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CAUTION: This material is strictly embargoed. Its use is authorized only by subscribers of the HENRY KISSINGER column. With the exception of these paid subscribers, its contents must not under any circumstances be quoted, excerpted, summarized, paraphrased or in any way published, in whole or in part. Precautions should be taken to prevent the disclosure of the contents of this material to third parties prior to publication.

HENRY KISSINGER INTERVIEW

For Release Sunday, November 11, 1990

The following interview was conducted by Paulo Sotero of
the newspaper O Estado of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

By Paulo Sotero

O Estado de Sao Paulo

QUESTION: You wrote immediately after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait when President Bush ordered the mobilization that at that point you thought that a surgical strike would be the probably be the best course of action. Well, we have almost three months after that now, U.S. forces are almost at full mobilization, full strength there, their other forces are there and now there are doubts here about what to do, I just wanted to ask you: Where do you stand now on that issue? What is the best course of action. Is it still surgical strike diplomacy?

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ANSWER: Well, that word surgical was really sort of misused by critics to score a debating point. My view was, and is, that when and if military force is needed used, we are better off relying on air power than on a protracted ground war and that we should use power in such a way that diplomacy can result from it. I do not believe you can say it will either be diplomacy or force as if the two were unrelated. For it is the threat of force that might produce negotiations; and, if force is used, it is diplomacy that might bring it to an end. But I have said all along that I would prefer to achieve our objectives without force if that is possible.

Q. How does it look right now to you? From what Saddam Hussein seems to signal a possible withdrawal may be indicated through dreams and things like that he may be willing to do something, to withdraw. There is some opposition starting to creep up here. Americans seem to have a little bit more doubt now about going to war. What are the President's options now?

A. In terms of what the President has said, and as recently as yesterday, it is difficult to visualize him retreating from his demands. Therefore, the issue remains in doubt. And nothing that Saddam Hussein has so far said suggests that he's willing to accept the U.N. terms.

Q. Now to go to what I wanted to talk to you about regardless of the outcome of this crisis. One thing is pretty impressive to a foreign observer is how the United States is exercising its super power after the Cold War. One thing that

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really struck a lot of us is the fact that the United States mobilized its force, and then sent its Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury around passing the hat. Is that how you exercise the role of a super power when you don't have the money to do it?

A. A very good question. Americans have been taught for nearly 200 years that America is different from other countries. Other countries have interests. America has principles. Other countries fight for selfish motives. America fights to derend its values. Now, as a Latin American, you may smile at this, but it is what Americans believe. President Bush says we're not fighting for oil, we're fighting against aggression. We are not fighting for a balance of power, we're fighting for collective security. The point, therefore, is that America feels it is acting in the general interest, so it is not passing the hat for itself, it is passing it for all of us.

Now I understand that Europeans and Latin Americans are very skeptical about this and, as a student of history, I have a lot of sympathy for the European and Latin American points of view. But I am explaining to you now the North American point of view. This is what Americans believe deeply. Yes, we are a superpower in the military field. But in the economic field, there are already countries as powerful as we are. Soon, even the military gap will close. So we are moving into a world with several different power centers. And that means we have to get used to the concept of a balance of power. But

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as a nation, we have had no philosophical preparation for it.

Q. The budget debate calling for sacrifices and putting
America's house in order and living within its means sounds
like the United States beginning to practice what it preaches.

A. Most Americans would be astonished to hear that we are
no longer competitive in certain fields. Or to hear that the
dollar is becoming a less desirable currency. When I say most
Americans, I don't mean bankers or intellectuals, I mean the
average citizens in the Midwest. They may read about it, but
they cannot conceptualize it. So we are now at the beginning
of a process which Brazil should understand. Brazil knew for
10 years that it was living beyond its means, but it was
really not until the Collor Administration that anything
systematic has been done about it. Intellectually, the United
States knows it has been living beyond its means, but the
political leaders have been willing to make the necessary
sacrifices because things have not yet gotten bad enough
physically.

I remember a foreigner in Brazil telling me during the
first Sarney plan, which seemed to be working, that it was a
funny thing, but but everyone knew how to make money during
inflation, and once inflation stopped, no one seemed to know
how to make money any more. Now we are getting a little bit in
the same position in America. We knew how to live beyond our
means, but we have not yet mastered going through the process
we have been preaching to other nations. As you may know, for
years I have been saying that the demands we made on Mexico

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and Brazil and our other Latin American friends were
excessive, but many in the United States absolutely rejected
it. So you're right. It is our problem and it won't end until
we come to feel that the austerity is central.

So far, Congress and the Administration have not imposed
austerity, and have settled for cutting back on increases in
existing programs instead.

Q. Some in Latin America would charge that the United
States has been exporting its crisis and that this is very
selfish.

A. I do not think it is quite fair to say we've been
exporting the crisis. We have certainly not been solving it,
but I do not think that even indirectly Brazil's problems are
a reflection of American problems.

Q. How is Brazil's new proposal for dealing with its debt
viewed in the United States? Do people take into account the
changes that are under way in Brazil?

A. There has been great reluctance in agreeing to help
Latin American countries with their debt problem. The banks
did not want to bear the whole burden, and it is politically
difficult for the U.S. government to contribute toward solving
the debt problems of foreign countries because it would look
as if we were bailing out the banks. My view has been from the
beginning that an agreement should have been made under which
Brazil agrees to pay an agreed amount, the banks assume a
certain loss, and the U.S. government contributes the
difference. That would have been a more creative approach.

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Forcing the Latin American countries to repay the full debt was bound to produce the political crisis which subsequently occurred everywhere. But when I talk to my banking friends, they are always philosophically outraged because, as profit-making organizations, they do not see why they should be asked to accept losses for American national policy. And I understand their point of view.

The U.S. government knows that it would be very difficult to get the Congress to help out the banks, especially in favor of foreign borrowers. We are now leaving the immediate post-war period, which no longer matches either the American experience or its perceptions. There used to be one enemy; the world was a two-power world. We had huge economic resources, so we could hope for solutions to our problems by the sheer magnitude of our resources. We could regard our aid program as a form of charity, and though you may smile at this, I'm merely telling you the terms of American thinking. But now none of this works any more in the old way.

There is not only one enemy, there is not even any particular type of enemy anymore. We have more limited resources. So we must now develop some concept of enlightened self-interest. Under such a concept, when we make it easier for Brazil to deal with its problem, we would be doing in part for ourselves as well. I believe that with an economic bloc developing in Europe, and also in East Asia, we in the Western Hemisphere need some cooperative arrangement that can improve everybody's bargaining position with the

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world's other blocs. But that means developing a viable
concept of the common interest.

Q. What is your evaluation of the so-called initiative for
the Americas that President Bush announced, an idea that
seemed to have come out of nowhere?

A. Well, my estimate is that it is in fact the most
creative foreign policy idea of the Bush Administration. And
it in time can lead to a creative, substantive association in
this hemisphere. But it must be implemented into a complete
program, and I hope that when the President visits Latin
America, the bones of these general ideas will be fleshed out.

Q. Our experience as Latin Americans has always been
defensive, asking what they are going to do to us. Our
skeptics say not much good came from the initiatives when the
empire had money, had the image of a patron, and now that the
patron is broke why should be expect any better?

A. To be fair, the United States has not always been
creative about Latin America. And Latin America has managed to
make a mess or two on its own. Many of the things that went
wrong in Latin American countries were due to indigenous
conditions more than due to what the United States did or did
not do. Precisely because so much was expected from the
association it has always been more difficult for the United
States and Latin America to work together than other areas. On
the North American side, there has been a certain amount of
condescension and patronizing. On the Latin American side,
especially among the intellectual classes, there has been a

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kind of socialism that was dying everywhere else, and a sort
of suspiciousness that made it difficult to be creative. Both
sides have to overcome these attitudes.

I have urged since at least 1974 that we be more involved
in the Western Hemisphere. The biggest obstacle we have in the
United States to carrying out this program is with the
right-wing conservatives who will not admit that we are
poorer, and who say to hell with all foreigners and with
radicals who hold the same view at the other end of the
spectrum. There is not a perception among the average
Americans that we need Latin Americans and therefore should be
nice to them. Not yet, anyway.

The big problem we have in the United States is that we are
moving into a new world that we do not yet understand. If we
could develop even the selfish interest you describe we would
have a better dialogue. And you should not object to our
having selfish interests. Nor should we object to your having
selfish interests.

It comes down to this: that it is the job of President
Collor to defend Brazilian interests, and of President Bush to
defend U.S. interests. The question is whether both of them
can understand that their selfish interests also require a
broader framework. There are big obstacles on both sides. On
the other hand, I really think that Bush is an
internationalist in the truest sense of the word. From what I
have seen, I think Collor is an interesting, courageous man.
So I am hopeful that something will come out of it.

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Q: What should be the elements of this new vision that you think that it is not there yet. What should be.

A: You see, I believe that the world we've been talking about is a free-trade world, organized for the benefit of each and every nation. I believe the world will in fact become organized into trading blocs. One way or the other, Europe is already a trading bloc. East Asia soon will be a trading bloc. The free trade zone that is being discussed between Canada, the United States and Mexico should at least be open to some other countries. The concept ought to be open. It should be up to Brazil to decide whether it wants to join. Secondly, I think we have to understand that countries like Brazil and Mexico will succeed and will become significant powers. They may bounce up and down, but they will succeed. How can Brazil not succeed eventually.

Q. We have been working hard at going in the opposite direction, but you're right.

A. You have a much better chance of succeeding than the Soviet Union. Mexico is already doing very well. Assuming that Mexico succeeds, the United States will have at its border an industrialized country of over 100 million, somewhat competitive, capable in time of military strength, a totally new experience for us. We have to think differently. Brazil has even more potential. It's a bigger country with larger resources, so we have to find a way of articulating a common interest. In the past, we were the only ones in the Western Hemisphere with a global foreign policy. I think that will

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change over the next 10 to 30 years.

Q. Some people say that Brazil is too big to fit into somebody else's space and that in time we should deal as equals with Japan, not just in a hemispheric context.

A. That is less of a philosophical than a practical issue. If Brazil wants to be autonomous, then it has to be a big boy about it and so do we. We would each have to pay the price that is involved, and we would have to cooperate on that basis. We should not make a heavy investment of U.S. prestige to force Brazil into a theoretical framework unless Brazil is convinced that that is in its interest. And we can deal with it in either way.

Q. I see sometimes in Washington that American politicians generally are more receptive to doing things for Eastern Europe, for example, than for Latin America. The prime minister of Hungary was here the other day. After the state dinner President Bush said to the press that he was going to try to work with the World Bank or the IMF to get an additional $5 billion worth of this relief money to the Eastern European countries. When they need to find some money for Eastern Europe, they find it right away. There's no problem. For Latin America, well it's more difficult.

A. Well it isn't exactly true. It is difficult also for Eastern Europe. Many North Americans are isolationists. You must have seen the polls that showed that only a small percentage of our population can find major countries on the map.

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Q. Yeah.

A: Americans interested in foreign countries are Europe-oriented; they've been thinking East-West and not North-South. It is a curious phenomenon. I have high regard for Hungary, but it has a population of 10 million while Mexico has a population approaching 100 million. Brazil is closer to approaching 200 than 100 million. The markets are bigger, the resources are larger, and the economic system, despite all its problems, is more oriented toward markets.

Yet there are pressures to change the North American focus. I for one believe that our free resources should focus on Latin America. European free resources should focus on Eastern Europe. We can make emergency contributions and intellectual contributions, but fundamentally Eastern Europe will be dealt with by Europe, if it is going to be dealt with at all. Effectively. I don't know where they were going to get the $5 billion from. Our priority now has to be the Western Hemisphere. But this will require a corresponding change in thinking among groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, and even with somebody like me. I cut my teeth on NATO and I have always thought in terms of East and West, often with amusing consequences. For example, I would think nothing of going to London, but Ottawa, which is north or Mexico City which is south, always seem like very big trips to me, not to speak of Rio. Yet the United States has to begin to think in terms of North-South, and for essentially selfish reasons, but

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I am not bothered by that. That is what statesmen are for, to reconcile selfish purposes with common objectives.

Q. I read or heard somewhere that when you were a secretary of state dealing with Vietnam and Europe, you said Latin America was not much of a priority.

A. I did not have the time in light of all the crises elsewhere.

Q. Yes. That you did not think highly about either Latin America or Americans that dealt with Latin America at the State Department.

A. No, the latter is not true. My political mentor was Nelson Rockefeller, who was deeply interested in Latin America. So for 15 years, I was hearing about the importance of Latin America and, in principle, I was always aware of its importance. Practically speaking, however, my first three or four years in office were consumed with dealing with Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union.

Certainly it is true I did not know enough about the Latin American states. And I had no particular view about the people that dealt with Latin America one way or the other. Yet I had a high regard for Nelson Rockefeller.

Q. Now, and one thing that may be one of the next big issues that the U.S. is going to be facing right now that involves almost everybody is the GATT negotiations in Geneva. From all information available right now, the talks are really closer to failure than to success. When you talk about the trading blocs of the future, your belief that we are going to

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have trading blocs, are you assuming a failure of the GATT round?

A. No. I would like GATT to succeed, because its failure would set a bad precedent and play too much into the hands of the protectionists. Realistically, I think we will see trading blocs develop. I also think GATT rules will increasingly come to be applied to relations between the blocs rather than to nations bilaterally.

Q. How strong is the resistance in the United States to allowing Brazil access to higher technology, including nuclear technology?

A. First, let me separate the issue into military and civilian technology. The spread of nuclear weapons is not in anybody's interest, and I think the United States will continue to oppose the spread of that kind of technology. For civilian use technology, broadly defined, I think we have to understand in the modern world we could not keep a country like Brazil away from modern technology, even if we wanted to. And we should not want to. There are too many sources of technology in the world today. We are no longer the only source. I think, therefore, we must understand that no country will be able to be superior in every field of technology. We cannot be competitive by maintaining a monopoly of technology. So we have to analyze competitive advantage. There will be some fields in which countries like Brazil will be superior, maybe not quite yet, but certainly in 10 years. Look at Japan. In 1954, when the Japanese started to industrialize, then

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Secretary of State Dulles wrote them a memorandum offering some friendly advice. Japan should understand, he wrote, it will never be able to compete with the United States in the markets of advanced industrialized countries. He urged it to adopt a technology suitable for export to the developing countries. But look at Japan now.

Q. You say that the United States should focus on Latin America more. But there are different opinions in your country.

A. I think Western Europe will always be a key interest for the United States. And I do not want to pretend that Latin America will be more important than Western Europe. But Latin America will be as important as Western Europe.

Q. How do you see things evolving in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and how is that going to affect U.S. thinking. Will it turn more isolationist?

A. America will definitely become more isolationist, whatever happens elsewhere. In the past you could only evoke U.S. interest by claiming there was some big danger somewhere. Now we have to evoke U.S. interest on the basis of long-term considerations that may not be obvious today.

Now, I make a distinction between Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, but I also make distinctions within Eastern Europe. Let us take the relatively advanced countries of Eastern Europe -- Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. All of these formerly centrally planned economies will go through a big crisis on the way to market economies. In all these

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countries, the Communists have corrupted the thinking of the
population and their willingness to work, corrupted in the
sense that people are all looking to the state to solve their
problems.

On top of that, the austerity that is demanded will be
very, very painful, and may weaken the political processes. On
the other hand, I believe that East Germany will recover very
quickly. And that given the proximity of Austria and Germany
to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, progress will be made
amid many ups and downs. And if these countries become
integrated into the Western European community to some extent,
there will be difficulties but no insoluble crisis.

The Soviet Union is facing a much worse economic crisis
than Eastern Europe, coupled with a crisis of political
legitimacy over the question of who really has authority in
the Soviet Union. A third crisis involves the structure of the
state. What is the real map of the Soviet Union? It has been
an empire, but 300 years of Russian history are quickly
unraveling. Almost everything acquired since Peter the Great
is undergoing some form of upheaval. last week Gorbachev made
public an economic program. But who is it for? The Russian
Republic covering more than half the country has already
announced its own economic program. The Ukraine has its own
economic program. Then again the Russian Republic has
bilateral agreements with a lot of other republics. So for
whom exactly is Gorbachev's program relevant?

No doubt, there will be a certain amount of chaos and a

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certain amount of repression first. It will be very hard on
many people, and if things get too bad there might be a flood
of refugees from Russia into Western Europe.

How would all of this affect the United States? If Russia
were not Communist, and if Russia left its neighbors alone, I
think most Americans would feel that they'd be just as
happy if they never heard of it again. I don't think it would
particularly produce isolationism, but it would certainly
remove incentives for developing a long-term foreign policy.

Q. How do you see things evolving with Cuba?

A. I think Communism in Cuba has become obsolete. Will it
be overthrown? I think Castro figures that if he starts making
concessions he will go the way of Eastern Europe. And he might
as well go down with dignity defending his principles.

Q. But it could become pretty repressive and bloody.

A. It could become repressive and bloody. But I think in
due course, it will simply collapse.

Q. Finally, there is one form of isolationist mentality we
have not addressed. Will the United States ever recognize that
soccer is important in the world?

A. Let me tell you of my sadness. I was in Spain in 1982
and had arranged my program so that I could see Brazil play in
the semi-finals and finals. I arrived in Barcelona, and
everybody was heartbroken because they loved the Brazilians
visitors who had just lost. Then I came to Italy this year,
and again I arranged my program to see Brazil in the
quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, and again I had a

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second sadness -- Brazil lost again.

Because, really, You play the most attractive football in
the world.

Q. At least used to.

A. Yes, used to. This year wasn't so good. But I think it
wasn't your fault, because all your players are playing in
Europe.

Q. Is that what we are doing wrong?

A. For better or worse, I think national teams reflect the
national character. The Brazilian national character is
spontaneous. To make a Brazilian play like a disciplined,
systematic, theoretical German is simply not in the Brazilian
style. Now the Germans analyze from what position on the field
they can shoot, and in what position they have to have the
defender, so it becomes a very cerebral game. For better or
worse, the Brazilian style is imaginative and less systematic.
So to make Brazilians play the defensive style of the
Europeans means that you're simply not maximizing your normal
advantages. Though actually you did better against the
Argentinians than anyone else did. If you practiced hitting
the post, you could not do it as often as you did it in that
game. I saw it on television. If even one of these had gone
in, the Brazilian team (if it had gotten past Argentina) might
have become champion. But I am not certain you could have
beaten the Germans, though I think you could have beaten
anybody else.

Q. On this thing in the United States.

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A. In the United States it's very difficult because American sports tend be intellectual. There are long periods of inaction in which it is all in the mind of the spectator. And then there is intense activity in both football and baseball, but then it stops again. So you can break up American sports into a series of discrete acts that can be quantified, analyzed. You know the percentages of everybody. In soccer it is a fluid 90 minutes of continuous action. So for people trained on American sports, it is hard to make this transition.

Q. As part of the need of the United States to rethink itself in the world, do you think it would help to adopt some of the soccer ideology?

A. First of all, I think soccer has to change its rules a little to permit more scoring. I think soccer is now becoming boring even for soccer fans like me. A 1-0 game is just too boring. And in the World Cup, many games were 0-0. The Cameroonians played like the Brazilians used to play. They were lots of fun.

Q. But one thing that I heard from Pele ...

A. The Brazilians were marvelous in 1970. But in 1974, in Germany, something went wrong. In 1978, in Argentina, I never saw them except for third place. In 1982 they were marvelous in Spain. They lost to Italy actually because they were attacking too much. A tie would have been enough. And they had a tie 10 minutes before the end. But they kept attacking. That was actually a strategic mistake. In 1986, in Mexico, they

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were marvelous again. It was really just bad luck that they
lost to France, not a strategic problem. And in 1990, they
played the wrong concept. I saw them play against Costa Rica
on television. And when Brazil plays carefully against Costa
Rica, you know something is wrong.

Q. I remember that game.

A. I think they won 1-0.

Q. 1-0.

A. And it wasn't really such a good goal that they scored.

Q. No, but I think it has to do with something that
happened in the country. We were a pretty daring country. All
the difficulties, I think those things translate into a sport,
into everything. We became a country that was unwilling to
take risks. We became protectionists.

A. If you look at the national team, it really does reflect
the country's psychology. The British are really a little
old-fashioned. They do anything that you can do with
discipline with character, but they're playing the most
old-fashioned football, as though it were the 1930s. The
Germans are very systematic and carefully trained. But I saw
them a lot during the World Cup, and the first few times I saw
them, they were very exciting with a very strong defense.

(c) 1990, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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Side A Kissinger tape.

A. A minimum.

Q. Yes, I just would like to open with that, and ask you

Q: You wrote immediately after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait when President Bush ordered the mobilization that at that point you thought that a surgical strike would be the probably be the best course of action. Well we have almost three months after that now, U.S. forces are almost at full mobilization full strength strength there, their other forces are there and now there are doubts here about what to do, I just wanted to ask you Where do you stand now on that issue? What is the best course of action still surgical strike diplomacy.

A. Well, the word surgical, was sort of used by many media in America to score a debating point. My view was, and is that when if military force is needed, we are better off using air power than a long ground war and that we should use power in such a way that a diplomatic solution can result from it. I do not believe you can make a case you can say diplomacy or force. I think the two are related. It is the threat of force that will produce a negotiation, and, if force is used, it is diplomacy that will bring it to an end. But I have said all along that I would prefer to achieve our objectives without force if that is possible. If we can achieve our objectives without force, I would prefer that.

Q. How does it look right now to you? from what Saddam Hussein seems to signal a possible withdrawal. be indicated

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through I don't know dreams and things like that that he may
be willing to do something, to withdraw. There are some
opposition starting to creep up here, Americans, according to
this magazine seems to have a little bit more doubt now about
going to war, what is the political what are the President's
options now.

A. In terms of what the President has said, as recently as yesterday, it is difficult to conceive of the President's retreating visualize that he can retreat from his demands, and therefore, the issue remains in doubt. As it remains to be seen. Nothing that Saddam Hussein has so far said suggests that he is willing to accept the U.N. terms.

Q. Now to go to what I wanted to talk to you one thing regardless of the outcome of this this crisis. There is One thing is pretty impressive to a foreign observer is how, seems pretty impressive, this about how the United States is exercising its Super Power after this Cold War, and one thing that really struck a lot of us is the fact that the United States mobilized its force, and then sent its secretary of state and secretary of the treasury something that was presented in the press around the world, passing the hat. Is that how you exercise the role of a Super Power when you don't have the money to do it?

A. Very good question. You have to understand the column. Americans have been taught for nearly 200 years that America is different from other countries. Other countries have interests. America has principles. Other countries have fight

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We meant businessmen. We, meaning all the business class, and
Now we're a little bit in this same position in America. We know
how to live beyond our means, but we have not yet mastered
going through the process we have been preaching to other
nations. We haven't yet mastered I have been saying for
years that as you may know for years I have been saying that
the demands we made on Mexico and Brazil and other Latin American friends
countries were excessive, but people in the United States
absolutely rejected that, even though the demands we made on
our Latin American friends were much greater than anything
that people have even thought of here. So you are right. It is
our problem and it will not end until we really feel
that the austerity is central.

So far, Congress and the Administration have not imposed
austerity, they have settled for cutting back increases in existing
programs.

Q. The thing is what the charge is, about this problem is
that you don't accept the United States don't accept what you
have been saying about this, because.

A. No, but they're cutting is increases. They are not
cutting any programs. They are cutting increases in the
program.

Yeah, but they are, the United States, what the United
States is practically doing some would charge in Latin

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America, that it has been doing it's exporting its crisis.
It's.

A. Well, no.

Q. It's very selfish.

A. I don't think it's quite fair to say we've been exporting the crisis. We've certainly not been solving it, but I do not think even indirectly that And therefore indirectly I don't think that Brazil's problems are a reflection of American problems.

Q. How is Brazil's new proposal for dealing with its debt viewed in the United States? Do people take into account the changes that are underway in Brazil?

Q. If we were paying interest rates on our debt it would probably be.

A. In this sense, yes.

Q. But we are not. We decide that we are not going to do it anymore, and we've presented a new proposal that is has not been very well accepted, but that conveys that is very consistent with the adjustment policy that the government has undertaken, and this apparently is not going much anywhere because there is not the understanding of the change that's going on in Brazil.

A. There has been great reluctance to agree to help Latin American countries in their debt problem. The banks did not want to bear the whole burden, and it is politically difficult for the U.S. government to contribute to solving their debt problem because it would look as though we were bailing out

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At that point unless you assume there's some congenital problem.

A. You have a much better chance of succeeding than the Soviet Union. In my view, so, some of them will succeed. Assume Mexico succeeds. Mexico is already doing very well now. Assuming that Mexico succeeds, the United States will have at its border an industrialized country of over 100 million, totally new experience for the United States, somewhat competitive, capable in time of military strength, a totally new experience for us. We have to think differently. Brazil has even more potential. It's a bigger country, larger resources, so we have to find a way of articulating a common interest. In the past, we were the only ones in the Western Hemisphere with a global foreign policy. I think that will change over the next 20 to 30 years.

Q. Some people say that Brazil is too big to fit in somebody else's space and that in time we should deal as equals with Japan, not just in a hemispheric context.

A. That is less than I don't think that's a philosophical than a practical issue. I think that's a practical issue. I would say if those people are right, if Brazil wants to be autonomous in that degree, then it has to be a big boy about it and so do we. And we have to be a big boy. We would each have to pay the price that is involved, and we would have to cooperate on that basis. We should not make a heavy investment

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of U.S. prestige to force Brazil into a theoretical framework unless Brazil is convinced that that is in its interest. We can deal with it either way.

Q. I see sometimes in Washington that American politicians generally are more receptive to doing things for Eastern Europe, for example, than for Latin America. What accounts for this difference?

One thing Dr. Kissinger, on, you mentioned a couple of times is that Congress is not willing to do some things especially for Latin America. I see sometimes in Washington, the politicians, American politicians in general, including the President is always more willing, when you talk about Eastern Europe, to be receptive to be responsive.

A. Yes, I know.

Q. The prime minister of Hungary was here the other day. After the state dinner President Bush said to the press that he was going to try to work with the World Bank or the IMF to get an additional $5 billion worth of this relief money Gulf money to the Eastern European countries, and this seems to be well you know when the interpretation sometimes well when they need to find some money for Eastern Europe, they find it right away. There's no problem. For Latin America, well it's sort of more difficult is that.

A. People have been brought up. Well, when I have to start by saying that most North Americans are isolationists, I am.

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talking ~~about the population, and are not~~ interested in any
foreign country. And you must have seen the polls that show
that they couldn't find that only a small percentage of our
certain
population can find major countries on the map.

Q. Yeah.

These Americans who are interested in foreign countries are mostly Europe-oriented; they have been thinking East-West and not North-South. It is a strange phenomenon. I have a high regard for Hungary, but it has a population of 10 million while Mexico has a population approaching 100 million. Brazil is closer to approaching 200 than 100 million. The markets are bigger, the resources are larger, and the economic system, despite its problems, is more oriented towards market development.

Yet there are pressures to change the North American focus. groups for this. I believe that our free resources should focus on Latin America. European free resources should focus on Eastern Europe. We can make emergency contributions and intellectual contributions, but fundamentally Eastern Europe will be dealt with in Europe, if at all. It is either gonna be dealt with at all. Effectively. I don't know where they were gonna get the $5 billion from. I think our priority now has to be the Western Hemisphere. This will require a corresponding change in attitude among groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, and even on my part. I cut somebody like me off. I cut my teeth on NATO and I thought in terms of East and West, often with amusing consequences. I thought of East-West.

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and this has funny consequences. For example, I would think nothing of going to London, but Ottawa, which is north or Mexico City which is south, always seem like big trips to me, not to speak of Rio. But the United States has to begin to think North-South, for essentially selfish reasons. Latin America will have its own selfish reasons, but I am not bothered by that. And on the other hand, you people ought to think that your selfish reasons are. I'm not bothered by selfish purposes. That's what statesmen are for, reconciling selfish purposes into common objectives.

As long as they can reconcile them into some common objective.

Q. Since you are on the subject, there is one thing, I wanted always curious to ask you about, I read or heard somewhere that in your when you were a secretary of state dealing with Vietnam and Europe, and all that, and when as you said Latin America was not much of a priority.

A. I didn't have time.

Q. Yeah. That you did not think highly about either Latin America or Americans that dealt with Latin America at the State Department. There are some phrases about that were attributed to you.

A. No, the second is not true. If my political mentor was Nelson Rockefeller, who was deeply interested in Latin America. So for 15 years, I had heard about the importance of Latin America. I was theoretically aware of the importance, of speaking however, in my first three or four years in

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were consumed with the
office, I had to deal with Vietnam, China, the
Soviet Union.

End of Side A Kissinger tape for Syndicate.

Side B Kissinger tape for Syndicate.

A. And it is also true I did not know enough Latin America, particularly about the people in the United States that dealt with Latin America one way or the other. I had high regard for Nelson Rockefeller.

Q. Now, and one thing that may one of the next big issues, that is U.S. is going to be facing right now that involves almost everybody is the GATT ground negotiations in Geneva. From all information, available right now, the thing is really close to fail than to success. Q. When you talk about the trading blocs of the future, your belief that we are going to have trading blocs, are you assuming a failure of the GATT round.

A. No. I would like GATT to succeed, because if it were to set a bad precedent and start and it would play too much into the hands of protectionists, then I think that even in a GATT world we will see trading blocs develop, and I am thinking of the next wave of international economics, and I think GATT rules will increasingly come to be applied to relations between the blocs rather than to nations bilaterally.

Q. One subject that is increasing its importance chain I think the what used to be called the Third World, I don't know if you can use that expression anymore but is Brazil and the United States is it somewhat treated in GATT the subject of

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access to technology. Which is a new big area for us. As you know because of the some practices and policies of Brazilian previous governments especially regarding Iraq etc. Iraq, yeah, military cooperation. Because of the Brazilian policies towards a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. There has been some serious difficulty and Brazil people are really asking themselves if the United States will allow technology, they don't use technology, transfer anymore but access to technology. What is how important do you think the subject is.

A. First, let us well let me separate the issue into military and civilian control technology. The spread of nuclear weapons is not in anybody's interest, and I think the United States will continue to oppose the spread of that kind of technology. For civilian-use technology, broadly defined, I think we have to understand that in the modern world we could not keep a country like Brazil from modern technology even if we wanted to. We might be able to slow it up a little bit, but not much. There are too many sources of technology in the world today. We are not the only source, so we have to understand that. And I think, therefore, what we have to understand is no country will be able to be superior in every field of technology. We cannot be competitive by maintaining a monopoly of technology. So we have to analyze competitive advantage. There will be some fields in which countries like

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do with (?) technology control and (?) not (?).

A. Well, we will be horse tied to meso technology is spreading. There's no doubt about that. But it's sort of out of the cat is out of the bag.

Q. Don't forget it, before I go to a final thing that I want to talk to, let me, I probably should have asked this before, a question on Ero? Soviet Union.

A. Yes.

Q. You say that well, the United States should focus on Latin America more. But there are different opinions in your country.

This should be the priority etc. But there are some facts of life in your, there are different opinions.

A. I think Western Europe will always be a key interest for the United States. And I don't want to pretend that Latin America will be more important than Western Europe. But Latin America will be _as_ important as Western Europe.

Q. How do you see things evolving in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and how is it going to affect U.S. thinking. Will it turn more isolationist?

The fact the element that certainly catches the attention here, I'd like to know what is your view of the evolving events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, some people get very involved in the Latin American initiative. President Bush said to me Eastern Europe, a year from now, which was about mid-year this year is going to look like a mess, and it may be very troublesome and Gorbachev is seems to be sinking pretty

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rapidly, I would like to know how you see things evolving there, and how it's going to affect U.S. thinking. Going to be more isolationism.

A. America ~~U.S.~~ will definitely become more isolationist, ~~W~~ wherever else. Because ~~In~~ the past you could only evoke U.S. interest by claiming there was some big danger somewhere. Now we have to evoke U.S. interest on the basis of long-term considerations that ~~are certainly not~~ be obvious today. which you cannot ~~prove. And when are certainly not~~ obvious today.

Now, I make a distinction between Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, ~~I even~~ but also make distinctions within Eastern Europe. Let us take the relatively advanced countries of Eastern Europe/Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. All of these ~~formerly~~ centrally planned economies will go through a big crisis on the way to market economies. Because they ~~will realize that~~ In all these countries, the Communists have corrupted the thinking of the population/and the willingness to work, corrupted in the sense that people are all looking to the state to solve their problems. On top of that, the austerity that is demanded will ~~be very very painful, and may weaken the political process.~~ So in this sense there'll be a certain mess. On the other hand, I believe that East Germany will recover very quickly. And that given the proximity of Austria and Germany to Poland and Czechoslovakia, Hungary, with many ups and downs, progress will be made. And then if these countries are integrated into some extent, into the Western European community, they will be

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And so for people trained on American sports, it is hard to make the transition.

A. First of all, I think I think soccer has to change its rules a little to permit more scoring. I think soccer is now becoming boring even for soccer fans like me. A 1-0 game is just too boring. And in the World Cup, many games were 0-0. The Cameroonians played like the Brazilians used to play. And they were lots of fun.

Q. But one thing that I heard from Pele (?).

A. The Brazilians were marvelous in 1970. But in 1974, in Germany, there was something wrong. In 1978 in Argentina, I never saw them except for the third place. In 1982 they were marvelous in Spain. They lost to Italy actually because they were attacking too much. A tie would have been enough. And they had a tie 10 minutes before the end. But they kept attacking. That was actually a strategic mistake. In 1986, in Mexico, they were again marvelous, it was really just bad luck that they lost to France. That was not a strategic problem. And in 1990, they played the wrong concept. I saw them against Costa Rica on television. And when Brazil plays carefully against Costa Rica, there is something wrong.

Q. I remember that game.

A. I think they won 1-0.

Q. 1-0.

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A. And it wasn't really a good goal that they scored.

Q. No, but I think it has to do with something that happened in the country. We were a pretty daring country. All the difficulties, I think those things translate into a sport, into everything. We became a country that is unwilling to take risks. We became protectionists.

A. If you look at the national team, it really does reflect the country's psychology. The British are really a little old-fashioned. They do anything that you can do with discipline and character, but they're playing the most old-fashioned football, as though they were the 1930s. The Germans are like Germans, very systematic and carefully trained. But I saw them a lot in the World Cup, and the first few times I saw them, they were very exciting. And very strong defense. So, the Italians, I don't want to be on record as Italians, but it off.