GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

July 11, 1972

Dear John:

I want to thank you belatedly but warmly for your enormously
thoughtful note of June 2. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate
it. I am sorry that my travel schedule in the past month did not
leave me a calm moment send you a thank-you sooner.

I am glad to hear you are doing so well and feeling so well. You
are adding envy to my megalomania and other vices.

You can be absolutely certain that I will want to see you if there
is the slightest chance of my getting to England. I do not think
you should hesitate to come over here if you have any excuse. I
would love to have a long talk with you about the things you men-
tion and about everything else. Of course, I will never admit
that all our successes are anything but the result of brilliant
planning. I have told the President of your generous words about
him, and he shares my gratitude and admiration for you.

Mr. John Freeman
5, Prince Albert Road
London, N. W. 1
England

You know, I am sure, that I consider getting to know
you one of the best results of my present position.

London Weekend Television

Station House Harrow Road Wembley Middlesex HAP6DA Tel:01902 8846 Telex:261054 Cables:Weekendtel Wembley

PERSONAL & PRIVATE

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
The White House,
Washington, DC,
U.S.A.

2 June 1972.'

This is a letter which does not need answering. Indeed it does not even need reading - if I am to be frank. Yet I have wanted to write for some time to tell you how much I think about you and to make some gesture of acting out the combination of affection and anxiety and pride with which I watch from a distance your huge undertakings.

I now know nothing of what goes on in the world except what I pick up from the press and television. But by casting my mind back to the time when I did know something, I kid myself that I am in some way, privy to your designs. Hence the pride. And hence the anxiety. It can have been given to few academics to carry quite so much responsibility as you have over the past four years. And I suppose that the only real purpose of this letter is to remind you that you have the support of one distant friend. I don't suppose you need the support and I hope you don't need the reminder. But it gives me satisfaction to offer them both across what has become a wide gulf of experience. (My life is nowadays a wholly commercial one.) In all seriousness, however, I send you my congratulations on the way in which the design has unfolded since we last worked together. When we meet you can tell me with due discretion whether the creation of the Nixon foreign policy has been 'continuous flux' or explosive, random or predetermined. Till you do I shall continue to cherish my fantasy of a supreme will at work in the North-west wing of the White House. It does seem to me that the President's first term has been a momentous one for the US and the world, and that it leaves the world safer and more rationally ordered than it found it.

Mary A. Kissinger.

2 June 1972.

The process must have been infinitely taxing and frustrating at times to you - as I'm sure it has been for some of your allies who may have been bumped and jostled. But I have no doubt that everybody will gain in the long run (except perhaps the Vietnamese) and that the Nixon era has been the most important in foreign policy since F.D.R.'s second term. Vietnam must be heartbreaking. But Hanoi always held the card they are now playing and I can only hope that you see a way out of this last bloody dilemma.

I hope also, more than I could ever say in public, that the President will get his second term. He has earned it. And anyway I am alarmed at the alternatives which from here seem likely. It's a curious twist of fate, isn't it, that you and I should have become his admirers. My own conversion began before I came to Washington, when he showed his mettle in the 1968 campaign. And everything I saw in Washington - including the failures and the occasional mistakes - led me to believe that he was the right man for the job. I still think so. I also think he will win. But if he does, he will owe a great deal to you, despite your whimsical (and highly suspect) claim that you are not interested in domestic politics.

My preoccupations (outside the domestic ones) are entirely with my company. They are small scale but interesting to me, and I have learned that the executive suite is every bit as full of hazards and surprises as the corridors of power. Nevertheless my time is full, my reflexes are sharp, my weight is reduced and my company is handsomely, if precariously, in profit for the first time in its existence. So I have little to complain of. Of course I miss Washington very much, but I am thankful in most ways to be out of the public service. If only the work of government could be carried on without the accompanying bureaucracy.....

I have no particular plans to come to the US at present. Indeed in deference to my successor I shall try not to do so until after this year. If I do, I shall of course let you know. I hope you will not come over here without doing as much for me. Meanwhile this letter is merely to send you my greetings and to assure you that you are watched not only by the Secret Service. Please pay my respects to the President if it would be appropriate. It was delightful to see Nancy last Fall, when Nelson Rockefeller was over. Please give my affectionate regards to her and any other particular friends.

London Weekend Television

Station House Harrow Road Wembley Middlesex HA9 6DA Tel:01902 8846 Telex:261054 Cables:Weekendtel Wembley

KISSINGER, HENRY

27 October 1972

The Hon. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House
WASHINGTON DC

Express - Personal

Dear Henry,

I am writing this letter as a friend, but I hope in such a
way as not to impose on friendship.

I am sending a team of television reporters out to Washington
in the next few days to cover the elections and, more impor-
tantly, the situation arising out of them. They are naturally
eager to have access to the President but, you may not be
surprised to hear, equally eager to have a chance of talking to
you. I realise very well that you may be unavailable for all
sorts of reasons. However, I commend them to you and promise
you that, if you can see them, you will be treated fairly and
responsibly and intelligently, and that any material they use
will attract wide attention in this country.

The leader of the team and the Editor of the programme is
John Birt. He is a very senior television producer of the
highest reputation, and responsible. Do not be alarmed if you
are struck by either his youth or the length of his hair - his
track record speaks for itself and I can guarantee his integrity.

./

RECEIVED
SEP 19 1974

CENTRAL FILES

London Weekend Television Limited