COMMITTEE FOR THE FREE WORLD

TRANSATLANTIC CRISIS

January 24, 1982

Washington, D.C.

Speaker: The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger

There seems to me little question that the Alliance is in deep difficulty, and we do ourselves no favor by pretending that things are going along properly. To be sure, there are periodic declarations of common positions, but these declarations generally have a liturgical quality about them and frequently achieve unanimity to the degree that they avoid any concrete action. This is not a state of affairs that has been caused under any one administration. In fact, the causes of it go back quite far, and in this administration a serious effort has been made to ameliorate matters.

An alliance has to achieve a number of objectives if it is to be vital and meaningful over an extended period of time. In the military field, it must have some conception of a common danger. It must have a strategy for meeting that danger. Its members must believe that their union adds to the common strength and that they all have a stake in common action. They must be able to explain to themselves what constitutes a crisis and how to deal with it.

In the political field, there must be some idea of the purposes that are to be achieved. There has to be some

definition of how to position oneself in order to be able to achieve these purposes.

In the economic field, there has to be some theory of what constitutes the common good and how it can be enhanced.

I know of no alliance that has not had underlying it some perception of the balance of power and that could not express its goals or its common purpose in those terms.

It would be very difficult to say that NATO as it is now constituted meets many of these criteria. I say this as one who deeply believes in the Atlantic Alliance. My roots are in Europe, and my emotional background inclines me to the closest association between Europe and the United States. We in this country will live in a very lonely world if we are thrown entirely on our own political and cultural resources. But there is no blinking the fact that there are a number of key issues that have been deferred-- some for decades, some for a lesser time--whose cumulative effect today is that the Alliance achieves consensus not, primarily, on the world we want to bring about but on the immediate dangers we want to avoid.

In the military field, some of this has been inherent in the strategy that has been pursued for the entire NATO period. For almost all of this time, the essential military ingredient of NATO has been the unilateral American nuclear guarantee. The military establishment of the Atlantic

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Alliance was designed not in order to fight a war or to
resist a challenge, but to trigger American nuclear
retaliation. As nuclear stockpiles grew, however, the
time inevitably approached when it was no longer possible
to assign the same degree of credibility to general
strategic war as had been the case in the late 40s and
early 50s. Combined with arms-control theories, which
accelerated what technology was bringing about anyhow,
there developed an East-West parity in nuclear weaponry
that was bound to create, and did create, an enormous
change in the balance of power. All of this has been
talked about endlessly. All I will say about it now is
this: the demonstrations that are taking place in Europe
against the deployment of intermediate-range missiles show
the total intellectual collapse of the concept of an
Atlantic strategy.

Any American analyst of strategy would have to come to
the conclusion that from an American point of view we do
not need intermediate-range missiles on the continent of
Europe. They are a guarantee to the Europeans that the
defense of Europe is coupled with that of the United
States, because it is against all plausibility that the
Soviets could attack American strategic weapons in Europe
without also attacking American strategic weapons in the
United States, therefore they would, in contemplating an
attack on Europe, face the full inhibition of a general
nuclear war. From our own point of view, we can put these

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weapons on ships if we need them; indeed, some defense
experts in the United States would probably be just as
happy to have these weapons off the continent of Europe.
There is thus a curious collusion of interest between
European pacifists and those in this country who are
primarily interested in the strategic aspect of defense.
Anyone who claims that the intermediate-range missiles will
allow the destruction of Europe while the United States
protects itself simply does not understand contemporary
strategic realities.

By the same token, for us to abandon this deployment
would be a more crucial step geopolitically and
psychologically than any compensating steps the Soviets
might take. Whether the Soviets threaten Europe with
SS-20s or with SS-11s, whether they deploy strategic
weapons or intermediate weapons, is secondary. But if we
were to move off the continent of Europe, a degree of
decoupling would have been achieved that would have the
most significant and far-reaching consequences. The fact
that our "zero-option" offer was so widely welcomed in
Europe is profoundly troubling in this regard. The United
States can defend itself with many strategies, but
thoughtful Europeans should ask themselves whether it is in
their interest to encourage the sea-based strategies that
are coming into vogue in this country, and ask themselves

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as well about the kind of diplomacy that would follow a decade or so after such a move were undertaken.

It takes no great insight, or even great moral perception, to be against nuclear war. The problem is to prevent the fear of nuclear war from generating unilateral disarmament and from leading to the moral disarmament of the West. There is no solution to the nuclear problem other than a conventional build-up, and until we are willing to have such a build-up, we can hold as many arms-control negotiations as we like, they will all fail to ease the fundamental problem--which is one of redressing the balance of power. None of the governments in the Alliance has yet fully faced this necessity.

The second problem is political. How much unity do we want, do we need, and how much diversity can we stand? An alliance cannot ever have complete unanimity of views and probably should not. On the other hand, there must be some limit that the necessity of common action places on the unilateral decisions of the participants. If awareness of that limit leads to a consensus of the fearful, to paralysis and inaction, then the alliance will gradually disintegrate, because it will cease to be relevant to most issues that arise. But one also has to avoid total unilateralism.

Navigating between these extremes is the task of statesmanship. Unfortunately, in the present Alliance it is relatively easy to see that on many of the fundamental

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issues there is not even the beginning of consensus.
Above all it does not exist on East-West issues, which many
of the allies tend to deal with as if they were a
psychiatric problem, as if relations between us and the
Soviet Union could be conducted like relations among
individuals.

I have always believed in the past and I still believe
that East-West diplomacy must include an element of
negotiation with the Soviet Union. I also believe that it
must be coupled with a very firm policy of containment. I
have not settled in my own mind a dispute I have been
having for years with my friend Norman Podhoretz on whether
it is possible in our democracy to conduct a geopolitical
strategy without a strong ideological element. He believes
not. I believe there is a danger that ideological crusades
may create an illusion of fundamental change, and also that
we may not endure them. But we would both agree that no
serious negotiation is possible unless it is accompanied by
a rigid insistence on maintaining the balance of power and
containing the Soviet system. The present approach to
East-West relations in the Alliance runs the great risk
that the Soviet Union will be tempted to use negotiations
as a safety valve, not for a serious settlement but as a
means of regulating the conflict it itself has generated.

But it is not only East-West relations. There is the
Middle East. The European theory, as expressed in the
Venice Declaration, seems to be that the key issue in the

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Middle East is the occupation of the West Bank, and that the solution is to recognize the PLO which, however much influenced and trained and equipped and financed it may be now by the Soviet Union, will then become a moderate force helping to bring about a benign evolution in the Middle East as a whole.

The American operating strategy has been based on different premises.

It is not possible for both of these strategies to be pursued simultaneously in the Middle East without each of them undercutting the other and without a kind of civil war taking place between the Western nations. The same is true in Central America. And the same is true in Africa.

Indeed, it would be hard to find a place of potential crisis in the world where Europe and the United States are pursuing parallel courses, or where in times of crisis they do not work at cross purposes. How long can this continue?

Finally, in the economic field, every country in the Alliance today faces the problem that its own domestic economy creates pressures on government which reinforce the tendencies I have described. For economic reasons, it is said, ceilings must be imposed on defense expenditures; for economic reasons we must find a special formula for peace in the Middle East.

Europe's economic preeminence in the 19th century was based on the fact that it was then the Saudi Arabia of

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energy. It had large supplies of the key source of energy, coal. It had superior technology, superior organization, and a monopoly on all these things. Today this is no longer the case--which means that in any event, and no matter what happens, Europe and to some extent we too will have to undergo a systemic structural adjustment to a world in which many nations are developing the technology and the industry that once were unique to Europe and the Atlantic area.

I have described a rather critical situation. We can let it drift, holding periodic meetings, reaffirming a liturgical unity, papering over crises that exist. This can go on for many years. But it cannot go on forever. Something will happen, somewhere along the line, to bring the inconsistencies into the open. Something will happen to show that governments are no longer in control of events.

I believe it is in everybody's interest to try to bring some of these disputes to a head, in some fashion. Whether that should be done through a governmental initiative of the United States, calling for a review of the problems with an eye toward some common solution, or whether it should be done through a government-encouraged group of "wise men," or whether it should be left entirely to private groups, I am not sure. But drift, and the mere appearance of unity, are a disaster for everybody. We in

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this country, at least, have the obligation to put forward
a clear line.

I believe that this administration, by instinct, by
conviction, and by philosophy, is seeking to do this. It
must be encouraged in these efforts, and somehow a way must
be found to crystallize the process. Otherwise, in the
military field, we will be driven by economic necessity in
all countries into a form of gradual unilateral disarmament.
In the political field, divisions will lead to a conflict
within the Alliance that will compound the already mounting
geopolitical troubles we are facing.

In the long term, the survival of the West as we have
known it depends on whether we can use the few years of
grace that we still have to break the mold and try to
develop a policy, and even more a philosophy, that will be
relevant to our period.

* * * *

IRVING KRISTOL: How far do you think the United States
should go, in the wake of the events in Poland, to prevent
the construction of the pipeline between the Soviet Union
and Western Europe?

HENRY KISSINGER: Even independently of anything that
has happened in Poland, the pipeline is another example of
the way in which domestic economic policy creates a reverse
linkage. The economic ties between East and West are

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achieving the opposite of what some of us thought might be
obtainable in the early 1970s. Then it was thought that
through some economic ties, on a project-by-project basis,
over a not very long period of time, and in a manner
related to Soviet political conduct, we might reinforce or
even bring about a Soviet policy of restraint. Whether or
not that was ever a valid theory--a question we need not
now debate--it depended for success on the willingness of
the Western nations to cut off the economic relationship in
the face of Soviet misconduct. To the extent that this
willingness has eroded, or maybe never existed, and to the
extent that the West has become more dependent on East-West
trade, or less willing to interrupt it, than the East, it
has also become more vulnerable.

I think the gas pipeline will make the West, over an
extended period of time, much more subject to political
manipulation than it is even today. And therefore I did
not favor the pipeline to begin with--nor, may I say, did
the present administration. The events in Poland have
reinforced this conviction. Even if it is true that we
cannot change the ultimate outcome in Poland, we can make
sure that a heavy enough price is paid so that the Soviet
leaders know our fundamental principles cannot be challenged
without great pain. I therefore believe we should make a
major effort to interrupt the pipeline, and it seems to me
that cutting off credit would be the easiest way of
achieving that.

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FRANK CHAPPLE: Would you comment on the view that your support for detente has contributed to the collapse of the Alliance by fostering the illusion that the West can have normal, reasonable, and decent relations with the Soviet Union?

HENRY KISSINGER: I don't know how useful it would be to go through the detente debate of the early 70s. But it is important to see detente, as the policy was then conducted, in the context of the period of Vietnam, of a very divided country, and in the context of a collapse of executive authority, and finally in the context of a Congress of McGovernite persuasion such as the one that was elected in 1974.

The view of detente I held then is the one I more or less hold today. I have always believed that we need rigid containment of the Soviet Union, and at every period during my time in office, whenever there was any Soviet transgression of existing dividing lines, whether it was in Cuba, whether it was in the Middle East, whether it was in Angola, I urged the strongest possible response. In some cases, such a response was thwarted by a combination of conservative and liberal opponents in Congress, as in the case of Angola.

I have always believed that the West should not be in a position where it is dragged kicking and screaming

V

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into a conference room by public pressure and then, having resisted negotiations for a long time, feels obliged to put forward very sweeping proposals to show its good faith. The best strategy is to preempt such a possibility with concrete and detailed proposals of our own. In the economic field, when we started, we were talking about specific projects, tied to specific Soviet conduct and limited in time. Those of us who allegedly started the process, resisted for three years any expansion of trade until there was an improvement in the political situation. Then we wanted to do it in a measured way. It then got out of hand. There is no question about it. This was in part due to pressures in our own country by, for example, the agricultural community. And then a vicious circle was started.

To the extent that the process was not supervised carefully enough, as for example in the case of the Kama River plant, those of us who were then in office violated our own principles, and certainly violated the principles I have stated here. But I must say that the caricature of detente that has sometimes been drawn in order to score a point has enabled those who never wanted a containment policy in the first place to gain a disproportionate influence in the discussion of foreign policy.

DAVID SIDORSKY: In speaking of the military situation you pointed out that the European countries were actually

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pursuing a policy which was not necessarily in their own
interests. Therefore, presumably, consultation among the
Allies could lead to greater consensus. But in the area of
Middle East policy, as you observed, we are dealing not
only with different perceptions but also with different
interests--specifically, the European dependence on Middle
East oil. Here, presumably, a move to achieve consensus
between the United States and Europe would be at the
expense of a strong American policy.

HENRY KISSINGER: In the Middle East, I see no
possibility of consensus between the two positions, and I
do not see any other course for us except to pursue our
convictions. Indeed this will be our fate in any area in
which our fundamental notions of the vital interests of the
West are involved.

In the Middle East, it will not be possible to reach
consensus unless there is a dramatic change. For us, it is
necessary to define a strategy around which people can
rally. In general terms, such a strategy will have to ask
Israel to make more concessions than it has made up till
now, and the Arabs to accept less than they have demanded.
Where the line will be found is, of course, what we first
have to define for ourselves. I would be astonished if a
consensus could be found in this area. There is no
compromise possible between the European and American views

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of what the PLO represents and of whether it is the key to
the whole area.

NICHOLAS LOBKOWICZ: You said the United States should
take the initiative to renew the Alliance. Do you foresee
the possibility that the U.S. will have to apply pressure
or even sanctions to achieve this?

HENRY KISSINGER: If present trends continue, there will be growing unilateralism in this country, and less and less support for European deployment. It will become more and more difficult to explain what exactly we are doing either in the political field or in the military field. So I believe that it would be helpful to try to bring matters to a head now, when we still have some margin. Of course it should be done in the kindliest possible way; I don't like to use the word pressure. But I would say that if we do nothing, we will see important changes in five years, in any event. I would like to see these changes made in a constructive rather than a destructive direction, and I would like to believe that in Europe, those who think in parallel fashion would be able to join such an attempt.

ALUN CHALFONT: Are Americans in general, and the
Reagan administration in particular, aware of the
differences among the Europeans on many of the issues you
have raised?

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HENRY KISSINGER: Of course one should not make the mistake of thinking of Europe as a monolithic body, with one unanimous position. With respect to the Middle East, I was referring to the Venice Declaration of the Ten. With respect to Central America, one would refer to those countries that are active there and pursuing a policy which is objectively in opposition to the United States by undermining what the United States is attempting to do; this is a very serious matter because it will affect all of Latin America. In Central America those who agree with us are quiet; they are not doing anything to support us.

How to handle the different European views is a problem. Does one handle the situation best by avoiding explicit disagreements in the hope that as time goes on, with patience, we can bring more and more people around? Or is it better to crystallize things, to provide a rallying point, to force those who are opposing what we believe is the fundamentally correct direction to state their opposition clearly and not pretend at home that they are really agreeing with us? I hold the second view. The present administration seems to me to be divided on the issue.

JORIS VOORHOEVE: Do you think that more coordination of Western European policies would be beneficial or harmful to the unity and long-run strategy of the Alliance?

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HENRY KISSINGER: Quite frankly, it depends on what would come out of it. At the end of the day, we cannot give up to a consensus of the Europeans our own conviction of what is required for the security of the West. By the same token, neither can the Europeans. Therefore it is important that our differences not reach this unbridgeable form.

Given the situation in Europe today, a coordination of European policy is very likely to lead to the least common denominator on most issues--either that, or to the victory of what may in fact be minority positions which are so deeply held that the majority will not wish to oppose them. But this is something on which Americans should not pronounce. We will have to deal with European policy whether it is coordinated or not. But the problems of which I spoke go deeper than the absence of coordination within Western Europe.

COMMITTEE FOR THE FREE WORLD
The Transatlantic Crisis

January 22-24, 1982

Washington, D.C.

Speaker: The Hon. Henry A. Kissinger

HENRY KISSINGER: Irving and Midge, ladies and gentlemen. I told Midge, who is very persistent -- that these would be rather informal remarks. After having read the morning papers, I think that this is an experiment to see whether a man can commit suicide after he has been assassinated.

I have heard during the week several comments about the articles I have written and people get the impression that the Administration is very thin-skinned. I want you to know that that is not a fair comment. The day the article came out, Al Hsig called me up and said, "Henry, I want you to know that some damned fool has been signing your name...(Laughter) ...to an article in the New York Times. And he offered to give me a government job to explain our foreign policy to the Chinese one by one. (Laughter)

I thought I would sum up some of the problems that I see the Alliance facing and some of the directions in which I believe it should go, and do that fairly informally, and then answer a few of your questions.

I don't think there is any question that the Alliance is in deep difficulty, and I do not think that we are doing ourselves a favor by pretending that things

2

are going along properly. I do not doubt, and in fact,
one can see it, that there are periodic declarations of
common positions, but these common positions generally
have a liturgical quality and achieve unanimity very
frequently to the degree that they avoid any concrete
action. This is not a state of affairs that has been
caused in any one Administration. In fact, the causes
of it go back to previous Administrations and a very
serious effort has been made in this Administration to
ameliorate it. ~~It seems to~~ *It* ~~seems to~~ *me* that an Alliance has
to achieve a number of objectives if it is to be vital
and meaningful over an extended period of time. ↩

In the military field, it must have some conception
of a common danger. It must have a strategy for meeting
that danger. Its members must believe that their union
adds to the common strength and that they all have a
stake in common action. They must be able to explain
to themselves what constitutes a crisis and how to deal
with it. In the political field, there must be some
ideas of the purposes that are to be achieved. There
has to be some definition of how to position oneself
in order to be able to achieve these purposes.

In the economic field, there has to be some
theory of what constitutes the common good and how it
can be enhanced. I know no alliance that did not have

[Y]

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underlying it some perception of the balance of power
and that at some point could not express its goals in
some common purpose. Stated in this manner, I think
it would be very difficult to say that NATO as it
is now constituted meets the criteria of many of these dry theories.
I say this as somebody who deeply believes in the
Atlantic Alliance. My roots, which you would not
know unless I told you so, are in Europe, and my
emotional background inclines me to the closest
association between Europe and the United States.

Intellectually, also, I think we will live in
a very lonely world in this country if we are thrown
entirely on our own political and emotional resources.

But it seems to me there is no blinking fact that
there are a number of key issues that have been deferred,
some for decades, some for a lesser time, the cumulative
impact of which is today, that the Alliance achieves
a consensus, primarily on things not to do, not on
the world which we want to bring about but on some immediate dangers which we want to avoid.

In the military field, some of this has been
inherent in the strategy that has been pursued for
the entire NATO period. For almost all of this
time, the essential military ingredient of NATO has
been a unilateral American nuclear guarantee. And

[x]

the military establishment of the Atlantic Alliance
has been designed not in order to fight a war or to
resist a challenge, but to trigger American nuclear
retaliation. It was a political act had a political
purpose, but its military purpose was always ambiguous.
As nuclear stockpiles grow, the time would inevitably
approach when it was no longer possible to assign the
same degree of credibility to general strategic war
as had been the case in the late forties, or early
fifties. Combined with arms control theories which
accelerated what technology was bringing about anyhow,
there developed a parity in nuclear power at best,
that was found to create an enormous potential gap
at least intellectually. All of this has been
talked about endlessly. And all I will say about it
now is this: The demonstrations that are taking
place in Europe against the American nuclear deployment
of intermediate range missiles show, above all, the
total intellectual collapse of the concept of an Atlantic
strategy.

Any American analyst of strategy will have to
come to the conclusion that from an American point
of view we do not need intermediate-range missiles
on the continent of Europe. They are a guarantee (no)

[Y]

to the Europeans of the coupling of the defense of
Europe with the United States. Because it is against
all plausibility that the Soviets could attack American
strategic weapons in Europe without also attacking
American strategic weapons in the United States and,
that, therefore, they would face the full inhibition
of a general nuclear war. From our own point of view,
we can put these weapons on ships if we need them
and, indeed, if you psychoanalyzed the pure defense
analyst in the United States, they would probably
be just as happy to have these weapons off the Continent
of Europe. So you have here a curious alliance between
those who are primarily interested in the strategic
aspect in this country and European pacifists. The
people who claim that this gives the United States a
method of destroying Europe while protecting themselves-
simply do not understand the contemporary strategic
realities.

By the same token, for us to abandon this deploy-
ment is a more crucial step geopolitically and psycho-
logically than any compensating steps that the Soviets
can take, because whether the Soviets threaten Europe
with SS-20's or with SS-11's (which is what they have
done before), whether they use strategic weapons for

[x]

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between the Western nations. The same is true in Central America. And the same in true in Africa. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that we would not find it easy to pick a place in the world of potential crisis in which Europe and the United States are pursuing parallel analyses and where in crises they do not work at cross purposes. How long can this continue?

Finally, in the economic field, in which it has been said that my knowledge is one of the best arguments against universal suffrage that exists...

(Laughter) ...I would like to make just this observation. Every country in the alliance today faces almost every country, I would say every country, raises the problem that its own domestic economy creates so many pressures on the governments that it reinforces the tendencies that I have described. Sometimes it generates the tendencies that I have described, of imposing ceilings on defense expenditures, of seeking to ease domestic pressures, by the pretense of having a special formula for peace. Europe's economic pre-emminence in the 19th century was based on the fact that it was then the Saudi Arabia of energy and had large supplies of the energy, of the then key source of energy, namely coal. It had superior technology, superior organization

10

and a monopoly on all of these. Under those conditions...
(bold space where tape was turned over)

Today, in any event, no matter what happens, Europe
and to some extent will we, would have to undergo a
systemic structural adjustment to a world in which
many nations are developing the technology and the industry
that made Europe and the Atlantic area what it is today.

In the best of circumstances, we would face a
major problem of intellectual and political adjustment.

Now I have described a rather critical situation.
We can let it drift, holding periodic meetings, reaffirming
a liturgical unity, papering over crises that exist, and
I dare say this can go on for many years but it cannot
go on forever. Something will happen, somewhere along
the line, that brings these inconsistencies into the
open. Something will happen that shows that governments
are no longer in control of events, the relations
between men and events has been lost. I believe it is
in everybody's interests to try to bring some of these
disputes to a head, in some fashion. I confess, I have
not thought through how to do this. Whether this is
done by a governmental initiative of the United States,
that, for example, sets a deadline of some years, for
reviewing these problems and seeing whether we can come

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up with a common solution. Whether it should be done
by a government-encouraged group of so-called wise men,
or whether it should be left entirely to private groups,
I, frankly, have not made up my mind. But drift and
the appearance of unity are a disaster for everybody.

If we, in this country, at least have the obligation to
put forward a clear line. I believe that this adminis-
tration by instinct and by conviction and by philosophy
is seeking to do this. I feel that it must be en-
couraged in these efforts and that somehow a way must
be found to crystallize it in some kind of phase with
our lives. Otherwise, in the military field,
we will be driven -- in all countries, by economic
necessity, into a form of gradual unilateral disarmament.
In the political field, the division will lead to a
conflict within the alliance that compounds the already
(?) mounting
mildly geopolitical offensive that we are facing.

My instinct is that it would be best if our
government took the initiative, because I do not see
how private groups can have enough credibility and
enough sanction to bring matters to a head. But then,
I have come here to make noncontroversial remarks...
(Laughter)... As I told Midge, this was to be an academic
presentation and I hope you will all take it in that
spirit. I do not believe it is a trivial matter because

[Y]

12

I think the value and the future and, in the long term, the survival of the West as we have known it, depends on whether we can use the few years of margin that we still have to break the mold and try to develop a policy, even more, a philosophy that is relevant to our period. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

MS. DECKER: Dr. Kissinger has very kindly offered to answer some questions to his very academic presentation this morning. I don't know how long you will be able to be with us -- he will answer questions for about 20 minutes. These questions will be taken only from participants and observers at the conference. There will be no questions from press. Please confine yourselves to questions and please make them as succinct as possible. Unfortunately, we have no microphones around the room so if you have a question, you will have to stand up and shout it a little bit.

Q: (Inaudible)

DR. KISSINGER: I will repeat the question.

[Do you know if this is a participant?]

Yes. Mrs. Selleman (?)

Q: (Inaudible)

DR. KISSINGER: I have been torn on the civil

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defense question because from the point of view of
strategic analysis, <u>It is an amazing phenomenon to</u>
<u>have an even point of view - philosophical analysis</u>,<br>
<u>an</u> it is an amazing phenomenon to have,<u>an</u> operating military
strategy that is a variation of massive retaliation,<u>or</u>
at any rate involves the risk of mass danger to
<u>no step</u>,<br>
civilians, and then to take <u>notes that</u> to protect
civilians or, at any rate, to make it easier to survive
if the strategy is implemented. On the other hand,
I also believe that any attempt to implement a major
civil defense program would raise such a horrendous
political outcry that I would probably, if I had to
make decisions, put it at a lower order of priorities.
<u>So</u> intellectually, it is very difficult to explain
the relationship between the military strategy that
is being adopted and the civil defense policy that is
being carried out. Politically, I think it is probably
not the highest priority.

: Mr. Dougherty.

Q: Mr. Kissinger, you referred to the
divergent desertion(?) strategies which Europe and the United
States are pursuing. In view of that observation,
what prospect do you see for European participation
in the Sinai force?

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DR. KISSINGER: Well, as I understand it, the Europeans are participating in the Sinai force and will join the Sinai force. I would not be surprised if a year or two down the road, and more a year than two, when the inevitable political crisis occurs, (that) the Europeans will attempt to use their participation in the Sinai force to insist, on or to put forward their views or to bring them into relation with each other. I think it is probably a manageable problem but this is what I expect to happen.

Loebl, first, Irving Kristol, then EugeneLOWELL(?), then Frank Chapell.

Q: Dr. Kissinger, would you care to answer the academic question -- or answer it in an academic way -- how far do you think the United States should go in resisting the construction of the pipeline between the Soviet Union and Western Europe.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think that there are two aspects to the pipeline. First, there is that independent of anything that has happened in the security field of let's be specific, anything that has happened in Poland, the pipeline will be another one of these examples where economic policy creates a reverse linkage. And where the economic ties

15

between East and West are achieving the opposite of what some of us thought might be obtainable in the early 1970's. Then it was thought that through a series of economic ties, on a project basis, not over a very long period of time, related to Soviet political conduct, a policy of restraint could be either reinforced or brought about. Whether that was ever a valid theory or not, we need not now debate because it depended in any event on the willingness of the Western nations to cut off the economic relationship as a penalty for Soviet misconduct. To the extent that that willingness has eroded or maybe never existed, to the extent that the West becomes more dependent on East/West trade or, at any rate, less willing to interrupt it than the East, it also becomes more vulnerable. Independently, of course, of what happens in Poland. I think the gas pipeline will make the West, over an extended period of time, much more subject to political manipulation than it is even today. And therefore, I did not favor the pipeline to begin with. Nor, may I say, did the Administration favor the pipeline. The events in Poland have reinforced this and as I have stated in print about Poland, even if it is true

16

that we cannot change the ultimate outcome, we can
make sure that a heavy enough price is paid so that
the Soviet leaders do not believe our fundamental
principles can be challenged without great pain.

So, I think events in Poland have reinforced
what was my conviction before Poland, and I believe
we should make a major effort to interrupt the
pipeline and it seems to me that cutting off the
credit would be the easiest way of achieving that.

Q(Loeb1): (Inaudible)

DR. KISSINGER: The question was whether my emphasis on strategy included ideology and long-term political strategy as well as an analysis of Soviet political goals in order to see how they could be dealt with or **countered**. I can only say yes, it includes all of these elements and I think it has to be explicitly addressed by the **Western** nations within the alliance.

Q(Chapell): Would you comment on the view that your support for detente has contributed to the collapse of will and it contributed to the extension of Soviet power by economic exchanges and relations with the Soviet Union.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I am perfectly willing to grant the theoretical possibility that I can be wrong... (Laughter) ... but I do have great difficulty finding

17

complete(?) circumstances. I don't know whether it is useful to go through the detente debate of the early 70's. I think it is important to see detente, the policy that was then conducted, in the context of the period of Viet Nam, of a very divided country and in the context of a collapse of executive authority in this country and of a Congress of McGovern-ite persuasion that was elected in 1974.

Secondly, the view of detente I held then, I will not please you by saying, I more or less hold today. I have always believed that we need rigid containment of the Soviet Union, and at every period of my time in office, whether it was in Cuba, whether it was in Jordan, whether it was in Angola, when there was any Soviet transgression of existing dividing lines, I urged the strongest possible response and in some cases, was thwarted by a combination of conservative and liberal opponents, as in Angola. I have believed that it was necessary that the West should not be in the position where it is dragged kicking and screaming into a conference room by public pressures and, having resisted negotiations a long time, then feels obliged to put forward very sweeping proposals to show its good faith, and I think

18

the best strategy is to pre-empt these with concrete
detailed proposals. In the economic field, When
we started, we were talking about specific projects
tied to specific Soviet conduct limited in time. That
got out of hand. There is no question about it. And
it was then interpreted in a way that was never
intended,
interpreted, and to the extent that it was not watched
carefully enough as I would say, for example, on
the *Karma(?)* River plant I think those of us who
were then in office violated our own principles and
certainly violated the principles I have stated here.
But I must say the debate among those who believed
in containment in a very serious way as to the nature
of detente, as a caricature that has sometimes been
drawn in order to score a point, have enabled those
who never wanted to contain in the first place to
pre-empt or to gain a disproportionate influence on
the discussion. The disagreement that you and I have
is on tactics, if we have a disagreement. But on the
economic point, I will grant you, it has gotten out
of hand. None of us who started it first of all,
those of us who allegedly started it resisted,
for three years, any expansion of trade until there
was an improvement in the political situation. Then
we wanted to do it in a measured way. It then got out

Y

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where, presumably, a move to achieve consensus between
the United States and Europe would be at the expense
of strong(?) American policy.

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that a discussion
such as I have indicated will not necessarily lead to
consensus in all categories. In the Middle East, I see
no possibility of consensus between the two positions
that I have pointed out, and I do not see any other
course for us except to pursue our convictions, and
indeed this will be our fate in any area in which our
fundamental perceptions of vital interests of the
West are involved; then each side *will not only* act unilaterally.

In the Middle East, I believe it will not be
possible, unless there is a dramatic change, to find
a consensus. I think it is necessary for us to define
a strategy around which people can rally. In the
process, in general terms, it will have to be that Israel
will have to make more concessions than it has up
to now made and the Arabs have to accept less than
they have demanded. Where this line will be found
is, of course, what we first have to define for our-
selves. I would be astonished if a consensus could
be found in those areas. There is no compromise
possible in the view on either what the Palestinians

Y

22

There is a difficulty about relating economic and
political objectiyes. There is a tendency to
reduce everything to technical issues. But I
think this is a fundamentally vital people, and I
think that our problems in this country are mostly
conceptual problems. The problems in the Soviet Union
are mostly systemic problems. And here it is almost
a cultural gap between the internationalists who were
really brought up on a kind of New Deal economic welfare
program and on the experience of Nazi Germany suddenly
confronting a revolutionary global situation to which
these premises don't fit, ~~and~~ with emerging new leadership
groups that have some elemental views but really no
great subtlety in international affairs. But I think
if I had to analyze the vitality of the society, this
country will not fail for lack of vitality.

Q: (Inaudible)

(On US "Sanctums" against Europe or individual of crop)

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that if present
trends continue, what would be described as sanctions
if it were done as an act of policy will happen anyway.
There will be growing unilateralism, there will be less
and less support for European deployment, not any one
year, but I am talking about five or ten years. It will
be more and more difficult to explain what exactly
we are doing either in the political field or in the

24

the United States is attempting to do, which is a very serious matter because it will affect all of Latin America. In Central America those who agree with us are quiet. They are not doing anything to support us. Understandably. That is the Administration aware of it? I suspect it is. That there are different European views. How to handle it? Is it a slightly philosophical problem. Does one handle it best by not making the issues explicit and avoiding formal disagreements in the hope that as time goes on, with patience, we can bring more and more people around?

Or is it better to crystallize things, to provide a rallying point to force those who are opposing what we believe to be the fundamentally correct direction to state this clearly and not be able to pretend at home that they are really agreeing with us? I can respect the people who hold the opposite view. I hold the second view but -- and the Administration seems, to me, to be divided on that issue.

MS. DECTER: One more question.

Q: Dr. Kissinger, do you think that more coordination of Western European policies would be beneficial or harmful to the unity and long-run strategy of the Alliance?

25

DR. KISSINGER: Well, quite frankly, it depends on what would come out of it. [n→At the end of the day, we cannot give up our conviction as to what is required for the security of the West to a consensus of the Europeans. By the same token, nor can the Europeans, and therefore it is important that our differences not reach this unbridgeable form. I think that given the situation in Europe today, a coordination of European policy is very likely to lead to the least common denominator on most issues or to the prevailing of what may, in fact, be minority positions which are, however, very deeply held, so that the others don't want to oppose it. I don't think this is something on which Americans should pronounce. We will have to deal with it, whether it is coordinated or not, but I think it goes deeper than European coordination.

MS. DECTER: Well, I want to thank you, Henry... (Applause) thank you very, very much. I want to thank all the rest of you, for having stayed with us for two-and-a-half days, for having braved the sleet and the ice and the snow, you Washingtonians, to get here. We have talked, frankly, I think we have, as was to be expected, come to no conclusions and I think now it is

26

time to conclude this conference. I do not want to
do so, however, without saying one word of thanks
to people who made all of this possible. They
certainly made my life possible and in ways that
you don't know, they have made your lives possible.

(End of tape)