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<table><tr><td>Jason B. Wischmeyer</td><td>Presider</td></tr><tr><td>Marvin Kalb</td><td>Moderator</td></tr><tr><td>Dr. Henry Kissinger</td><td>Featured Speaker</td></tr><tr><td>General Alexander Haig</td><td>Featured Speaker</td></tr></table>

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Presider: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jason Wischmeyer and I'm chairman of the MSC Endowed Lecture Series. I cannot tell you how exciting this is. Tonight is a very special occasion for all of us. We're joined here tonight by three very distinguished individuals whose knowledge and experience speak for itself. However, we must also look at this event on a broader scale. You are about to see the results of over twelve months of dedication, motivation and hard work. This is the climax for the fifty-three very special individuals who are responsible for this gathering. These students have planned, researched and executed every aspect of this incredible event. They have raised money; they have promoted; they have dealt with frustration; they have even learned a little bit about foreign policy, but most of all, they have grown as student leaders. They have done very well. It is their wish that this evening be dedicated to you and your education. Your involvement begins now. We hope to inform you, to enlighten you and, perhaps, even challenge you. If we succeed, I believe you will leave here tonight with a better understanding of the complexity of the problems we face as a nation today. But, also, I believe you will leave here with a feeling of optimism towards our future and the opportunities that lie before us.

Ladies and gentlemen, our moderator for this evening is the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for NBC News. For the past 25 years, he has traveled with every United States president and secretary of state on their travels abroad. He has been awarded more than a dozen prizes for his interpretation of foreign policy, including an Emmy for his reporting from Moscow in 1962 and 1963. He is a regular contributor to the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE and the SATURDAY REVIEW and is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative commentators in broadcast journalism. Our

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moderator holds a Master of Arts in Russian and Chinese History. He has a
Ph.D. in Russian History. Scholar, historian and award-winning news
commentator, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Marvin Kalb.

Kalb:

Thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, it is really
very good to be back. Very good indeed. I thank you for having me back.
I remember last year's event as though it were yesterday and, not only
because of the wonderful time we had together, but for the really creative
effort on the part of the students at the seminars, the questions that
came in, and taken together they are total proof that you people at Texas
A&M take very seriously your dedication to at least modern day
scholarship, and I'm delighted to be a part of it. Thank you again for
having me back.

As you will all remember, last year we had elected officials. We
were very privileged, indeed, to have had Gerald Ford of the United
States, Helmut Schmidt of West Germany and Edward Heath of Great Britain
participate right here in a discussion, and a rather fascinating one of
contemporary international problems. Tonight, we have two former
Secretaries of State and I would like to introduce each and ask each one
to come out as I do so.

First, I would like to ask Dr. Henry Kissinger to come out, please.
Dr. Kissinger, as you know, was the Secretary of State appointed there by
President Nixon in September of 1973 and served until January of 1977.

We are equally privileged to have another former Secretary of State,
General Alexander Haig. General Haig.

It is a very distinct honor for an aging diplomatic correspondent who
has covered these two Secretaries of State to be here tonight and serve as
moderator for this discussion. The word "modesty" is not, of course, the

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first word that leaps to my mind when it comes to a discussion of our two
distinguished panelists today, and I would like to share with you a story
that I have used that has to do with Dr. Kissinger when he was Secretary
of State. I remember him speaking out in Los Angeles at one point, and
when the speech was over, an elderly lady who simply could not contain her
enthusiasm for him, came barging through security. She came over to him
and said, "Dr. Kissinger, thank you. Thank you so much for saving the
world." And Kissinger, with his sense of modesty, replied, "You're
welcome." And then, of course, we have our other Secretary of State who,
on his first day at arriving at the State Department, was asked what was
the word that perhaps best might describe his stewardship, and he
answered, "Vicar of American foreign policy."

Secretary Haig, of course, was known for Haigisms. Now for those of
you who have not been privileged to hear a Haigism, let me share one with
you today. We were flying at about 35,000 feet and my brain gets a bit
rusty at that altitude, but I remember that whatever the question was, the
answer could not have been anything more complicated than "No comment" or
"I don't think I want to get into that," but the words that came out were,
"It would serve no useful purpose to put fences around options that would
diminish the promulgation of new roadways." General Haig has promised to
be more direct this evening.

Our topic is Perspectives on U.S. Foreign Policy. The framework I
would like to run through so that we all understand exactly what is going
to happen. In the opening statements, we will hear individual perspec-
tives from our two panelists on that general theme. I would ask each to
run in the neighborhood of ten minutes, not much longer if you can possi-
bly help it. Then, for about 50 minutes, we will have a discussion where

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I will ask a number of questions and perhaps each panelist would like to address questions at the other. That, too, will be permitted. The question and answer period will be divided essentially into three categories. The first one is going to be a discussion of East-West relations, which is Soviet-American relations but a good bit more as well. The second category is what I will call West-West relations. The analysis of the Atlantic Alliance, of the NATO Alliance and, perhaps, problems that now seem to be emerging of a rather fundamental character in the Alliance itself. And the third category will be U.S. policy in Central America and I may take the liberty of extending that to the Middle East as well. After that segment is over, which will run about 50 minutes, we will have about 15 minutes for questions that will have come in written form from the audience. Forgive me but I will entertain no live questions tonight from the audience. They will come in written form. Then we will have concluding statements of five minutes each from our two panelists and then, because I'm the moderator and arrogate to myself the last word tonight, I'll take several minutes at the end in an attempt to sum up.

To set a headline framework for our discussion, let's just run through some of today's headlines. President Reagan sends a congratulatory message to the new Soviet President, Mr. Chernenko. President Reagan leaves Washington today on a rather long journey to China. I would point out that's Communist China and not Taiwan. Third, there is a new NATO offer to reduce troops in central Europe. Fourth, There is a new American proposal to ban chemical weapons. Fifth, the State Department today rejected Nicaragua's offer of an ambassador to represent Nicaragua in the United States, and sixth is something that I think is important, just in the last couple of days, there was probably the largest anti-missile

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demonstration to take place in a small and highly civilized country like
Denmark. So that is the framework and I would like to start by calling
upon General Haig to set forth his perspective on U.S. foreign policy.

General, you can come up here and do that, sir.

Haig:

Thank you very much, Marvin. At the outset, I want to tell you what a personal pleasure it is for me to be here at Texas A&M. As an old soldier, I've had your graduates as colleagues in both peace and war and their patriotism and sense of dedication to this country and its ideals has been a very conscious thing with me over the years. Marvin would have you think that it was "Haig speak" that got me in trouble, but I want you to know that I knew I was in trouble the day the President put George Bush in charge of managing crises and me in charge of creating them. But, Marvin, I don't know who the President put in charge of creating crises after I left, but I can't help but think that he did a better job than I might have done. At any rate, I knew the jig was up the day I found a lone black jelly bean at my place at the Cabinet table!

Last week I had a letter from one of our most distinguished Secretar-
ies of State, Dean Rusk, and he said, "Dear Al, the quadrennial silly
season has begun." Of course, what he meant was that the aspirants for
national power are issuing promissory notes on achieving international
milleniums at an increasingly rapid pace and those who seek to preserve
incumbency tend to make even failure look like success. So, at the
juncture, I think it's very timely to review a perspective on America's
direction in the decade of the 80s. As I travel around the world,
increasingly I'm asked, "Does the United States even have a foreign
policy?" My answer is inevitably, "Yes." The objectives of that foreign
policy I must admit tonight have been consistent with the six Presidents

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I've served in my lifetime--four at rather close range. And that is to create an international environment which is hospitable to traditional American values and ideals, with primary emphasis on the freedom and dignity of our individual citizens. Now one must admit to a conservative bent to the contemporary regime in Washington, for it believes, as do I, that the good of the common man is always best served by the unrestricted, unfettered skill, ingenuity and work ethic of the uncommon man. So, if over the years, our objectives have been relatively consistent, what explains the mindless lurching in cycles of four years from one set of philosophic opinion to another at the exact opposite end of the spectrum? Well, I would suggest, and believe, that there are two dynamic forces that influence this, among many others, but these are very significant ones. The one is the changing perception of the threat that we Americans feel toward the achievement of the objective I cited. And, it was clear, certainly by the end of the preceding decade, that in the decade of the 80s whoever occupied the Oval Office would have to pursue policies which would engage America more effectively which, with what had become a hemorrhaging Soviet interventionist activities in the developing world. What we witnessed in that decade was a consequence of the maturization of Soviet military power which had been essentially continental in an historic sense to one which was increasingly global and permitted the Soviet Union to project that power thousands of miles from Mother Russia. We witnessed the simultaneous perversion by the Soviet Union of the historic quest for social justice by developing people, under the guise of furthering this quest for social justice, but with the essential objective of establishing totalitarian models responsive to Soviet influence and control throughout the developing world. There was hardly a six-month period that we didn't

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witness a profound setback to western interest--Angola, Ethiopia, Southern Yemen, Northern Yemen, Afghanistan I, Afghanistan II, Kampuchea and the resumption of hyperactive Soviet activity in Central America starting again, through Cuban proxy, in 1978. All of this demanded a new sense of purpose by an American leadership.

Now, the second problem is what I call the "fracturing" of bi-partisanship in the conduct of American foreign policy, where the Executive and the Legislature no longer seem to be able to hammer out a consensus for an agreed-upon course of action. This was a product of the Viet Nam conflict aggravated by Watergate and it resulted in extreme polarization in our society in which conservatives seem to be dominated by realpolitik, setting aside traditional American values, followed by a Carter Administration that seemed to set aside the realities of international power in a compulsive quest for international pieties--human rights and other vitally important but more ethereal aspects of the American dream. I have maintained and I would insist tonight that no American foreign policy will long achieve the support of the American people if it sets aside our traditional values because the American people will consider it as simply not moral or right. On the other hand, nor will they support a policy which sets aside the realities of international power and the application of realpolitik and self-interest of the American people, if we neglect the other aspect of this essential balance. In the period ahead, it's my view that we must have a foreign policy characterized by balance; a foreign policy which seeks the return to bi-partisanship, which recognizes at long last that when an American President comes into office, history didn't begin on the day he arrived. And that those with whom we work abroad-- friend and foe--look for consistency, reliability, credibility and

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on occasion even predictability. Most Presidents have come in with the assumptions that everything their predecessor did was wrong. They are probably about half right and how important it is that we, in the period ahead, begin to inject a better sense of balance. I would say this was essentially true in the important relationship with those who share our values in Western Europe and the NATO Alliance. It was clear to me, as a NATO Commander, that we were headed for trouble, and I say this for three reasons. One is the emergence of nuclear schizophrenia in Western Europe--that is the merging to two competing paranoias into a single psychopathic, a preoccupation if you will. It's the belief on the one hand that the United States--or the fear--that the United States in a showdown with the Soviet Union will not risk Washington for Hamburg, Berlin, Paris or London. That, combined in 1979 with a new paranoia which suggested that maybe we crazy Americans would go to war, but as we deployed new systems into Central Europe, we would confine that battlefield to the cities and populations of Western Europe. That brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets with their faces painted white.

A second problem is the profound difference in world outlook between our friends in Western Europe and ourselves. To our European friends, detente was an achievement of unparalleled advantage for them. It lessened tensions in the central regions of Europe; it opened up the doors of commerce with renumeration and trade, employment levels and personal benefit. But as we Americans launched into detente, we watched this hemorrhaging of Soviet third world interventionism and because our perceptions are more global in context, because we look to Asia, we look to Latin

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American as we do to Western Europe, we were disillusioned with detente.
This will require some very careful fine tuning in the period ahead.

Finally, let me conclude. It's vitally important for national leadership to understand that with the maturing of interdependence, not only among Democratic societies but in a global context, every issue on the international horizon is part of an intricate mosaic. If you tug one string, it has an impact on the whole cloth, and frequently a very deli-querious one. We've got to develop, as a nation, sensitivity to understand what maturing interdependence means. It means we don't have the luxury to view our economy here at home in exclusion of its impact on economic affairs abroad. It's not simply enough to get America's economic machine running again; we must recognize that this can only be accomp-lished with a global, sustainable economic recovery. This means sensitiv-ity to the developing world and the problems of those who share our values.

Now, economic nuclear schizophrenia and a profoundly different world view is the menu of challenging problems for the period ahead as we deal with our friends in NATO Europe and Asia and Japan. I look forward to the discussion that follows.

Kalb: Thank you. Thank you, General Haig. Thank you very much for your perspective on U.S. foreign policy today.

Kalb: I would like to call now on Dr. Kissinger for his. Please, sir.

Kissinger: Marvin, Al, ladies and gentlemen, I first of all want to congratulate the organizers of this evening for representing every point of view here from A to B. You may not believe this, but you have here two great representatives of pacificists. Al and I shared adjoining offices for five and one-half years and the fact that we both survived this experience

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is due entirely to the inherent gentleness of our nature and the retiring manner in which we conduct ourselves. I have never understood why Al should have such difficulty in getting along with his colleagues in the Reagan Administration. As long as I got under my desk when he was irate, we established an excellent working relationship.

Now, a word of Marvin Kalb. It is, of course, outrageous, preposterous, and indeed insulting to be asked to speak in ten to fifteen minutes. Of course, if I should do that which, frankly, I have no intention of, but should this happen, all of you could leave here and say you were present at a truly historic occasion. Indeed, if I place a verb in ten minutes, you can say you were present at a historic occasion.

Let me take up where Al left off and explain why I believe there has been this erratic nature to our foreign policy in the post-war period, except of course, the period when I was in office. And, then make a few observations about East-West relations and then we'll have a good discussion about midnight.

First, it is true that there has been--that our foreign policy has been extremely changeable. Almost every new administration has come into office not only claiming that it would change the world, but occasionally pretending that it created the world. This is unsettling for foreign nations who have to gear their policies to some expectation of regularity on our part. I think the fundamental reason is that in our whole history we have never had to conduct foreign policy the way other nations have had to conduct foreign policy. Until the end of World War II, we were protected by two great oceans. Therefore, the problem of security always had a remote aspect. Many other nations had to be overrun before American security could be threatened. After World War II, when isolationism ended

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and we became involved in world affairs, we were nevertheless involved in
a very special manner. We had an atomic monopoly. Then we had for a
decade and a half a degree of nuclear superiority that gave us a military
margin unprecedented in military history. In addition, as late as 1950,
the United State represented 52% of all the goods and services produced in
the world. In these circumstances, foreign policy was really more like
domestic policy. It was a problem of the allocation of resources to prob-
lems which we identified. We did not have to establish priorities really.
We could not suffer irretrievable errors or setbacks. We had the possi-
bility of proceeding on a broad front. It was only in the late 1960s, by
accident almost, coinciding with the Viet Nam War, that the relative
percentage of America's gross national product to the world's gross
product declined with the rise of other parts of the world. We came to
grips with the limits of our power and, therefore, had to establish prior-
ities, and where we encountered an almost subconscious rebellion against
such a world.

America has been torn since then between two groups of people. Those
who believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry and that
relations among states is like relations among people. A second group
that believes that foreign policy is a subdivision of theology and the
strenuous condemnation of the adversary is the equivalent of a creative
foreign policy. The fact of the matter is that, in foreign policy, they
are very rarely final solutions. In foreign policy, all of us who have
practiced it have experienced the sense of letdown where, at the very end
of what the media will describe as a great success, in your heart you know
that this is only an admission ticket for another set of problems. So you
are on an endless process and, yet, if you listen to our political debate,

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most of the contenders pretend that they have the solution to what is, in
reality, a historical process. This is one of the reasons why we keep
trying this gimmick or that gimmick. To understand foreign policy one has
to analyze the underlying factors and one has to get a glimmer of the
trend of history. The German statesmen, Bismarck, who was considered
maybe the greatest statesman of the 19th century said at the end of his
life, he didn't really do very much. Every once in a while, he got ahold
of a fringe of the garment of God and walked with him one or two steps.
That is the essence of the foreign policy problem.

Now let me make three or four observations about East-West relations.
The common argument is that East-West relations have never been worse;
that we're heading into a period of cold war. I would like to submit to
you a contrary theory. East-West relations are not good right now for a
variety of reasons. It is my firm conviction, however, that within twelve
to fifteen months, there will be serious negotiations. The challenge
before our country will be not whether we should negotiate, but what we're
going to negotiate about. I believe there will be serious negotiations
for the following reasons. The Soviet system is in a perennial succession
crisis, and it is a succession crisis that cannot end. Nobody has ever
retired voluntarily from the Soviet Politburo. Of the five successions
they have had of General Secretary, four were achieved by death and one
resulted from the fact that Krushchev went on holiday without taking his
colleagues with him. Never has anybody retired with honor. Of the
present Politburo, the equivalent of the board of directors, of twelve
members, eight are 73 and older. It is, therefore, actuarially probable
that changes of a significant nature must take place within the next few

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years and that is what every Soviet bureaucrat thinks and knows. When you
have a defense minister who is 76, a foreign minister who is 75, and a
prime minister who is 78, you are not representing the wave of the future.
Therefore, the Soviet Union will need a respite. It will need some period
of calm. Or take the Soviet economy. Imagine an economy in which the
cost of nothing is known and nothing has a price, in which every article
in commerce moves on the basis of a bureaucratic allocation. Inefficiency
is endemic. Personal connections are decisive. It cannot be an accident
that a state that produces intercontinental rockets has not produced one
single manufactured article for export that can compete in world markets
with the manufactured articles of any market economy. As far as interna-
tional trade is concerned, the Soviet Union is an underdeveloped country
exporting raw materials and, on international markets, nothing else. The
dilemmia is--I once talked to a Czech planner who said, "You can't imagine
how difficult it is to plan an economy. When we prescribe the tonnage for
locomotives--for a total number of locomotives--we produce the heaviest
locomotives in the world because that was the easiest way to meet the ton-
nage requirements. When we specified the number, we produced the lousiest
locomotives in the world because there was no quality control." The para-
dox of any communist system is that you cannot run a modern economy by
total planning and you cannot run a communist state without total plan-
ning. That is a problem before them that they must solve. So, for all
of these reasons, I believe that this frantic, nervous effort to try to
find out when they come back to what negotiation is delaying the possibil-
ity of negotiation. What we have to keep in mind is what are we trying to
achieve. There I would like to make just two propositions.

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The first proposition is that we Americans tend to confuse negotiat-
ing tactics with substance. Gromyko has been Foreign Minister for thirty
years. He has never been embarrassed to make the same proposal week after
week, month after month, year after year, mind-boggling to every Secretary
of State who has had to deal with him. Any American negotiator, after he
has made his proposal for two or three months, is under enormous media and
other pressure to change it. I once had a researcher--this was during the
Viet Nam War--look up for how long we could get the support of some
leading newspapers by adopting the recommendations of the editorial page
of those newspapers. The maximum amount of time we could get was four
months. After that, we were told "The same ideas again. You have an
obligation to break this deadlock." Well, if the Soviets know we break
every negotiation, every deadlock with a new idea; there will be plenty of
deadlocks.

The second proposition I want to make is this--that the obsession
with arms control, by itself, is going to make it next to impossible to
ease international tension. There are now about 25,000 nuclear weapons in
the arsenals of each side. I know no arms control expert who believes we
could reduce those by 3/5ths--not one--in the next five years. But, sup-
posing we did it, and got down to 10,000 on each side. That would still
be enough to create havoc unless we worked on the conditions that produce
tensions--the support of guerillas, of terrorism--unless we achieve some
restraint in international behavior in trouble spots, we will not make
decisive progress. I believe that this is possible. I believe it depends
on us, on our unity, on our sense of direction, and as Al Haig said, on
whether we can describe a vision of the future compatible with our securi-
ty, that is consistent with our values. Thank you very much.

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Kalb: Thank you very much gentlemen. If you would just hook your mikes on right now, we'll get to the serious part of the discussion.

If my brother were here right now, I know exactly what he would say. He'd say, "Ladies and gentlemen, you've just heard two former Secretaries of State give their perspectives on U.S. foreign policy. Now, you know why we're in trouble." But he's back in Washington and I'm the gentler of the two souls and so I would like to start with just a kind of philosophical question that emerges from my reading, so far, of two-thirds of General Haig's new and very interesting book called "Caveat" which has just come out. General Haig, in that book, at the very beginning--and I think there is a single theme that runs through it--it is that you have a deep down disappointment with an opportunity that has been blown. When this administration came into office, you wrote that you felt that there was a historical confluence of events that presented this administration with a golden opportunity to move forward in a number of areas and I think you would agree that nothing is more significant than the management of Soviet-American relations because that involves arms control and everything else. What is the reason for the disappointment? What went wrong?

Haig: Well, there are several contributories which I outline in excrutiat-
ing detail in this new book. But one is, that from the outset, there was
no systematized, disciplined system established and one does not exist
today to put policy options to the President and more importantly when a
presidential decision was arrived at, there was absolutely no discipline
in ensuring the bureaucracy followed a single sheet of music in articulat-
ing that decision. Beyond that, we get into some of the issues that Henry
just touched upon. A number of the members of the new administration came
into office with a perception of United States power that I think is a

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vestige of the past. A belief that we as a nation had sufficient demographic, economic, political and security assets to move unilaterally in global situations to bring about outcomes that met the collective interests of the free world without even coordinating, consulting and adjusting our policies to maintain the kind of unity that Henry just touched upon. Now, with the Soviet Union, I think this was particularly true because for all the reasons Henry mentioned, we are watching a profound, historic failure unfolding as we assess the Soviet system. Whether it will collapse in your lifetime, or mine, is less than significant. The facts are that this is a beleaguered leadership, that with a confident America united with those who share our values abroad, I believe could have brought about some accepted code of international behavior which would have been characterized by greater moderation and certainly a termination of this third world interventionism. We've failed. Thus far.

Kalb: If there is the opportunity that presented itself and the opportunity was not seized--any American administration is run by a president--isn't this, in effect, a fundamental flaw in the President's conduct of foreign policy?

Haig: Well, I mentioned, Marvin, that I have served six presidents. The presidency is a learning process. Of the six I served, only two entered office with any conception of the world that they were entering. Dwight Eisenhower had spent a lifetime of exposure and Richard Nixon, who had two Vice Presidency tours and an avid interest manifested in his Congressional experience. The rest had to learn, and I think President Reagan has been in a learning process but, unfortunately, he hasn't had sufficient experience around him, especially on the White House staff, which in the early period was a void of international experience. That continues today

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because the National Security Advisor is not an individual who enjoys
regular access to the President and confident exchange with him.

**Kalb:** Dr. Kissinger, you were the head of the Kissinger Commission on Central America. For a period of four or five months, it seemed as though you were, at least in this one area, working closely with this administration. If you agree with the general criticism of the foreign policy decision-making process that General Haig has just set forth, what in your view is the reason for it?

**Kissinger:** I don't think we should leave the wrong impression with this audience. I think that the United States is better off today in foreign policy that it was when the President entered office.

**Kalb:** Aside from Central American policy.

**Kissinger:** No, in general.
And, that's what my book says, Marvin.

**Kissinger:** And, therefore, was everything achieved that might have been achieved? That's one of these conjectural questions to which there is no clear cut answer. I was in a totally different position from General Haig. I was the head of a bi-partisan commission that really could take testimony from the government, that made an independent study and submitted its recommendations and once its recommendations were submitted, we disbanded. So, I have not been in this administration part of the policy making process and, therefore, have not been able to observe on a day-to-day basis. My surface impression is that there is an emphasis on a kind of collegiality in which it is difficult to determine who, at any one point, makes the final decision.

**Kalb:** Why isn't the President making the decisions?

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Kissinger:

Well, I have not been present and, therefore, I am not a good witness because I have not been present when the final decisions in the areas with which I dealt have been made. One of the difficulties with the United States government in any administration is that the Presidency may be too big a job. The President combines the functions of the British king or queen; the Prime Minister is the head of a party and he's Head of State, Head of Government in a very amorphous situation. Our political process is an adversary process. A lot of conflicting advice comes in to him and it is very difficult to organize it in such a way that the options are presented to him properly. One point Al made that I think is terribly important is that a President may think he has made a decision and be absolutely clear in his own mind that he has made a decision, and if there is no follow-up mechanism, and if there's nobody who is watching how it is being implemented, you will find the contending parties going about interpreting the decision each in the way of their original recommendation. It think this is a problem that is endemic in our government.

Haig:

Let me add a couple of other issues to amplify this question. Again, I emphasize that I agree with Henry, and I say so in my book, that we're better off today than we were before this administration came in, but it's lost opportunities which contributed to my frustrations. Another problem is that, you know, it's one thing to get elected in this society or ours; there you need the kind of a fellow who is a image builder, a public relations shaper, a man who garners votes; it's another thing to govern. There you must have the best talent, the most experienced talent that this government can provide and this great nation can provide. This administration failed to do that with respect to the White House, I'm sorry to say. We had image makers, so a degree a popularism has dominated the

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conduct of our foreign affairs just like it has our domestic affairs.
What do I mean? I mean these image makers around the President, the "Big
Three," the "Triumvirate," the "Quadripede," whatever you care to call
them spend every day wondering what makes their President popular. The
President finds himself buffeted between wanting to do what's right and
what is necessary to keep him in the good will of the American people.
Let me tell you, foreign policy must always be conducted with an eye to
what is the correct policy, even where contemporary popularity is the
victim. That's not only critical in substantive terms, it's also just
plain sound because in the final analysis, a President's popularity is
going to be determined by his success quotient--and not whether he's rush-
ing every day to feed what is the perceived whim of the American people,
manipulated in the near term by the reaction of the American press. It
just doesn't work that way.

Kalb: What do you mean by "manipulated?"

Haig: What I mean is that the American press is just like the rest of us.
Sooner or later they generally come down the right way on an issue, but on
the first twenty-four or forty-eight hours--even sometimes the first two
weeks of a crisis--they can be very wrong, and I've seen them that way.

Kalb: Let me address this, if I can, to the issue of Soviet-American relations for a moment. You were just making a point that concerned the manner in which policy is presented to the President with a view toward, perhaps, maximizing this popularity with the American people. Dr. Kissinger, you have been looking at Soviet-American relations for good bit of time now, when the President on January 16th--or whenever it was--in any case, at the very beginning of what I have to note as a presidential campaign year, when he began to strike a public note of accommodation with

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the Soviet Union, to what degree was that politics and to what degree can we actually achieve a deal? You mentioned before that you thought negotiations can begin, perhaps, within twelve to eighteen months. Can a deal be struck at this point?

Kissinger:

One has to remember that the Soviets are very preoccupied at this moment with their own internal situation. You have a man who was just elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on the demise of Andropov, who had been passed over fifteen months earlier by the same group who has now made him General Secretary. This was not a very rousing vote of confidence. In fact, if it is possible for a Soviet leader to believe in diety, Chernenko must be getting close to being religious because if Andropov were still alive, he would no long be on the Politburo. The idea that Chernenko can change the policy quickly is naive. It's not possible. The same people who've been shaping the foreign policy previously are likely to have a very major influence, and that's Gromyko and Ustinov, the Defense Minister. Secondly, the worst mistake that one can make in dealing with the Soviet Union is to try to personalize the negotiations and to attempt to do it largely by atmospherics. The Soviet Union--the Soviet leaders--are trained in Marxism-Leninism; they believe in what they consider objective, which is the same material factors. So the mere fact that President Reagan, who had been beating them over the head for three years, suddenly changes his tone and makes a more concilatory speech, they will probably interpret, in part, the way you interpreted it as an election maneuver. I don't happen to believe that it is an election maneuver, but that is how the Soviets will interpret it. Secondly, they now think that they have a good thing going in trying to split the Europeans from the United States. They will not want President Reagan to be able to say

21

that his previous policy succeeded and in spite of everything, he came to
an agreement. My own estimate is that if once the candidates of our two
parties--once the Democratic candidate is clear--if, by the early part of
election, President Reagan is significantly ahead in the public opinion
polls, we will begin to see movement in the Soviet position, because they
will want to commit Reagan before he is reelected. If I'm wrong in this,
I'm sure it will happen shortly after the election no matter who wins.
Now, is a deal possible? I think a deal with the Soviets is possible if
we are precise and concrete. I have recommended that we begin with some
quiet negotiations in which we do not make specific proposals on technical
subjects which immediately could get encrusted with the barnacles of all
the experts. I think what is needed now is some almost philosophical
discussion of where we are trying to go. We tried to send an emmisary
there but it was done in a manner, at any rate, it was rebuffed.

Kalb: Are you talking about General Scowcroft?

Kissinger: General Scowcroft. At any rate, it was rebuffed and it may have been premature. But, to answer your question succinctly, which is my specialty; to answer your question succinctly, yes, I expect that it is possible to achieve some agreement. It will probably not happen before the second half of 1985, but I think it is very probable to happen then.

Kalb: Okay. Number one, I did not say that the President made his speech as an election year campaign. I did state that it came at the beginning of the election year and asked you a question which I think you answered by saying you did not think that it had anything to do with politics. If I understood you right, I would have to say with a kind of amazement that that strains my credibility--credulity, I mean. How could it not been seen as not connected with a political campaign year if it is

22

true, as General Haig said and I think it is true, that he is surrounded
by people who think politics primarily.

Kissinger:

Undoubtedly the election played some role, but it is also true that every President that I have ever known who, after all, have daily to face the reality that the question of war and peace is in his hands, at some point in his presidency, he wants to be known as a man who brought peace and I'm convinced that this is what President Reagan wants to do. What may have given the impetus to the particular date could well have been a public relations consideration. But, I am convinced that the notion of wanting to be a President of peace is a very serious one. Indeed, I must be quite candid. I'm worried that we are now so eagerly in pursuit of the Soviet Union that we are going to create exactly the opposite impression and that they may think we are so anxious that they will wait to see what unilateral concessions they can exact from us. But I'm convinced that even after the election, President Reagan will substantially pursue the tone of the policies he's now pursuing, but maybe he will be a little more relaxed about it.

Kalb: General Haig, I would like to ask you about how China might fit into this. When the President came into office, his China was Taiwan. He didn't look very kindly upon Communist China. He is now leaving on a trip to Communist China. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that you had a lot to do with, at least this aspect of this President's education on this particular point, the importance of China in and of itself and also to the United States the importance in the terms of a global balance with the Soviet Union. How do you think it is going to work now?

Haig: Well, I think the President will have a "successful photo opportunity" in Beijing. But, having said that, I think it would be of some

["23", "value for me to go a little further as to what the problem was in this\nadministration on the assessment of the China question. It goes back to\nmy original statement that people think history began with their own\ninauguration day. What we have experienced in the decade of the 70s in our\nrelationship with the People's Republic of China is what I call the three\ngreat Chinese disappointments in their relationship with the United\nStates. The first was: Why did China open the door to the United States\nin the first place? They saw a relationship which would serve as a hedge\nagainst what they described as the quest for Soviet hegemony, at that time\naggravated by about forty-three Soviet divisions on their border which\nhave, in the interim, built up to over fifty. But, what did they see?\nThis certainly isn't the problem of the Reagan administration; perhaps\nthe aftermath of Viet Nam. They saw the United States fail miserably in\nsoutheast Asia. They watched us fail to stand up to Soviet intervention-\nisms in Angola, Ethiopia, Southern Yemen, Northern Yemen, Kampuchea, and\nCentral America. They watched us cast the Shah of Iran over the side.\nAnd, in 1979 when North Vietnamese forces were poised, having just overrun\nKampuchea to overrun Thailand, and the People's Republic of China moved\ninto North Viet Nam to prevent that, we Americans condemned them as\ninternational aggressors. They lost 50,000 soldiers. The commander of\nthe Chinese forces came to me several months later in Brussels. He said,\n"What in God's name are you Americans doing? We have prevented the\nrealization of the domino theory in southeast Asia. We have lost 50,000\nof our men for you and your interests.\" And we condemned them."", "Secondly, they saw in this relationship with the United States some\nmodified version of the largesse that characterized America's interna-\ntional activity at the end of the Second World War. High levels of cheap"]

24

credit western American technology which would enable them to bring their society in an expedited time to an advanced stage. Even changed their five year programs, which they had to change back in frustration in '79, away from heavy industry and back to agriculture and light industry. They didn't get a nickle. All they saw was penurious western businessmen running all over the People's Republic of China looking for deals which would exploit the Chinese people for profit.

Thirdly, suddenly a new President appears on the horizon, a two-gun cowboy from the west who starts using the rhetoric of two Chinas. Suddenly they see a new American President who reneges on the commitments of his three predecessors, President Nixon, President Ford, and President Carter, who may or may not have gone a little farther than he should have at the expense of Taiwan. Finally, if the People's Republic saw in their relationship with the United States a hedge against Soviet hegemony, this sudden new level of anti-Soviet rhetoric emerging from Washington served as a disincentive for them to be patient until our new leadership began to learn the realities of the Chinese situation. Now, this was the problem. It was a close-run thing, I can tell you, Marvin. We came very close to what I call a "fracturing" of U.S.-Chinese relations and it wasn't until I resigned and, in the process of doing so, brought a proposal to the American President which he was reluctant to approve, but which he did, which tended to put this thing on an even track again. Have we solved the problem? No, because the root causes of that problem have got to be solved. They are, as Henry says, serious people--they're Marxists. They don't care about our words. Objective reality--are we reliable? Are we going to stand up to Soviet interventionism and the illegal use of force around the world? Are we going to bring some modest level of technology

25

and credit to the People's Republic of China? And, are we going to avoid
the pitfall of the two China policy? This remains to be seen and I'm
watching carefully and warily. Are they going to back the Soviet Union?
My answer to that is, "No!" But, they can assume a very mischievous third
world leadership role in which they play pox on both of your houses and
alternately blackmail Moscow and Washington in a way which is very coun-
terproductive to our interests. That's an overview. Read my book--I go
into greater detail.

Kalb: Do you share that possibility that the Chinese might play that kind of role?

Kissinger: I think we have to keep in mind what the Chinese want from us is the maintenance of the global balance of power. In fact, Al and I both were involved in the opening to China and a lot of toasts were drunk to the proposition that it was unnatural for the Chinese and American people to not be in contact with each other. It was total nonsense. The Chinese lived happily for two thousand years without contact with the Americans and they would have lived two thousand years equally happily without contact had it not been for the forty-three divisions on their border. But, what the Chinese fundamentally want from us is the maintenance of the global balance of power. Of all the foreign leaders that I have met, the most sophisticated analysis of foreign policy, the most cold-blooded has come from the Chinese leaders. And, when you look at the sequence of events that Al mentioned, they can't understand how the Shah of Iran collapsed; they can't understand why there are Cubans all over Africa; they can't even begin to understand Central America. As they doubt our ability to maintain the balance of power, they will begin maneuvering. I think Taiwan is an important but secondary issue for them. I believe that

26

the most important thing that President Reagan can do in China is not any
of the agreements that may or may not be signed because they cannot be of
fundamental consequence, but to have a serious dialogue about how he sees
the future of the next five years or so and what we are going to do and to
see whether that can be synchronized with they're going to do without any
formal agreement. I think that is the essence of the problem with the
Chinese.

Kalb:

Let me ask both of you a question which I have a feeling is on the
mind of every single person out there right now who has given any thought
whatsoever to the Soviet-American problem. We have listened to three
years of rather bellicose rhetoric coming from the White House concerning
the Soviet Union. That has now changed; the rhetoric has now changed and
perhaps, to some degree, the policy itself. We have been listening to a
series of highly confusing and essentially negative comments from the
Soviet Union. At the same time, the United States is rearming, the Presi-
dent is putting, I believe the figure is 1.6 trillion dollars, into the
defense budget over the period of his first administration in order to
redress what he saw as an unfavorable military balance developing. The
Soviet Union, as we know, is putting "x" billion rubles in every single
year--I don't know the figure. Are we on some kind of unhappy treadmill
where both giants are, for reasons which each may consider valid, moving
towards this continually escalating arms race without, and I'm judging on
the basis of some of the things you've both said, without perhaps the
political maturity to put the arms questions into a political context?
General Haig.

Haig:

First, Marvin, I think this is a question that racks every serious
American today. I would make the outrageous preamble that if I were to

27

assess the President's first four years, which are nearing conclusion, I
would give him the highest marks for reversing the decline in America's
military strength. I think it is the single most important foreign policy
achievement of his first term as President. And then he said, that it is
also very clear that while perceptions on either side can always be
confused and are essentially paranoic exaggerating our own weaknesses and
exaggerating the enemy's strengths, it is clear by objective reality that
America neglected its security needs for a twenty-year period. During the
Viet Nam period, the bulk of the resources we allocated for defense were
consumed at the level of 20 to 28 billion dollars a year to conduct our
operations in Viet Nam and had little impact on the basic modernization of
inventory. The Soviets, on the other hand, have continued to build
relentlessly. I am convinced what has achieved for President Reagan a
sense of attention in Moscow, even during the rhetorical pounding, it is a
strange thing that what you have described as the Soviet Union for two
years sat patiently and almost uncharacteristically weakly as the Presi-
dent boxed their ears in cycles of two or three days of evil empire this,
that and the other thing. The Soviets remained rather docile. It was not
until suddenly he became rather plaintively interested in a dialogue that
they have suddenly turned tough. It is an interesting contradiction in
reality. I don't think the arms build-up is a question of a mindless com-
pulsion which is run-away and lacks political domination--at some point it
might, clearly sometimes, and I think Henry said it today. So the Penta-
gon's demands have lacked some of the clarity that I think they need in
terms of strategy we should pursue and assistance we really need and,
therefore, they've asked for a little more perhaps than was necesary. We
have practiced unilateral restraint. That's why I am sometimes appalled

28

by American disarmers who think we are going to achieve progress in arms control if we unilaterally constrain ourselves with nuclear freeze or "no first use" or unilateral reduction. We have practiced that for twenty years and we've gotten the Soviet answer--they're going to build.

Kalb:

Let me try to rephrase my question and address it to Dr. Kissinger because I think that your answers are, in my sense, very valid ones, but I was trying to reach for something beyond that. I have a sense in my own travels around the country and in my own travels in the past year, particularly in West Germany, that there is a feeling on the part of many ordinary folks that the arms build-up is somehow out of control. Now, we can sit here and logically and rationally and on the basis of your collective experiences say that is not true. But people are out there who believe that that may be true--that it's going beyond the capacity of human beings to control. And, there is a genuine fear, which I understand exists even in the Soviet Union, that nuclear war, and you've certainly heard this on your recent trips to Western Europe, that nuclear war is now possible. Possible. Not probable, but possible. Do you think it is?

Kissinger:

No, I do not think there is a greater danger of nuclear war than there was five years ago or ten years ago. I believe that some of these fears reflect the weakness of the governments that are appealing to their left wings by creating the impression that they are moderating these crazy Americans, knowing fully well, deep down, that in the last resort, we are going to defend them. I know there is a sense--you have correctly described the situation, the psychological situation in many parts of Europe. Many European intellectuals, many European--particularly left-wing political leaders--create the impression things are out of control and are headed for nuclear war. Things are not heading for nuclear war.

29

It may be that the political leaders on neither side have been able to start a political dialogue. I also do not believe that arms control by itself can solve these tensions. Arms control is in danger of becoming the "cop-out" by which everybody tries to escape his dilemmas. What is causing the problems in Central America? It is--there are many factors but certainly the massive influx of Soviet arms into Cuba and Nicaragua is a major and perhaps decisive factor. Certainly in the Middle East, the massive resupply by the Soviet Union encourages the tensions. There is no trouble spot in the world where one can honestly say the Soviet Union has exercised moderating influence. I have been associated in the past with arms control negotiations and I've welcomed them. I believe, however, that unless we manage to begin a political dialogue, the tensions will continue. I believe the European perceptions which you have described are wrong and are escapism. I criticize the European government for not standing up against currents which they know very well are mistaken. I do not believe that it is the arms build-up that is contributing to it; we have made some unfortunate statements which have played into the hands of our critics. Fundamentally, since 1975, we have been seeing a Soviet geo-political offensive and until that is arrested, I believe tensions are going to continue whatever the level of build-up, even if there is an occasional arms control agreement.

Kalb: You and I have sat in on many discussions where you were talking with American or European leaders in which they will say, "Yes, Henry, that may be true, but basically, all you're doing, all General Haig is doing, you're just viewing every single problem that comes up in the world through a Soviet-American prism. Things are a heck of a lot more complicated than that and it is about time that you guys woke up to the fact

30

that it's not a Russian who is behind every single problem in Central
American or a Russian behind every single problem in the Near East."

Kissinger:

That's true. That's absolutely true. It is absolutely true that there's not a Russian behind every problem in the Middle East or in Central America. There are indigenous causes of the upheaval in Central America that antidate Havana and Moscow that ought to be remedied independent of Havana and Moscow. At the same time, without the massive resupply of the Syrians last fall, what happened in Lebanon would not have been possible. Without the discipline, organization, and training of the Cuban Intelligence Service, the Salvadorian and Nicaraguan movements would have a different character. If Russia and Havana suddenly disappeared from the world, we would not live in a millennium. We would still have huge tasks--the poverty in Central America and the move towards democratization in Latin America; they have an independent momentum. Nevertheless, the crises that have threatened our security have been encouraged by Moscow. It doesn't mean they can be solved alone by Moscow, and we shouldn't kid ourselves that Moscow is the essential element.

Kalb:

General Haig, we have touched on the Middle East. Dr. Kissinger has talked about the Soviet resupply in Syria and we know that when Israel moved into Lebanon in June of 1982, that was a very critical moment in your own tenure as Secretary of State. Could you tell us what role the Lebanon crisis and the Israeli move had in your departure from office and what was really happening at that time? What were the forces at work?

Haig:

It clearly had a very important role because I made it a practice to tell Presidents what I think they ought to hear rather than what I think they want to hear. Sometimes they don't like that. I had watched for a considerable period a misreading of the strategic reality of the Middle

31

East, first, in the context of not even understanding what the Middle East
is. The Middle East is not just simply a band of historic tensions
between Arab and Jew; it's a super-power competition in a region of vital-
ly critical raw materials, especially energy. It's the dynamics of the
Arab world and the most important and significant event in that Arab world
in recent history is the spawning of Islamic fundamentalism and the threat
that that poses to every moderate Arab regime in the region. Thirdly, its
the juxtaposition of the state of Lebonan, aggravated tremendously in the
decade of the 70s with the introduction of the PLO in the West and Syria
in the East. Finally, it's the Arab-Israeli dispute. There was great
tendency in the administration, especially in the Secretary of Defense's
office, to view the whole Middle East exclusively as a crisis between Arab
and Jew in which the American position had been somehow biased in favor of
Israel. In order to try to get that back in balance, there was a constant
public criticism of Israel. That's a mistake. You never deal with a
democratic society by attacking it in the newspapers and on television.
Why? Because you skew the democratic process in that country. You
deprive the opposition of its platform and you force them to rally behind
the excesses of an incumbent regime if there happens to be excesses as Mr.
Begin's were from time to time. You deprive the Labor Party of its plat-
form. They're not going to join a foreign power in attacking the policies
of their leader. Secondly, our friends failed to ask themselves why Arabs
come to Washington. One of the major reasons is they think we can influ-
ence Israel and, when we conduct ourselves in such a way that suggests we
have no ability to influence Israel, we become irrelevant to the Arabs.
We become just like a Western European power--sympathetic to their cause,

32

but unable to help them. Then they begin to look elsewhere and it's no
accident that Egypt is talking about opening diplomatic relations with the
Soviet Union this year, that little Prince Bandar in Washington last week
announces that Saudia Arabia must turn to the Soviet Union for its weapons
and that the little King of Jordan, a historic friend of this country, can
come to Washington and stick his finger in the President's eye. So we
were on the wrong wicket from day one and all of the debate by Ms. Howes
and others about how we lost Lebanon never understood that the point of
departure was skewed and wrong. If you have a problem with Israel, take
it to them privately and firmly. Not in the press. Finally, when Israel
did move into Lebanon, it was in the interest of the American people and
in the interest of the moderate Arab world we were seeking to help, as
well as in the interest of Israel, to let them win and win promptly and
rapidly and get the Syrians out of Lebanon, the PLO out of Lebanon, and
Israel out of Lebanon. And that's what we didn't do. In fact, we pre-
vented it, I'm sorry to say.

Kalb: We have five to ten minutes left in this particular segment and we have many, many other questions. I'd like to deal for a moment with our problems within the NATO Alliance. Dr. Kissinger, in an article in early March in TIME magazine, outlined his vision of the problem, made certain recommendations, and seemed to be suggesting that the problems that we have in the Atlantic Alliance today are quite profound. Could you run through that with us and tell us what your solution would be?

First let me run through the problems as I see them. The strategy
that was developed for the NATO Alliance dates back to the 1950s. At that
time the United States had a nuclear monopoly and the Europeans were,
economically, extremely weak. In these circumstances, it was natural that

33

a doctrine would be developed where any attack on Europe would met with an American nuclear response. To be sure, we put some ground forces into Europe because the Europeans could not believe we would honor our commitment unless there were some hostages, if you want to put it crudely. And we could not put ground forces there unless the Europeans put some ground forces there as well and, so an anomalous situation developed in which, even though we were committed to nuclear defense, we built up a ground establishment. Now the situation has changed. The Soviet Union has substantial nuclear forces of their own and a nuclear war would have enormous casualties and Europe is economically stronger and it is, therefore, essential that the conventional capability of Europe be built up. The Europeans, however, are suffering from the schizophrenia that General Haig outlined, and that you mentioned indirectly. On the one hand, they are terrified of nuclear war. On the other hand, they are not willing to make the sacrifices for conventional defense. We are, therefore, living in a never-never land in which our forces are too large to be a nuclear tripwire; too small to achieve an adequate conventional defense. I think it is absolutely imperative that in the near future we put the question of what they really intend with their defense and make them go one way or the other. That's the first thing. Second, there is a growing disagreement about East-West relations. To many European countries, the United States is presented as a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys that are saved from blowing up humanity by the wisdom, patience and God knows what of the European leaders, even while they are dependent on our shield and while Europeans dissociate from us in the areas outside of Europe and even inside Europe. Whatever you think of what we did in Grenada, and I supported it, the fact that a British government could oppose us publicly

34

after what we had done for them in the Falklands, I thought was outra-
geous. Third, there is the issue of the intermediate missiles which we
are placing in Europe which many Europeans create the impression that were
put there as a favor to us. The fact of the matter is, these intermediate
range missiles in Europe are not necessarily for a purely American strate-
gy. If we want to defend ourselves, we don't need missiles in Europe.
Those missiles are put there in order to link the defense of Europe to the
defense of the United States. Fourthly, in areas outside of Europe, we
have a doctrine developing that the Europeans have no obligation to sup-
port us. They may not have the legal obligation to support us, but if our
vital interest and our security is undermined, their security is under-
mined too. I might add that we have a presidential candidate who is
turning this around and saying the same thing with equally dangerous
consequences.

Now, this is my analysis. My solution--that's one of the points that
perhaps General Haig and I disagree; my solution is that as long as the
Europeans know that the defense of Europe is largely in American hands,
they have no incentive to be responsible. They will have a high incentive
to shift all the tough decisions to us and to play their domestic game.
Therefore, I recommended in that article that the Europeans assume explic-
itly a greater share of their ground defense and, as a means of making
them do this, I suggested that we at least offer that the Supreme
Commander of the forces in Europe be made an European with an American
Deputy, reversing the existing situation. I would not fall on my sword
for this, but at least I would offer it and if the Europeans come back and
say they can't agree on the European and they want an American, that would
be certainly fine with me. I also recommended to the extreme dismay of