. We did not notice the incongruity of this elegant spokesman of the elite of a country based on an ancient religion dictating a communication from the leader of a militant Asiatic revolutionary nation to a representative of the leader of the Western capitalist world; or the phenomenon that in an age of instantaneous communication we had returned to the diplomatic methods of the previous century—the handwritten note delivered by messenger and read aloud.

The message was not an indirect, subtle signal. It was an authoritative personal message to Richard Nixon from Chou Enlai, who emphasized that he spoke not only for himself but also for Chairman Mao and Vice Chairman Lin Biao (Lin Piao). China, Chou declared, "has always been willing and has always tried to negotiate by peaceful means... A special envoy of President Nixon's will be most welcome in Peking." Chou Enlai observed gracefully that many other messages had been re-

ceived from the U.S. through various sources, "but this is the first time that the proposal has come from a Head, through a Head, to a Head. We attach importance to the message."

In short, a personal representative of the President was being invited to Peking. I walked down the hall to the Oval Office. Nixon and I were as one in our readiness to accept the invitation. I drafted a reply that I handed to Hilaly on Dec. 16. Where the Chinese notes in the Pakistani channel were handwritten, ours were typed on Xerox paper without a letterhead or a U.S. Government watermark.

They were not signed (and our bureaucracy was not informed). The two sides had in effect agreed on a meeting in Peking.

The minuet went on, and several subtle signals were exchanged, including an invitation to a U.S. Ping Pong team to visit China. On April 27, 1971, the real breakthrough occurred. Another note from Chou, transmitted via the Pakistani channel, said: "The Chinese government reaffirms its willingness to receive publicly in Peking a special envoy of the President of the U.S. (for instance, Mr. Kissinger) or the U.S. Secretary of State or even the President himself for a direct meeting and discussions." The next morning Nixon told Kissinger to get ready for a secret visit to Peking. But shortly before he was to depart, an unexpected crisis erupted.

Just when technical and bureaucratic problems seemed to be solved, there occurred an event that deflected our attention for much of the period remaining before I left on my mission: the publication of the so-called Pentagon papers. After we had struggled for months to establish a secret channel to Peking, the sudden release of over 7,000 pages of secret documents, most dealing with the war in Viet Nam, came as a profound shock. The documents, of course, were in no way damaging to the Nixon presidency. Indeed, there was some sentiment among White House political operatives to exploit them as an illustration of the machinations of our predecessors and the difficulties we inherited. But such an attitude seemed to me against the public interest: our system of government would surely lose all trust if each President used the process of declassification to smear his predecessors.

Our nightmare was that Peking might conclude our Government was too unsteady, too harassed, and too insecure to be a useful partner. The massive hemorrhage of state secrets was bound to raise doubts about our reliability and about the stability of our political system. I not only supported Nixon in his opposition to this wholesale theft and unauthorized disclosure; I encouraged him. I was not aware of steps later taken, the sorridness, puerility, and ineffectuality of which eventually led to the downfall of the Nixon Administration. I consider those methods inexcusable, but I continue to believe that the theft and publication of official documents did a grave disservice to the nation. The release of the Pentagon papers did not impede our overture to Peking. But this does not change the principle.

Kissinger's arrival in Peking was set for July 9; the cover was a lengthy "information trip" through Asia beginning July 1 and taking him to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, whence he slipped away by means of an elaborate ruse. Among other things, this involved a predawn drive to Chaklala Airport with Kissinger wearing sunglasses and a hat "to ensure that no stray pedestrian spotted me—an unlikely contingency at that hour in Islamabad, where my name was scarcely a household word." During his flight to Pe-

In Peking (behind him: a poem by Mao Tse-tung)

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Antics of the Advance Men

Nixon's 1969 European journey was my first intro-
duction to the antics of the advance men: they were
clean-cut, efficient, and disciplined individuals whom
H.R. Haldeman had proudly picked from advertising
agencies and junior executive positions. Their sole re-
sponsibility was to make certain that everything ran
smoothly for Nixon, who must never face the unex-
pected contingencies he hated so much. The advance
team held itself responsible for ensuring that Nixon
was seen by others only in the most favorable light.
This sometimes led to absurdities. On a state visit to Ot-
tawa in 1972, an advance man decided that the tan fur-
niture in Pierre Trudeau's office would not flatter
Nixon on television and took it upon himself to re-
decorate the Prime Minister's private office with blue-
covered sofas. He was stopped at the last minute by
an incredulous associate of Trudeau almost incoher-
ent with rage.

On the European trip, the advance men's first ex-
posure to the world of diplomacy, they solved their
problems by acting as if they were running a political
stopover in Des Moines. They paid no attention what-
soever to our ambassadors, many of whom they dis-
trusted as lame-duck Democratic holdovers, and only
minimum heed to the sovereign governments that were
our hosts. When White House Aide John Ehrlichman
sought to prescribe a guest list for a dinner at 10
Downing Street, David Bruce, our Ambassador in Lon-
don, who had seen too much in a distinguished dip-
lomatic career to be intimidated by a new Admin-
istration, cabled: "Surely the absurdity of telling the
British Prime Minister whom he can invite to his own
home for dinner requires no explanation." Other ad-
vance men in Paris, surveying the residence of our Am-
bassador there in preparation for the President's din-
ner for De Gaulle, gave rise to further palpitations.
They noticed some photographs of John Kennedy. Spe-
cial high-level dispensation was required before Am-
bassador Sargent Shriver—married to President Ken-
nedy's sister Eunice—was permitted to keep the
pictures of his brother-in-law on visible display.

king, Kissinger recalled how John Foster Dulles had refused to
shake Chou En-lai's hand at the 1954 Geneva Conference on In-
dochina. "The slight," he writes, "had not been forgotten; it was re-
ferred to on many occasions in the days afterward and on sub-
sequent visits." Kissinger was determined to make amends.
Installed in a guesthouse in a walled-off park in western Peking,
he awaited the Premier's visit.

Chou En-lai arrived at 4:30. His gaunt, expressive face was dominated by piercing eyes, conveying a mixture of intensity and repose, of wariness and calm self-confidence. He moved gracefully and with dignity, filling a room not by his physical dominance (as did Mao or De Gaulle) but by his air of controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring. He conveyed an easy casualness, which, however, did not deceive the careful observer. The quick smile, the comprehending expression that made clear he understood English without translation, the palpable alertness, were the features of a man who had had burned into him by a searing half-century the vital importance of self-possession. I greeted him at the door of the guesthouse and ostentatiously stuck out my hand. Chou gave me a quick smile and took it. It was the first step in putting the legacy of the past behind us.

There was about Chou an inner serenity that enabled him,
I would soon learn, to eschew the petty maneuvers that char-
acterized our negotiations with other Communists. All our meet-
ings on this and my subsequent visits lasted for many hours
(sessions of five to seven hours were not uncommon); yet on no
occasion did he reveal any impatience or imply that he had any-
thing else to do. We were never interrupted by phone calls or
the bureaucratic necessities of running a huge state. I do not
know how he managed it; I used to joke that senior officials in
Washington would probably not be able to free so much time
for the Second Coming.

Chou never bargained to score petty points. I soon found
that the best way to deal with him was to present a reasonable po-
sition, explain it meticulously, and then stick to it. I sometimes
went so far as to let him see the internal studies that supported
our conclusions. Chou acted the same way.

During our first talk, on July 9, by tacit agreement we did
not press controversial issues to the hilt. Taiwan was mentioned
only briefly. But at the next day's session the mood was dif-
ferent. With very few preliminaries Chou recited a fierce litany
and closed with a challenging question—whether, given our vast
differences, there was any sense in a presidential visit.

I responded equally firmly, pointing out that Peking had
broached the presidential visit and that we could not accept
any conditions. I then launched into a deliberately brusque point-
by-point rebuttal of Chou's presentation. Chou stopped me after
the first point, saying the duck would get cold if we did not eat
first. At lunch the mood changed and Chou's geniality returned.

After lunch I resumed my rebuttal until Chou suddenly, mat-
ter-of-factly suggested the summer of 1972 for the President's
visit, as if all that was left was to decide the timing. He added
that he thought it prudent if we met the Soviet leaders first. I re-
plied that the visits should take place in the order in which
they had been arranged—first Peking, then Moscow. I did not
have the impression that Chou was unhappy about this.

No account of the secret trip can be complete without the
saga of my shirts. Knowing the vicissitudes of a hectic twelve-
day trip through Asia, I had asked my aide Dave Halperin to
be sure to set aside a couple of clean shirts specifically for Pe-
king. As the Pakistani plane took off from Chaklala and soared
toward the Himalayas, Halperin, who had come to see me off,
was stunned by the realization that he had set aside the shirts
so carefully that I could not have packed them; at this thought
he became physically sick. I was aghast when, in the plane, I
wanted to change shirts before arriving in Peking. In desper-
ation I borrowed some white shirts from John Holdridge—a six-
foot-two trim former West Pointer whose build did not exactly
coincide with my rather more compact physique. Photos of my
party in shirtsleeves show me smiling enigmatically, in gar-
ments that left me with the appearance of having no neck.
Their size was the least of it; for these shirts were prominently la-
beled "Made in Taiwan." I was telling the literal truth when I
told our hosts that Taiwan was a matter close to me.

“Eureka!”

A single code word cabled from Kissinger to Nixon, "Eureka," advised that the trip had been successful. After returning from Peking, Kissinger and Aide Winston Lord drafted a report to Nixon that exulted: "We have laid the groundwork for you and Mao to turn a page in history." On July 15 Nixon informed stunned television viewers of Kissinger's secret trip and his own plan to visit China some time before May 1972. In October 1971, Kissinger returned to China, with a team of "advance men," to prepare for Nixon's own visit.

Even in the millennia of their history the Chinese had nev-
er encountered a presidential advance party, especially
one disciplined by the monomaniacal obsession of the Nix-
on White House with public relations. When I warned Chou En-
lai that China had survived barbarian invasions before but had
never encountered advance men, it was only partly a joke.

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The details of the Nixon trip were settled very rapidly. We proposed two dates, Feb. 21 and March 16; Chou chose the earlier. Problems solved themselves as easily as was compatible with the obsessive single-mindedness of the advance men. The head of our security detail distinguished himself by requesting a list of subversives in each locality the President was likely to visit. This raised an interesting problem; in China conservative Republicans would undoubtedly be classed as subversives, and if we asked how many Communist sympathizers there were we would get the unsettling answer of 800 million.

Chou and I spent over 25 hours together reviewing the world situation, another 15 working on a statement that later came to be known as the Shanghai Communiqué. Nixon had seen and approved a draft communiqué prepared by me and my staff. It followed the conventional style, highlighting fuzzy areas of agreement and obscuring differences with platitudinous generalizations. Quite uncharacteristically, the Premier made a scorching one-hour speech—at the express direction of Mao, he said—declaring that our approach was unacceptable. The communiqué had to set forth fundamental differences; otherwise the wording would have an "untruthful appearance." Our present draft was the sort of banality the Soviets would sign but neither mean nor observe.

Chou said that he would submit a proposed draft. It was unprecedented in design. It stated the Chinese position on a whole host of issues in extremely uncompromising terms. It left blank pages for our position. It was intransigent on Taiwan. At first I was taken aback. To end a presidential visit with a catalogue of disagreements was extraordinary. But as I reflected further I began to see that the very novelty of the approach might resolve our perplexities. A statement of differences would reassure allies and friends that their interests had been defended. If we could develop some common positions, these would then stand out as the authentic convictions of principled leaders.

I told Chou that I would accept his basic approach. We outlined the key joint positions, especially the paragraph concerning both countries' opposition to hegemony. Though this later became a hallowed Chinese word, it was first introduced by us. Taiwan, as expected, provided the most difficult issue. We needed a formula acknowledging the unity of China, which was the one point on which Taipei and Peking agreed, without giving

up our existing relationships. I finally put forward the American position on Taiwan as follows: "The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China ... The United States Government does not challenge that position." Chou and I refined the text until at 8:10 a.m., concluding a nearly nonstop session of 24 hours, we had agreed on the main outline. We had scheduled our departure for 9 a.m. Chou took me to the door of the guesthouse and spoke to me for the first time in English: "Come back soon for the joy of talking."

Conversation with a Colossus

Nixon's huge presidential party reached Peking at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 21, 1972. Nixon, Kissinger and most of their staffs were quartered in a large guesthouse near the old Imperial Fishing Lake, Secretary of State William Rogers and his entourage in a smaller one a few hundred yards away. "The Chinese had well understood the strange checks and balances within the Executive Branch," Kissinger notes wryly, "and had re-created the physical gulf between the White House and Foggy Bottom in the heart of Peking." Barely three hours after his arrival, Nixon received a sudden invitation.

At 2:30 I was told that Chou En-lai needed to see me urgently in the reception room. Without the usual banter he said: "Chairman Mao would like to see the President." The President and I set off for the first encounter with one of the colossal figures of modern history.

Mao Tse-tung, the ruler whose life had been dedicated to overturning the values, the structure, and the appearance of traditional China, lived in fact in the Imperial City, as withdrawn and mysterious even as the emperors he disdained. Nobody ever had a scheduled appointment; one was admitted to a presence, not invited to a governmental authority. I saw Mao five times. On each occasion I was summoned suddenly. On one visit Mao expressed interest in meeting my wife Nancy. The fact that she was shopping presented no obstacle to our hosts. She was hustled out of a shop by a protocol officer who seemed to know exactly where she was and brought her to Mao.

Tall and powerfully built for a Chinese, Mao fixed the vis-

Chatting with a gesticulating Chairman Mao Tse-tung and an attentive Premier Chou En-lai in China's capital

FASTFOTO

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

55

SPECIAL SECTION

Mao Tse-tung

Even in the brief meeting with Nix-
on, Mao could not escape the night-
mare that shadowed his accomplish-
ments and tormented his last years:
that it might all prove ephemeral,
that the exertions, the suffering, the
Long March, the brutal leadership
struggles would be but a brief inci-
dent in the triumphant, passive per-
sistence of a millennial culture
which had tamed all previous up-
heavals. "The Chairman's writings
moved a nation and have changed

the world," said Nixon. "I have not been able to change it," re-
plied Mao, not without pathos. "I have only been able to change
a few places in the vicinity of Peking."

To Mao, Communism was the truth. But he—alone among all the fathers of 20th century Communism—espied a deeper truth. Millions had died for a classless society, but it dawned on Mao that the enthusiasm of revolutionary fervor and the stinging controls necessary to transform a society would both in time run up against the traditions of his people, whom he both loved and hated. The country that had invented the civil service would turn the Communist bureaucracy into a new mandarin class. The nation whose institutions had been shaped by Confucius into instruments for instilling universal ethics would before long absorb and transform the materialist Western philosophy imposed on it by its latest dynasty.

Unable to bear the thought that the new was turning into a confirmation of what he had sought to destroy, Mao launched himself into ever more frenzied campaigns to save his people from themselves. Many revolutions have been made to seize power and to destroy existing structures. Never has their maker undertaken a task so tremendous and possessed as to continue the revolution by deliberate systematic upheavals directed against the very system he had created. No institution was immune. Each decade he would smash his own work, forgoing modernization, shaking up the bureaucracy, purging its leadership, resisting progress in order to maintain undefiled values that could be implemented, if at all, by a simple peasant society.

One of history's monumental ironies is that probably no one better understood the inherent dilemmas of Communism than the titanic figure who made the Chinese Revolution. Pragmatic Communism leads to mandarинism, nationalism and institutionalized privilege. His critique of Soviet Russia was so wounding to the Russians because it was essentially true. But truly revolutionary Communism leads to stagnation, insecurity, international irrelevance, and the continuing destruction of disciples by new votaries who prefer purity to permanence.

Until his death Mao resisted modernization because it would destroy China's uniqueness, and he fought institutionalization because it banked China's ideological zeal. It has been said that revolutions destroy their makers. The opposite was true of Mao; he was the maker who destroyed one revolutionary wave after another. He fought the implications of his own revolution as fiercely as he did the institutions he had originally overthrown. But he had set a goal beyond human capacity. In his last months, bereft of speech, able to act only a few hours a day, he had passion strong enough for one last outburst against the pragmatists. And then that great, demonic, prescient, overwhelming personality disappeared like the great Emperor Qin Shihuang-di (Ch'in Shih Huang-ti), with whom he often compared himself while dreading the oblivion which was his fate. And his words to Nixon, like so much of what he said and attempted, had the ring of prophecy: "I have only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Peking."

itor with a smile both penetrating and slightly mocking, warn-
ing by his bearing that there was no point in seeking to deceive
this specialist in the foibles and duplicity of man. I have met no
one, with the possible exception of Charles de Gaulle, who so dis-
tilled raw, concentrated will power. He was planted there with
a female attendant close by to help steady him (and on my last
visits to hold him up); he dominated the room—not by the
pomp that in most states confers a degree of majesty on leaders,
but by exuding the overwhelming drive to prevail.

In his presence even Chou seemed a secondary figure, though some of this effect was undoubtedly by design. Chou was too intelligent not to understand that the No. 2 position in China was precarious to the point of being suicidal. None of his predecessors had survived. (Neither, in fact, did he. I am convinced —though I cannot prove it—that only illness and death saved him from an assault by what was later called the Gang of Four, tolerated if not backed by Mao.)

Mao's impact was all the more impressive because it was so incongruous in relation to his physical condition. Before our first meeting he had already suffered a series of debilitating strokes. He could move only with difficulty. Words seemed to leave his bulk as if with great reluctance; they were ejected from his vocal cords in gusts, each of which seemed to require a new rallying of physical force until enough strength had been assembled to tear forth another round of pungent declarations. In my last private meeting with him, in October 1975, Mao could barely speak; he croaked general sounds that aides wrote down and then showed him to make sure they had understood before translating. Yet even then, in the shadow of death, Mao's thoughts were lucid and sardonic.

Mao, in contrast to all other political leaders I have known, almost never engaged in soliloquies. Not for him were the prepared points most statesmen use, either seemingly extemporaneously or learned from notes. His meaning emerged from a Socratic dialogue that he guided effortlessly and with deceptive casualness.

Mao could be brutal in cutting to the heart of a problem. On one of my later trips I commented to Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing) that the relations of our two countries were on a sound basis because neither asked anything of the other. The next day Mao firmly rebutted my banality: "If neither side had anything to ask from the other, why would you be coming to Peking? If neither side had anything to ask, then why ... would we want to receive you and the President?"

This was the colossus into whose presence we were now being ushered. He greeted Nixon with his characteristic sidewise glance. "Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn't approve of this," he joked, taking Nixon's hand in both his own. Nixon made an eloquent statement of his long journey from anti-Communism to Peking, based on the proposition that the foreign policy interests of the two countries were compatible and neither threatened the other. Mao

Atop the Great Wall during October 1971 visit to China

THE WHITE HOUSE

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WHITE HOUSE YEARS

used the occasion to give us an important assurance: "Neither
do we threaten Japan or South Korea."

Later on, as I comprehended better the many-layered de-
sign of Mao's conversation, I understood that it was like the
courtyards in the Forbidden City, each leading to a deeper re-
cess distinguished from the others only by slight changes of pro-
portion, with ultimate meaning residing in a totality that only
long reflection could grasp. Mao was elliptical, for instance, in
conveying his decision to expand trade and exchanges with us.
He couched this in the form of an explanation of China's slow-
ness in responding to American initiatives over two years. China
had been "bureaucratic" in its approach, he said, in insisting all
along that the major issues had to be settled before smaller is-
sues like trade and people-to-people exchanges could be ad-
dressed. "Later on I saw you were right, and we played table
tennis." This was more than a recitation of history and a dis-
arming apology; it meant that there would be progress with re-
spect to trade and exchanges at the summit. Mao, in short, had
willed the visit to be a success.

Mao delicately placed the issue of Taiwan on a subsidiary
level, choosing to treat it as a relatively minor internal Chinese
dispute. What concerned him was the international context
—that is, the Soviet Union. To a long disquisition by Nixon on
the question of which of the nuclear superpowers, the United
States or the Soviet Union, presented a greater threat, Mao re-
plied: "At the present time, the question of aggression from the
United States or aggression from China is relatively small ...
You want to withdraw some of your troops back on your soil;
ours do not go abroad." By a process of elimination, the Soviet
Union was clearly Mao's principal security concern. Equally im-
portant was the elliptical assurance, later repeated by Chou,
that removed the nightmare of two Administrations—that
China might intervene in Indochina militarily. In foreclosing
Chinese military intervention abroad and in the comments on
Japan and South Korea, Mao was telling us that Peking would
not challenge vital American interests.

"After our encounter with history," writes Kissinger, "we turned to the practical issue of how to distill from it a direction for policy." Over the next four days Kissinger spent some 22 hours with Chinese officials resolving issues in the communique.

Explosion in Hangzhou

Meanwhile, the Peking summit unfolded on other levels as well. Sightseeing trips went off as magnificent spec-tacles. Hordes of television commentators and journal-ists converged on each set piece, eager to record the profound thoughts of the leading actors. "This is a great wall," said Nix-on to the assembled press at the Great Wall, placing his seal of approval on one of mankind's most impressive creations.

The symbolic events continued each evening. Banquets in the capital took place in the gigantic Great Hall of the People that commemorates the Communist takeover. Each Chinese at the table concentrated on making sure every American plate was filled with heaps of food. And then, of course, came the end-less rounds of toasts. We drank *mao-tai*, that deadly brew which in my view is not used for airplane fuel only because it is too read-ily combustible. I received graphic proof of this when Nixon on his return to Washington sought to illustrate the liquid's po-tency to his daughter Tricia. He poured a bottle of it into a bowl and set it afire. To his horror the fire would not go out; the bowl burst and sent flaming *mao-tai* across the table top. The frantic combined efforts of the First Family managed to ex-tinguish the fire just before a national tragedy occurred.

Each Chinese around the table would drink only by toast-
ing an American. This was done with a cheery "gan-bei"-which
means "bottoms up" and is taken literally. Exuberance mount-
ed as such evenings progressed. Fortunately, the banquet toasts
were prepared ahead of time, and were read. Only in Shanghai
did euphoria carry one away when Nixon proposed what sound-
ed like a defensive military alliance in his only extempor-

Chou En-lai

When I met Chou in 1971, he had
been a leader of the Chinese Com-
munist movement for nearly 50
years. He had been the only Pre-
mier the People's Republic had
—nearly 22 years—and for nine of
those years he had also been For-
eign Minister. He was equally at
home in philosophy, reminiscence,
historical analysis, tactical probes,
humorous repartee. His command of
facts, in particular his knowledge of
American events and, for that mat-

ter, of my own background, was stunning. There was little wast-
ed motion either in his words or in his movements. Both re-
flected the inner tensions of a man concerned, as he stressed,
with the endless daily problems of a people of 800 million and
the effort to preserve ideological faith.

Chou could display an extraordinary personal graciousness. When junior members of our party took ill, he would visit them. Despite the gap in our protocol rank, he insisted that our meetings alternate between my residence and the Great Hall of the People. The Chinese seemed to regard him with special reverence, to see in him of all their leaders a special human quality. On a visit in late 1975 I asked a young interpreter about Chou's health; tears brimmed in her eyes as she told me he was gravely ill. It was no accident that he was so deeply mourned in China after his death, or that the extraordinary expressions of yearning for greater freedom that appeared in China in the late 1970s invoked and praised his name. He was one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met. I had no illusions about the system Chou represented. Yet when Chou died, I felt a great sadness. The world would be less vibrant, the prospects less clearly seen. Neither of us had ever forgotten that our relationship was essentially ambiguous or overlooked the possibility that as history is counted our two countries' paths might be parallel for only a fleeting moment. After that, they might well find themselves again on opposite sides. But one of the rewards of my public life has been that I could work with a great man across the barriers of ideology in the endless struggle of statesmen to rescue some permanence from the tenuousness of human foresight.

neous toast of the trip. (He said: "We join the Chinese people, we the American people, in our dedication to this principle: That never again shall foreign domination, foreign occupation, be visited upon this city or any part of China or any independent country in this world.") Luckily, by that hour the press was too far gone itself.

It would be pleasant to report that after our departure from
Peking, the business portion of the trip was completed. And in-
deed Hangzhou (Hangchow), at the mouth of the lower Yang-
tze River, is one of the most beautiful cities in China. Ambas-
sador Huang Zhen (Huang Chen) in Paris had told General
Vernon Walters, the U.S. military attaché there, of a Chinese
saying that there were two places worth seeing: Heaven above
and Hangzhou below. The setting was reduced to Nixonian
prose when the President pointed out to Chou En-lai on vis-
iting the West Lake that the scene "looks like a postcard."

The mood of the American party did not match the tran-
quillity of the scenery. On the plane to Hangzhou the State De-
partment experts were given the communiqué, in the prepa-
ration of which they had had no part. No sooner had we arrived
in Hangzhou than Secretary Rogers submitted a list of amend-
ments prepared by his staff, as numerous as they were trivial.

Nixon was beside himself. He dreaded a right-wing assault

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

57

SPECIAL SECTION

on the communiqué. Leaks that the State Department was unhappy about American concessions might well be the trigger. He also knew that reopening the communiqué after the Chinese had been told he agreed to it might well sour his trip. He was so exercised that he started storming about the beautiful guesthouse in Hangzhou in his underwear. He would “do something” about the State Department at the first opportunity—a threat he had made at regular intervals since my first interview with him those many years ago at the Pierre Hotel, and never specified or implemented. I recommended that I have a go at it after dinner. If the Chinese insisted on the existing draft, we would have no choice but to stick with our commitment.

*The Chinese were unhappy, but eventually the differences, many of them extremely minor, were papered over. As the Americans headed home, Kissinger weighed the significance of the trip.*

For all their charm and ideological fervor, China's leaders were the most unsentimental practitioners of balance-of-power politics I have encountered. Mao and Chou, practicing statesmanship in which ideology reinforced history and culture to confer assurance, found a natural partner in Nixon. Nonetheless it would be dangerous in the extreme to assume that Chinese objectives and ours are in all respects identical.

We did not have any illusions about the nature of the new relationship. Peking and Washington were entering a marriage of convenience. Once China becomes strong enough to stand alone, it might discard us. Before then, the Soviet Union might be driven into a genuine relaxation of tensions with us—if it has not first sought to break out of its isolation by a military assault on China. But whatever China's long-term policy, our medium-term interest was to cooperate, and to support its security against foreign pressures.

## NIXON: “LONELY, TORMENTED”

Nothing is more askew than the popular image of Nixon as an imperial President barking orders at cowed subordinates. Nixon hated to give direct orders—especially to those who might disagree with him. He rarely disciplined anybody; he would never face down a Cabinet member. When he met insubordination he sought to accomplish his objective without the offender's being aware of it. Over time this led to a fragmented Administration in which under pressure almost every member looked out for himself. In the sense of isolation this produced in Nixon and the lack of cohesion among his team lay one of the root causes of Watergate.

Nixon's fear of rebuffs caused him to make proposals in such elliptical ways that it was often difficult to tell what he was driving at, whether in fact he was suggesting anything specific at all. To Nixon, words were like billiard balls; what mattered was not the initial impact but the carom.

Every President since Kennedy seems to have trusted his White House aides more than his Cabinet. In Nixon's case the role of the assistants was magnified by the work habits of the President. Nixon tended to work in spurts. During periods when he withdrew, he counted on his assistants to carry on the day-to-day decisions; during spasms of extreme activity, he relied on his assistants to screen his more impetuous commands. They were needed to prevent the face-to-face confrontations he so disliked and dreaded. And they were to protect Nixon against impulsive orders or the tendency to agree with the visitors he did receive. White House Adviser H.R. Haldeman's staff system did not "isolate" the President as was often alleged; Nixon insisted on isolating himself; it was the only way in which he could marshal his psychological resources.

It was part of the assistant's task—expected by Nixon—to winnow out those “decisions” that he really did not mean to have implemented. A good rule of thumb was that the President's seriousness was in inverse proportion to the frequency of his commands and the emphasis with which they were put forward. Haldeman's indispensability derived from his extraordinary instinct for fathoming what his mercurial boss really had in mind. Haldeman was later disgraced for orders he carried out; he must be given his due for those he ignored or mitigated. In foreign policy I had this responsibility.

The response was electric to a speech Nixon gave on Nov. 3, 1969, appealing to the “Silent Majority” to support the U.S. role in Viet Nam. From the minute the speech ended, the White House switchboard was clogged with congratulatory phone calls. Tens of thousands of supportive telegrams arrived. Nixon was

elated. Professing indifference to public adulation, he nevertheless relished those few moments of acclaim that came his way. He kept the congratulatory telegrams stacked on his desk in such numbers that the Oval Office could not be used for work, and for days he refused to relinquish them.

In early 1971 an operation against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos was being weighed. Nixon was determined not to stand naked in front of his critics as he had the year before over Cambodia. This time he would involve his key Cabinet officers in the decision making, to force them to take some of the heat of the inevitable public criticism. But this determination did not extend to confronting both Secretary of State Rogers and Secretary of Defense Laird at the same time. Judging Rogers to be the most likely recalcitrant, Nixon conceived the idea of first maneuvering Laird into the position of proposing what Nixon preferred, and then letting his Secretary of Defense become the advocate of the plan within the National Security Council. He therefore considered it time well spent to preside over a succession of meetings, each covering exactly the same topic. For each meeting one more participant was added—someone whose view Nixon did not know in advance or whom he judged to be potentially hostile. The theory was that any recalcitrant was more likely to go along with a consensus backed by the President than with a free-for-all. By late January, I had heard the same briefing at least three times and was approaching battle fatigue. Nixon was earning high marks for acting ability. He listened each time as if he were hearing the plan for the first time. His questions—always the same—were designed to convey to the new recruit that his chief was well disposed. And since everybody else had already agreed, it took a strong individual to stand his ground in opposition. No one tried.

Nixon's journey to a decision was often tortuous. But when the final moment of decision was reached, nervous agitation would give way to a calm decisiveness. At moments of real crisis Nixon would be coldly analytical. He would withdraw to the Executive Office Building. He would sit there with his yellow pad, working out his choices. He would call in close associates, going over the same questions again and again until one almost began to hope some catastrophe would provide a pretext for going back to one's own office to work. But once launched on the process he would—in foreign policy matters—invariably get to the essence of the problem and take the courageous course, even if it seemed to risk his political interest.

Nixon and his senior staff went to Perino's Restaurant in Los Angeles after the surprise announcement on July 15, 1971, of his forthcoming visit to China. The President reveled in his triumph,

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WHITE HOUSE YEARS

moving slowly to our table in a
booth in a corner, savoring the
congratulations of some diners
and inviting the good wishes of
others who had not yet heard the
news. We celebrated with crab
legs and a bottle of Château La-
fite-Rothschild 1961. As we left
he lingered once again in the foy-
er, stopping guests by introducing
me as the man who had traveled
to Peking, to the puzzlement of
several who had not been glued to
the television set. It was a touch-
ing occasion. In his hour of
achievement Richard Nixon was
oddly vulnerable, waiting expec-
tantly for recognition without

quite being able to bridge the gulf by which he had isolated him-
self from his fellow men. In this sense the scene at Perino's sym-
bolized the triumph and tragedy of Richard Nixon.

On Aug. 19, 1971, Nixon stopped in Dallas and (proving that presidential minds run in tandem) uttered the following memorable words: "The great challenge of peace is for each of us individually and for all of us, as 'one nation under God,' to dedicate ourselves to this magnificent American dream. With this as our moral equivalent of war, we can move into a generation of peace." It was hard to go wrong with a platform that offered peace as the moral equivalent of war.

[Before his secret visit to Moscow in April 1972, Kissinger met with Nixon.] A fuller account will have to await release of the relevant Nixon tape recordings. My only source is the notes I jotted down on the yellow pad that was standard equipment in the Oval Office. According to them, my instructions were not free of Nixon's customary hyperbole. I was to stress that the summit had the potential of being the most important diplomatic encounter "of this century." My notes also contain the detailed characterization of Nixon that I should give Brezhnev: "Direct, honest, strong... fatalistic—to him election [is] not the key. Will not be affected one iota by public opinion."

The strangest period in Nixon's presidency followed his
overwhelming victory on Nov. 7, 1972. As his hour of triumph
approached, Nixon withdrew ever more. His resentments, usu-
ally so well controlled, came increasingly to the surface. It was
as if victory was not an occasion for reconciliation but an op-
portunity to settle the scores of a lifetime.

Nixon's mood came to expression the morning after the elec-
tion. The White House staff had been awake much of the pre-
vious night celebrating his victory, though even then the festiv-
ities seemed to lack the boisterous spontaneity that usually
marked such events. The President was too withdrawn and shad-
owy a figure for most of his followers. And yet there was great
pride in an Administration that had steered the country into a
period of hopeful tranquillity.

The good feeling was shattered within twelve hours. The White House staff had been asked to assemble at 11 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room. On the dot Nixon strode in. He seemed not at all elated. Rather, he was grim and remote. Nothing in his de-
meanor betrayed that he was meeting associates from perilous and trying times; he acted as if they were from a past now ir-
revocably finished. Without sitting down, he thanked the as-
sembled group in a perfunctory manner. After about five min-
utes he turned the meeting over to Haldeman and left.

Haldeman wasted no time getting to the point. Every mem-
ber of the White House staff was to submit his resignation im-
mediately; we were to fill out a form listing the documents in
our possession. The President would announce his personnel de-
cisions for the new term within a month. The audience was
stunned. It was the morning after a triumph, and they were

Conferring with Nixon after a secret visit to Paris in 1972

NEWSPAPER

of urgency about this political butchery. To ask for resignations en masse within hours of being elected, to distribute forms obviously mimeographed during a campaign in which many of the victims had been working themselves to a frazzle, was wounding and humiliating. Nixon's later troubles had other causes, of course; yet he surely deprived himself of much sympathy by conveying in his hour of triumph an impression of such total vindictiveness and insensitivity to those who were well disposed to him. (I was not directly affected, having been told by Haldeman that my letter of resignation would be a formality.)

Triumph seemed to bring no surcease to him. He withdrew
into a seclusion even deeper and more impenetrable than in his
years of struggle. Isolation had become almost a spiritual ne-
cesity to this withdrawn, lonely and tormented man. It was
hard to avoid the impression that Nixon, who thrived on crisis,
also craved disasters.

During the second Inauguration [Jan. 20, 1973], Nixon
moved as if he were himself a spectator, not the principal. There
was about him a quality of remoteness, as if he could never
quite bring himself to leave the inhospitable and hostile world
that he inhabited, that he may have hated but at least had
come to terms with. Perhaps it was simple shyness or fatalism;
perhaps it was consciousness of a looming catastrophe.

What extraordinary vehicles destiny selects to accomplish its design. This man, so lonely in his hour of triumph, so ungenerous in some of his motivations, had navigated our nation through one of the most anguishing periods in its history. He had striven for a revolution in American foreign policy so that it would overcome the disastrous oscillations between overcommitment and isolation. Despised by the Establishment, ambiguous in his human perceptions, he had yet held fast, determined to prove that the strongest free country had no right to abdicate. What would have happened had the Establishment about which he was so ambivalent shown him some love? Would he have withdrawn deeper into the wilderness of his resentments, or would an act of grace have liberated him? By now it no longer mattered. Enveloped in an intractable solitude, he nevertheless saw before him a vista of promise to which few statesmen have been blessed to aspire, a new international order that would reduce lingering enmities, strengthen friendships and give new hope to emerging nations. He was alone in his moment of triumph on a pinnacle that was soon to turn into a precipice.

Next Week

"I cannot yet write about Viet Nam except with pain and sad-
ness." So begins Part 2 of TIME's excerpts from Henry Kissin-
ger's memoirs, an inside the White House view of the battles
and bombings, the protests and posturings, the secret negoti-
ations and public proclamations that finally led, in January 1973,
to the signing of a peace treaty.

TIME, OCTOBER 1, 1979

59

SPECIAL SECTION

LARRY BURROWS—LIFE

WHITE HOUSE YEARS: PART 2

THE AGONY
OF VIET NAM

BY HENRY KISSINGER

In the second installment of TIME's excerpts from *White House Years*, Henry Kissinger writes of the war that divided the U.S. at home and threatened to make a shambles of its policies abroad. He tells for the first time how during secret negotiations in Paris in April 1970—*before* the U.S. invaded the North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia—he proposed that Cambodia's neutrality be guaranteed and that an international conference on the subject be convened. North Viet Nam's representative, Le Duc Tho, bluntly spurned the proposal, claiming that Hanoi expected to hold sway over all of Indochina some day.

The author gives an intimate look at the anguished debates and bitter wrangling within the Nixon Administration that accompanied every military move in Indochina, the efforts to end the war and how they were thwarted by Hanoi's rigid refusal for nearly four years to accept a settlement that would amount to anything less than a sellout of Saigon, the

rationale behind the mining of North Viet Nam's ports and the Christmas bombing of 1972, why he declared "peace is at hand" on the eve of Nixon's re-election, his attempts to build bridges to dissident students and professors, the acid exchanges with South Viet Nam's leaders as a peace treaty drew near, and the angry threat from Nixon that finally brought Saigon around. The memoirs describe Kissinger's painful falling-out with Nixon and his decision—never acted upon because Watergate intervened—to resign from public office some time in 1973.

*White House Years*, to be published on Oct. 23 (Little, Brown; 1,521 pages; $22.50), covers Kissinger's stewardship as National Security Adviser during the period following Richard Nixon's 1968 election, ending with the signing of a Viet Nam peace treaty in January 1973. A second volume, now in preparation, will recount the years to January 1977, during most of which Kissinger was Secretary of State.

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# Tom and Jane vs. Big Business

## They begin a 52-city crusade

It was the biggest antinuclear rally in U.S. history. To the tunes of Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Pete Seeger, 200,000 blue-jeaned, banner-waving protesters thronged Manhattan's Battery Park last week, conjuring up visions of the antiwar days. Bella Abzug was there. So were Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Environmentalist Barry Commoner. And so, in another flashback to the '60s, were Actress Jane Fonda and her husband Activist Tom Hayden, this time talking of a nuclear Armageddon. Said Fonda to the cheering crowd: "We have to think of ourselves as Paul Reveres and Pauline Reveres, going through our country town by town, city by city, warning people about the dangers."

The rally, organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), was the largest so far of a series of antinuclear protests nationwide. At least 20 demonstrations are scheduled in the next few weeks, from picketing at a proposed nuclear waste-dumping site near Carlsbad, N. Mex., to a planned sit-in at the site of a nuclear power plant being built in Seabrook, N.H. But for Fonda, 41, and Hayden, 38, the New York City rally was the launching pad for another crusade: their drive to publicize Hayden's anti-Big Business Campaign for Economic Democracy.

Their target is what they call "unbribled corporate power" in America. According to Fonda and Hayden, multinational corporations neglect the public interest in their rush for profits. Their prime example is nuclear power, which they urge be phased out and replaced with Government-subsidized solar energy. Says Fonda, with a catchy show-biz zinger: "It is time to look at crime in the suites, not just in the streets." Protests Hayden: "While we may have democracy in the political arena, we certainly don't in the economic one, where a board of directors has dictatorial powers." Fonda and Hayden —dubbed the "Mork and Mindy" of the left in a column by Conservative George Will—call for participation by workers and consumers in the making of corporate policies. Just how this would be accomplished is unclear even to Hayden. Says he: "We have more of a vision than a blueprint."

During the next month, the pair will take their campaign to 52 cities. They will meet newspaper editors and appear on talk shows and at union rallies. The bills for the $150,000 trip will be covered by the $5,000 fee they charge for speeches before college audiences.

The Fonda-Hayden road show moved last week from Battery Park to Harrisburg, Pa., where it got a rousing reception from 1,000 people at an antinuclear

rally. The next day, the couple made a side trip to be photographed across the river from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, a media event that drew some 40 members of the press, and to talk with nearby residents. Then they headed north for stops in New York City, Manchester, N.H., and Boston, where Fonda delighted more than 1,000 women office workers by telling them that she is making a movie about "a secretary wanting to murder the boss." Everywhere they appeared, they dressed in executive style and toned down their rhetoric from the militancy of the 1960s. Explained Hayden: "The rebels of yesterday are the respectable citizens of today. Ten years ago, Nixon was in power and Spiro Agnew was in office.* Now Nixon and Agnew are in disgrace and the others went to jail. Look who's left."

Almost everywhere the pair won ovations from overflow crowds. For the most part, the audiences accepted the Fonda-Hayden message about nuclear

power uncritically—a fact that caused the Edison Electric Institute to dispatch an "energy truth squad" of two young engineers to follow in their wake and present the industry's side of the nuclear argument. Even some members of antinuclear groups resent the attention paid to Fonda and Hayden. "But what can you do when all the cameras are focused on Jane?" asked Charles Garlow, a member of Ralph Nader's Public Interest Research Group in Washington.

Although the Fonda-Hayden tour looks and sounds like a political campaign, Hayden denies that he is either serving as an advancement for his friend, California Governor Jerry Brown, or setting the stage for a possible run himself against Republican Senator S.I. Hayakawa in 1982. Hayden campaigned for the seat in 1976 but lost in the Democratic primary to Hayakawa's predecessor, John Tunney. To Hayden, running for office would be a logical next step to this year's campaign against Big Business. Says he: "The radical or reformer sets a climate. The politician then comes along and inherits the constituency that the reformer created. My problem is to be both." ■

ANDREW E. LUCKER

Antinuclear protesters in New York City; later, Hayden and Fonda spoke at Fordham

"We have to think of ourselves as Paul Reveres and Pauline Reveres."

*Ten years ago, Hayden, a co-founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.), stood trial as one of the Chicago Seven on charges of provoking riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. His conviction was overturned on appeal.

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# “THERE WAS NO ALTERNATIVE”

I cannot yet write about Viet Nam except with pain and sadness. When we came into office, over half a million Americans were fighting a war 10,000 miles away. Their numbers were still increasing on a schedule established by our predecessors. We found no plans for withdrawals. Whatever our original war aims, by 1969 our credibility abroad, the reliability of our commitments, and our domestic cohesion were alike jeopardized by a struggle in a country as far away from the North American continent as our globe permits.

The Nixon Administration entered office determined to end our involvement in Viet Nam. But it soon came up against the reality that had also bedeviled its predecessor. We could not simply walk away from an enterprise involving two Administrations, five allied countries and 31,000 American dead as if we were switching a television channel. For a great power to abandon a small country to tyranny simply to obtain a respite from our own domestic travail seemed to me—and still seems to me—profoundly immoral and destructive of our efforts to build a new and ultimately more peaceful pattern of international relations. We could not revitalize the Atlantic Alliance if its governments were assailed by doubt about American staying power. We would not be able to move the Soviet Union toward the imperative of mutual restraint against the background of capitulation in a major war. We might not achieve our opening to China if our value as a counterweight seemed nullified by a collapse that showed us irrelevant to Asian security. Our success in Middle East diplomacy would depend on convincing our friends of our reliability and their adversaries that we were impervious to threats of military pressure or blackmail. Clearly the American people wanted to end the war, but every poll made it equally evident that they saw their country's aims as honorable and did not relish America's humiliation.

The principles of America's honor and America's responsibility were not empty phrases to me. I had been born in Germany in the Bavarian town of Fürth. Hitler came to power when I was nine years old. Until I emigrated to America, my family and I endured progressive ostracism and discrimination. When I first walked the streets of New York City, seeing a group of boys, I began to cross to the other side to avoid being beaten up. And then I remembered where I was.

I therefore have always had a special feeling for what America means. I could not accept the self-hatred that took every imperfection as an excuse to denigrate a precious experiment. I was enormously gratified to have an opportunity to repay my debt to a society whose blemishes could not obscure for me its greatness, its idealism, its humanity and its embodiment of mankind's hopes. Ironically, in view of the later charges of "historical pessimism" leveled against me, it was precisely the issue of our self-confidence and faith in our future that I considered at stake in the outcome in Viet Nam.

I could never think of the war as a monstrous criminal conspiracy, as was fashionable in some circles. Our entry into the war had been the product not of a militarist psychosis but of a naive idealism that wanted to set right all the world's ills and believed American good will supplied its own efficacy.

## The "Secret" Bombing

In January 1969, a complete halt in the bombings against North Viet Nam had been in effect for more than two months. No large-scale ground operations were under way. Peace talks had

been going on for eight months in a mansion on Avenue Kléber in Paris, but their single achievement at that point was to decide on the shape of the table at which the negotiators were to sit. Soon evidence mounted that Hanoi was preparing a major offensive, a clear violation of the tacit understanding that had brought about the bombing halt. The new Administration began weighing how to respond.

Kissinger with Nixon at Key Biscayne, Fla.

Alternatives were hard to come by. Thought turned to bombing of the North Vietnamese sanctuary areas in Cambodia for reasons exactly the opposite of what has been assumed: it was not from a desire to expand the war, but to avoid bombing North Viet Nam and yet to blunt an unprovoked offensive.

Revisionists have sometimes focused on the Nixon Administration's alleged assault on the "neutral" status of a "peaceful" country. But the issue concerned territory which was no longer Cambodian in any practical sense. For four years, as many as four North Vietnamese divisions had been operating on Cambodian soil. In 1978 the Communist victors in Cambodia put the uninvited North Vietnamese presence in northeastern Cambodia in 1969-70 at 300,000, which far exceeded our estimates. From their base areas, North Vietnamese forces would launch attacks across the border into South Viet Nam, inflict casualties, disrupt government, and then withdraw to the protection of a formally neutral country. It requires calculated advocacy, not judgment, to argue that the U.S. was violating the neutrality of a peaceful country when with Cambodian encouragement, we in self-defense sporadically bombed territories in which for years no Cambodian writ had run, which were either minimally populated or totally unpopulated by civilians, and which were occupied in violation of Cambodian neutrality by an enemy killing hundreds of Americans and South Vietnamese a week.

Nixon was leaning toward a B-52 strike against the sanctuaries, but on Feb. 22, 1969, the day before he was to leave on a trip to Europe, he decided to defer action. The same day Hanoi launched a country-wide offensive that cost 453 American lives during its first week. "It was an act of extraordinary cynicism," writes Kissinger; Nixon "was seething." Twice during the next two weeks he ordered the Communist sanctuaries bombed, then reconsidered. Finally, after a rocket attack on Saigon, Nixon decided to go ahead and called together his key advisers.

The meeting on Sunday afternoon, March 16, in the Oval Office was attended by Secretary of State William Rogers, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and myself. It was the first time that Nixon had confronted a concrete decision in an international crisis as President; it was also the first time that he would face opposition from associates to a course of action to which he was already committed. He approached it with tactics that were to become vintage Nixon. On the one hand he had made his decision and was not about to change it. On the other hand he felt it necessary to pretend that the decision was still open.

Laird and Wheeler strongly advocated the attacks. Rogers objected not on foreign policy but on domestic grounds; he feared that we would run into a buzz saw in Congress just when things were calming down. After several hours of discussion, Rogers finally agreed to a B-52 strike on the base area containing the presumed Communist headquarters. These deliberations are instructive: a month of an unprovoked North Vietnamese offen-

TIME, OCTOBER 8, 1979

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sive, over 1,000 American dead, elicited after weeks of anguished discussion exactly *one* American retaliatory raid within three miles of the Cambodian border in an area occupied by the North Vietnamese for over four years. And this would enter the folklore as an example of wanton "illegality." The B-52 attack took place on March 18, 1969.

Two months later, mindful that Hanoi had rejected another peace plan and determined to protect the beginning of the U.S. withdrawals, Nixon ordered attacks on a string of other Cambodian base areas, all essentially unoccupied by civilians and within five miles of the border. Originally, says Kissinger, the Administration had planned to acknowledge the bombing if Hanoi or Phnom-Penh reacted to it. But neither capital said a word; in fact, Kissinger maintains that Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk tacitly approved the raids, and he quotes several public statements made by the Prince denying that raids were taking place or that American actions were causing civilian casualties.

We saw no sense in announcing what Cambodia encouraged and North Viet Nam accepted. The bombing was kept secret because a public announcement was a gratuitous blow to the Cambodian government, which might have forced it to demand that we stop; it might have encouraged a North Vietnamese retaliation (since how could they fail to react if we had announced we were doing it?). Our bombing saved American and South Vietnamese lives.

This is why the press leaks that came from American sources and recounted air strikes against the Cambodian sanctuaries struck Nixon and me as so outrageous.

The conviction that such leaks were needlessly jeopardizing American lives, which I shared, caused the President to consult the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI about remedial measures. J. Edgar Hoover recommended wiretaps, which he pointed out had been widely used for these (and other much less clear-cut) purposes by preceding Administrations. The Attorney General affirmed their legality. Nixon ordered them carried out on the basis of explicit criteria of which access to or unauthorized use of classified information was the principal one. I went along with what I had no reason to doubt was legal and established practice in these circumstances, pursued, so we were told, with greater energy and fewer safeguards in previous Administrations. I believe now that the more stringent safeguards applied to national security wiretapping since that time reflect an even more fundamental national interest.

A Nation Tearing at Itself

By mid-1969, Nixon had unilaterally begun withdrawing U.S. troops and at the same time launched a major effort to upgrade Saigon's forces to prepare them for the day when they would be entirely on their own. This program became known as "Vietnamization." Kissinger was concerned that this would become a risky strategy. The slow process of withdrawals, he warned, "would become like 'salted peanuts' to the American public; the more troops we withdrew, the more would be expected. In turn, Hanoi might simply decide to wait us out and launch an all-out attack after most American forces had been withdrawn." As it was, Hanoi did not soften its demands: total and immediate U.S. withdrawal, the removal of Saigon's government and the installation of a coalition regime dominated by the Communist Viet Cong. At home, meanwhile, antipoison groups staged nationwide demonstrations on Oct. 15, 1969—the "Moratorium"—even though, as Kissinger notes, "we had gone beyond the program for which they had been demonstrating only nine months previously."

Even with the perspective of ten years, it is difficult to avoid a feeling of melancholy at this spectacle of a nation tearing at itself in the midst of a difficult war. By October the Administration had announced withdrawal of over 50,000 troops and had also accomplished the reduction of B-52 sorties by 20%, of tactical air operations by 25%, and a change in battlefield or-

ders that amounted to a decision to end offensive operations. The previous Administration had sent almost 550,000 Americans to Viet Nam, had no negotiating proposal except that we would withdraw six months after the North Vietnamese left, and had strongly implied that it would insist on retaining a large residual force thereafter. Yet there was little compunction about harassing and vilifying a new President who had offered total withdrawal within twelve months of an agreement and free elections, and who had opened up the subject of a cease-fire.

The war in Indochina was the culmination of the disappointment of a decade that had opened with the clarion call of a resurgent idealism and ended with assassinations, racial and social discord and radicalized politics. Our dilemmas were very much a product of liberal doctrines of reformist intervention and academic theories of graduated escalation. The collapse of these high aspirations shattered the self-confidence without which Establishments flounder. The leaders who had inspired our foreign policy were particularly upset by the rage of the students. The assault of these upper-middle-class young men and women—who were, after all, their own children—was not simply on policies, but on life-styles and values heretofore considered sacrosanct. Stimulated by a sense of guilt encouraged by modern psychiatry and the radical chic rhetoric of affluent suburbia, the young protesters symbolized the end of an era of simple faith in material progress. Ironically, the insecurity of their elders turned the normal grievances of maturing youth into an institutionalized rage and a national trauma.

My attitude toward the protesters diverged from Nixon's. He saw in them an enemy that had to be vanquished; I considered them students and colleagues with whom I differed but whose idealism was indispensable for our future. In November 1969 Nixon asked me to comment on a memorandum sent to him by Pat Moynihan, then Counsellor to the President. It described a scene at a Harvard-Princeton football game in which the assembled graduates—worth, according to Pat, at least $10 billion—roared support when the Harvard University band was introduced, in a takeoff on Vice President Spiro Agnew's denigrating phrase, as the "effice Harvard Corps of Intellectual Snobs." A warning in Moynihan's memorandum about the "incredible powers of derision" of the young was significantly underlined by the President. A part of my response follows:

> "Most are casualties of our affluence. They have had the leisure for self-pity, and the education enabling them to focus it in a fashionable critique of the 'system.' Many are substantially anti-Establishment not only because that is the natural bent of youthful alienation, but also because it is a major thrust of contemporary academic literature. Modern American sociology, psychology, political science, literature, etc., have turned a glaring light (as they should have) on the faults in our society. All this is bound to fall on fertile ground—and cover more of it than ever before—in a country that sends 8 million kids to college.

> "There just might be a chance, over time, to win some of these young people to your side. You have something basic in common with many of them—a conviction that the machinery of New Deal liberalism has to be fundamentally overhauled. You also share a concern that America play a more balanced and restrained role. You are, in fact, turning over most of the rocks at home and abroad that these kids want to see turned over."

"General Kirschman" Goes to Paris

Most of Kissinger's diplomatic breakthroughs were achieved via unofficial "back channels" that he established, with Nixon's encouragement, to bypass the regular bureaucracies. One such channel was set up in Paris to deal secretly with North Vietnamese negotiators. Initially he dealt with Xuan Thuy, Hanoi's chief negotiator at the official plenary peace talks on Avenue Kléber. On one occasion, Xuan Thuy argued that hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese troops were in South Viet Nam

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A B-52 Stratofortress, the type used for heavy attacks throughout the Viet Nam War, drops a load of bombs

through the "free choice" of the local population. Kissinger found
this so absurd that, he writes, "I jokingly invited him to Harvard
to teach a seminar on Marxism and Leninism after the war. He de-
clined, saying that Marxism-Leninism was not for export—which
will come as remarkable news to all the inhabitants of Indochina
today." In any event, Kissinger soon learned that Xuan Thuy was
a functionary, not a policymaker. The man he had to talk to was
Le Duc Tho, who was clearly Hanoi's top representative in Paris.

Le Duc Tho and I held three secret meetings between Feb. 21 and April 4, 1970. On a weekend or holiday, to provide better cover, I would leave Washington on one of the presidential fleet of Boeing 707s. It would land at Avord, a French air force base in central France. My plane would touch down just long enough to let me off; it would then proceed to Frankfurt's Rhein-Main Airport. I would have transferred meanwhile to a Mystère 20 executive jet belonging to President Pompidou for the flight to Villacoublay Airport, a field for private airplanes near Paris.

One meeting was nearly aborted by a technical malfunction. Because the pilots did not know whether Avord had the equipment for repairs, the plane had to go to Germany, but no one there knew of our impending arrival, much less of our mission or predicament. Fortunately, we established contact from the airplane with General Vernon Walters, our defense attaché in Paris, in a radio hookup through Washington. Walters went to the Elysée Palace, where President Pompidou himself authorized his jet to meet my plane in Frankfurt.

I landed in a dark corner of the Rhein-Main airfield; Pom-
pidou's jet was already waiting, and we were airborne again with-
in ten minutes of landing. Walters claimed that West German

cooperation was speeded up by their belief, encouraged by him,
that the passenger was a secret girlfriend of Pompidou's. I have
often wondered why he thought the waiting ground personnel
could have been fooled about the sex of the passenger.

In Paris General Walters would lead me to an unmarked
rented Citroën. Walters would drive us to his apartment build-
ing in the Neuilly section of Paris, where he smuggled us by el-
evator from the underground garage. As far as his housekeeper
was concerned, I was a visiting American general named Har-
old A. Kirschman. We would proceed the next day to a house
at 11 Rue Darthé in Choisy-le-Roi on the outskirts of Paris.

At the first meeting, Xuan Thuy greeted me and led me
into the living room to meet the man whose conceit it was to
use the title of Special Adviser to Xuan Thuy, although as a mem-
ber of the governing Politburo he outranked him by several lev-
els. Le Duc Tho's large luminous eyes only rarely revealed the
fanaticism that had induced him as a boy of 16 to join the anti-
French Communist guerrillas. It was our misfortune that his
cause should be to break our will and to establish Hanoi's rule
over a country that we sought to defend.

Le Duc Tho considered negotiations as another battle. His
idea of a negotiation was to put forward his unilateral demands.
Their essence was for the U.S. to withdraw on a deadline so
short that the collapse of Saigon would be inevitable. On the
way out we were being asked to dismantle an allied govern-
ment and establish an alternative whose composition would be
prescribed by Hanoi. Any proposition that failed to agree with
this he rejected as "not concrete."

The first series of secret negotiations with Le Duc Tho end-
ed with his statement that unless we changed our position, there
was nothing more to discuss.

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A Wider War

Perhaps the most bitterly disputed episode of a bitterly dis-
puted war is the decline and fall of Cambodia. In March, with
Prince Sihanouk traveling in France, anti-Vietnamese riots be-
gan to erupt across Cambodia. Prime Minister Lon Nol and Dep-
uty Prime Minister Sirik Matak ousted Sihanouk, who there-
upon took refuge in Peking and turned against the U.S. Kissinger's
critics argue that the U.S. engineered Sihanouk's downfall and
later, by attacking the North Vietnamese sanctuaries, caused the
war to engulf all of Cambodia and to ensure victory for the Com-
munist Khmer Rouge. Kissinger maintains with much document-
tation that the coup took the U.S. completely by surprise, that it
came about because "the sanctuaries increasingly aroused the na-
tionalist outrage of Cambodians," and that Hanoi's forces began
overrunning Cambodia as early as the end of March 1970. Kis-
singer reveals, for the first time, that on April 4, 1970, in Paris,
he proposed to Le Duc Tho that they should "discuss immedi-
ately concrete and specific measures to guarantee the neutrality
of Cambodia, [either] bilaterally or in an international frame-
work." But Tho abruptly dismissed any suggestion of neutral-
ization or of a conference. He emphasized that "it was his peo-
ple's destiny not merely to take over South Viet Nam but to

dominate the whole of Indochina. The boasts were made in se-
cret, but the military moves that expressed these ambitions were
plain to see." The moves began in February 1970, when the North
Vietnamese launched an offensive on the Plain of Jars in Laos.
On March 16 Le Duc Tho turned down an immediate de-esca-
lation in Laos as well as in—or from—Cambodia.

From an inexhaustible national masochism there sprang the folklore that American decisions triggered the Cambodian nightmare, and the myth survives even today when the Vietnamese, without the excuse of American provocation but with barely a whimper of world protest, have finally fulfilled the ambition of conquering the whole of Indochina. The military responses we made were much agonized over and in our view minimal if we were to conduct a retreat that did not become a rout. Hanoi's insatiable quest for hegemony—not America's hesitant and ambivalent response—is the root cause of Cambodia's ordeal. The persistence of the image of American officials plotting the overthrow of neutralist Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia and plunging deeper into war in Laos as well as Cambodia illustrates the prevalence of emotion over reality. By the middle of April, before we had undertaken any significant action, Sihanouk had irrevocably joined forces with the Communists, the North Vietnamese had dedicated themselves to the

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overthrow of the Phnom-Penh government, and Hanoi's forces
were attacking deep inside Cambodia.

We had as yet given no military aid, no intelligence support, and had only formalistic contacts with the new government. The coup itself had come without warning; its consequences threatened not only the freedom of Cambodia but our entire position in Viet Nam. We would, if the Lon Nol government collapsed, confront *all* of Cambodia as a Communist base, stretching 600 miles along the border of South Viet Nam. Vietnamization and American withdrawal would then come unstuck. So we were being driven toward support of Lon Nol hesitantly, reluctantly, in response to circumstances in Cambodia that we could neither forecast nor control.

The record leaves no doubt that the North Vietnamese, also caught by surprise by the March coup, bear the heaviest responsibility for events in Cambodia. Their illegal and arrogant occupation of Cambodian territory had torn apart Sihanouk's neutralist country; they created the Khmer Rouge as a force against Sihanouk well before his overthrow. It was they, not we, who had decided on a fight to the finish on the bleeding body of a people that wanted only to be left alone.

Revisionist history has painted a picture of a peaceful, neutral Cambodia wantonly assaulted by American forces and plunged into a civil war that could have been avoided but for the American obsession with military solutions. The facts are different. By April 21 we had a stark choice. We could permit North Viet Nam to overrun the whole of Cambodia. Or we could resist Cambodia's absorption, supporting the independence of a government recognized by the United Nations and most other nations, including the Soviet Union.

Curiously enough, one of the most implacable critics* of our policy in Cambodia presents the same analysis of what our choices were: "Back in March and April the Administration had freedom of choice in reacting to events in Cambodia. If it had decided not to encourage, let alone arm Lon Nol, it could have compelled either the return of Sihanouk or, at least, an attempt, by Lon Nol, to preserve the country's flawed neutrality. This would probably have meant a government dominated by Hanoi and at the very least it would have allowed the Communists continued use of [the port of] Sihanoukville and the sanctuaries."

This passage combines all the misconceptions about events in Cambodia in 1970. We did not encourage Lon Nol or even begin to arm him for weeks after North Vietnamese troops were ravaging a neutral country. The option of Lon Nol's restoring Cambodia's neutrality did not exist; it had been explicitly rejected by Le Duc Tho on April 4, 1970. And by then Sihanouk was no longer in a position to be neutralist. The real prospect before us, therefore, was exactly what the quoted paragraph describes as the most likely outcome: the reopening of Sihanoukville, a government in Phnom-Penh dominated by Hanoi and reopened sanctuaries now comprising all of eastern Cambodia. Where I differ sharply from the paragraph is in its assertion that we had "freedom of choice." This is precisely what we did *not* have, for the prospect it describes would have meant an overwhelming, insurmountable and decisive menace to the survival of South Viet Nam.

No Middle Ground

*In the U.S., Kissinger notes, "there had been no consideration of attacking the sanctuaries before April 21." Yet a fateful decision was made only a week later, on April 28.*

The first two weeks of April had seen a wave of Communist attacks on Cambodian towns and communications. On Tuesday, April 21, Communist forces struck the town of Takeo and cut the road between it and Phnom-Penh. The North Vietnamese were systematically expanding their sanctuaries and merging them into a "liberated zone." If

these steps were unopposed, the Communist sanctuaries would be organized into a single large base area. By April 21 the basic issue was whether Vietnamization was to be merely an alibi for an American collapse or a serious strategy designed to achieve an honorable peace.

At a major National Security Council meeting on April 22, three tactical options were considered: doing nothing (the preferred course of the State and Defense departments); attacking the sanctuaries with South Vietnamese forces only (my recommendation); and using whatever forces were necessary to neutralize all of the base areas, including American combat forces, recommended by Ellsworth Bunker, our Ambassador in Saigon, General Creighton Abrams, our commander in Viet Nam, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Two base areas were of special concern. The Parrot's Beak, Cambodia's Svay Rieng province, jutted into Viet Nam to within only 33 miles of Saigon. Farther north was an area codenamed the Fishhook. No one around the table questioned the consequences of a Communist takeover of Cambodia. If Cambodia collapsed, we would be even harder pressed to pull out unilaterally; if we accepted any of the other options, we would be charged with "expanding the war." There was no middle ground.

Nixon told his colleagues that he approved attacks on the base areas by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support. Since the South Vietnamese could handle only one offensive, Wheeler recommended that they go after Parrot's Beak. This led to a debate about American participation; Laird and Rogers sought to confine it to an absolute minimum, opposing even American advisers or tactical air support.

At this point Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke up. He thought the whole debate irrelevant. Either the sanctuaries were a danger or they were not. If it was worth cleaning them out, he did not understand all the pussyfooting about the American role or what we accomplished by attacking only one. Our task was to make Vietnamization succeed. He favored an attack on both Fishhook and Parrot's Beak, including American forces.

If Nixon hated anything more than being presented with a plan he had not considered, it was to be shown up in a group as being less tough than his advisers. I have no doubt that Agnew's intervention accelerated Nixon's ultimate decision to order an attack on all the sanctuaries and use American forces. Agnew was right; we should either neutralize all of the sanctuaries or abandon the project. We were in danger of com-

Where'd That Buffalo Go?

On Nov. 21, 1970, American commandos raided an installation 20 miles from Hanoi—the Son Tay prison—thought to house 60 American prisoners of war. The raid was heroically executed but was based on an egrousious failure of intelligence: the prison had been closed at least three months earlier.

The raid produced a rather bizarre footnote generated by my warped sense of humor. An officer briefing me on the raid apologized for its failure. I told him not to apologize, joking that no doubt they had brought back a baby water buffalo, and the North Vietnamese were going crazy trying to figure out why we had mounted a big operation for that purpose. The officer, presuming that the President's security adviser could not be totally mad, reported this to his superiors, who started a hunt for the animal. The troops in the field, convinced that Washington had lost its mind, reported they knew nothing about any kidnaped baby water buffalo. The Pentagon refused to believe I had made my comment lightly. Back went a query asking to make sure by checking the helicopter for buffalo dung.

*William Shawcross, the British journalist who wrote Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia.

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bining the disadvantages of every course of action. We would
be castigated for intervention in Cambodia without accomplish-
ing any strategic purpose.

On Saturday, April 25, Nixon called me to Camp David to review the planning. I walked along at the edge of the swimming pool while he paddled in the water. Nixon began to toy with the idea of going for broke: Perhaps we should combine an attack on the Cambodian sanctuaries with resumption of the bombing of North Viet Nam as well as mining Haiphong? The opposition would be equally hysteresic either way. I replied that we had enough on our plate; we would not be able to sustain such a gamble.

Nixon dropped the subject after ten minutes and never re-
turned to it. In retrospect I believe that we should have taken it
more seriously. The bane of our military actions in Viet Nam
throughout was their hesitancy and inconclusiveness.

In all events, after the poolside strategy session at Camp David we flew back to the capital, and in the late afternoon, Nixon invited John Mitchell to join Bebe Rebozo and me for a cruise down the Potomac on the presidential yacht *Sequoia*. The tensions of the grim military planning were transformed into exaltation by the liquid refreshments, to the point of some patriotic awkwardness when it was decided that everyone should stand at attention while the *Sequoia* passed Mount Vernon—a feat not managed by everybody with equal success. On the return to the White House, Nixon invited his convivial colleagues to see the movie *Patton*. It was the second time he had so honored me. Inspiring as the film no doubt was, I managed to escape for an hour in the middle of it to prepare for the next day's NSC meeting.

On Sunday evening, April 26, the President met with his
principal NSC advisers—Rogers, Laird, Wheeler, CIA Director
Richard Helms and me—in his working office in the Executive
Office Building. Nixon tried to avoid a confrontation with his
Secretaries of State and Defense by pretending that we were
merely listening to a briefing. To my astonishment, both Rog-
ers and Laird fell in with the charade that it was all a planning
exercise, and did not take a position. They avoided the question
of why Nixon would call his senior advisers together on a Sun-
day night to hear a contingency briefing.

As soon as the meeting was over, the President called me
over to the family quarters and instructed me to issue a di-
rective authorizing an attack by American forces into the Fish-
hook area. I had it drafted, and he signed it. Just to be sure, the
President first initialed the directive and then, beneath his ini-
tials, also signed his full name.

Not even this "double-barreled presidential imprimatur," as
Kissinger calls it, settled things. Both Rogers and Laird were hav-
ing second thoughts. Nixon agreed to think it over for 24 hours.

Uniform Impression

In 1962, when I served for a short time as a consultant to President Kennedy, he asked me to brief the crusty West German Chancellor Adenauer on the military ideas of the young Administration. Adenauer had his doubts about the strategic doctrines that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was developing. At one point he interrupted me in the full flight of my oratory to ask how I knew what I was presenting was true. I had been briefed by a general, I responded. Had the general worn a uniform? the Chancellor wanted to know. When I allowed that I did not remember, he suggested that I ask the general to repeat his briefing in civilian clothes; if I was still impressed, I should let him know.

On Tuesday, April 28, in a 20-minute meeting with Rogers, Laird and Mitchell, the President reaffirmed his decision to proceed with a combined U.S.-South Vietnamese operation against the Fishhook. He noted that the Secretaries of State and Defense had opposed the use of American forces and that Dr. Kissinger was "leaning against" it. (This was no longer true; I had changed my view at least a week earlier. In my opinion Nixon lumped me with his two Cabinet members because he genuinely and generously wanted to shield me against departmental retaliation.) Nixon assured them he would assume full responsibility for the decision.

The final decision to proceed was thus not a maniacal erup-
tion of irrationality as the uproar afterward sought to imply. It
was taken carefully, with much hesitation, by a man who had
to discipline his nerves almost daily to face his associates and
to overcome the partially subconscious, partially deliberate pro-
crinatation of his executive departments. The fact remains that
on Cambodia, Nixon was right. And he was President.

"Operation Total Victory 42," as it was labeled, was launched against the Parrot's Beak during the night of April 28. American and South Vietnamese forces pushed forward into the Fishhook area at 7:30 a.m. Saigon time on May 1. The same day Nixon visited the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon and—on the spur of the moment—ordered what he had long been considering, an incursion into all other base areas. Twelve enemy base areas were attacked in the first three weeks.

Without our incursion, the Communists would have taken
over Cambodia years earlier. The bizarre argument has indeed
been made, with a glaring lack of substantiation, that the cru-
eltty of the Khmer Rouge in victory was the product of five
years of American and Cambodian efforts to resist them. No
one can accept this as an adequate explanation for the mur-
derous Khmer Rouge. Sihanouk does not believe this; they were
men he had kicked out of Cambodia in 1967 as a menace to his
country. He told me in April 1979 that the Khmer Rouge lead-
ers were "always killers."

Nixon set a June 30 cutoff date for the Cambodian incursion.
Eventually 32,000 U.S. ground troops were involved. But, Kissinger says, casualties "never reached more than a quarter of the 800 a week that Laird had feared," and dropped sharply after that. At the time, Kissinger estimated that the action would delay Hanoi's next major offensive by six to eight months; Sir Robert Thompson, the British expert on guerrilla warfare, figured that it would set the North Vietnamese back by as much as two years. Thompson proved to be right. But that did not help to defuse a gathering explosion at home. The May 4 killing of four students at Kent State University by rifle fire from Ohio National Guardsmen proved to be a match thrown into a powder keg.

Campus unrest and violence overtook the Cambodian op-
eration itself as the major issue before the public. Washington
took on the character of a besieged city. On May 9 a crowd es-
timated at between 75,000 and 100,000 demonstrated on the El-
lipse, south of the White House. The President saw himself as
the firm rock in this rushing stream, but the turmoil had its ef-
fect. Pretending indifference, he was deeply wounded by the ha-
ted of the protesters. In his ambivalence Nixon reached a point
of exhaustion that caused his advisers deep concern.

Exhaustion was the hallmark of us all. I had to move from
my apartment, ringed by protesters, into the basement of the
White House to get some sleep. Much of my own time was
spent with unhappy, nearly panicky colleagues, even more with
student and colleague demonstrators.

I found my discussions with students rather more re-
warding than those with their protesting teachers. When I
had lunch in the Situation Room with a group of Harvard
professors, their objections to the Cambodian decision illus-
trated that hyperbole was not confined to the Administration.
One distinguished professor gave it as his considered analysis
that "somebody had forgotten to tell the President that Cam-

38

TIME, OCTOBER 8, 1979

WHITE HOUSE YEARS

JOHN A. DARNELL, JR.

From a knoll on the campus of Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen fire into a crowd of students, killing four

bodia was a country; he acted as if he didn't know this." An-
other declared that we had provoked all the actions of the
other side and that an incursion to a depth of 21 miles into
territories occupied for four years by the North Vietnamese
might encourage our commanders to believe that the use of
nuclear weapons was now authorized.

The meeting completed my transition from the academic
world to the world of affairs. These were men who had been
my friends, academicians whose lifetime of study should have en-
couraged a sense of perspective. That they disagreed with our de-
cision was understandable; I had myself gone through a long
process of hesitation before I became convinced that there was
no alternative. But the lack of compassion, the overweening
righteousness, the refusal to offer an alternative reinforced two
convictions: that for the internal peace of our country, the war
had to be ended, but also that in doing so on terms compatible
with any international responsibility, we would get no help from
those with whom I had spent my professional life.

Hanoi's Spring Offensive

After Cambodia, the remainder of 1970 and 1971 brought in-
conclusive military operations and equally inconclusive diplomat-
ic negotiations. The U.S. made repeated efforts to find what Kiss-
singer terms "an honorable compromise." On Oct. 7, 1970, Nixon
offered a standstill cease-fire and a total bombing halt. In May
1971 Kissinger offered a cease-fire and unilateral withdrawal pro-
vided Hanoi ended its infiltration. Le Duc Tho refused to budge
from his demand that the U.S. overthrow the Saigon government,
by rigging the scheduled presidential elections or even by murder.
"Le Duc Tho was eager to be helpful," Kissinger writes. During
one session, "he took me aside and suggested that if we did not
know how to replace [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van]

Thieu by means of the presidential election, assassination would
do admirably. The vehemence of my refusal produced one of the
few occasions when I saw Le Duc Tho temporarily flustered. He ob-
viously had trouble understanding what I was getting so excited
about." In 1972, however, the immediate concern was with Ha-
noi's military moves.

On March 30, 1972, four weeks after the President re-
turned from his historic visit to China, the long awaited
offensive in Viet Nam finally broke over us. The pre-
tense that the Viet Nam conflict was a "people's war," a guer-
rilla uprising in the South, was over; this was an invasion by the
North Vietnamese regular army in division strength.

I was convinced that this was Hanoi's last throw of the
dice. On April 3 I told the President that the attack would now
precipitate matters; we would get no awards for losing with mod-
eration. If we defeated the offensive, we would get a settlement.
The North Vietnamese had thrown everything into their effort;
if it failed, they would have no choice except to negotiate.

Against intense bureaucratic opposition, Nixon ordered re-
peated augmentations of our air and naval forces in Southeast
Asia. On April 9 Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin com-
plained that our buildup was growing ominous. "Anatol," I re-
plied, "we have been warning you for months that if there were
an offensive we would take drastic measures to end the war
once and for all. That situation has now arisen." He did not bris-
tle. The Soviets rarely bully when they believe the opponent to
be strong and serious.

A great deal now depended on our exchanges with Mos-
cow. During a luncheon on April 12, Dobrynin assured me that
his leadership was not interested in a showdown. He said that a
visit by me to Moscow, which had been discussed since early in
the year, was now urgent. The agenda could be Viet Nam, as

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39

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well as accelerated preparations for a summit meeting between Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev.

The proposition evoked the most diverse emotions in Nixon. He longed for the summit. To be the first American President in Moscow stimulated his sense of history; to go where Eisenhower had been rebuffed would fulfill his ambition to outstrip his old mentor. On the other hand, Nixon was suspicious of a Soviet ploy to delay or complicate our planned military campaign against North Viet Nam. Not the least of Nixon's concerns was how he would explain to Rogers yet another secret mission by his security adviser.

Nixon decided to go to Camp David while I was in Moscow; it would be announced that he and I were reviewing the situation together. From there, he would break the news to the Secretary of State that we had received a sudden invitation from Brezhnev to discuss Viet Nam and that in view of its urgency he had accepted it on the spur of the moment.

Kissinger went to Moscow on April 20. In his meeting with Brezhnev, "I said bluntly that Hanoi's offensive threatened the summit. I went so far as to advance the startling thesis that the Soviets had an interest in preventing a North Vietnamese victory; I doubted that the President would come to Moscow if we suffered a defeat." After ten hours of talks on Viet Nam with Brezhnev, Kissinger concluded that "we could go quite some distance before the

Soviets would jeopardize the summit." The stage was thus set for a strong U.S. riposte to Hanoi's spring offensive.

## Mining the Harbors

Speaking from the Oval Office on April 26, Nixon contrasted our peace proposals with the enemy's steady buildup for a new offensive. Twelve of North Viet Nam's 13 regular combat divisions were in South Viet Nam, Laos or Cambodia. "By July 1," the President said, "we will have withdrawn over 90% of our forces that were in Viet Nam in 1969. Before the enemy's invasion began, we had cut our air sorties in half. We have offered exceedingly generous terms for peace. The only thing we have refused to do is to accede to the enemy's demand to overthrow the lawfully constituted government of South Viet Nam and to impose a Communist dictatorship in its place."

This was the sole remaining issue.

Hanoi answered by launching another offensive, this time in the far north. On April 27, five days before I was to meet again with Le Duc Tho, the North Vietnamese attacked with the heaviest artillery barrage of the war and large numbers of tanks; much of their equipment was Soviet.

My meeting with Le Duc Tho on May 2 was brutal. Contrary to the mythology of the time, the North Vietnamese were not poor misunderstood reformers. They were implacable revolutionaries, the terror of their neighbors, coming to claim the whole of the French colonial inheritance in Indochina by whatever force was necessary. Furthermore, they were never more difficult than when they thought they had a strong military position—and never more conciliatory than when in trouble on the battlefield. Unfortunately, May 2 was a day on which Le Duc Tho was confident he had the upper hand. Quang Tri had fallen the day before. Pleiku was in peril. An Loc was now surrounded. For all Le Duc Tho knew, a complete South Vietnamese collapse was imminent.

Le Duc Tho argued that Hanoi's offensive was not in fact an offensive, since it had been provoked by the U.S., which was the real aggressor. He proceeded to quote statements from our American critics to support his position, which led to a testy exchange:

*Kissinger: Our domestic discussions are no concern of yours.*

*Le Duc Tho:* I would like to give you the evidence. It is an American source, not our source. [Senator J. William Fulbright said that the acts of the liberation forces in South Viet Nam are in direct response to your sabotage of the Paris conference—

*Kissinger:* I have heard it before. There is no need to translate. Let's go on to the discussion.

*Le Duc Tho:* I would like to quote—

*Kissinger:* I have heard it before. Please go ahead.

Le Duc Tho refused to go ahead. He did not negotiate; he simply read me the formal North Vietnamese position, publicly available for months. There was no point in continuing the meeting. Le Duc Tho was not even stalling; he was laying down terms. As I got up to leave, Le Duc Tho took me aside and said in the tone of a fellow conspirator that his side's prospects were "good."

The die was cast. The May 2 meeting revealed Hanoi's conviction that it was so close to victory that it no longer needed even the pretense of a negotiation. Our action had to provide a shock that would give the North pause and rally the South.

What concerned Nixon most was the imminent Moscow summit. Haunted by the memory of Eisenhower's experience in 1960 [when Nikita Khrushchev abruptly canceled a summit because of U-2 "spy flights" by the U.S.], he was determined that any cancellation or postponement should come at his initiative. He was adamant that a cancellation by Moscow would be humiliating for him and politically disastrous.

Nixon Adviser H.R. Haldeman strongly opposed our cancellation of the summit. It would damage the President by making him appear impulsive. Nixon suggested that Haldeman and I solicit Treasury Secretary John Connally's views.

We called on Connally at the Treasury Department around

## Melvin Laird

He was a professional politician: he spoke a language that Nixon understood. As Secretary of Defense, Laird knew his subject thoroughly before he took office. Remaining influential in the Congress, Laird could be ignored by the President only at serious risk. While his maneuvers were often as byzantine as those of Nixon, he accomplished with verve and surprising good will what Nixon performed with grim determination and inward resentment.

Laird liked to win, but unlike Nixon, derived no great pleasure from seeing someone else lose. There was about him a buoyancy and a rascally good humor that made working with him as satisfying as it could on occasion be maddening.

Laird acted on the assumption that he had a constitutional right to seek to outsmart and outmaneuver anyone with whom his office brought him into contact. I eventually learned that it was safest to begin a battle with Laird by closing off all his bureaucratic or congressional escape routes, provided I could figure them out. Only then would I broach substance. But even with such tactics, I lost as often as I won. John Ehrlichman considered mine a cowardly procedure and decided he would teach me how to deal with Laird. Following the best administrative theory of White House predominance, Ehrlichman, without troubling to touch any bureaucratic or congressional bases, transmitted a direct order to Laird to relinquish some Army-owned land in Hawaii for a national park. Laird treated this clumsy procedure the way a matador handles the lunges of a bull. He accelerated his plan to use the land for two Army recreation hotels. Using his old congressional connections, he put a bill through the Congress that neatly overrode the directive, all the time protesting that he would carry out any White House orders permitted by the Congress. The hotels are still there under Army control; the national park is still a planner's dream. Ehrlichman learned the hard way that there are dimensions of political science not taught at universities and that being right on substance does not always guarantee success in Washington.

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WHITE HOUSE YEARS

noon on Thursday, May 4. Connally's eyes were narrowed, squinting, as was his habit when he was gauging his challenge. We explained that the President was determined to resume bombing in the Hanoi-Haiphong area and had decided to pre-empt Moscow's probable reaction by canceling the summit. Haldeman said that he disagreed with the latter. Connally resoundingly seconded Haldeman. Cancellation would gain us nothing domestically; the accusation of rashness would be added to the usual barrage of criticisms. We should leave the dilemma to the Soviets, whose arms had made it all possible. Anyway, Connally did not think it a foregone conclusion that the Soviets would cancel. As soon as Connally had spoken, I knew he was right.

Connally stressed that while we should not cancel the summit, we also should not refrain from doing what we thought necessary out of fear of the Soviets' doing so. Whatever measures we took had to be decisive. Challenging the Soviet Union was, in fact, safer if we showed no hesitation. The principal issue, he said, was simply what would be the most effective military response. That too cleared the air. My preferred strategy was to blockade North Viet Nam by mining its harbors.

## Nixon's Gamble

My deputy, Alexander Haig, Haldeman and I met with Nixon in his hideaway in the Executive Office Building. The President was in good form, calm and analytical. The only symptom of his excitement was that instead of slouching in an easy chair as usual, he was pacing up and down, gesticulating with a pipe on which he was occasionally puffing, something I had never previously seen him do. On one level he was playing MacArthur. On another he was steeling himself for a decision on which his political future would depend.

Nixon then and there decided upon the mining of North Vietnamese ports. He would speak to the nation on Monday evening, May 8. He would convene the National Security Council on Monday morning.

It was one of the finest hours of Nixon's presidency. He could have taken the advice of his commander in the field, supported by his Secretary of Defense, and concentrated on the battle in South Viet Nam. He could have temporized, which is what most leaders do, and then blamed the collapse of South Viet Nam on events running out of control. He could have concentrated on the summit and used it to obscure the failure of his Viet Nam policy. Nixon did none of these. In an election year, he risked his political future on a course most of his Cabinet colleagues questioned.

*The NSC meeting ended at 12:20 p.m. on May 8. Nixon said he would make a final decision at 2 p.m., and asked Kissinger to bring the necessary papers to his Executive Office Building hideaway at that hour for signing.*

When I arrived, Haldeman was there. Before I could hand Nixon the order, he told me that Haldeman had raised new questions. To my amazement Haldeman described the dire impact that the proposed action would have on public opinion and the President's standing in the polls. When Nixon excused himself to go to the bathroom, I whirled on Haldeman, who had never meddled in substance, and castigated him for interfering at a moment of such crisis. Haldeman grinned shamefacedly, making clear by his bearing that Nixon had put him up to his little speech. I was used to many games from my complex leader; this one was beyond my comprehension—until the revelation of Nixon's taping system suggested a possible motive: the President wanted me unambiguously on record as supporting the operation lest the hated “Georgetown social set” seek to draw a distinction between him and me as they had on Cambodia. Be that as it may, Nixon returned from the bathroom and without another word signed the “execute” order.

At 8:30 p.m., while the President briefed the congressional leadership, I saw Dobrynin, whom I had called away from a din-

## Building a Bridge

During the 1970 Cambodian operation, Brian McDonnell, a young pacifist, pledged to fast until the operation was called off or he had been able to put his case to the President. Early in June 1970, on a mutual friend's suggestion, I called on McDonnell, without White House permission, at the simple residence in Georgetown where he was staying. I was moved by his sincerity even while I disagreed with his conclusions.

Brian and I met frequently afterward, always without publicity. In early 1971 Brian suggested that I meet with a group of his friends to discuss the war and the problems of our society. I invited them to the White House. The friends turned out to be a nun and two laymen who had been named as unindicted coconspirators in an alleged plot to kidnap me. When the press later learned of the meeting from my visitors, I was admonished by the Secret Service and the Attorney General.

I met with Brian and his friends on a Saturday morning in March 1971 in the White House Situation Room, and we struggled to fashion at least a temporary bridge across the mutual incomprehension that was rending our society. Gently, they expressed their deep and passionate opposition to the war; but they had no idea how to end it. My problem was to translate inchoate ideas—however deeply held—into policy. Ours was the perpetually inconclusive dialogue between statesmen and prophets, between those who operate in time and through attainable stages and those who are concerned with truth and the eternal. I found it easier to respect these committed and consistent pacifists, who hated all killing, than those whose morality was selective, who condemned American military actions but not North Vietnamese or Indian or Soviet.

Dobrynin asked what precise measures were implied in the blockade. He lost his cool only once when I asked him how the Soviet Union would react if the 15,000 Soviet soldiers in Egypt were in imminent danger of being captured by Israelis. Dobrynin became uncharacteristically vehement and revealed more than he could have intended: "First of all, we never put forces somewhere who can't defend themselves. Second, if the Israelis threaten us, we will wipe them out within two days. I can assure you our plans are made for this eventuality."

At 9 p.m. Nixon addressed the nation. In a restrained and powerful address, he repeated his willingness to settle the war. But the North Vietnamese “arrogantly refuse to negotiate anything but an imposition.” The only way to stop the killing, therefore, was “to keep the weapons of war out of the hands of the international outlaws of North Viet Nam.” He recited the military actions he was taking; he stated our negotiating position, the most forthcoming we had put forward: a standstill ceasefire, release of prisoners and total American withdrawal within four months.

Hanoi asked for increased support from its Communist backers. But there was no rush to the barricades in either Moscow or Peking. On the afternoon of May 10, Dobrynin came to the Map Room of the White House. Out of the blue, he asked whether the President had as yet decided on receiving Soviet Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev, who was in Washington on a visit. The request could only mean that the Soviet leaders had decided to fall in with our approach of business as usual. Trying to match the Ambassador's studied casualness, I allowed that I probably would be able to arrange a meeting in the Oval Office.

In every crisis tension builds steadily, sometimes nearly unbearably, until some decisive turning point. The conversation

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with Dobrynin, if not yet the turning point, deflated the pressure. We knew that the Moscow summit [described in last week's installment in TIME] was still on.

## From Stalemate to Breakthrough

By the time Nixon and I returned from the May 1972 summit in Moscow, Hanoi's spring offensive had run out of steam. With our bombing and mining making themselves felt, the North Vietnamese army was stalled. Our twin summits, in Peking and Moscow, had undoubtedly engendered a sense of isolation in the North. And they had greatly strengthened Nixon's domestic position, thus removing Hanoi's key weapon of leverage on us. In June we received the first in-conclusive hints that Hanoi might be engaged in cease-fire planning. By the middle of September, the evidence was unmistakable.

Throughout the summer, private sessions with Le Duc Tho — “Ducky” to the American negotiators—brought what Kissinger describes as “significant movement, entirely by Hanoi.” Probably convinced that Nixon would be much stronger after the November elections, Hanoi began to press for a quick settlement. Kissinger saw this, he writes, as a great opportunity; unless it was grasped, the U.S. mood was such that even with an overwhelming mandate, Nixon would quickly be “pushed against the grindstone of congressional pressures” to end the war on almost any terms. In this situation, an unprecedented four-day secret session was convened on Sunday morning, Oct. 8. The critical meeting was held in a house in suburban Gif-sur-Yvette, once owned by the French artist Fernand Léger and still adorned with his Cubist paintings and tapestries. Around noon, after Kissinger had laid out the essentially unchanged U.S. position, the North Vietnamese requested a break until four that afternoon.

My staff and I strolled a bit in the clear autumn air in the garden, whispering softly (in case the bushes were bugged). Then, to pass the time, I thought of taking a drive. After ten minutes, restless and wanting to confer more privately with Haig, I asked the driver to stop the car at a place where Haig and I could walk. He pulled over at a spot where the trees lining the road suddenly opened up to reveal a small lake. Picnickers were spreading out their food on checkered tablecloths; couples were lying under the trees. The sky had the mellow blue of the early French autumn. And none of these Parisians paid the slightest attention to this odd group of self-absorbed Americans who were walking along the narrow footpaths lined by tall grass.

For us the contrast between the matter-of-fact peacefulness of the scene and our own anxiety was almost beyond bearing. At 4 p.m. we would know whether the agony endured by so many for nearly a decade would have purchased an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.

The meeting resumed on schedule. Le Duc Tho did not beat around the bush. “In order to show our good will and to ensure a rapid end to the war, rapid restoration of peace in Vietnam, as all of us wish for, today we put forward a new proposal, a very realistic and very simple proposal,” he said.

Le Duc Tho suggested that the U.S. and North Vietnam sign an agreement settling the military questions between them —withdrawal, prisoners, cease-fire. The political problem —“that is the most thorny, the most difficult problem”—would not be allowed to prolong our negotiations. Le Duc Tho now dispensed with the entire concept of a coalition government. It was now only an “Administration of National Concord,” to be set up within three months by the two South Vietnamese parties and charged with implementing the signed agreements and “organizing” elections.

This pale shadow of their former demands for a coalition government was not much to show for a decade of heroic exertion and horrendous suffering by the North Vietnamese. After four years of implacable insistence that we dismantle the polit-

ical structure of our ally and replace it with a coalition government, Hanoi had now essentially given up its political demands.

And there were other provisions that also helped meet our concerns. For three years Hanoi had insisted on an end of American military aid to South Viet Nam. Le Duc Tho now scrapped this proposal; we could continue to supply South Viet Nam. Hanoi accepted our proposal of May 31, 1971, that infiltration into South Viet Nam cease; if observed, this would guarantee the erosion of North Vietnamese strength in the South.

At once I and most of my colleagues understood the significance of what we had heard. In the immediate recess I asked for, my aide, Winston Lord, and I shook hands and said to each other: “We have done it.” Haig, who had served in

## Chagrined Cowboy

Ever since the secret trip to China, my own relationship with Nixon had grown complicated. Until then I had been an essentially anonymous White House assistant. But now his associates were unhappy, and not without reason, that some journalists were giving me perhaps excessive credit for the more appealing aspects of our foreign policy while blaming Nixon for the unpopular moves.

No Chief Executive would take kindly to an appointee who is cast by the media as the source of all constructive actions. This was compounded by Nixon's conviction that he faced a lifelong conspiracy of the old Establishment to destroy him. He grew increasingly convinced that I was needlessly trafficking with his enemies in the “Georgetown set” and at the same time was using my public relations skills to furbish my image and not his. Starting with the India-Pakistan crisis in 1971, the White House public relations machine-ry avoided few opportunities to cut me down to size.

These tendencies were given impetus by an interview I granted to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, without doubt the single most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press. I saw her briefly on Nov. 2 and 4, 1972, in my office. I did so largely out of vanity. She had interviewed leading personalities all over the world. Fame was sufficiently novel for me to be flattered by the company I would be keeping. I had not bothered to read her writings; her evocation of other victims was thus unknown to me.

I paid the price for my naiveté. The quotes ascribed to me, statements of marginal taste gathered together in what she presented as a conversation, were the most self-serving utterances of my entire public career. What drove Nixon up the wall was a quotation Fallaci put in my mouth: “Americans like the cowboy ... who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else ... This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique.” I do not believe that I said this in that context or that it was about myself. Ms. Fallaci has consistently refused to make the tapes available to other journalists. And yet she was on to something. The “peace is at hand” press conference had had an electric effect. Coming on top of a year of successful negotiations, it was for me a moment of unusual pride not leavened by humility. Fallaci caught that mood, even if she took liberties with my pronouncements. She wrote history in the Roman style; she sought psychological, not factual, truth.

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Viet Nam, declared with emotion that we had saved the honor of the military men who had served, died and suffered there.

I have often been asked for my most thrilling moment in public service. I have participated in many spectacular events. But the moment that moved me most deeply has to be that cool, autumn, Sunday afternoon while the shadows are falling over the serene French landscape and that large quiet room, hung with abstract paintings, was illuminated only at the green baize table across which the two delegations were facing each other.

## Sailing into Stormy Seas

On our return to Washington on Oct. 12, Haig and I went to Nixon's refuge in the Executive Office Building. Somewhat exultantly, I told the President that it looked as if he had achieved all three of his major goals for 1972—the first two being the visit to Peking and the Moscow summit. Nixon's principal concern was Thieu's reaction. I was —naively—optimistic.

Nixon was quite positive that an agreement was unnecessary for the election; its benefit would be too marginal to warrant any risks. Haldeman thought that an agreement was a potential liability; he was certain that Democratic Candidate George McGovern's support had been reduced to fanatics who would not vote for Nixon even if he arranged the Second Comming. On the other hand, an agreement might disquiet conservative supporters. The Viet Nam negotiations, in short, were not used to affect the election; the election was used to accelerate the negotiations.

On Oct. 13 a cable arrived from Ambassador Bunker with a warning that whatever the agreement, we might be sailing into stormy seas in Saigon.

That was putting it mildly. "Thieu objected not to specific terms but to the fact of an agreement," Kissinger writes. He did not come right out and say so. "Instead, he fought in the Vietnamese manner: indirectly, elliptically, by methods designed to exhaust rather than to clarify, constantly needling but never addressing the real issue." On the third day of meetings, the Vietnamese presented Kissinger with 23 changes, some major, in the draft peace treaty; later that figure would triple, to 69. Finally the talks broke down completely as Thieu, between tears of rage, accused the Americans of having "connived" to sell him out. "Obviously the negotiations could not continue without his agreement," writes Kissinger. Yet "turning on Thieu would be incompatible with our sacrifice," he adds. Further, "we had to make Hanoi understand it would not be able to use our differences with Saigon to jockey us at the last moment into doing what we had refused for four years: overthrowing the political structure in South Viet Nam." In any case, Kissinger goes on, "Thieu's reaction guaranteed that the war would not end soon." Kissinger was barely back in Washington when the North Vietnamese, hoping to force Nixon's hand, went public. They broadcast the terms of the proposed treaty, which had been kept secret until then, and accused the U.S. of stalling on its implementation.

## "Peace Is at Hand"

The press conference that I held on Oct. 26 came to be denounced as a Nixon electoral ploy to raise hopes for peace during the last stages of the presidential campaign. This misses the mark completely. Once Hanoi had gone public we had no choice except to state our case. I had two objectives. One was to reassure Hanoi that we would stand by the basic agreement, while leaving open the possibility of raising Saigon's suggested changes. The second was to convey to Saigon that we were determined to proceed on our course.

So it happened that I appeared for the first time on national television at the very end of Nixon's first term. The White House public relations people, convinced that my accent might

## John Connally

Toward Connally there was none of that ambivalent sense of competition and insecurity that marked Nixon's relations with the other Cabinet members. Unlike Rogers and Laird, Connally had not had any contact with Nixon during previous crises in Nixon's life. Nixon therefore did not have with Connally the same fear of not being taken sufficiently seriously. Connally's swaggering self-assurance was Nixon's Walter Mitty image of himself.

He was one person whom Nixon never denigrated behind his back.

And Connally was indeed the most formidable personality in the Cabinet. Highly intelligent, superbly endowed physically, he looked and acted as if he were born to lead. He was not timid, nor did he lack courage. "You will be measured in this town," he said to me once, "by the enemies you destroy. The bigger they are, the bigger you will be." Connally relished combat. Whatever one might think of his views, he was a leader.

Like many self-made Texans he preferred the frontal assault to the indirect maneuver. He was convinced that the best way to transcend the malaise of Viet Nam was for our leaders to be visibly engaged in a tough defense of the American interest. He demonstrated immediately that the notorious Nixon "Palace Guard," which forced Cabinet members to deal with the President through White House assistants, could not survive the challenge of a determined Cabinet member. He simply ran over them on international economic policy. If he needed White House guidance, he simply crossed the street from the Treasury and went to the Oval Office. He saw no reason to treat foreigners with any greater tenderness. He believed that in the final analysis countries yield only to pressure; he had no faith in consultations except from a position of superior strength. His presence guaranteed that the economic dialogue with Europe would not be dull; it also ensured that the European contribution would have to be something more solid than ritual incantations of good will.

disturb Middle America, had previously permitted pictures but no sound at my press conferences. On Oct. 26 they finally took a chance on my pronunciation.

In my opening remarks I uttered the phrase that was to haunt me: "A war that has been raging for ten years is drawing to a conclusion... We believe that peace is at hand."

Nixon was not aware that I would use the words "peace is at hand." It was a pithy message—too optimistic, as it turned out —a signal to Hanoi that we were not reneging and to Saigon that we would not be derailed. And despite all the opprobrium heaped on it later, the statement was essentially true—though if I had to do it over I would choose a less dramatic phrase. The fact is that a bitter war that had lasted ten years and cost untold lives was settled within weeks of that statement.

Meanwhile, our public debate on Viet Nam heated up once again. Two main lines of attack developed: that the whole thing was a fraud to help Nixon win the election, which all polls showed was nonsense; that the same terms had been attainable four years earlier, which was totally untrue. Some antiwar critics had long since given up on cease-fire; on North Vietnamese withdrawal from Laos and Cambodia; on a ban on infiltration into South Viet Nam; on continued aid to Saigon. Now that much more had been achieved, they could not bring themselves to admit that possibly their Government had not been so immoral and stupid as their folklore had it.

TIME, OCTOBER 8, 1979

45

SPECIAL SECTION

The Christmas Bombing

When Kissinger returned to Paris to resume negotiations with Le Duc Tho in November 1972, the U.S. was in a bind. Despite Thieu's stubbornness, Washington was reluctant to impose terms on him that would have had the effect, as Kissinger puts it, "of undermining the morale and survival of our ally." On the other hand, Hanoi now seemed less eager for an agreement, and appeared to be gambling that if it stonewalled long enough, a new, more liberal U.S. Congress would soon arrive in Washington and, in Kissinger's words, "force us out of the war" by cutting off funds. In a memo to Nixon, Kissinger warned: "They are playing for a clear-cut victory through our split with Saigon or our domestic collapse rather than run the risk of a negotiated settlement. We are faced with the same kind of hard decisions as last spring." Meetings in November and December led nowhere, and on Dec. 13, convinced that "we were simply treading water," a discouraged Kissinger headed home. Hanoi, he was sure, had been determined ever since the negotiations had resumed "not to allow the agreement to be completed. This was the insoluble problem over which we began the Christmas bombing five days later."

During the December negotiations, I had tried to impress on Nixon that a breakup (or a recess) would mean that we would have to step up military pressures on Hanoi if we did not want either an endless war or an unenforceable peace likely to wreck Saigon. I am positive that had Hanoi in December given us one or two minimal, essentially window-dressing, propositions, Nixon would have accepted them with alacrity. He was not anxious to resume bombing.

Nixon, Haig and I met in the Oval Office on the morning of Dec. 14 to consider our course. All of us agreed that some military response was necessary. I favored resuming bombing over all of North Viet Nam, but using fighter-bombers over populated areas north of the 20th parallel. Haig favored B-52 attacks, especially north of the 20th parallel, on the ground that only a massive shock could bring Hanoi back to the conference table. Nixon accepted Haig's view. I went along with it—at first with slight reluctance, later with conviction. For Nixon and Haig were, I still believe, essentially right. We had only two choices: taking a massive, shocking step to end the war quickly, or letting matters drift.

The bombing resumed on Dec. 18 and lasted for twelve days. The moral indignation rose with each day. The proposition that the U.S. Government was deliberately slaughtering civilians in a purposeless campaign of terror went unchallenged. Yet Hanoi radio, on Jan. 4, 1973, cited a preliminary figure of about 1,300 persons killed after twelve days of bombing; many must have been military personnel, for antiaircraft batteries were a primary objective. I received incredibly bitter letters from erstwhile friends, from angry citizens. (None of them wrote me in January when the agreement was reached.) It seemed to be taken for granted that North Viet Nam was blameless and that we were embarked on a course of exterminating civilians.

I was in the eye of a hurricane whose elemental force derived not only from the hatreds of the two Viet Nams and the hysteria of domestic critics, but also from a painful rift between Nixon and me [see box "Chagrined Cowboy\)]. In early December, TIME magazine, with the best will in the world, added to earlier irritations by selecting Nixon and me as joint Men of the Year. I knew immediately how this would go down with my chief, whose limited capacity for forgiveness surely did not include being upstaged (and being given equal billing as Man of the Year with his assistant was tantamount to that). I appealed all the way up the TIME hierarchy to the editor-in-chief, Hedley Donovan, to take me off the cover. Donovan put an end to it by replying that if my importuning did not stop, I would be made Man of the Year in my own right.

When the bombing started, many journalists applied the very categories so assiduously fed out by White House p.r. people in the preceding weeks to cut me down to size: Nixon was

identified with the "hard," I with the "softer" position. I did not indicate to any journalist that I had opposed the decision to use B-52s. But I also did little to dampen the speculation, partly out of a not very heroic desire to deflect the assault from my person. Some journalists may have mistaken my genuine depression about the seeming collapse of the peace efforts for a moral disagreement. Though I acted mainly by omission and partly through emotional exhaustion, it is one of the episodes of my public life in which I take no great pride.

Nixon was justifiably infuriated by assertions that I had opposed the bombing. I sensed that my period in office should draw to a close. If negotiations collapsed, I would resign immediately, assuming full responsibility. If they succeeded, I would see the settlement through and then resign toward the end of 1973. But for Watergate, I would have carried out this plan.

With Le Duc Tho (right) and an interpreter at Gif-sur-Yvette

STEVE NORTHUP

46

TIME, OCTOBER 8, 1979

WHITE HOUSE YEARS

No foreign policy event of the Nixon presidency evoked such outrage as the Christmas bombing. On no issue was he more unjustly treated. It was not a barbarous act of revenge. It did not cause exorbitant casualties by Hanoi's own figures; certainly it cost much less than the continuation of the war, which was the alternative. A decade of frustration with Viet Nam, a generation of hostility to Nixon, and—let me be frank—exaspitation over his electoral triumph, coalesced to produce a unanimity of editorial outrage that suppressed all judgment in an emotional orgy. Nixon chose the only weapon he had available. His decision speeded the end of the war; I can think of no other measure that would have.

## Birthday Breakthrough

> "The prediction that the bombing was destroying all prospects for negotiation was as common and as false as the accusation that it was a massacre of civilians," writes Kissinger. "Exactly the opposite happened." Indeed, on Dec. 18, the day the bombing resumed, the U.S. proposed to Hanoi that the talks also resume, and Hanoi agreed on Dec. 30. The date was set for Jan. 8, 1973. Says Kissinger: "I was positive we had won our gamble and that the next round of negotiations would succeed."

On Jan. 8 Le Duc Tho and I met again at Gif-sur-Yvette for what we both had promised would be our last round of negotiations. The breakthrough came on Jan. 9. It was Nixon's 60th birthday. I reported to Washington:

> "We celebrated the President's birthday today by making a major breakthrough in the negotiations. The Vietnamese have broken our hearts several times before, and we just cannot assume success until everything is pinned down, but the mood and the businesslike approach was as close to October as we have seen since October."

Nixon flashed back: "If the other side stays on this track and doesn't go downhill tomorrow, what you have done today is the best birthday present I have had in 60 years."

Great events rarely have a dramatic conclusion. So it was in Paris in January. After the issue of the demilitarized zone between North and South Viet Nam was settled (we agreed that the zone is a provisional military demarcation between two parts of Viet Nam—thus recognizing the separate entity of South Viet Nam; no movement was to be permitted across the DMZ by military units, but civilian movement through it would be negotiated), there remained primarily the theological issue of how to sign the documents so that Saigon did not have to acknowledge the Communist-front Provisional Revolutionary Government. We devised a formula according to which neither Saigon nor the P.R.G. was mentioned in the document; the agreement to end the war in Viet Nam has the distinction of being the only document with which I am familiar in diplomatic history that does mention the main parties. The negotiations had begun in 1968 with a haggle over the shape of the table; they ended in 1973 with a haggle in effect over the same problem.

I returned to the U.S. on Jan. 13, stopping in Washington to pick up Haig for the trip to Key Biscayne. I reported to Nixon around midnight; we met until 2:30 a.m. Though I was unhappy with some of Nixon's actions toward me, though I objected to some of his tactics, I felt that night an odd tenderness toward him. He had seen our country through perilous times. He had honored me by his trust, he had sought to sustain our country's strength and dignity as he saw it, and he had revolutionized diplomacy. We spoke to each other in nearly affectionate terms, like veterans of bitter battles at a last reunion, even though we both sensed somehow that too much had happened between us to make the rest of the journey together.

Haig would leave on Jan. 14 for Saigon with an ultimatum that we would sign the document, if necessary, without Thieu. I would return to Paris on Jan. 23 to complete the agreement. The signature by foreign ministers would take place in Paris on Jan. 27. As a sop to Rogers, I had agreed not to attend the final

culmination of these efforts. What we had struggled, prayed, hoped and perhaps even hated for—the end of our involvement in Indochina, and peace—was about to be celebrated.

But we still did not have the agreement of that doughty little man in Saigon, President Thieu. Nixon was determined to prevail. "Brutality is nothing," he said to me. "You have never seen it if this son-of-a-bitch doesn't go along, believe me." Haig delivered a scorching letter from Nixon to Thieu on Jan. 16. Its crucial paragraph read: "I have irrevocably decided to initial the Agreement on Jan. 27, 1973, in Paris. I will do so, if necessary, alone. In that case I shall have to explain publicly that your Government obstructs peace. The result will be an inevitable and immediate termination of U.S. economic and military assistance." On Jan. 21, Thieu finally relented.

I believed then, and I believe now, that the agreement could have worked. [A cease-fire would begin Jan. 27. All U.S. combat troops would be withdrawn and military prisoners released within 60 days. The South Vietnamese people would have the right to determine their own political future. The DMZ would be respected. The U.S. would pledge to aid in reconstruction efforts.] The agreement reflected a true equilibrium of forces on the ground. If the equilibrium were maintained, the agreement could have been maintained. We believed Saigon was strong enough to deal with guerrilla war and low-level violations. The implicit threat of our retaliation would be likely to deter massive violations. We had no illusions about Hanoi's long-term goals. Nor did we go through the agony of four years of war and searing negotiations simply to achieve a "decent interval" for our withdrawal. We were determined to enable Saigon to prevail if assaulted. But for the collapse of executive authority as a result of Watergate and congressional refusal to provide adequate aid to Saigon, I believe we would have succeeded.

## A Broken Heart

On Jan. 22, two days after Richard Nixon's second Inaugural, I left for Paris for the final meeting with Le Duc Tho. It was to take place for the first time on neutral and ceremonial ground in a conference room at Avenue Kléber, the scene of 174 futile plenary sessions since 1968.

When I arrived in Paris, I learned that Lyndon Johnson had died that day. He was himself a casualty of the Viet Nam War, which he had inherited and then expanded in striving to fulfill his conception of our nation's duty and of his obligation to his fallen predecessor. There was nothing he had wanted less than to be a war President, and this no doubt contributed to his inconclusive conduct of the struggle. It was symbolic that this hulking, imperious, vulnerable, expansive, aspiring man should die with the war that had broken his heart.

The meeting started at 9:35 a.m., Jan. 23. Le Duc Tho managed even on this solemn occasion to make himself obnoxious by insisting on ironclad assurances of American economic aid to North Viet Nam. I told him that this could not be discussed further until after the agreement was signed; it also depended on congressional approval and on observance of the agreement. Finally, at a quarter to one, we initialed the various texts. After this, Le Duc Tho and I stepped out on the street in a cold misty rain and shook hands for the benefit of photographers.

America's Viet Nam War was over.

## Next Week

In Part 3: A momentous decision "to risk war in the triangular Soviet-Chinese-American relationship"—on Peking's side.

* A near showdown with Moscow over a Soviet-backed invasion of Jordan by Syrian troops and tanks. * Tips on the statesman's craft ("The old adage that men grow in office has not proved true in my experience"). * An unsentimental philosophy of foreign policy: "One reason the Viet Nam debate grew so bitter was that both supporters and critics of the original involvement shared the same traditional sense of universal moral mission."

TIME, OCTOBER 8, 1979

49

SERIE

Nixon-Abgesandter Kissinger, Gastgeber Breschnew im Kreml 1972*: „Den Russen ein Lockmittel vor die Nase halten“

## „K.-machen Sie was daraus“

### Henry Kissingers Memoiren (III): Geheimmission nach Moskau

Am Donnerstag, dem 20. April 1972, flog ich gegen 1 Uhr morgens in einer Maschine des Präsidenten nach Moskau ab. In meiner Begleitung befand sich auch der sowjetische Bot-schafter Anatolij Dobrynin, der so am schnellsten nach Moskau kommen konnte. Ein sowjetischer Navigator befand sich an Bord, um die Maschine über sowjetisches Territorium zu leiten.

Meine Reise nach Moskau wurde geheimgehalten und sollte erst nach meiner Rückkehr bekanntgegeben werden. Die Sowjets hatten uns schon seit Monaten zu dieser Reise eingeladen, höchstwahrscheinlich, weil ich auch nach Peking in geheimer Mission gangen war und sie für sich die gleichen Rechte in Anspruch nahmen.

Auch Nixon war für Geheimverhandlungen, unter anderem, weil er so eine Konfrontation mit seinem Außenminister hinausschieben konnte. Ich selbst gab vertraulichen Gesprächen den Vorzug, weil ich dann nicht gewungen war, die Erwartungen zu erfüllen, die die Medien und unsere Kritiker an meine Mission knüpften.

Ich traf gegen 20 Uhr in Moskau ein. Unsere Maschine rollte in einer abgelegenen Ecke eines Militärflughafens aus. An der Gangway empfing mich der Erste Stellvertretende Außenminister Wassilij Kusnezow, ein im Dienst ergrauter Veteran des sowjetischen Außenministeriums.

Eine stattliche Wagenkolonne brachte uns im 160-Kilometer-Tempo zu den Gästehäusern in den Leninbergen oberhalb der Moskwa. Ihre Architektur entsprach fast genau derjenigen in Peking.

Die Häuser sahen aus wie die Villen wohlhabender mittelständischer Industrieller, die ihr Prestige durch die Wucht ihrer Wohnhäuser und die

Pracht der Einrichtung unter Beweis stellen müssen. Unser Gästehaus war äußerst bequem eingerichtet.

In einem als Büro eingerichteten Zimmer befand sich ein Safe, der uns zur Aufbewahrung von Geheimdokumenten angeboten wurde. Es war ein altmodisch wirkender Stahlkasten, dessen Konstruktion den Eindruck erweckte, daß er aus beweglichen Teilen bestand. Man konnte sich vorstellen, daß die einzelnen Fächer wie Speiseaufzüge den Inhalt über Nacht in ein anderes Stockwerk transportierten, damit ihn unsere Gastgeber in aller Ruhe durchsehen konnten.

Wir lehnten das Angebot höflich ab. Unsere geheimen Unterlagen waren in einem großen Metallkasten untergebracht, der den ganzen Tag von dem Begleitschutz-Agenten Gary McLeod bewacht wurde. Nachts nahm er den Kasten in das Schlafzimmer mit, das er mit dem Agenten Jack Ready teilte, und stellte ihn zwischen beide Betten.

Auf dieser Reise benutzte ich auch zum erstenmal ein Tonbandgerät, das

* Mit Außenminister Gromyko (I.), Botschafter Dobrynin (2. v. I.), Übersetzer Suchodrew.

© 1979 Henry A. Kissinger: „White House Years" (Little, Brown; Boston). Die deutsche Buchausgabe erscheint unter dem Titel „Memoiren 1968—1973" im C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München. Übersetzung: Hans-Jürgen von Koskull.

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

203

eine bizarre Aufnahme abspielte, die so
klang, als redeten viele Stimmen ein
sinnloses Kauderwelsch durcheinander.
Wenn ich mit meinen Mitarbeitern et-
was besprechen und dabei nicht abge-
hört werden wollte, setzten wir uns
dicht um den Recorder und redeten lei-
se miteinander.

Ob wir mit dieser Methode Erfolg
gehabt haben, wissen wir natürlich
nicht, aber jeder, der den Apparat län-
gere Zeit benutzte, mußte selbst ver-
rückt dabei werden. Deshalb verwen-
deten wir das Gerät nur sehr selten.
Meistens sprachen wir in Andeutungen
oder verkehrten schriftlich miteinan-
der.

Manchmal unternahm ich mit einem
Kollegen einen Spaziergang im Garten,
aber auch dort unterhielten wir uns nur
im Flüsterton, denn die Sicherheitsleute
von Willy Brandt hatten uns erzählt,
daß sogar in den Bäumen Abhörvor-
richtungen untergebracht seien.

Wir hatten einen solchen Respekt
vor dem KGB, daß unsere Sekretärin-
nen von zu Hause mitgebrachte mecha-
nische Schreibmaschinen benutzten,
damit unsere aufmerksamen Gastgeber
den Text nicht aus den elektrischen Im-
pulsen ablesen konnten.

Um 23 Uhr suchten Außenminister
Andrej Gromyko und Dobrynin mich
auf, um das Programm für den näch-
sten Tag festzulegen. Ich bat meine Se-
kretärin, Julie Pineau, ein Protokoll
aufzunehmen.

Gromyko war das offenbar unange-
nehm; deshalb sprach er so leise auf
englisch mit mir, als wollte er es ihr ab-
sichtlich erschweren, ihn zu verstehen.
Wenn andere Mitglieder einer Ver-
handlungsdelegation sich Notizen
machten, störte es Gromyko nicht; in
diesem Fall war es die Sekretärin, de-
ren Gegenwart ihn beunruhigte.

Ich sagte ihm, mein wichtigster Auf-
trag sei, dafür zu sorgen, daß die be-
vorstehende amerikanisch-sowjetische
Gipfelkonferenz nicht durch die Viet-
nam-Frage belastet werde. Die Tatsa-
che, daß unsere beiden Länder in der
Lage seien, die ganze Menschheit zu
vernichten, bürde uns die Verpflich-
tung auf, unsere Beziehungen zu ver-
bessern. Jetzt ergebe sich eine Gelegen-
heit dafür, sie werde aber durch Hanoi
behindert.

Ich war bevollmächtigt, über einen
weiten Fragenkreis zu sprechen, hatte
aber vor allem die Anweisung, alle
Möglichkeiten für die Beendigung des
Krieges in Vietnam auszuloten. Gro-
myko erklärte, Breschnew sei bereit,
über alle den Krieg betreffenden Fra-
gen zu sprechen — und schon diese Be-
reitwilligkeit war einmalig.

Vor allem versuchte er, mir klarzu-
machen, für wie wichtig die sowjetische
Führung das Gipfeltreffen hielt und
mit welchem Ernst sie sich auf die Be-
gegnung mit dem Präsidenten vorberei-

tete. Das ließ mich hoffen, daß es uns
auf dem Gipfel gelingen könne, die So-
wjets zu veranlassen, auf eine raschere
Beendigung des Krieges in Vietnam
hinzuwirken.

Am nächsten Tag erwartete uns Leonid Breschnew im größten Gäste-
haus des Villenkomplexes, in dem wir
untergebracht waren. Flankiert von
Gromyko und Dobrynin, begrüßte mich
der Nachfolger Lenins, Stalins und
Chruschtschows mit überschäumender
Herzlichkeit.

Wahrscheinlich hatte man ihm gera-
ten, einen gewissen Abstand zu wahren,
aber sein Temperament ging immer
wieder mit ihm durch. Entweder schlug
er mir kräftig auf die Schulter, oder er
trat einen Schritt zurück und sah mich
mit ernster Miene an. Er führte mich in
ein Eßzimmer, wo ein Tisch mit grü-
nem Tuch gedeckt war; ein Zeichen,

daß die Verhandlungen beginnen kon-
ten.

Ich dankte ihm für die warme Be-
grüßung, und Breschnew erwiderte
scherzend, er hoffe, er werde mich
noch erwärmen können. Ich fragte, ob
dies eine Drohung sei oder eine ange-
nehme Aussicht. Breschnew erwiderte,
die Sowjet-Union halte nichts von Dro-
hungen — eine erfreuliche Mitteilung,
die mich eigentlich überraschte.

Innerhalb von zwei Monaten stand
ich hier zum zweitenmal dem mächti-
gen Führer eines kommunistischen Gi-
ganten gegenüber. Ein größerer Gegen-
satz als der zwischen Breschnew und
den Chinesen ließ sich kaum vorstellen.

Mao Tse-tung und Tschou En-lai
waren Vertreter einer Gesellschaft mit
der längsten ununterbrochenen Regie-
rungspraxis; sie verkörperten eine Na-
tion, die in ihrem Teil der Welt kultu-
rell von jeher an der Spitze gestanden
hatte. Die Männer der chinesischen

The New York Times

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

205

Führung waren reserviert, selbstsicher und gelassen.

Breschnew aber war der Vertreter einer Nation, die nicht überlebt hatte, weil sie ihre Eroberer zivilisierte, sondern weil sie ausdauernder gewesen war als ihre Eroberer. Das Volk, das weder vollständig europäisch noch vollständig asiatisch war, lebte in einer Kultur, die ihre Traditionen vernichtet hatte, ohne etwas wirklich Neues an ihre Stelle gesetzt zu haben.

Breschnew versuchte denn auch, den Mangel an innerer Sicherheit durch Ungestüm und den latenten Minderwertigkeitskomplex durch gelegentlichen Aufbrausen zu verdecken. Der äußere Anschein bedeutete für ihn sehr viel.

Bei meinem Besuch zeigte er mir voller Stolz die geräumigen und eleganten Zaren-Gemächer im Kreml, in denen Nixon untergebracht werden sollte, und erwartete offensichtlich meine besondere Anerkennung. Bei den Chinesen wäre so etwas undenkbar gewesen.

Im Korridor zwischen den Fenstern standen auf Marmorpodesten riesige Vasen. Sie waren mit Tüchern bedeckt. Ich wurde ausdrücklich auf die makellose Glasur aufmerksam gemacht, und man sagte mir, die Tücher würden erst eine Stunde vor Nixons Eintreffen von den Vasen genommen werden, damit sie sich dem Präsidenten in ihrem vollen Glanz präsentierten.

Das alles schien mir Ausdruck einer gewissen Unsicherheit, die eigentlich zu dem sonst so selbstbewußten Auftreten Breschnews nicht passen wollte. Hier kamen sich die Persönlichkeiten Nixons und Breschnews sehr nahe.

Die Chinesen wahrten Abstand, auch wenn sie noch so herzlich waren. Breschnew hatte eine starke Ausstrahlung und drängte sich dazu noch körperlich an seinen Gesprächspartner heran. Seine Stimmung war starken Schwankungen unterworfen, und er zeigte seine Emotionen ganz offen.

Als ich Leonid Breschnew kennenernte, war er der führende Mann der Sowjet-Union. Er verfügte aber offensichtlich noch nicht über die uneingeschränkte Macht, auch hatte der körperliche Verfall bereits begonnen. Dammals hatte ich den Eindruck, daß er mir die gemeinsamen Auffassungen eines Kollektivs vortrug, dem er wiederum Rechenschaft schuldig war.

Augenscheinlich hatte Breschnew die Vollmacht, den Auffassungen des Kollektivs gewisse Nuancen zu geben, durfte aber den Kurs nicht nach eigennem Gutdünken radikal ändern, wie dies die Stellung eines amerikanischen Präsidenten zuläßt. Aber zugleich hatte man den Eindruck, daß ihm das Politbüro folgen würde, wenn er sich von

der Notwendigkeit einer Kursänderung überzeugt hätte.

Bei unserer ersten Begegnung machte Breschnew einen nervösen Eindruck. Wahrscheinlich war das Ausdruck einer gewissen Unsicherheit, denn er verhandelte zum erstenmal mit ranghohen Amerikanern; vielleicht lag es aber auch an seinem ausgiebigen Tabak- und Alkoholkonsum, seiner Herzkrankheit und den schweren Belastungen, denen er im Amt ausgesetzt war.

Seine Hände waren immer in Bewegung. Er spielte mit seiner Uhr, klopfte die Asche von der Zigarette, die er ständig in der Hand hielt (bis er sich durch ein Zigarettenetui zu disziplinieren suchte, das sich nur in bestimmten Zeitabständen öffnen ließ — was er jedoch geschickt zu umgehen wußte), oder schlug mit der Zigarettenspitze gegen einen Aschenbecher.

Er konnte nicht einen Augenblick stillsitzen. Während der Dolmetscher übersetzte, was Breschnew eben gesagt hatte, stand der Parteichef auf, ging im

Zimmer umher, unterhielt sich laut mit seinen Genossen oder lief sogar hinaus, um sofort wieder zurückzukommen.

Man mußte deshalb bei Verhandlungen mit Breschnew immer darauf gefaßt sein, daß er plötzlich verschwand, und versuchte man, ihn von einer Sache zu überzeugen, so hörte er unter Umständen gar nicht zu, sondern drängte seinen Gesprächspartner, doch etwas zu sich zu nehmen.

Einmal brachte er eine Spielzeugk none ins Konferenzzimmer mit. Die Kanone wollte nicht losgehen. Daraufhin beschäftigte er sich so konzentriert damit, den Mechanismus wieder in Ordnung zu bringen, daß er überhaupt nicht darauf achtete, was ich ihm zu sagen hatte. Schließlich löste sich das Ding mit einem lauten Knall, und Breschnew stolzierte im Zimmer umher wie ein Preisboxer, der seinen Gegner k. o. geschlagen hat.

Er erzählte gern Anekdoten unterschiedlichsten Niveaus, die gelegent

Generalsekretär Breschnew: Kanone in der Konferenz

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

207

SHARP
VC-6300 G
(VHS)

# Alle Videorecorder zeic
Dieser kan

Der SHARP Videorecorder VC-6300 G (VHS) hat z.B. ein ausgezeichnetes
Gedächtnis. 7 Tage im voraus können Sie mit Quatzuhr-Genauigkeit bis zu 7 Programme
zur Aufzeichnung eintasten. Auf bis zu 7 verschiedenen Kanälen, weil wir schon an das

Fernsehen der achtziger Jahre gedacht haben.

Auch die mühsame Suche nach dem Anfang eines beliebigen
Programms auf der Cassette nimmt er Ihnen ab. Knopfdruck - und schon

tastet das APLD-Suchsystem im Schnell-
lauf das Band ab und stoppt genau am

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Das elektronische Bandzählwerk und das
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Präzision und leichte Bedienung.

Sie brauchen sich nicht einmal zu merken, wie weit die Cassette schon
abgelaufen ist: Eine LED-Kette zeigt Ihnen die Bandrestzeit an und signalisiert rechtzeitig,
wenn die Cassette ausgewechselt werden muß.

Oder eine andere feine Sache, die Sie von sehr guten Filmprojektoren

SHARP

US-Bomber über Nordvietnam: „Atmosphäre ein wenig belastet“

lich, aber nicht immer in den Rahmen paßten. Bei unserer ersten Sitzung erzählte er folgende Anekdotе:

„Es gibt da eine Geschichte von einem Reisenden, der in ein bestimmtes Dorf fahren will. Er kennt die Entfernung nicht, sondern nur die Straße und sein Ziel. Auf dem Weg begegnet er einem Holzfäller und fragt ihn, wie lange es noch dauern wird, bis er das Dorf erreicht hat. Der Holzfäller sagt, er wisse es nicht.

Der Reisende ärgert sich, denn er weiß, daß der Holzfäller aus diesem Dorf ist und es deshalb wissen müßte. Er geht weiter, aber nach ein paar Schritten ruft der Holzfäller ihm nach: Halt! Du wirst 15 Minuten brauchen. — Warum hast du mir das nicht gleich gesagt? — Ich wußte nicht, wie große Schritte du machst.“

Mit dieser banalen Geschichte wollte Breschnew mich dazu bewegen, in den Verhandlungen „große Schritte“ zu machen. Eine zweite Anekdotе zeigt vielleicht, in welcher Atmosphäre meine Verhandlungen mit Breschnew geführt wurden.

BRESCHNEW: Es gibt eine Geschichte über den Zaren, dem die Papiere eines Verurteilten vorgelegt wurden. Es ging darum, ob er hingerichtet oder begnadigt werden sollte. Der Zar schrieb nur drei Worte auf ein Stück

Papier: „Exekution unmöglich begnadigen“, und zwar ohne jede Interaktion. Es hätte heißen können: „Exekution unmöglich, begnadigen.“ Aber so stand es nicht da; der Zar hatte es ohne Komma geschrieben, und nun mußten die Richter entscheiden, was er gemeint habe.

KISSINGER: Was geschah mit dem Mann?

BRESCHNEW: Ich werde es Ihnen am Schluß unseres Gesprächs erzählen, bevor Sie gehen. Meine Antwort wird davon abhängen, wie unser Gespräch ausfällt.

GROMYKO: Die Antwort sollte vielleicht erst beim Gipfeltreffen gegeben werden.

BRESCHNEW: Nein, Dr. Kissinger muß bei seiner Abreise aus Moskau auf alle Fragen eine klare Antwort haben. Vielleicht wollen Sie dem Präsidenten diese Geschichte erzählen. Er wird wissen wollen, wie sie endet. Wenn Sie das nicht wissen, wird er sich fragen, worüber wir uns hier unterhalten haben.

KISSINGER: Nach meinen Erfahrungen mit der Bürokratie glaube ich, sie haben beides getan.

Ich habe das Ende der Geschichte niemals erfahren. Kurz gesagt, Breschnew war nicht nur der erste Mann im Zentralkomitee der KPdSU, er war vor allem ein Russe. Er war eine Mi-

schung aus Grobheit und Wärme; brutal und anziehend, verschlagen und entwaffnend.

Auf der einen Seite prahlte er mit der Stärke der Sowjet-Union, und andererseits hatte man das Gefühl, er sei sich seiner Sache doch nicht ganz so sicher. Aufgewachsen in einer rückständigen Gesellschaft, die fast dem Überfall durch die Nationalsozialisten zum Opfer gefallen wäre, kannte er vielleicht das Gesetz von der Relativität der Macht und spürte augenscheinlich tief in seinem Inneren, wie verwundbar das sowjetische System war.

Auf der Sitzung am 21. April erklärte Breschnew denn auch wortreich, wie wichtig ihm der Erfolg des bevorstehenden Gipfels sei. Es werde auf jeden Fall zu Vereinbarungen kommen: „Wir haben nicht den Wunsch, es beim Gipfeltreffen zu einem Streit kommen zu lassen. Das können wir leicht haben, wenn wir in Washington und in Moskau bleiben.“

Am Rande erwähnte er auch Vietnam. In ungewohnt delikater Weise reagierte er auf die fünf Tage zuvor erfolgten Angriffe unserer B-52 gegen Hanoi und Haiphong: „Leider haben gewisse Ereignisse in jüngster Zeit — kurz vor unserem Zusammentreffen —

210

die Atmosphäre ein wenig belastet."
Das war keine besonders energische
Unterstützung eines Verbündeten, der
auch jetzt noch täglich mit Bomben an-
gegriffen wurde.

Aber sogar diese Bemerkung wurde
sofort durch die Versicherung abge-
schwächt: „Ich sage nicht, daß damit
die Erfolgsaussichten unseres Treffens
gefährdet wären.“

Am nächsten Tag erklärte Bresch-
new, er habe weder auf unsere Fri-
densvorschläge noch auf unsere Bom-
benflugzeuge Einfluß. Er äußerte sich
nicht zu den Friedensvorschlägen und
sprach auch im Hinblick auf die Bom-
benangriffe keine Drohungen aus. Für
ihn lag die Priorität eindeutig bei dem
Gipfeltreffen und den amerikanisch-
sowjetischen Beziehungen, nicht bei
Vietnam.

Aber den ganzen ersten Tag lang
sprachen wir über den Krieg. Ich er-
klärte im Namen des Präsidenten, es
liege uns viel an einem Erfolg des Gip-
feltreffens; wir wollten nicht nur die
Atmosphäre verbessern, sondern auch
die Substanz der Ost-West-Beziehun-
gen. Damit sollte die Doppelzüngigkeit
Nordvietnams angedeutet werden und
unsere Entschlossenheit zum Ausdruck
kommen, in Vietnam eine endgültige
Entscheidung herbeizuführen.

Ich sagte unmißverständlich, daß die
Ende März begonnene Frühjahrsoffen-
sive Hanois den Gipfel bedrohe. Ich
ging sogar so weit, die etwas überra-
sende These aufzustellen, die Sowjets
hätten ein Interesse daran, einen nord-
vietnamesischen Sieg zu verhindern;
denn ich zweifelte daran, daß der Prä-
sident nach einer Niederlage in Viet-
nam die Reise nach Moskau antreten
würde.

Selbst wenn der Ausgang dann noch
nicht feststünde, werde sich das ameri-
kanische Volk der Tatsache bewußt
sein, daß die Offensive der Nordvietna-
mesen nur durch sowjetische Waffen
ermöglicht worden sei; die Handlungs-
freiheit des Präsidenten sei daher er-
heblich eingeschränkt:

„Ich muß dem Generalsekretär ganz
ehrlich sagen: Wenn die Entwicklung
unkontrolliert so weitergeht, werden
wir Maßnahmen ergreifen, die den
Gipfel bedrohen, oder wir werden,
selbst wenn es zu einem Gipfel kommt,
die Handlungsfreiheit verlieren, die wir
brauchen, um zu den besagten Ergeb-
nissen zu gelangen.“

Ich erklärte, es sei unbedingt not-
wendig, daß noch vor dem 6. Mai eine
Besprechung mit dem nordvietnamesi-
schen Verhandlungspartner Le Duc
Tho anberaumt werde und diese Be-
sprechung zu deutlichen Ergebnissen
führen müsse: „Wir sind nicht an den
Gesprächen interessiert, sondern an
den Ergebnissen.“

Breschnew antwortete in erstaunlich
mildem Ton. Er widersprach meinem
Urteil über die Nordvietnamesen nicht
und ging auch nicht auf meine nur we-

Filou rouge.
Der echte Franzose.

Man trinkt ihn zum Essen.
Und in Gesellschaft.
Mittags wie abends.
Eigentlich den ganzen Tag.

Filou rouge -
ein durchgegorener, trockener
Landwein. Für Freunde
echter französischer
Rotweine.

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

211

„Ein Krämer, aber kein Großkaufmann“

Kissinger über den sowjetischen Außenminister Andrej Gromyko

In Andrej Gromyko lernten wir einen Meister seines Fachs kennen. Er war ein Außenminister, der die politische Linie für ein Politbüro entwerfen mußte, das kaum Erfahrungen mit der Außenwelt hatte, und der die Außenpolitik einer Supermacht von einem bürokratischen Dschungel aus leitete, in dem er sich nur auf seine eigenen Fähigkeiten stützen konnte.

Gromyko war ein Überlebenskünstler. Er hatte die Stalin-Ära überlebt, war unter Molotow im Außenministerium gewesen und kannte die Dampfwalzendiplomatie Chruschtschows. Im Alter von 34 Jahren war er 1943 Botschafter in den Vereinigten Staaten geworden, seit 1957 ist er Außenminister.

Daß er überlebte, machte ihn zum Gegenstand grober Scherze der obersten Sowjetführer. Chruschtschow sagte einmal zu einem ausländischen Gast, wenn man Gromyko befehlen würde, sich mit heruntergelassenen Hosen auf einen Eisblock zu setzen, dann würde er dort so lange sitzen bleiben, bis man ihm erlaube, wieder aufzustehen.

Breschnews Humor ist zwar nicht ganz so brutal, aber sinngemäß hat er Ähnliches gesagt. Beide hielten Gromyko für einen Mann, dessen Haupttugend darin besteht, daß er Befehle wörtlich befolgt und ein willfähriges Werkzeug der jeweiligen Machthaber ist.

Gromykos Gesicht konnte sich auch dann noch zu einem Lächeln verziehen, wenn er sich einer solchen groben Behandlung ausgesetzt sah; nur seine Augen blieben wachsam und ein wenig melancholisch wie die eines Jagdhundes, der die unerklärlichen Launen seines Herrn ertragen muß, diesem aber doch schließlich seinen Willen aufzwingt.

Doch trotz alledem verstand es Gromyko, eine würdige Haltung zu bewahren; er war loyal und zuvorkommend, aber niemals servil.

Bei jedem Gespräch mit ihm kam man an einen Punkt, an dem seine Sachkenntnis die Diskussion beherrschte. Er wurde zum unentbehrlichen Triebrad der sowjetischen Politik, zum vollendeten sowjetischen Diplomatenbestens unterrichtet, voller Selbstvertrauen und Ausdauer.

Er begann keine Verhandlung, ohne sich mit dem Gegenstand genau vertraut gemacht zu haben. Anfänglich verstand er nur wenig von strategischen Waffen, lernte aber so gut, daß er schließlich fähig war, auch in den ge-

ringsten Nebensächlichkeiten ein zähes Rückzugsgefecht zu führen.

Für Gromyko gab es eigentlich keine Nebensächlichkeiten. Er nahm sich jedes Teilaspekts an, nutzte alle Möglichkeiten aus und verstand es, Positionen als Tauschobjekte in die Waagschale zu werfen, über die eigentlich gar nicht hätte verhandelt werden sollen.

Es war selbstmörderisch, mit ihm in Verhandlungen einzutreten, ohne sich über die ganze Geschichte des Verhandlungsthemas genauestens informiert zu haben. Er war unermüdlich und unerschütterlich.

Wenn er aufbrauste, wußte man, daß dieser Auftritt sorgfältig geplant war. Eigenartigerweise nahm das den Verhandlungen viel von ihrer Schärfe, denn was er auch sagte, es war niemals persönlich gemeint. Er hatte ein ausgezeichnetes Gedächtnis und merkte sich jedes Zugeständnis, sei es auch noch so

geringfügig, das wir nach seiner Ansicht gemacht oder vielleicht nur angedeutet hatten.

Damit begann dann die nächste Verhandlungsrunde. Gromyko hielt nichts von brillanten Einfällen oder dramatischen Manövern. Seine angeborene Vorsicht und die sowjetische Innenpolitik ließen das nicht zu.

Vor seiner Aufnahme ins Politbüro (1973) befolgte er nur die Anweisungen seiner Vorgesetzten und durfte sich selbst nicht an der Gestaltung der Außenpolitik beteiligen. Später spürte man deutlich seinen Einfluß, und sein Selbstvertrauen wuchs; gegen Ende meiner Amtszeit wagte er es sogar, Breschnew zu korrigieren, wenn er glaubte, sein Chef sei von der festgelegten Linie abgewichen.

Gromykos Verhandlungsmethode war fast stereotyp. Geduldig addierte er kleinste Vorteile, bis ihre Summe einen

Außenminister Gromyko: „Wachsam und ein wenig melancholisch“

212

sichtbaren Fortschritt bedeutete. Er verließ sich auf die Ungeduld seiner Verhandlungspartner und verstand es, sich dabei Vorteile zu verschaffen, die er anders nicht hätte gewinnen können.

Wenn irgend möglich, stellte Gromyko auch schon für die Eröffnung von Verhandlungen Bedingungen; er verlangte bereits für seine Verhandlungsbereitschaft ein Zugeständnis. Dann versuchte er die Gegenseite durch endloses Feilschen um „allgemeine Grundsatzfragen“ zu ermatten.

Sobald man sich darüber geeinigt hatte, feilschte er um die Durchführung; deshalb verloren getroffene Vereinbarungen schließlich ihre Bedeutung, weil man sich über die Interpretation nicht einigen konnte.

Was Gromyko auch gegen das Prinzip des Funktims sagen mochte, er selbst war ein Meister darin, jedes Detail während einer Verhandlung mit jedem anderen zu verknüpfen. An jedes Zugeständnis knüpfte er eine Bedingung. Erst wenn er und seine Vorgestetzten sich davon überzeugt hatten, daß die Zitrone ausgequetscht war, zeigte er sich bereit, einer Vereinbarung zuzustimmen. Diese Zustimmung kam dann oft sehr rasch.

Doch dann zeigte sich das durch die Unsicherheit des Systems bedingte Mißtrauen. Der einzige Augenblick, in dem dieser hervorragende Unterhändler Emotionen erkennen ließ, war die allerletzte Phase bei Verhandlungen, in der das Übereinkommen eigentlich schon unter Dach und Fach war.

Dann schien Gromyko von der unerklärlichen Furcht getrieben, der Verhandlungspartner könne ihn noch im allerletzten Augenblick übertölpeln. Die Unterzeichnung des vorbereiteten Dokuments konnte nicht schnell genug vor sich gehen, und hier zeigte sich endlich, daß die großen Anstrengungen der vorangegangenen Monate und Jahre nicht spurlos an ihm vorübergegangen waren.

Vielleicht fürchtete er aber auch die Vorwürfe seiner Kollegen, die jetzt den Eindruck gewinnen konnten, daß alle ihre Bemühungen vergeblich gewesen waren. Die bisher gezeigte Rücksichtslosigkeit verwandelte sich in Ironie, und hervor trat ein profunder Mangel an Selbstvertrauen, die Furcht, schließlich doch trotz aller Anstrengungen unterlegen zu sein.

Jeder Unterhändler muß entscheiden, wann kleine Vorteile den Vertrauensverlust nicht mehr aufwiegen, der durch das Feilschen um solche Vorteile entsteht. Doch innerhalb des sowjetischen Systems wird niemand für weitblickende Zurückhaltung belohnt. Deshalb war Gromyko ein Unterhändler der ganz kleinen Schritte, der auch

das winzigste Zugeständnis für einen möglichst hohen Preis verkaufte. Er war ein Krämer und kein Großkaufmann.

Trotz all dieser Erfahrungen schätzte und achtete ich Gromyko im Laufe der Zeit immer mehr. Berücksichtigte man den Umstand, daß er im Rahmen des sowjetischen Systems arbeiten mußte, dann war er ein ehrenhafter Mann und stand zu seinem Wort.

Es mochte schwierig sein, seine Zustimmung zu gewinnen, aber er hielt sich an die mit ihm getroffenen Abmachtungen — und wenn er eine Kursänderung vornehmen mußte, dann war ihm das sichtlich peinlich. So verschlossen und unfreundlich er wirken konnte, hatte er doch Sinn für Humor, wenn er auch am Anfang mit dem amerikanischen Witz nichts anfangen konnte.

Wir lernten uns auf einem Empfang des Präsidenten im September 1969 kennen. Gromyko kam auf mich zu und sagte: „Sie sehen aus, als seien Sie Henry Kissinger.“ Ich erwiderte: „Und Sie sehen aus wie Richard Nixon.“

Er brauchte ein paar Sekunden, um das zu verdauen, besonders weil seine Begleiter bevor er das Zeichen gegeben hatte. Aber ein Jahr später hatte er sich mit der amerikanischen Mentalität vertraut gemacht.

Als wir darüber sprachen, welchen Eingang er bei seinem Zusammentreffen mit Nixon im Weißen Haus benutzen sollte, sagte Gromyko, das sei ganz gleichgültig; die Wachen würden salutieren und ihn durch jede Tür lassen; wer dürfte schon dem Präsidenten den Zugang verwehren?

Beim Moskauer Gipfeltreffen 1972 sagte einer unserer Vervielfältigungsapparate. Ich mußte an die Orwellsche Allgegenwart des KGB denken und fragte Gromyko auf einer Sitzung im prächtigen Sankt-Katharinen-Saal des Kreml, ob er uns nicht ein paar Kopien anfertigen lassen könne, wenn wir die betreffenden Kopien unter die Kronleuchter hielten.

Gromyko begriff sofort, was ich meinte, und antwortete, die Kameras seien leider schon vom Zaren installiert worden und könnten nur Menschen photographieren, aber keine Dokumente.

Gromyko war zweifellos einer der fähigsten Diplomaten, mit denen ich zu tun gehabt habe. In unruhigen Zeiten versucht er sein Land zu schützen, dessen Schwächen zu tarnen und dessen Interessen zu dienen. Zwar fehlt ihm wirklich menschliche Größe, aber er hat viel erreicht und kaum irgendwelche vermeidbaren Fehler gemacht. Es gibt nur wenige Außenminister, von denen man das sagen kann.

nig verschleierten Drohungen ein. Statt dessen verlas er eine Note aus Hanoi, in der sich die Nordvietnamesen weigerten, einen Beauftragten nach Moskau zu schicken, um dort mit mir zu verhandeln.

Stolz zeigte mir Breschnew das Telegramm, das ich natürlich nicht lesen konnte, um mir zu beweisen, daß er als einziger Empfänger darauf vermerkt war. (Wenn es echt war, dann erweiterete sich allerdings der Empfängerkreis in diesem Augenblick.) Die Nordvietnamesen verlangten jetzt die Wiederaufnahme der Pariser Plenarsitzungen am 27. April, denen am 6. Mai eine Geheimsitzung folgen sollte.

Schon vor meiner Reise nach Moskau hatten wir gewußt, daß wir eine Formel brauchten, nach der alle Beteiligten das Gesicht wahren konnten, wenn wir eine private Zusammenkunft zustande bringen wollten. Dazu brauchten wir keine sowjetische Hilfe.

In Moskau mußten wir jetzt deutlich sagen, daß wir entschlossen waren, die Entscheidung herbeizuführen; wir mußten feststellen, wie unsere Gastgeber reagieren würden, wenn wir einseitig vorgingen; und wir mußten uns den Kreml so stark verpflichten, daß Hanoi seine zunehmende Isolierung begriff.

Mit einem leicht drohenden Unterton sagte ich Breschnew: „Es gibt also zwei Erfordernisse. Erstens kann die Sitzung nicht am 6. Tag stattfinden, weil ich an diesem Tag beschäftigt bin und weil es — wie ich Ihrem Botschafter schon gesagt habe — dann zu spät sein wird. Der 2. Mai ist der letzte Termin für meine Teilnahme an sinnvollen Gesprächen.“

Ich erklärte, Le Duc Tho werde bei unserem nächsten Zusammentreffen seine Verhandlungsmethoden ändern müssen: „Wenn das so weitergeht, werden wir allein vorgehen, und zwar ohne Rücksicht darauf, daß es irgendwelche Beziehungen gefährden könnte.“

Breschnew hörte sich diese provozierenden Äußerungen an, ohne mir zu widersprechen, und zeigte damit, wie wichtig ihm das Gipfeltreffen war. Er sagte, nur die Chinesen hätten etwas gegen den Gipfel einzuwenden: „Vergessen Sie nicht, daß starke Kräfte in der Welt das Gipfeltreffen verhindern wollen. Es wäre sicher ein großes Geschenk für die Chinesen, wenn das Gipfeltreffen nicht zustande käme. Das würde China nur helfen.“

Damit überzeugte mich Breschnew davon, daß er vieles tun würde, um ein Scheitern des Gipfels zu verhindern. Er schloß die fünfstündige Sitzung mit dem Vorschlag, wir beide sollten noch einmal über alles Gesagte nachdenken und „zu Ergebnissen kommen“, damit weder er vom Zentralkomitee noch ich vom Präsidenten getadelt würde.

Ich antwortete, mir erscheine die Gefahr einer Präsidenten-Schelte größer

213

als sein Risiko, den Widerspruch des ZK zu erregen. Er konnte nicht ahnen, wie recht ich damit hatte.

Am folgenden Tag legte ich einen Kompromißvorschlag vor, um eine Lösung dafür zu finden, in welcher Reihenfolge die Plenarsitzungen und geheimen Zusammenkünfte mit den Nordvietnamesen stattfinden sollten. Ich sagte, wir würden am 27. April an einer Plenarsitzung teilnehmen, wenn Hanoi sich vorher mit einer privaten Zusammenkunft am 2. Mai einverstanden erkläre.

Meine Absicht war es vor allem, die Sowjets an der Verantwortung für den Ausgang der Treffen zu beteiligen und Hanoi dafür verantwortlich zu machen, wenn sie ergebnislos blieben.

Deshalb erläuterte ich auch den konkreten Vorschlag, den ich Le Duc Tho am 2. Mai machen wollte: Rückzug der seit dem 29. März in Südvietnam eingedrungenen nordvietnamesischen Verbände, Respektierung der entmilitarierten Zone, Austausch von Gefangeninen, ernsthafte Verhandlungen über eine Beilegung des Konflikts. Als Genleistung würden die USA die Bombenangriffe einstellen.

Breschnew reagierte außerordentlich versöhnlich. Er murmelte nur etwas über die Schwierigkeit, die nordvietnamesischen Divisionen während einer

Offensive zurückzuziehen. „Ich will nur einmal hören“, sagte er, ob wir „vielleicht“ auf diese Forderung verzichten könnten.

Was würde ich dazu sagen, wenn das Feuer eingestellt würde, während die Truppen in den gegenwärtigen Stellungen liegenblieben? Ich erwiderte, noch vor drei Wochen wären wir sofort auf diesen Vorschlag eingegangen; nun, da Hanoi seine ganze Armee in den Süden geschickt habe, genüge das nicht mehr.

Meine sowjetischen Gastgeber waren nicht in der Stimmung, weiter über Vietnam zu diskutieren. Breschnew wollte jetzt offensichtlich über andere Dinge sprechen. Deshalb erklärte er sich einverstanden, unsere Vorschläge an Hanoi weiterzuleiten.

Daraufhin traf ich eine sehr wichtige Entscheidung. Ich erklärte mich bereit, das Thema Vietnam beiseitezulegen und mit den Vorbereitungen für den Gipfel zu beginnen. Dank eines Fehlers in der Nachrichtenübermittlung hatte ich noch keine gegenteilige Anweisung des Präsidenten bekommen.

Am Abend zuvor hatte ich allerdings die Anweisung erhalten und ihr sofort widersprochen, die Gespräche zu unterbrechen und nach Hause zurückzukommen, es sei denn, die Sowjets ver-

• Links: Außenminister Gromyko und Parteichef Breschnew.

sprachen, die Beendigung des Krieges in Indochina zu erzwingen. Ich hielt das für gefährlich und unklug, ging bis an die äußerste Grenze meiner Vollmachten und setzte die Gespräche in Moskau fort.

Breschnew wollte offensichtlich in der Frage des Gipfels Fortschritte erzielen. Wenn ich nun Moskau verließ, ohne ihm Gelegenheit gegeben zu haben, die von ihm mit Sicherheit vorbereiteten Vorschläge zu machen, dann mußte er das als einen Affront empfinden.

Und Breschnew hatte sich darauf vorbereitet, wichtige Vorschläge zu machen. In den beiden Hauptfragen, bei Salt und beim Schlußkommuniqué, wollte er uns sehr entgegenkommen.

Er begann mit einem neuen Vorschlag zu dem Abwehrraketen-System ABM. Er verzichtete auf die komplizierten Formeln, die bisher die Sowjets vorgetragen hatten und die darauf hinausliefen, daß die Russen drei und wir zwei ABM-Stellungen einrichten dürften. Nach seinem neuen Plan sollte jede Seite ihre Hauptstadt und eine Stellung mit Intercontinentalraketen schützen.

Das war bis auf das letzte I-Tüpfelchen der Vorschlag, den auch der US-

US-Unterhändler Kissinger, Partner im Kreml*: „Entschlossen, eine Entscheidung herbeizuführen“

214

Verteidigungsminister Mel Laird gemacht hatte. Ich beantwortete diesen Vorschlag aber nicht, weil ich sah, daß Breschnew noch ein weiteres Papier zur Frage der Offensiv-Waffen (Interkontinentalraketen ICBM und Raketen auf U-Booten) vor sich liegen hatte, dessen Inhalt er uns vortragen wollte.

KISSINGER: Herr Generalsekretär, lassen Sie mich sagen, daß dies ein konstruktiver Vorschlag ist. Ich werde mich jedoch der Stellungnahme enthalten, bis ich gehört habe, was Sie über die U-Boote sagen.

BRESCHNEW: Nichts.

KISSINGER: Nichts?

verstanden (das waren mindestens 200 weniger, als sie nach unserer Schätzung in dieser Zeit herstellen konnte).

Breschnew erklärte sich auch damit einverstanden, daß die Vereinbarung über die Begrenzung der strategischen Offensiv-Waffen eine Laufzeit von fünf Jahren haben solle, wie wir es anstrebten, und nicht von drei Jahren, wie es die sowjetische Delegation in Helsinki immer noch verlangte.

Auf der gleichen Sitzung versuchte ich festzustellen, wie der von Breschnew ebenfalls vorgeschlagene „Austausch“ von U-Boot-Raketen (SLBM) und von Interkontinentalraketen ausse-

Breschnews Aufforderung zeigte deutlich, daß wir genügend Verhandlungsspielraum hatten, um eine für uns akzeptable Fassung auszuhandeln. Wir einigten uns darauf, daß ich mich an einem neuen Entwurf versuchen würde, den Gromyko und ich dann am folgenden Tag prüfen könnten.

Das einzige andere bemerkenswerte Ereignis war, daß Breschnew und Gromyko uns baten, dabei behilflich zu sein, daß die Bonner Ostverträge bald zur Abstimmung vor den Bundestag kämen und ratifiziert würden. (Sie wollten, daß wir Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt halfen, die bevorstehenden Landtagswahlen zu gewinnen, als hätten wir eine Möglichkeit dazu.)

Ich antwortete freundlich, aber unverbindlich; ich wies darauf hin, daß es uns die nordvietnamesische Offensive sehr erschwere, irgendwie hilfreich zu sein. Daß die Sowjets sich so eifrig bemühten, diese Verträge unter Dach und Fach zu bringen, war für uns besonders günstig, falls sich die Lage in Vietnam in den kommenden Wochen noch verschlimmerte. Am günstigsten war es für uns, wenn sich die Ratifizierung der Ostverträge noch eine Zeitlang verzögerte.

Am Sonntag fertigten Gromyko und ich die Erklärung über die „Grundsätze der Beziehungen zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten und der Sowjet-Union“ an, wobei ein von dem AA-Bemalten Sonnenfeldt und mir in der Nacht verfaßter Gegenentwurf als Grundlage diente.

Darin wurde die Notwendigkeit betont, bei der Beilegung von Konflikten an den neuralgischen Punkten der Welt Zurückhaltung zu üben. Beide Seiten verzichteten auf besondere Vorrechte im Ausland (was wenigstens nach unserer Auffassung der Breschnew-Doktrin für Osteuropa widersprach).

Am Schluß entwarfen Gromyko und ich gemeinsam den Text einer kurzen Erklärung über meinen Besuch. Wir einigten uns auf folgenden Text:

> Vom 20. bis zum 24. April hat sich Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, der Berater des Präsidenten für Nationale Sicherheit, in Moskau aufgehalten, um mit dem Generalsekretär des Zentralkomitees der KPdSU Breschnew und Außenminister Gromyko zu konferieren. Die Gespräche galten wichtigen internationalen Problemen und bilateralen Fragen, die mit der Vorbereitung der Gespräche zwischen Präsident Nixon und den sowjetischen Führern im Mai zusammenhängen. Die Gespräche waren freimütig und nützlich.

Am nächsten Morgen fand eine weitere Besprechung mit Breschnew statt. Wieder behauptete er, es liege ihm viel an einer Verbesserung der Beziehungen zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten und der Sowjet-Union. Er bereite den Gipfel vor, obwohl er von Hanoi offiziell ersucht worden sei, ihn abzusagen.

Plötzlich bat er mich zu einem Gespräch unter vier Augen und regte ganz

Sowjetisches U-Boot: „Sie fahren unter Wasser, wir können sie nicht sehen“

BRESCHNEW: Haben Sie Geduld. Was kann ich darüber sagen? Sie fahren unter Wasser, wir können sie nicht sehen. Sie sind geräuschlos...

GROMYKO: Puzzle, puzzle!

KISSINGER: Aber Sie haben doch etwas zu den U-Booten zu sagen?

GROMYKO: Man kann es nicht vor (dem Sowjetdolmetscher) Suchodrew vorlesen!

Es stellte sich heraus, daß Breschnews neues Papier praktisch einen Vorschlag Lairds vom 18. Januar akzeptierte: Die Sowjet-Union erklärte sich mit einer Höchstzahl von 950 Fernlenkgeschossen auf U-Booten ein-

hen solle, und besprach mit ihm, was getan werden könne, um die offiziellen Salt-Verhandlungen noch vor dem Gipfel zum Abschluß zu bringen.

Am Schluß unserer Sitzung legte Breschnew unter Scherzen noch ein weiteres Dokument über die amerikanisch-sowjetischen Beziehungen vor. Die Sowjets hatten die sechs Grundsätze, die ich am 17. März vorgelegt hatte, mit einer Rhetorik im Stil der „Prawda“ gewürzt. Gromyko oder Dobrynin hatten Breschnew wahrscheinlich gesagt, daß ich diese Fassung niemals akzeptieren würde, denn Breschnew forderte mich auf, sein Dokument zu „verstärken“.

216

Ein Diamant macht Karriere.

CHRIST
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DIAMANT

Ein Diamant macht Karriere. Er ist
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Geschaffen von CHRIST, dem führenden
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ausdrücken.

Sympathie ist wie ein Diamant: kostbar
und schön. Besser als tausend Worte
sagt der CHRIST LOVE DIAMANT:
Du bist mir sympathisch!
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mit dem CHRIST LOVE DIAMANT:
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verbindet sympathische Menschen.

Den CHRIST LOVE DIAMANT gibt es in 18karätiger (750 000) Geb. oder Weißgoldfassung in verschiedenen Größen und Preislagen:

von 0,08 Kt bis 0,45 Kt
von DM bis DM

350.- 475.-

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750.- 1.050.-

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und natürlich in vielen anderen Größen und Preislagen.

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DIAMANT ist gegen Verlust und
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Hamburg 52, EEZ
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* gemäß den Versichrungsbestimmungen, die in jedem CHRIST-Fachgeschäft ausliegen.

überraschend eine „Vereinbarung“ an, in der sich beide Staaten verpflichten sollten, keine Kernwaffen gegeneinander einzusetzen. Er nannte das einen Schritt von „immenser Bedeutung“, eine „Friedensbombe“.

Das also hatten sie vor! Diese Ver-
einbarung hätte im Nato-Bündnis, in
China und in der ganzen Welt eine Ex-
plosion ausgelöst. Man hätte sie für
einen amerikanisch-sowjetischen Pakt
zur Aufteilung der Macht oder für eine
Kapitulation der Vereinigten Staaten
gehalten. Ich lehnte höflich ab.

Dann verabschiedete sich Breschnew
und erklärte, er müsse an einer Sitzung
des Politbüros teilnehmen; die Erklä-
rung zur Bekanntgabe meines Besuchs,
die ich am Tag zuvor mit Gromyko
entworfen hatte, sei akzeptabel — bis
auf „einige kleine Änderungen“, die er
auf seiner Kopie an den Rand geschrie-
ben habe. Er schob mir das Papier über
den Tisch hinweg zu, stand auf und
marschierte hinaus.

Es stellte sich heraus, daß das Doku-
ment der von mir am Vortag zurückge-
wiesene sowjetische Entwurf war. Dar-
in wurde erklärt, der Zweck meines Be-
suchs sei ausschließlich die Vorberei-
tung des Gipfeltreffens gewesen; es
vermittelte zudem den Eindruck, wir
hätten um diese Einladung gebeten.

Ich bekam einen Wutanfall. Gromyko erklärte jedoch, ich hätte die Wahl, Breschnews Entwurf anzunehmen oder abzulehnen, denn er, Gromyko, könne jetzt die Sitzung des Politbüros nicht stören.

Ich warnte ihn, es würde einen ver-
heerenden Eindruck machen, meinen
Besuch abzuschließen, ohne eine Erklä-
rung abgegeben zu haben. Die Öffent-
lichkeit und die Presse würden dieses
Schweigen mit Sicherheit als den Be-
weis für einen völligen Fehlschlag an-
sehen. Das wäre mir jedoch lieber als
der Verzicht auf die Erklärung, daß
wir über „internationale Probleme“ ge-
sprochen hätten (also über Vietnam).

Gromyko beteuerte erneut, es sei
ihm unmöglich, den Text zu ändern.
Ich blieb hart. Zum Schluß meinte
Gromyko, vielleicht ließe sich Bresch-
new doch noch erreichen. Er ent-
schuldigte sich für ein paar Minuten,
und als er zurückkehrte, akzeptierte er
eine leicht modifizierte Fassung des
Entwurfs, über den ich mich am Tag
zuvor schon mit ihm geeinigt hatte.

Die Hauptänderung bestand darin,
daß wir den letzten Satz auslassen woll-
ten, in dem es hieß, die Gespräche seien
„freimütig und nützlich“ gewesen. Gro-
myko war jedoch damit einverstanden,
daß ich diesen Satz bei Pressekonferen-
zen verwendete, und sagte, die Sowjets
würden den Inhalt bestätigen. Mit an-
deren Worten: Es sollte eine Fassung
für Amerika und eine zweite für Hanoi
geben.

Die Bedeutung dieser Episode liegt
gerade darin, daß es um eine Nichtig-
keit ging. Mit so plumpen Manövern
läßt sich nichts erreichen, und ihr ver-
meintlicher Erfolg wird wiederaufge-
hoben, weil der Verhandlungspartner
mit aller Deutlichkeit darauf hingewie-
sen wird, daß man im Umgang mit den
Sowjets ständig auf der Hut sein muß.

Nach dieser stürmischen Sitzung wa-
ren die sowjetischen Unterhändler wie-
der heiter und jovial, wie sie es immer
sind, wenn sie festgestellt haben, wo die
Grenzen bei einer Verhandlung liegen.
Gromyko brachte erneut Vietnam zur
Sprache. Er sagte, er sei bevollmäch-
tigt, mir zu erklären, daß Moskau ver-
suchen werde, auf einen raschen Ab-
schluß des Vietnam-Krieges hinzuwir-
ken.

Bevor ich Moskau verließ, mußte ich noch eine für mich recht peinliche Pflicht erfüllen; ich unterrichtete unseren Botschafter in Moskau, Jacob Beam, über meinen Besuch. Seine Aufgaben als Botschafter in Moskau nahm er unauffällig und geschickt wahr.

Er hatte es nicht verdient, daß unser
eigenartiges Regierungssystem ihm so
wenig Vertrauen entgegenbrachte. Bei
unserem Gespräch nahm er eine würdi-
ge Haltung ein, die erkennen ließ, daß
für ihn der Dienst als Angehöriger des
diplomatischen Korps Vorrang hatte.

Damit endete meine Geheimreise
nach Moskau. Es beunruhigte mich je-
doch, daß Washington die Ergebnisse
meiner Gespräche nicht so günstig
beurteilte wie ich.

Diplomaten Kissinger, Gromyko: „Puzzle, puzzle“

218

gesehen von Widersprüchlichkeiten in
den Botschaften Nixons zeigte sich im
erregten Telegrammwechsel eine fun-
damentale Meinungsverschiedenheit.

Ich halte es bei Verhandlungen für einen sehr schweren Fehler, Forderungen zu stellen, die die Gegenseite nicht erfüllen kann. So hart eine solche Forderung auch klingen mag, sie beeinflußt das psychologische Gleichgewicht in abträglicher Weise.

Die andere Seite wird unter Umständen nicht zugeben wollen, daß ihre Möglichkeiten begrenzt sind, und deshalb für ihre Weigerung Gründe finden, die die ganze Beziehung negativ beeinflussen können. Die Seite, die die Forderung erhoben hat, steht dann vor der Entscheidung, entweder die Verhandlungen abzubrechen oder, wenn sie sie weiterführt, zuzugeben, daß ihr Verlangen nicht mehr ernst genommen werden muß.

Der Kurs, auf den mich Washington zwingen wollte, hätte uns sehr bald in dieses Dilemma gebracht. Es war unvorstellbar, daß die Nordvietnamesen sich bereit erklärten, in den 96 Stunden meines Besuches in Moskau den Kampf einzustellen, den sie ein Leben lang geführt hatten.

Selbst wenn Moskau Hanoi unter Druck setzen sollte, so würde Nordvietnam die einmal begonnene Offensive weiterführen wollen, um seine Verhandlungsposition zu verbessern. Was Moskau auch darüber dachte — es war unsere Sache, die Offensive anzuhalten und den Gegner zurückzudrängen.

Eine abrupte Umstellung unserer Strategie, zu der es kommen mußte, wenn wir Forderungen stellten, die die sowjetischen Führer nicht erfüllen konnten, widersprach auch unmittelbar dem strategischen Ziel unserer auf lange Sicht angelegten Politik gegenüber der Sowjet-Union.

Es war unbedingt notwendig, auf die sowjetische Expansion gleich von Anfang an energisch, wenn nötig mit Gewalt zu reagieren — ich habe das bei Cienfuegos, in Jordanien, bei der indisch-pakistanischen Krise und später auch bei der Angola-Krise empfohlen.

Im Mai 1972 aber war ich bereit, den Moskauer Gipfel zu riskieren, wenn es uns damit gelingen würde, die nordvietnamesische Offensive zum Scheitern zu bringen. Wir mußten unbedingt die Sowjet-Union daran hindern, so viel Schwung zu entfalten, daß dabei das Gleichgewicht der Kräfte verlorenting oder wir in eine Konfrontation unvorstellbaren Ausmaßes gerieten.

Wir durften aber auch niemals die Verpflichtung aus dem Auge verlieren, die uns durch das nukleare Zeitalter auferlegt war. Der Friede ist ein Ziel, das die beiden Supermächte angesichts der Schrecken ihrer technologischen

Möglichkeiten ohne Rücksicht auf Ideologien und auf Machtgier verfolgen müssen.

Das waren die Überlegungen, die mich veranlaßten, mit Breschnew über die Tagesordnung des Gipfeltreffens zu sprechen. Ich wollte damit nicht die Anweisungen des Präsidenten mißachten, die mich zu spät erreichten und zu unbestimmt waren; ich wollte vielmehr den seit zwei Jahren verfolgten politischen Kurs weiterverfolgen.

Noch wenige Wochen zuvor wäre Nixon über die Ergebnisse meiner Moskau-Reise begeistert gewesen. Jetzt aber war Nixon in reizbarer Stimmung. Wir wurden von Washington mit Funksprüchen bombardiert, in denen man uns zu verstehen gab, daß wir von den tückischen Sowjets „übertölpelt“ worgen seien.

Nixon war von der Furcht besessen, man könne uns ausmanövrieren und zur Einstellung der Bombenangriffe veranlassen. Gerade deshalb hatte er 1968 Präsident Johnson angegriffen,

und er glaubte sogar, aus diesem Grund beinahe die Wahlen verloren zu haben. Es gab nicht den geringsten Anlaß zu einer solchen Befürchtung, aber die Tatsache allein, daß weder Breschnew noch ein anderer sowjetischer Führer das von uns verlangt hatte, konnte ihm das Mißtrauen nicht nehmen.

Auch mir gelang es nicht, Nixon davon zu überzeugen, daß Breschnew keine Manöver veranstaltete, um ihn um die Anerkennung seiner Verdienste zu bringen, falls der Gipfel zu einem Erfolg wurde. Er wollte auch nicht glauben, daß alle Anzeichen in die entgegengesetzte Richtung deuteten.

Schließlich faßte der Präsident alle seine Befürchtungen in einer ausführlichen Denkschrift zusammen, die er in Camp David diktierte. (Wegen des Zeitunterschiedes erreichte sie mich erst nach den Gesprächen in Moskau.)

Nixon erklärte, ich hätte praktisch alles falsch gemacht: „Ich habe den Eindruck, daß sie (die Sowjets) ihren Hauptzweck erreicht haben, mit Ihnen in Moskau das Gipfeltreffen zu besprechen, aber unser Hauptziel, in Vietnam

„Halte mich auf dem laufenden, Henry“

Chicago Sun Times

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

221

Präsident Nixon, Berater Kissinger: „Erstklassige Arbeit“

voranzukommen, ist nicht erreicht worden.“

Er sprach die Befürchtung aus, unseres Rückkehr zu den Plenarsitzungen in Paris im Anschluß an meine Reise nach Moskau werde aussehen wie ein Rückzug. Die Rechte werde uns wegen des Ganges nach Moskau ohne Lösung der Vietnam-Frage ebenso angreifen wie die Linke. Wenn Hanoi sich auf der Sitzung am 2. Mai unnachgiebig zeige, „dann werden wir die Bombenangriffe mit allen verfügbaren Mitteln fortsetzen müssen“.

Vom Flugzeug aus telegraphierte ich zweideutig zurück, Nixons Funkspruch habe mir viel geholfen. Zu den Plenarsitzungen in Paris vertrat ich eine andere Meinung als er:

Ich teile Ihre Befürchtungen nicht. Erstens wird nach der Bekanntgabe meiner Moskau-Reise jeder glauben, daß mehr geschieht, als man erkennen kann. Zweitens könnten wir andeuten, daß die Plenarsitzungen mit vertraulichen Gesprächen verknüpft sind. Drittens können wir uns in der Plenarsitzung darauf beschränken, nur über die Beendigung des nordvietnamischen Einfalls zu reden.

Ich entwarf auf dem Flug außerdem eine ausführliche Denkschrift an den Präsidenten, um ihm meine Strategie noch einmal zu erläutern:

„Das Verhalten Breschnews läßt vermuten, daß für ihn viel vom Verlauf des Gipfeltreffens abhängt. Ihre Alternatiiven führen die Sowjets in der ge-

genwärtigen Lage immer wieder ins Dilemma. Wenn sie gegenüber Hanoi passiv bleiben, obwohl die Offensive fortgesetzt wird, müssen sie damit rechnen, daß Sie mit allen verfügbaren Mitteln gegen den Norden vorgehen werden. Unter solchen Voraussetzungen das Gipfeltreffen abzuhalten bedeutet für sie eine schwere psychologische und politische Belastung.

Vielleicht glauben Sie, daß eine Absage des Gipfels im November (bei den Präsidentenwahlen) zu Ihrer Niederlage führen wird, aber vorher würden wir die Volksrepublik Vietnam pulverisiert haben, und Breschnews Westpolitik wäre gescheitert. Etwas ganz Ähnliches würde geschehen, wenn Sie den Gipfel absagten oder nach Moskau kämen, während die Rechten in den USA Ihre Handlungsfreiheit durch verstärkten Druck gelähmt hätten.

Aber die Alternative der Sowjets zu alledem — auf Hanoi Druck auszuüben, damit es sich mäßigt — bedeutet den Verrat an einem sozialistischen Verbündeten, einen Verlust an Einfluß in Hanoi und keine Garantie dafür, daß Hanoi die Offensive einstellen wird — und wir auf unsere Vergeltungsmaßnahmen verzichten.

Nach meinem Urteil befinden sich Breschnew und die Sowjets in einer der schwierigsten politischen Situationen seit Jahren. Sie müssen ein Interesse daran haben, daß sich die Lage in Viet-

nam beruhigt, und ich würde meinen, es besteht sogar die Möglichkeit, daß sie in ihrem Dilemma die für sie unangenehme Entscheidung treffen werden, auf Hanoi Druck auszuüben — nicht um uns zu helfen, sondern um sich selbst zu helfen.

Wenn wir die Sowjets einerseits durch unsere Entschlossenheit beeindrucken und ihnen andererseits das Lockmittel eines erfolgreichen Gipfeltreffens vor die Nase halten, was ich in Moskau getan habe, dann können wir damit die Politik des Kreml am besten beeinflussen, und außerdem wird es uns selbst innenpolitisch nützen.“

Als Nixon diese Denkschrift las, hatte er sich schon so weit beruhigt, daß er an den Rand schrieb: „Erstklassige Arbeit.“ Vielleicht war das seine wirkliche Meinung oder auch nur die Art, wie er sich einem Fait accompli beugte.

Denn: Die Auswirkungen meiner Gespräche in Moskau entwickelten jetzt ihre eigene Dynamik. Die Ereignisse bewiesen, daß wir auf keine Option verzichtet hatten, sondern daß unsere Handlungsfreiheit wesentlich gewachsen war.

### Im nächsten Heft

Gipfelkonferenz in Moskau: Breschnew „entführt“ seinen Gast Nixon — Streit um Vietnam in der Datscha — Entscheidung auf dem Massagetisch

DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 42/1979

223

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

# LES MEMOIRES DE KISSINGER

## (III)
Opération Menu

Avec l'U.R.S.S. et la Chine (voir L'Express n° 1471 et 1472), la guerre du Vietnam et les affaires d'Indochine occupent une place prépondérante dans les Mémoires de Henry Kissinger. « Aujourd'hui encore, écrit l'ancien secrétaire d'Etat, je ne peux parler du Vietnam sans éprouver une peine et une tristesse profondes. » A partir de 1969, le Cambodge est peu à peu entraîné dans la guerre. En janvier, Richard Nixon est devenu président. Les Nord-Vietnamiens relancent leurs attaques au Sud. Quelques mois plus tôt, pour ouvrir des négociations secrètes à Paris, les Etats-Unis ont décidé d'arrêter les bombardements autour de Hanoi et sur Haphong. Les infiltrations de troupes communistes augmentent dans le Sud : la Maison-Blanche choisit de bombarder le Cambodge et le lacis de la piste Ho-Chi-Minh plutôt que le Vietnam du Nord. Cette décision est-elle, comme certains le soutiennent, à l'origine de la chute de Norodom Sihanouk ? De la prise du pouvoir par les Khmers rouges en 1975 ? Du génocide qui suivit ? Henry Kissinger plaide son dossier. Le premier tome d'« A la Maison-Blanche (1968-1973) » paraîtra le 24 octobre aux Editions Fayard, et le second en décembre.

Début du texte page 102

Blindés américains au Cambodge.
Un Khmer rouge dans les ruines d'un temple.
Norodom Sihanouk à Angkor, en 1973.
Kissinger avec Nixon à la Maison-Blanche.

100

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

Du Cambodge partaient
des attaques
nord-vietnamiennes

Suite de la page 100

Le 30 janvier 1969, j'eus un entretien au Pentagone avec Melvin Laird et Earle Wheeler (1) pour voir de quelle manière nous pourrions riposter à une éventuelle offensive ennemie au Vietnam du Sud. Wheeler me répéta que, les forces américaines y étant déjà engagées à fond, la seule riposte efficace possible serait de lancer des opérations dans la zone démilitarisée, ou de reprendre les bombardements au Nord. Laird s'opposa à cette dernière suggestion. Il objecta que l'arrêt des bombardements avait fait naître dans l'opinion publique l'espoir d'un dénouement proche du conflit. Je n'en étais pas non plus partisan. Je souhaitais vivement laisser aux négociations une chance d'aboutir.

Le 1er février, Nixon me fit par-

(1) Melvin Laird : ministre de la Défense.
Earle Wheeler : chef de l'état-major interarmes.

venir le message suivant : « Je n'apprécie pas de lire en filigrane dans pratiquement tous les comptes rendus de presse que « nous nous attendons que les communistes lanceront une opération au Vietnam du Sud ». Si une opération doit être lancée, elle doit l'être par nous et non par eux. » Mais, lorsque je demandai aux deux chefs d'état-major de me soumettre leurs propositions, ils m'exposèrent à grands traits les différents plans sur lesquels pourraient se situer les attaques aériennes ou navales contre les objectifs nord-vietnamiens. Cette fois encore, tout comme Mel Laird, je ne pus me résoudre à adopter la solution qu'ils préconisaient.

C'est alors que l'on envisagea de
bombarder les bases nord-vietnamiennes
du sanctuaire cambodgien, et ce pour
des raisons exactement contraires de
celles que l'on a avancées : notre inten-
tion était non pas d'étendre la guerre,
mais d'éviter de bombarder le Vietnam

du Nord, en brisant néanmoins une
offensive qui coûtait chaque semaine
la vie à quatre cents Américains.

Certains se sont parfois attachés à dénoncer la prétendue agression perpétrée par le gouvernement Nixon contre un pays neutre et « pacifique ». Ces accusations taisent le fait qu'il s'agissait, en l'occurrence, d'un territoire dont on ne pouvait pratiquement plus dire qu'il était cambodgien. En quatre ans, pas moins de quatre divisions nord-vietnamiennes y avaient opéré à partir de bases situées le long de la frontière sud-vietnamienne. En 1978, les communistes vainqueurs au Cambodge estimèrent à 300 000 le nombre des Nord-Vietnamiens dans le nord-est du Cambodge en 1969-1970, ce qui dépasse de beaucoup nos propres estimations...

De ces territoires, entièrement placés sous contrôle nord-vietnamien, les communistes laissaient des attaques contre le Vietnam du Sud. Ils infligeaient des pertes et désorganisaient le gouvernement, avant de se retirer dans un pays théoriquement neutre qui les assurait de sa protection. Il faut être de mauvaise foi pour soutenir que les Etats-Unis violaient la neutralité d'un pays pacifique. Lorsque, soutenus par les Cambodiens, nous le bombardions, en de rares occasions et uniquement pour nous défendre, nous visions des territoires où aucune loi cambodienne ne s'appliquait plus depuis des années. Seuls quelques civils y habitaient encore, et parfois il n'y en avait plus aucun. Enfin, ces territoires étaient occupés, en violation de la neutralité cambodienne, par un ennemi qui ne quittait ses bases que pour aller tuer chaque semaine des centaines d'Américains et de Sud-Vietnamiens.

Le général Wheeler eut, le premier, l'idée des bombardements au Cambodge. Quand, le 30 janvier, Laird avait exprimé ses inquiétudes sur les répercussions politiques d'une reprise des bombardements du Vietnam du Nord, Wheeler avait proposé de prendre une autre cible, et d'attaquer les bases que les Nord-Vietnamiens avaient illégalement installées de l'autre côté de la frontière avec le Cambodge. Le 9 février, le général Abrams (2)

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(2) Général Creighton Abrams : commandant en chef du corps expéditionnaire au Vietnam.

102

L'EXPRESS - 13 OCTOBRE 1979

Que faisons-nous
pour détruire
l'ennemi ?

câbla de Saigon au général Wheeler
que, d'après des renseignements four-
nis par un déserteur et d'après des
photos qui avaient été prises pour véri-
fier les informations du déserteur, le
quartier général communiste pour
l'ensemble du Vietnam du Sud était
situé exactement de l'autre côté de
la frontière cambodienne. (N'ayant
encore que peu d'expérience, à
l'époque, je fus plus impressionné par
ces preuves apparemment irréfutables
que je ne devais l'être par la suite ;
en l'occurrence, huit ans plus tard,
les dirigeants communistes de Phnom
Penh devaient également confirmer que,
sur ce point, les renseignements fournis
par le déserteur étaient exacts.)

Abrams demanda l'autorisation d'en-
gager des avions B 52 contre le quar-
tier général. L'ambassadeur Ellsworth
Bunker (3) s'associa à cette demande...

Ces propositions tombaient à point
nommé. Le 8 janvier 1969, au cours
de la période de transition, le prési-
dent élu m'avait fait parvenir ce ce-
sage : « Je voudrais que, à l'occasion
de votre étude sur le Vietnam, vous
me fassiez une note précise sur ce que
l'ennemi possède au Cambodge, et, s'il
possède effectivement des installations,
sur ce que nous y faisons pour les
détruire. Je pense que, lorsque je serai
entré en fonctions, l'une des tâches
prioritaires devra être de changer radi-
calement de politique à l'égard du
Cambodge. »

Le général Andrew Goodpaster (4)
avait rédigé, pour que je la signe, une
réponse dans laquelle il fournissait des
renseignements détaillés sur les bases
nord-vietnamiennes situées le long de
la frontière cambodienne. Il y notait
que, pour « notre commandement au
Vietnam du Sud, l'énorme quantité de
fournitures et de vivres qui pénétrent
au Cambodge passe par Sihanoukville...
(voir carte page 104). Nous ne faisons
pratiquement rien pour lutter contre
cela... Le commandement a demandé
à plusieurs reprises l'autorisation de
pénétrer au Cambodge pour y mener
des opérations préventives et y pour-
suivre les forces qui nous ont attaqués

(3) Ellsworth Bunker : ambassadeur des Etats-Unis à Saigon.

(4) Général Andrew Goodpaster : commandant en chef adjoint du corps expéditionnaire au Vietnam.

et s'y réfugient. Toutes ces demandes
se sont heurtées à un refus, ou n'ont
pas encore fait l'objet d'une décision ».

Le rôle joué par Sihanoukville était
un des points controversés de notre
première étude. Le commandement
militaire américain à Saigon était
convaincu que, d'octobre 1967 à sep-
tembre 1968, quelque 10 000 tonnes
d'armes étaient entrées par Sihanouk-
ville, ce que la C.i.a. et le ministère des
Affaires étrangères contestaient. Pour
ces derniers, en effet, les vivres et les
munitions qui entraient au Vietnam
via le Laos et la piste Ho-Chi-Minh
suffisaient largement à couvrir les be-
soins des forces communistes présentes
au Vietnam du Sud.

L'objet de cette querelle d'experts
était, bien évidemment, de savoir si les
sanctuaires cambodiens constituantaient
une cible suffisamment importante
pour mériter d'être attaqués. Comme il
arrive trop souvent, les estimations des
services de renseignement s'inspiraient
des visées politiques de la C.i.a. plutôt
qu'elles ne les inspiraient. Ceux qui
étaient partisans d'attaquer les bases
ennemies exagéraient le rôle de Sih-
nanoukville. Ceux qui y étaient hostiles
le minimisaient. Lorsque les forces
américaines et sud-vietnamiennes péné-
trèrent dans les sanctuaires, en avril
1970, on apprit, grâce aux documents
retrouvés sur les lieux, que les stocks
des communistes dépassaient de beau-
coup les estimations les plus fortes des
militaires.

S'il existait un désaccord sur la voie
— Sihanoukville ou piste Ho-Chi-Minh
— par laquelle avait été acheminé le
matériel, personne ne contestait la
menace que constituaitaient les bases
nord-vietnamiennes au Cambodge pour
les forces américaines et sud-vietna-
miennes.

Le 18 février, je reçus, en même
temps que Laird, le ministre adjoint
Packard, le général Wheeler et l'ad-
joint militaire de Laird, le colonel Ro-
bert E. Pursley, un bref rapport rédigé
en commun par deux hommes de Sai-
gon. J'informai le Président de ce que
le général Abrams était convaincu
qu'aucun civil ne vivait autour des
bases nord-vietnamiennes au Cam-
bodge. Néanmoins, je le mis en garde
contre l'agression que représenterait
un bombardement de ces bases. Je
pensais qu'il fallait laisser aux négocia-

tions une chance d'aboutir, et faire en
sorte que l'opinion publique continuât
à soutenir notre politique. Je lui sug-
gérai de réexaminer la situation à la
fin du mois de mars, reprenant ainsi
à mon compte la classique technique
d'atermoiement utilisée dans l'adminis-
tration pour mettre du baume au cœur
de ceux dont on n'a pas retenu les
suggestions. Nixon accepta cette pro-
position le 22 février, veille de son
départ pour l'Europe.

Le jour même où Nixon décidait de
remettre à plus tard l'attaque des sanc-
tuaires, les Nord-Vietnamiens nous
obligèrent à faire face à une crise.
Après des semaines de préparatifs, an-
térieurs à l'arrivée du nouveau gouver-
nement, Hanoi lança une vaste offen-
sive. Le nombre d'Américains tués au
combat au cours de la première se-
maine s'éleva à 453, de la deuxième,
à 336, et de la troisième, à 351 ; les
pertes sud-vietnamiennes étaient en-
core plus lourdes : 500 par semaine
en moyenne. Ce fut une opération d'un
cynisme extraordinaire.

Aucune séance de négociation sé-
rieweise n'avait encore eu lieu à Paris
avec notre nouvelle délégation, conduite
par Henry Cabot-Lodge. Le nouveau
gouvernement pouvait difficilement
avoir déjà élaboré sa politique. Calcul
ou accident, l'offensive débuta la veille
du départ de Nixon pour l'Europe,
nous ôtant ainsi toute possibilité de
riposte et humiliant le nouveau prési-
dent. Les contacts que Nixon, au cours
de la période de transition, avait pris
avec les Nord-Vietnamiens, et sa pro-
messe de mettre fin à la guerre dans
la fierté et l'honneur de toutes les par-
ties concernées, avaient donc été inu-
tiles. Sans même chercher à savoir
ce que valaient ces déclarations d'inten-
tions, le premier pas de Hanoi consis-
tait à tuer de plus en plus d'Améri-
cains. Je notai, dans un rapport destiné
au Président, que les Nord-Vietnamiens
avaient « infligé des pertes relative-
ment sévères aux forces américaines et
sud-vietnamiennes, sans avoir encore
exposé leurs unités principales ».

C'est dans le Bureau ovale que Nixon
reçut le compte rendu militaire de
l'offensive ennemie, au milieu des piles
de livres et de documents éparés que
le ministère des Affaires étrangères et
mes collaborateurs rassemblaient à son
intention sur chacun des pays qu'il al-

103

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

Nixon donne l'ordre
de bombarder
les sanctuaires

lait visiter (par la suite, Nixon devait pratiquement réserver le Bureau ovale aux grandes occasions, préférant ordinairement travailler dans le simple bureau qu'il avait au centre administratif).

Nixon parcourait les livres pour les mémoriser, grommelant d'avoir à faire un tel effort. Il était aussi très agité. Son instinct le poussait à riposter violemment à la manœuvre cynique de Hanoi. Depuis des années, il n'avait cessé de reprocher à ses prédécesseurs de réagir trop mollement aux opérations lancées par les communistes. Mais, d'autre part, il souhaitait vivement que son premier voyage à l'étranger comme président fût une réussite. Des représailles américaines risquaient de provoquer des manifestations violentes en Europe, tandis qu'une attitude passive pouvait enhardir l'adversaire. Il ne put résoudre ce dilemme. La seule réaction de la Maison-Blanche, le premier jour de l'offensive, fut un coup de téléphone que je donnai à l'ambasadeur de l'Union soviétique, Anatoly Dobrynine. Le Président voulait que Moscou comprît bien, dis-je, que, si l'offensive nord-vietnamienne se poursuivait, il y aurait des représailles.

Le lendemain 23 février, alors que nous volions vers Bruxelles, Nixon se décida. Il donna brusquement l'ordre de bombarder les sanctuaires du Cambodge. J'estimais, cependant, qu'on ne pouvait se contenter de câbler à Washington et à Saigon, de l' « Air Force One », une décision de cette importance, sans avoir, au préalable, consulté les gens concernés et, en l'absence d'un plan, en suppliant les conséquences. Je conseillai donc à Nixon de retarder de quarante-huit heures l'ordre définitif d' « exécution », et j'envoyai un message urgent au colonel Alexander Haig, mon conseiller militaire à Washington, pour qu'il me rejoigne à Bruxelles avec un expert du Pentagone. Je voulais revoir les opérations militaires, et mettre sur pied un plan diplomatique.

Le 24 février au matin, juste avant que le Président prenne la parole au quartier général de l'Otan, Haig, Halderman (représentant Nixon, dont la présence aurait attiré l'attention), le fonctionnaire du Pentagone chargé de la préparation des opérations et même, nous nous rencontrâmes à l'aéroport de Bruxelles, à bord de l' « Air Force One ». L'avion qu'utilisait Nixon avait été spécialement conçu

Les bases nord-vietnamiennes au Cambodge. La première attaque des B 52 eut lieu le 18 mars 1969 contre la base 353. Nom de code : Petit Déjeuner. Les autres attaques, en mai, contre les bases 350, 351, 740 et 352, s'appelaient Dessert, Goûter, Déjeuner et Diner. L'ensemble des opérations fut baptisé Menu.

selon les directives de Lyndon Johnson. Juste derrière la cabine du Président se trouvait une salle de conférences, avec un énorme fauteuil s'adaptant à une table en forme de haricot; fauteuil et table étaient équipés de boutons permettant de les actionner indépendamment. Le fauteuil était très magniable; quant à la table, grâce à un habile dispositif hydraulique, elle montait ou descendait à volonté. Mais si, par mégarde, on se trompait de bouton, la table s'enfonçait lentement, vous rivant à votre fauteuil. La situation pouvait encore devenir plus critique si le fauteuil montait en même temps.

Dans ce décor étonnant, nous traçâmes les grandes lignes du plan de bombardement des sanctuaires ennemis : les bombardements seraient limités à 8 km à l'intérieur du Cambodge ;

nous ne les annoncerions pas, mais les reconnaîtrions si le Cambodge protestait, et nous offririons des dédommages pour les dégâts causés aux civils. Dans le peu de temps qui nous était imparti, nous arrêtâmes un programme militaire et diplomatique, ainsi que, dans leurs grandes lignes, les comptes rendus que nous ferions à la presse. Haig et l'expert du Pentagone regagnèrent aussitôt Washington pour informer Laird. Plus tard, Nixon résuma l'affaire à Williams Rogers (5) à Londres, sans entrer dans les détails.

Le jour même, de Washington, Laird nous câbla ses réserves : il pensait qu'il serait impossible de garder les bombardements secrets. La presse se-

(5) William Rogers : ministre des Affaires étrangères (secrétaire d'Etat).

104

L'EXPRESS - 13 OCTOBRE 1979

## « Scier » Nixon comme auparavant Johnson

rait difficile à manier et le soutien de l'opinion publique ne nous était pas acquis. Il demandait instamment d'attendre que la provocation fût plus évidente. Son attitude reflétait bien le climat d'hésitation dans lequel nous vions alors — la peur de réveiller les démons assoupis de la contestation. Avec le recul, il me paraît stupéfiant que notre première préoccupation à tous ait été de savoir si, du point de vue juridique, il y avait eu violation des engagements pris, alors que quatre cents Américains étaient tués chaque semaine, et que les Nord-Vietnamiens tentaient, par ce moyen, de briser notre volonté avant que nous ayons pu échafauder le moindre plan de riposte. Fait plus étonnant encore, durant toute cette période, on n'étudia jamais sérieusement la possibilité d'une reprise des bombardements du Vietnam du Nord. L'arrêt des bombardements, qui, à l'origine, avait été décidé pour permettre de régler plus rapidement le conflit, était devenu une fin en soi.

Je partageais les conclusions de Laird sur le bombardement des bases du Cambodge, même si je ne le suivais pas dans son raisonnement. Notre absence de réaction à une décision aussi cynique que celle de Hanoi risquait d'anéantir nos espoirs d'aboutir à une négociation. Hanoi n'y verrait qu'une preuve de l'impuissance de Nixon à résister aux pressions exercées sur lui aux Etats-Unis ; cela ne ferait probablement qu'encourager les Nord-Vietnamiens à d'autres défis militaires : leur objectif étant de « scier » Nixon comme ils avaient « scié » Johnson.

Ce qui m'inquiétait, c'était le choix du moment : je trouvais imprudent de lancer une nouvelle opération militaire alors que le Président voyageait en Europe et pouvait, par conséquent, être en butte à des manifestations d'hostilité, sans pouvoir rencontrer et convaincre son gouvernement. En outre, je n'étais pas partisan de faire du problème vietnamien le noyau de toutes nos déclarations à la presse européenne, ou d'avoir à nous justifier en privé auprès de gouvernements alliés qui ne souhaitaient pas toujours concilier leurs deux positions — le soutien qu'ils accordaient en privé à notre action au Vietnam, et leur position officielle qui consistait à se démarquer de nous. Je confiai toutes ces pensées au président

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105

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

Le « Times » nous
accuse d'avoir
provoqué Hanoi

Nixon, qui, le lendemain même, à
Bonn, annula son plan.

Le Mini-Têt, comme on l'appela, mit en lumière la précarité de notre position sur le plan intérieur. L'offensive ennemi avait sûrement été préparée depuis plusieurs mois. Lorsqu'elle se produisit, le nouveau gouvernement était en place depuis tout juste quatre semaines. L'ennemi ne pouvait donc connaître nos intentions, puisque nous-mêmes ne les connaissions pas encore.

Pourtant, le 9 mars, le « New York Times » accusa le nouveau gouvernement d'avoir provoqué Hanoi : n'avions-nous pas passé un mois à étudier les différentes solutions qui s'offraient à nous dans une guerre où était engagé un corps expéditionnaire de plus de 500 000 hommes ? « La triste réalité, écrivait le « Times », c'est que les pourparlers de Paris sont actuellement au point mort, tandis que l'ambassadeur Lodge attend le feu vert de la Maison-Blanche pour faire de nouvelles propositions de paix ou pour engager des négociations privées qui, seules, probablement, permettront d'avancer vraiment. On a tout arrêté pour laisser le temps au gouvernement Nixon d'étudier soigneusement la situation militaire et politique. » Le Congrès devait bientôt se faire l'écho de ce point de vue.

Le Président adopta une position modérée en public, tout en rongeant son frein en privé. Le 4 mars, il déclarait, au cours d'une conférence :

« Nous n'avons pas agi dans la pré-
cipitation ; mais il ne faudrait pas voir
dans notre patience et notre indulgence
ou dans notre absence de réaction la
marque d'une quelconque faiblesse.
Nous ne tolérons pas que l'on continue
à violer l'engagement qui a été pris.
Mais, surtout, nous ne tolérerons pas
d'attaques qui se traduirait par des
pertes en hommes encore plus lourdes
pour nous, alors même qu'à Paris nous
nous efforçons sincèrement de recher-
cher un compromis de paix à la table
de conférence. Si ces attaques conti-
nuent, nous prendrons les mesures qui
s'imposent pour y répondre. »

Le 4 mars, je transmis au Président,
sans commentaire, une note de Laird
expliquant pourquoi il était hostile à
la proposition de l'état-major inter-
armes d'attaquer le Vietnam du Nord.

Laird était loin d'être une « colombe » : en temps normal, son tempérament le portait plutôt à choisir le combat. Il aurait préféré que l'on s'acheminât vers la victoire. Mais il savait également prendre la température de l'opinion publique et du Congrès. En homme politique qui ne manquait pas de flair, il savait que ceux qui élèvent des barrières risquent fort de compromettre leur avenir politique ; pour sa part, il n'avait pas l'intention de faire ce sacrifice. C'est pourquoi il naviguait prudemment.

Ses convictions lui conseillaient une
riposte militaire, et son instinct poli-
tique l'incitait à la modération. Hos-
tile au bombardement du Vietnam du
Nord, il devint un fervent partisan de
l'attaque des sanctuaires du Cambodge
(son seul point de désaccord portait
sur la ligne de conduite adoptée à
l'égard de la presse : selon lui, en effet,
il n'était pas possible, pour des raisons
pratiques et non morales, de tenir les
bombardements secrets). Le Président,
qui avait fait le même raisonnement,
donna l'ordre d'attaquer les bases en-
nemies du Cambodge, le 9 mars. Le 7,
Rogers exprima son désaccord en rai-
son des perspectives de pourparlers
privés à Paris.

Pour la deuxième fois, Nixon annula
son ordre. Mais son dépit et son impa-
tience augmentaient un peu plus chaque
fois qu'il se voyait contraint de reve-
nir sur sa décision. Comme Laird, il
répétait qu'il ne voulait pas frapper
le Nord, mais qu'il fallait faire « quel-
que chose ». Le 14 mars, au cours
d'une conférence de presse, on lui de-
manda s'il ne commençait pas à perdre
patience. Nixon répondit :

« Les journaux de ce matin indi-
quent que, cette semaine, nos pertes
sont tombées de 400 à 300. Il n'y a pas
de quoi se réjouir. Ce chiffre est beau-
coup trop élevé. Mais c'est en fonc-
tion des répercussions qu'elle aura sur
les négociations en cours à Paris qu'il
faut calculer notre réaction. Je vous
répondrai donc comme je l'ai déjà fait
en d'autres occasions... Nous avons
lancé un avertissement. Il n'y en aura
pas deux. Si le niveau de noirs pertes
dépassé les limites que nous estimons
supportables, nous prendrons les me-
sures qui s'imposent. »

Le lendemain, un pas de plus était
franchi dans la violation de nos ac-
cords : les Nord-Vietnamiens lancèrent

cinq roquettes sur Saigon. Au cours
des deux premières semaines de mars,
l'ennemi avait mené trente-deux atta-
ques contre des grandes villes du Viet-
nam du Sud. Le jour où les roquettes
tombèrent sur Saigon, je reçus un coup
de fil du Président à 15 h 35 : il ordon-
nait de lancer immédiatement une
attaque de B 52 sur les sanctuaires
du Cambodge. Nixon, qui avait vu ses
plans contrecarrés pendant un mois,
était catégorique : « Le ministère des
Affaires étrangères ne sera averti que
lorsqu'un retour en arrière ne sera plus
possible... Il n'y a pas à discuter cet
ordre. » (« Il n'y a pas à discuter »
était une des phrases favorites de
Nixon. Pour ceux qui le connaissent,
elle reflétait, en fait, une très grande
indécision, ce qui, bien entendu, avait
pour effet de susciter des discussions
plutôt que de les apaiser.)

Je déclarai au Président qu'il ne pouvait prendre une décision de cette importance sans avoir donné auparavant à ses proches conseillers l'occasion d'exprimer leur point de vue, ne serait-ce que pour se protéger si cette décision provoquait des réactions houleuses dans le pays. Il n'y avait pas de temps à perdre. Il faudrait mettre au point un plan d'action détaillé pour parer à toute éventualité. La préparation des instructions demanderait au moins vingt-quatre heures. Une réunion fut donc fixée au lendemain dans le Bureau ovale. Je consultai Laird, qui approuvait tout à fait la décision du Président.

Pour préparer cette réunion, je rédi-
geai, à l'intention du Président, une
note où je résumais les pour et les
contre. Les risques allaient d'une pro-
testation pour la forme du Cambodge
à une violente réaction des Soviétiques,
d'une résistance sérieuse au Cambodge
à des représailles directes des Nord-
Vietnamiens — bien qu'il fût difficile
de concevoir ce que Hanoi aurait pu
entreprendre de plus que ce qu'il faisait déjà. Enfin, on risquait de voir
resurgir la contestation à l'intérieur du
pays, et d'assister à de nouvelles mani-
festations d'opposition à la guerre. Je
pensais qu'il serait bon que notre délégation à Paris proposât une réunion
privée le jour du bombardement, afin
de souligner notre préférence pour une
solution négociée. Je demandai instam-
ment au Président d'insister auprès de
ses partenaires sur le fait que le bom-

106

L'EXPRESS - 13 OCTOBRE 1979

Nixon feignit de se laisser convaincre

bordement envisagé ne constituerait en aucune façon un précédent. Ce que mon inventaire ne prévoyait pas, c'est ce qui se passa en réalité : aucune réaction ne vint de Hanoi, de Phnom Penh, de Moscou ou de Pékin.

Participaient à la réunion, qui eut lieu au Bureau ovale, dans l'après-midi du dimanche 16 mars, Williams Rogers, Laird, Wheeler et moi. Pour la première fois depuis son arrivée au pouvoir, Nixon devait prendre une décision concrète en pleine crise internationale. Pour la première fois, également, il devait affronter l'opposition de ses associés à une ligne d'action dans laquelle il était déjà engagé. Nixon aborda la difficulté d'une façon qui allait devenir sa marque distinctive. D'un côté, sa décision était prise, et il n'avait pas l'intention d'en changer ; il m'avait d'ailleurs donné l'ordre de prévenir le ministère de la Défense à cet effet, vingt-quatre heures avant la réunion. De l'autre, il pensait qu'il fallait faire comme si la décision n'était pas encore définitive. Cela nous entraîna dans une discussion interminable, qu'il trouva fort désagréable, et qui renforça sa tendance à exclure les récalcitrants des délibérations ultérieures.

La réunion du Bureau ovale suivit le cours prévu. Laird et Wheeler étaient résolument partisans de l'attaque. Quant à Rogers, ses objections portaient non pas sur des raisons de politique étrangère, mais sur des raisons d'ordre intérieur. Il ne souleva pas la question du statut de pays neutre du Cambodge. Il était admis une fois pour toutes (et à juste titre) que nous avions le droit de riposter à la violation manifeste de la neutralité cambodgienne par les Nord-Vietnamiens, puisque le Cambodge ne voulait pas défendre cette neutralité ou en était incapable. Rogers craignait que nous n'allions au-devant de remous au Congrès, alors même que les choses étaient en train de s'apaiser. On discuta pendant plusieurs heures et Nixon feignit de se laisser convaincre par Laird et Wheeler de faire ce qu'il avait déjà ordonné. Quant à moi, ayant exposé mon point de vue dans la note que j'avais remise à Nixon, je n'intervins pas. Finalement, Rogers accepta le principe d'une attaque de B 52 dirigée sur la zone où, pensait-on, se trouvait

A LA RECHERCHE D'UN TOIT

## OU

Comment ne pas vous perdre dans le maquis de l'immobilier.

* Qu'est-ce qu'un C.V.H., une T.L.E., une L.O.F., etc... ?

* Quels sont vos droits et vos obligations de locataire?

* Quelles formalités devez-vous remplir avant de construire une maison?

* Comment reconnaître la qualité et le bon équipement d'un appartement?

* Quel financement choisir?

* La réponse à ces questions et à beaucoup d'autres, juridiques, administratives... est fournie dans ce guide.

* Lisez-le avant de louer, acheter un appartement, ou construire une maison. Vous éviterez bien des erreurs.

la recherche d'un toit

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LAROUSSE

Suite page 109

107

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L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

# L'opération Petit Déjeuner est déclenchée

Suite de la page 107

vait le quartier général des commu-
nistes.

Ce genre de délibérations est élo-
quent : au bout d'un mois d'agressions
nord-vietnamiennes ayant entraîné la
mort de plus d'un millier d'Américains,
nous répondions, après des semaines
d'après discussions, par un seul raid
à 3 km à l'intérieur de la frontière
cambodgienne, dans une zone occupée
depuis plus de quatre ans par les Nord-
Vietnamiens. Et cela allait entrer dans
l'Histoire comme un exemple d' « acte
illegal » et gratuit.

Après la réunion, l'état-major inter-
armes suggéra d'adjoindre à ce que
nous avions décidé plusieurs attaques
dirigées sur les concentrations de
troupes nord-vietnamiennes qui vio-
laient la zone démilitarisée. Laird et
moi pensions qu'il était plus important
de garder Rogers de notre côté, et la
proposition fut rejetée.

L'attaque des B 52 eut lieu le
18 mars, contre la base 353, à 5 km
à l'intérieur de la frontière (voir carte).
Pour cette opération, le Pentagone
était allé chercher, dans sa réserve iné-
puisable de noms de code, celui de
« Petit Déjeuner », aussi dépourvu de
sens que de bon goût. Lorsqu'une atta-
que aérienne touche un dépôt de fuel
ou de munitions, il se produit toujours
des explosions secondaires qui prou-
vent, de manière pratiquement certaine,
que le raid a atteint son objectif. La
première estimation que nous envoya
l'équipage de l'opération « Petit Dé-
jeuner » du 18 mars faisait état de
« 73 explosions secondaires au total
dans la zone visée, d'une intensité cinq
fois supérieure à celle qui est norma-
lement enregistrée au cours d'une ex-
plosion secondaire ordinaire ».

A l'origine, l'attaque de la base 353 avait été conçue comme un raid unique. Néanmoins, Nixon en ordonna un autre en avril 1969, en partie parce que ni Hanoi ni Phnom Penh n'avaient réagi au premier, en partie, également, parce que les résultats avaient passé nos espérances, mais surtout en raison d'un événement qui s'était produit loin de là, en Corée du Nord. Nixon avait voulu réagir, lorsqu'un simple avion de reconnaissance américain avait été abattu, en bombardant la Corée du Nord (il avait sévèrement reproché à Johnson de n'avoir pas réagi énergiquement après la capture par la Corée

du Nord du navire espony « Pueblo »). Nixon s'était contrôlé essentiellement en raison de la vigoureuse opposition de Rogers et de Laird. Mais, comme toujours lorsqu'il avait dominé son dé- sir instinctif de réagir brutalement, Nixon cherchait un autre endroit où il pourrait montrer de quoi il était ca- pable. Il ne craignait rien tant que d'être taxé de faiblesse.

En mai, Nixon ordonna d'attaquer
d'autres bases cambodgiennes toutes
dépeuplées et situées le long de la fron-
tière, à moins de 8 km de celle-ci.
L'attaque de la base 350 reçut le nom
de « Dessert » ; de la base 351, le nom
de « Goûter » ; de la base 740, celui
de « Souper » ; de la base 609, celui
de « Déjeuner », et, enfin, de la base
352, celui de « Dîner ». Partant du
principe que, lorsqu'on a une idée il
faut la suivre jusqu'au bout, l'ensemble
des opérations fut baptisé « Menu ».
Les attaques furent intermittentes
d'avril au début d'août 1969 ; chacune
fut spécifiquement approuvée par la
Maison-Blanche. Ensuite, Nixon donna
une autorisation générale et les raids
furent menés dans les règles.

Il suffit de regarder la carte délimi-
tant avec précision, le long de la fron-
tière, l'étroite bande de quelques kilo-
mètres de large où se trouvaient les
bases pour comprendre qu'il n'était pas
fondé de nous accuser d'avoir « bom-
bardé massivement le Cambodge neu-
tre ». C'est pourtant ce que firent, en
1974, douze membres de la Commis-
sion judiciaire de la Chambre. Ils pro-
posèrent de condamner Nixon sous

prétexte qu'il avait caché au Congrès
« une conduite des opérations plus cho-
quante et plus incroyable que celle de
n'importe quel président au cours de
n'importe quelle guerre dans toute
l'Histoire des Etats-Unis » — ce sont
les termes du député Robert Drinan.
Ni le Cambodge ni le Vietnam du Nord
ne firent jamais état de Cambodgiens
ou de civils tués. Les statistiques
concernant la quantité de bombes lâ-
chées au cours de ces raids sont sou-
vent invoquées pour prouver la barba-
rie du gouvernement. Mais elles se
gardent bien de parler de ce fait essen-
tiel et ne précisent pas davantage qu'il
s'agissait d'une attaque circonscrite à
une bande de terre large de quelques
kilomètres seulement, le long de la
frontière. L'opération « Menu » se
poursuivit jusqu'en mai 1970. Après,
l'aviation intervint ouvertement pour
couvrir les attaques au sol des troupes
américaines et sud-vietnamiennes
contre les bases nord-vietnamiennes.

Des rapports périodiques tenaient
Nixon au courant du déroulement de
l'opération « Menu ». En novembre
1969, il écrivit sur un de ces rapports :
« Continuez les raids. » En décembre
1969 et en février 1970, il demanda
qu'on en évaluât l'utilité. Laird répon-
dit que, pour le général Abrams et
l'ambassadeur Bunker, « Menu » était
une des opérations les plus efficaces de
toute la guerre ». Le général Abrams
soutenait que « Menu » avait boule-
versé la logistique de l'ennemi, fait
avorter plusieurs de ses offensives et
réduit considérablement la menace qui
pesait sur toute la région de Saigon.
Laird reprit à son compte le jugement
de l'état-major interarmes et du géné-
ral Abrams, selon lequel l'opération
« Menu » « avait été efficace et pouvait
le demeurer, moyennant des risques
acceptables ».

Au départ, nous avions l'intention de
reconnaître l'opération « Petit Déjeu-
ner » si les Cambodiens réagissaient,
ce à quoi nous nous attendions ferme-
ment. La C.i.a., dans ses deux mé-
moires des 20 février et 6 mars, pré-
voyait qu'il était « certain », ou « à
peu près certain », que Hanoi cherche-
rait à tirer profit de la situation à des
fins de propagande, en accusant les
Américains d'avoir voulu étendre le
conflit. Le ministère de la Défense
doutait que l'on pût garder les attaques
secrètes. Moi, je pensais que rien ne

Le général Earle Wheeler,
chef de l'état-major interarmes.

109

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110

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

Ni Hanoi
ni Sihanouk
ne protestèrent

nous permettait de le savoir. Au cours d'une conversation que j'eus avec Nixon, le 8 mars, je déclarai : « Si nous lançons une attaque et que nous ne gagnions rien à la cacher, alors disons ce que nous avons fait. » Le Président en convint. On prépara donc une reconnaissance en bonne et due forme pour le cas où le Cambodge protesterait.

Au début, nous voulions rester discrets pour ne pas forcer les Nord-Vietnamiens, le prince Sihanouk, les Soviétiques et les Chinois à réagir officiellement, ce qu'ils ne tenaient peut-être pas à faire. Une déclaration sponтанée des Américains aurait obligé Hanoi à faire connaître publiquement sa réaction, laquelle aurait pu se traduire par des représailles ou par une interruption des pourparlers de paix. Elle aurait également contraint Sihanouk à prendre officiellement position, en le faisant pencher du côté de Hanoi, au moment même où il s'efforçait de se maintenir en équilibre sur la corde raide de la neutralité. Enfin, une déclaration américaine aurait suscité des réactions de l'Union soviétique et de la Chine, qui auraient entravé les sérieks efforts que nous faisions pour élaborer une diplomatie entre nos trois pays.

Mais, contrairement à toute attente, Hanoi ne protesta pas. Sa délégation à Paris accepta même la proposition de Lodge, le 22 mars, d'engager des pourparlers privés, moins de soixant-douze heures après lui en avoir fait la suggestion. Quant à Sihanouk, non seulement il ne protesta pas, mais il considéra que le bombardement ne le concernait pas : il avait eu lieu dans des zones totalement occupées par les troupes nord-vietnamiennes et n'avait atteint aucun Cambodgien ; il était hors de son champ d'action et le prince n'était même pas censé en avoir eu connaissance.

En fait, nos relations avec le Cambodge s'améliorèrent d'une façon spec-taculaire tout au long de la période des bombardements. La subtilité et l'habileté du jeu de Sihanouk, qui lui avait permis de trouver un équilibre entre les pressions intérieures et les pressions extérieures, étaient depuis dix ans un sujet d'émerveillement pour tous. Prince héréditaire, Norodom Sihanouk, qui avait fait, en sorte, de s'assurer un

L'EXPRESS - 13 OCTOBRE 1979

Sihanouk : Chassez
les Vietcongs
du Cambodge

soutien massif d'une partie de la popula-
tion, semblait maintenant inattaquable. Il avait consolidé l'indépen-
dance de son pays et acquis le prestige
de celui dont on ne peut plus se passer.
Il avait fait ce qu'il fallait pour que
le Cambodge restât neutre. Après l'ac-
cord du Laos, en 1962, il était arrivé à
la conclusion que les communistes,
qu'il haïssait, l'emporteraient probable-
ment en Indochine. Il s'était donc
adapté à cette réalité, en acceptant que
les Nord-Vietnamiens installent leurs
bases dans son pays.

En 1965, il trouva un prétexte pour
rompre ses relations diplomatiques avec
les Etats-Unis. Néanmoins, c'était à
contrecœur qu'il collaborait avec les
communistes. Hanoi soutenait les
Khmers rouges (les communistes cam-
bodgiens), qui avaient commencé leurs
actions de guérilla bien avant que les
Américains soient intervenus au Cam-
bodge. Sihanouk avait alors condamné
à mort par contumace les dirigeants
communistes.

C'est pour toutes ces raisons que je soutiens énergiquement Rogers, lorsque, en février 1969, il conseilla au Président de tenter une démarche auprès de Sihanouk, en vue d'améliorer les relations entre nos deux pays. Ces tentatives d'ouverture rencontrèrent un accueil chaleureux, et notre ambassade à Phnom Penh rouvrit, sous la conduite d'un chargé d'affaires.

Le fait que Sihanouk ait accepté les
bombardements n'aurait pourtant pas
dû nous surprendre. Dès le 10 janvier
1968, sous le gouvernement précédent,
il avait déclaré à l'émissaire du Pré-
sident, Chester Bowles :

« Nous voulons qu'il ne reste aucun
Vietnamien au Cambodge... Nous se-
rons très heureux si vous réglez ce
problème. C'est pourquoi nous ne nous
opposons pas à ce que vous les pour-
suiviez avec acharnement dans les
zones inhabitées. En agissant ainsi, vous
nous délivreriez du Vietcong. Pour moi,
il n'y a que le Cambodge qui compte.
J'aimerais que vous forciez les Viet-
congs à quitter le Cambodge. S'il s'agit
très précisément d'attaques dans les
zones non peuplées, où ne se trouvent
pas de Cambodgiens, je fermerai les
yeux. »

Le 13 mai 1969, deux mois environ
après le début des bombardements,
Sihanouk donna une conférence de
presse dans laquelle il reconnut quasi-

ment les bombardements, mais où il nia
énergiquement qu'il y ait eu des civils
tués; il nous invitait à continuer dans
la même voie, quelles que soient pra-
tiquement nos intentions :

« Si je n'ai pas protesté devant les
bombardements des camps vietcongs,
c'est parce que je n'ai pas entendu par-
ler de ces bombardements. Je n'étais
pas au courant, tout simplement parce
que, dans certaines zones du Cam-
bodge, il n'y a pas de Cambodgiens.

« Le Cambodge ne proteste que s'il y a destruction de vies ou de biens cambodgiens. Tout ce que je peux dire, c'est que, tant que je ne suis pas au courant, il m'est impossible de pro-tester. Mais je le ferai si des Khmers cambodgiens sont tués ou si des biens leur appartenant sont détruits...

« Je tiens à vous le dire, Messieurs,
si un seul Cambodgien ou le moindre
buffle est tué, j'en serai immédiatement
averti. Mais, pour le moment, c'est une
affaire entre les Américains et le Viet-
cong Vietminh, hors de la présence du
moindre témoin khmer. Puisqu'il n'y a
aucun témoin khmer, pourquoi voulez-
vous que je proteste ? »

Le 22 août 1969, Sihanouk tint le
même langage au sénateur Mike
Mansfield (d'après le câble qui relate
leur entretien).

« S'il n'y eut aucune protestation de
Sihanouk à la suite des bombardements
dans son pays, c'est parce que ceux-ci
n'avaient touché ni villages ni civils
cambodgiens, mais seulement des Viet-
congs ou leurs installations. Sihanouk
m'a dit que, pratiquement, tout ce qu'il
savait des bombardements américains
dans des zones inhabitées du Cambodge,
il le tenait de déclarations qu'il avait
lues dans la presse américaine. Il a
beaucoup insisté pour que l'on évite des
incidents où la vie de Cambodgiens
pourrait être en péril. »

Le 31 juillet 1969, après quatre mois
et demi de bombardements des bases
nord-vietnamiennes à l'intérieur du
Cambodge, Sihanouk invita chaleureu-
sement le président Nixon à venir en
visite au Cambodge pour fêter le ren-
forcement des relations américano-
cambodgiennes. Ces relations allèrent
d'ailleurs en s'améliorant, jusqu'au mo-
ment où, contre toute attente, Sihanouk
fut renversé.

Personne ne doutait de notre bon
droit lorsque nous attaquions des zones

d'où partaient les Nord-Vietnamiens
pour aller tuer des forces américaines
et alliées, d'où toute administration
cambodienne avait été chassée, et
dans lesquelles, selon Sihanouk lui-
même, pas même un buffe cambodgien
n'avait été tué. Nous ne voyions au-
cune utilité à annoncer que le Cam-
bodge nous encourageait à poursuivre,
et que le Vietnam du Nord ne réagis-
sait pas. Si nous voulions garder le
secret, c'était pour éviter que cette
question ne provoque une crise interna-
tionale, ce qui aurait très probablement
compliqué nos efforts, tant sur le plan
diplomatique que sur celui de la
guerre.

Celle-ci avait été étendue au Cam-
bodge quatre ans plus tôt par les Nord-
Vietnamiens, qui occupaient une partie
de son territoire. Un pas de plus avait
été franchi dans la guerre, au Vietnam
même, lorsque, à partir du 22 février,
les Nord-Vietnamiens avaient violé les
accords de 1968, en attaquant des
villes. Bombarder des zones d'où les
soldats nord-vietnamiens avaient ex-
pulsé tous les Cambodgiens, afin de
pouvoir tuer plus efficacement des
Américains, au rythme de quatre cents
par semaine, cela constituant une réac-
tion minimale de défense, parfaitement
compatible avec notre politique inter-
nationale. D'ailleurs, l'opinion publique
américaine l'aurait sûrement approuvée.
Mais notre réaction fut gardée secrète,
car, en l'annonçant officiellement, nous
aurions porté un coup gratuit au gou-
vernement cambodgien, qui aurait été
obligé de demander l'arrêt des bombar-
dements. D'autre part, elle aurait en-
couragé les Nord-Vietnamiens à se
livrer à des représailles (comment au-
raient-ils pu ne pas réagir, alors que
nous avions annoncé nous-mêmes que
nous le faisions ?). Les Nord-Vietna-
miens gardèrent le silence, car ils ne
souhaitaient pas faire trop parler de
leur présence illégale au Cambodge.
Finalement, nos bombardements sau-
vèrent des vies américaines et sud-
vietnamiennes.

C'est la raison pour laquelle Nixon
et moi-même fûmes tellement indignés
lorsque nous constatâmes, à la lecture
de la presse, qu'il y avait eu des fuites
du côté américain. Le « New York
Times » des 26 mars et 27 avril, et le
« Washington Post » du 27 avril éga-
lement, publièrent le compte rendu des
attaques aériennes de B 52, et d'autres

111

L'EXPRESS DOCUMENT

L'EXPRESS

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<table><tr><td>Allemagne Fédérale</td><td>146 DM</td></tr><tr><td>Autriche</td><td>1250 Sch</td></tr><tr><td>Belgique</td><td>1960 FB</td></tr><tr><td>Danemark</td><td>400 Krd</td></tr><tr><td>Espagne</td><td>4580 Ptas</td></tr><tr><td>Finlande</td><td>300 MF</td></tr><tr><td>Grande-Bretagne</td><td>29 £</td></tr><tr><td>Grèce</td><td>2290 DR</td></tr><tr><td>Pays-Bas</td><td>156 FI</td></tr><tr><td>Italie</td><td>45760 L</td></tr><tr><td>Luxembourg</td><td>1960 FL</td></tr><tr><td>Norvège</td><td>395 KN</td></tr><tr><td>Portugal</td><td>2080 esc.</td></tr><tr><td>Suède</td><td>343 Krs</td></tr><tr><td>Suisse</td><td>124 FS</td></tr><tr><td>Autres pays</td><td>319 F ou 68 US</td></tr><tr><td>Etudiants tous pays</td><td>230 F ou 49 US</td></tr></table>

ENVOIS PAR AVION

<table><tr><td>Guadeloupe</td><td>319 F</td><td>329 F</td></tr><tr><td>Martinique air</td><td>319 F air</td><td>329 F</td></tr><tr><td>Canada cargo</td><td>73 $ C mail</td><td>103 $ C</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>69 $ US</td><td>99 $ US</td></tr><tr><td>Afrique (zone Franc)</td><td colspan="2">14560 CFA</td></tr><tr><td>Algérie, Maroc, Tunisie</td><td colspan="2">299 F</td></tr><tr><td>Étudiants Canada</td><td colspan="2">{ 48 $ C</td></tr><tr><td>Étudiants USA</td><td>air cargo</td><td>43 $ US</td></tr><tr><td>Étudiants Afrique (zone Franc)</td><td colspan="2">11500 CFA</td></tr><tr><td>Étudiants Algérie, Maroc, Tunisie</td><td colspan="2">210 F</td></tr></table>

Autres pays voie aérienne, tarif par zone, nous consulter.

PAIEMENTS

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Treize fonctionnaires
et quatre journalistes
sur tables d'écoute

encore, sur les bases du Cambodge. Le 9 mai, un article détaillé de William Beecher paraissait dans le « New York Times », suivi d'un autre, le 16 mai, dans le « Wall Street Journal ». Puis une dépêche de l'United Press International, largement diffusée, parut dans le « Washington Post » du 18 mai ; « Newsweek » en parla le 2 juin.

Convaincu, comme moi, que les fuites mettaient inutilement en péril des vies américaines, le Président alla consulter le ministre de la Justice et le directeur du F.b.i. sur les mesures à prendre pour y remédier. J. Edgar Hoover conseilla à Nixon d'installer des écoutes téléphoniques qui, souligna-t-il, avaient été largement utilisées par les gouvernements précédents à cette fin (et à d'autres beaucoup moins justifiées). Le ministre de la Justice lui affirma que c'était là un procédé légal. Nixon fit donc installer des écoutes pour les trois catégories de personnes suivantes : les fonctionnaires ayant accès aux dossiers concernant les questions de sécurité, et, partant, aux renseignements sur le camp ennemi ; les fonctionnaires qui avaient accès aux renseignements secrets ayant fait l'objet de fuites ; enfin, les personnes que l'enquête évoqua comme pouvant faire l'objet de soupçons selon les deux premiers critères.

En se fondant sur ces critères, treize fonctionnaires et quatre journalistes furent branchés sur table d'écoute par le F.b.i., certains pendant quelques semaines, d'autres pendant plusieurs mois (mon cabinet ne connut l'existence que d'un certain nombre de ces écoutes). Contrairement à ce qu'ont pu écrire de mauvais esprits, les hauts fonctionnaires ne passèrent pas leur temps à se délecter de la lecture intégrale des longues transcriptions de conversations personnelles. Ils reçurent, en fait, de brefs résumés (d'une page environ, en moyenne) de ce que le F.b.i. considérait comme des discussions relatives à des points délicats de politique étrangère ou militaire. Le seuil à partir duquel le F.b.i. commençait à avoir des soupçons était beaucoup plus bas que celui de la Maison-Blanche. En mai 1971, Nixon cessa de faire parvenir les comptes rendus à mon cabinet ; c'est ainsi que Bob Halderman (6) se trouva seul à les recevoir alors, comme par le passé.

Je traite dans un autre chapitre des

problèmes soulevés par la pratique des écoutes téléphoniques en matière de sécurité nationale, ainsi que, d'une manière plus générale, du style politique du gouvernement Nixon. Je voudrais simplement rappeler ici que j'acceptai ce qui, je n'avais aucune raison de le mettre en doute, constituant un recours légal couramment utilisé dans des circonstances analogues et avait été employé par les précédents gouvernements, d'après ce que l'on nous avait dit, beaucoup plus énergiquement et avec moins de garanties. Sa raison d'être, que j'approvais pleinement, était d'empêcher de faire courir un danger à des Américains ou à des Sud-Vietnamiens, parce que quelques personnes (que l'on ne découvrit jamais) auraient révélé des secrets militaires qui leur avaient été confiés, dans l'intention de ruiner la ligne politique que nous avions arrêtée après mûre réflexion, et qui conciliait le respect de la légalité et notre intérêt national.

Je pense aujourd'hui que les garanties les plus sérieuses dont est maintenant assorti le recours à l'écoute téléphonique en matière de sécurité nationale traduisent un souci encore plus profond de l'intérêt national. Néanmoins, je n'ai pas changé d'avis quant à l'immoralité de ces êtres qui, au mépris de leurs responsabilités, tenaient de saboter la ligne politique adoptée par le gouvernement et metaient, par-là même, en péril la vie d'un certain nombre d'Américains.

Je pense aujourd'hui que nous avons eu tort de ne pas être plus francs avec les dirigeants du Congrès. Certes, une réunion d'information fut organisée le 11 juin 1969, au Bureau ovale, par le président Nixon et moi-même pour les sénateurs John Stennis et Richard Russel, respectivement présidents de la Commission des Forces armées et de la Commission budgétaire du Sénat. Furent également informés Everett Dirksen, chef de l'opposition au Sénat, Mendel Rivers et Leslie Arends, président et membre éminent de l'opposition de la Commission des Forces armées de la Chambre des représentants, ainsi que le chef de la minorité, Gerald Ford. De son côté, Laird informa les principaux membres des Commissions des Forces armées et des

(6) Robert Haldeman : chef du protocole à la Maison-Blanche.

112

L'EXPRESS - 13 OCTOBRE 1979

Belliqueux, le gouvernement ?
Non, des hommes
à bout de forces...

Commissions budgétaires du Congrès.
Mais personne ne se demanda s'il fallait
consulter à la fois le Sénat et la
Chambre des représentants.

En effet, l'usage voulait que l'on
informât le Congrès lorsque des opé-
rations militaires avaient été décidées.
Dans ce domaine, des changements sont
intervenus, et c'est sûrement un bien.

Sur un autre plan, il est faux de dire
que, en délogeant les Nord-Vietnamiens
de leurs bases, les bombardements ont
étendu la guerre à l'intérieur du Cam-
bodge. Dans la mesure où les Nord-
Vietnamiens abandonnèrent leurs bases,
ils refluèrent vers le Vietnam, et ne
s'enfoncèrent pas à l'intérieur du Cam-
bodge, du moins jusqu'à la chute sur-
prise de Sihanouk, un an plus tard.
Dès lors, les Nord-Vietnamiens com-
mencèrent à investir progressivement
les villes et les positions militaires cam-
bodiennes pour isoler Phnom Penh et
renverser les successeurs de Sihanouk,
comme je le décris ailleurs.

D'ailleurs, cette extension du conflit,
qui se traduisait par cette nouvelle
forme d'agression vietnamienne, toute
douloureuse et tragique qu'elle était,
n'était un secret pour personne. Elle
était parfaitement connue de l'opinion
publique américaine. Elle avait fait
l'objet de discussions au Congrès et
d'amples commentaires dans la presse.
Nos opérations aériennes étaient me-
nées selon des règles strictes. Elles
étaient supervisées par notre ambas-
sadeur à Phnom Penh et facilitées par
la prise de photographies aériennes qui
devaient permettre d'éviter, dans la me-
sure du possible, les zones habitées par
des civils cambodiens. Les bombarde-

ments « secrets » concernaient des
territoires peu étendus, pratiquement
inhabités, et occupés en totalité par les
Nord-Vietnamiens. On a parfois voulu
donner l'image déformée d'un gouver-
nement américain belliqueux et sangui-
naire, qui nourrissait le noir dessein
d'abuser le pays, alors qu'il était ques-
tion, en réalité, d'hommes à bout de
forces, qui, redoutant à la fois la capi-
tulation sur le terrain et une nouvelle
escalade de la violence, avaient choisi
ce qu'ils considéraient comme un
moindre mal entre le bombardement
du Vietnam du Nord et l'acceptation
résignée de l'humiliation d'une offen-
sive aussi sanglante que déshonorante.

Les attaques contre les bases enne-
mies du Cambodge ne furent entre-
prises qu'à contrecœur et en dernier
recours. Elles ne constituaient qu'une
réaction minimale à l'offensive gratuite
à laquelle nous nous trouvions confron-
tés, et qui coûtait la vie à quatre cents
Américains par semaine. Nous atta-
quions des bases militaires où ne se
trouvait aucun civil, et qui étaient
situées à moins de 8 km de la frontière.
Nous étions prêts à reconnaître les
bombardements et à les justifier s'il y
avait eu la moindre protestation diplo-
matique. Mais personne ne protesta :
pas plus le Cambodge que les Nord-
Vietnamiens ou les Soviétiques, ou en-
core les Chinois. En agissant discrète-
ment, nous pouvions donc continuer
à faire pression sur l'ennemi, sans
compliquer la position délicate du Cam-
bodge, ni durcir encore davantage les
relations internationales...

Copyright © 1979 L'Express,
Henry Kissinger. Traduction :
Agence française de traduction.

Kissinger accusé

Les Etats-Unis sont-ils responsables de la tragédie
que vit le Cambodge aujourd'hui ? Henry Kissinger vient
de plaider. La semaine prochaine, L'Express versera une
autre pièce au dossier en donnant la parole au journa-
liste britannique William Shawcross. Son livre, « Une
tragédie sans importance », est une sévère mise en accu-
sation de la politique de Nixon et de Kissinger au Cam-
bodge. L'ouvrage de Shawcross est un best-seller aux
Etats-Unis. En France, il paraîtra aux éditions Balland-
France Adel le 24 octobre — le même jour qu' « A la
Maison-Blanche (1968-1973) », chez Fayard.

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113

L'EXPRESS COURRIER

## Fécondité et mortalité

Dans l'article « Pourquoi les Français ne font plus d'enfants » (L'Express du 8 septembre), Jacqueline Remy écrit : « L'indice conjoncturel de fécondité est nettement inférieur au taux de mortalité, soit 2,1 pour 1 000. »

Ces deux indices ne sont nullement à comparer : l'indice conjoncturel de fécondité exprime le nombre moyen d'enfants par femme en âge de procréer (1,83 enfant par femme en 1976) ; le taux de mortalité, le nombre de décès pour 1 000 habitants (10,5 pour 1 000 en 1976). Ce qu'aurait dû dire Jacqueline Remy est que l'indice conjoncturel de fécondité est actuellement inférieur au niveau de 2,1 (enfants par femme), qui, compte tenu de la mortalité actuelle et du rapport de masculinité à la naissance, assure le remplacement : en moyenne, une femme donne naissance à une fille qui, à son tour, mettra au monde une fille...

JACQUES VERON,
attaché de recherche à l'Ined,
Paris.

[Dont acte. La formulation était un peu rapide. — J.R.]

## Dénatalité et chômage

Dans votre article « Pourquoi les Français ne font plus d'enfants », votre conclusion ne fait qu'effleurer la solution du problème, qui, à mon avantage, pourrait être résolu de la manière suivante :

Si, à chaque nouvelle mère de famille française, on payait deux ans d'indemnité maternité à 80 % de son dernier salaire (c'est-à-dire jusqu'à l'entrée de son enfant à l'école maternelle), je suis certain, par le sondage personnel que j'ai fait dans mon entourage, que beaucoup de jeunes mamans accepteraient alors le deuxième ou le troisième enfant.

Le paiement de cette indemnité ne grèverait en rien les fonds publics, car il suffirait de transférer les indemnités de chômage payées actuellement au million de chômeurs qui, par suite de l'arrêt de travail des nouvelles mères de famille, travaieraient plus d'un million d'emplois libérés.

On me réfutera que les femmes du M.l.f. n'accepteraient pas ce retour de la femme au foyer : or, il suffirait que cette indemnité soit non pas obligatoire mais sollicitable, pour que les M.l.f. refusent cette indemnité, et reprennent le travail quatre mois après la grossesse, si elles le désirent.

Ce vieux principe des vases communaux aurait le double avantage de résoudre en même temps le problème de la dénatalité et celui du chômage.

LÓUIS BESSÉ,
São Paulo (Brésil).

## Camus et la « troisième voie »

J'ai lu (L'Express du 15 septembre) le document intitulé « Les Porteurs de valises du F.l.n. », et j'ai pris connaissance du point de vue de M. Bernard Pingaud, qui donne raison à ces porteurs. Il écrit : « Il y a des moments où il faut trancher. A l'époque, c'était Sartre ou Camus. »

# La parole aux lecteurs

Il sous-entend ainsi que Camus était pour l'intégration. Non, Camus était pour la « troisième voie », celle du fédéralisme dans l'autonomie. Je n'avance rien sans preuves, je renvoie M. Bernard Pingaud à la lecture d' Actuelles III, Chronique algérienne. Dans le dernier chapitre, intitulé « Algérie 1958 », Camus y dévelioupe son projet fédéraliste.

Ce projet avait été inspiré par les travaux de Marc Lauriol, présentés dans son recueil « Algérie angoissée », Editions Baconnier, Alger, 1956 (Marc Lauriol était, alors, professeur de droit à Alger).

Il a été ensuite retenu par le général de Gaulle, quand il a proposé, en septembre 1959, le référendum sur l'autodétermination. De Gaulle offrait le choix entre trois solutions : la francisation, la sécession, ou l'Etat fédéral algérien associé à la France. Et on sentait bien que cette solution fédéraliste, c'était sa solution préférée. (...)

Non, Camus n'était pas un « ultra ». C'était même tout le contraire. C'était plutôt le Michel de L'Hospital de la guerre d'Algérie. La leçon de tolérance de Michel de L'Hospital n'a été comprise qu'après trente-six ans de guerres de religion, quand Henri IV est devenu roi de France.

Et sans doute faudra-t-il le même laps de temps pour que Camus, à la fin des fins, ne soit plus un incompris !

La troisième voie proposée par de Gaulle (Etat fédéral algérien associé à la France) aurait peut-être pu se réaliser si de Gaulle avait demandé le soutien de l'Onu. Mais, comme vous savez, il n'aimait pas l'Onu.

Je ne suis ni chrétienne ni marxiste. Je ne suis donc pas très bien placée pour juger les curés qui se sont faits « porteurs de valises du F.l.n ». Mais, tout de même, il me semble qu'ils auraient été plus en harmonie avec leur religion en limitant leur soutien aux mouvements de libération partisans de la non-violence, comme celui dirigé par Gandhi dans l'Inde ou par Martin Luther King aux Etats-Unis.

Mile J. VAQUE,
Marseille.

## Les réformes : comment faire

A propos de l'article « Trois réformes bien calculées » (L'Express du 22 septembre), vous écrivez qu'il n'existe pas de majorité parlementaire pour s'engager dans des réformes ambitieuses. Mais qui empêche le président de la République de dire à la radio et à la télévision et de

faire publier : « Voici une réforme que je souhaiterais faire voter, mais vos élus la refuseront peut-être » ?

Les parlementaires seraient ainsi placés face à une opinion publique informée. Ils pourraient une fois, deux fois, trois fois faire échec au Président, mais pas cons tantment s'ils veulent avoir une chance d'être réelus. Le Président prouverait ainsi qu'il veut agir, et d'où viennent les blo cages.

Des réformes telles que le cumul des mandats, l'instauration d'un scrutin de type proportionnel, la refonte du Code pénal, l'adjonction d'un Parquet à la Cour des comptes, etc., pourraient être pro posés au Parlement, qui prendrait, devant le pays, la responsabilité de les refuser en disant pourquoi.

En proposant ainsi réforme sur ré forme (et il en faudrait pour que le changement soit effectif), le Président mettrait les partis politiques et les parlementaires sur la défensive.

JEAN BAUD,
Palaiseau.

## Gastronomie et franc suisse

Claude Lebeey (L'Express du 8 septembre) traite, entre autres et fort élogeusement, de l'Auberge du Lion d'or à Colongny (Genève). Mais je relève une contradiction. Après avoir souligné que « le franc suisse est tellement élevé qu'il est bien difficile de se nourrir correctement dans ce pays (la Suisse) sans se ruiner », Claude Lebeey conclut que son repas lui a coûté 125 francs français, soit sensiblement moins cher qu'à d'autres tables, françaises.

J'en déduis que les idées reçues ont la vie dure, et que le cours, effectivement élevé, du franc suisse fait peser indûment sur les restaurants et hôtels suisses une présomption de cherté que les faits démentent heureusement.

ANDRE GEISER,
président de la Chambre de commerce suisse en France, Paris.

[Il n'y a pour nous aucune contradiction, mais, bien au contraire, une heureuse exception que nous tenions à sou ligner. Il est officiel — et l'estime dans laquelle nous tenons l'hôtellerie suisse nous fait le déplorer — que le nombre des nuitées dans les hôtels suisses a été, pendant l'hiver 1978-1979, inférieur de 9 % à celui de l'hiver précédent. Les autorités helvétiques sont tellement conscientes de cet état de fait, dû sans nul doute à la fermeté du franc suisse, que diverses mesures ont été prises récemment pour y remédier. — C.L.]

● Nous relevons dans votre n° 1471 daté du 15 au 21 septembre 1979, p. 40, 2e colonne, sous la rubrique Madame Express, un article mettant en cause notre société de nature à nous causer un certain préjudice. Vous écrivez « ... Sisley... qui vient de déposer son bilan ».

Nous protestons contre cette affirmation erronée et, usant de notre droit de réponse, nous vous demandons de vouloir bien faire paraitre notre rectificatif.

PIERRE DREYFUS,
président-directeur général de Sisley, Paris. ☐

114

Imp. de Montsouris, Massy. Dir. de la publication : Jimmy Goldsmith. Com. paritaire des publications n° 55931