DEC 20 1968

7 Argyll Mansions,
London, W.14.
17th. December, 1968.

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

I noted recently in the _Guardian_ a condensation of an
article by you in which you stressed the need for a definition of national
interest and national security.

I am extremely pleased that you have reasoned in this
way and wonder whether you might be interested in a few ideas. So many of
the cerebral soldiers in the United States have been carried away with the
strategy of the possible use of nuclear arms. Mr. Robert McNamara has come
as near to saying it as anyone in public life in America that nuclear arms
have no real meaning as an instrument of policy. I should very much like
to commend a book which has gone unannounced - it is MILITARY STRATEGY:
A GENERAL THEORY OF POWER CONTROL by J.C. Wylie. It seems that the academic
strategists are extremely reluctant to give military or naval men much
credit for ideas unless they have been dead along while and, of course,
the reverse is quite true. (Wylie is a Rear Admiral, USN.) He seems to feel,
as I do, that Sir Basil Liddell Hart's thinking tends to form the foundation
for a more general theory of strategy than any other thinker. "The only con-
cept that has yet been postulated which approaches these requirements is
Liddell Hart's concept of the indirect appteach."

It seems to me also that when you re-examine post-war
western strategic thought with reference to Liddell Hart's thinking the
suggestions for a practical policy seems to appear. The post-war thought
was founded upon the geo-political thinking of H.J. MacKinder that the
Heartland region was invulnerable and the only way to prevent the Heart-
land from attempting to swallow the World Island would be to strike at the
source of power with nuclear arms. The air force thus became the senior ser-
vice displacing the navy. However, it appears that MacKinder's thinking
is not quite correct. Land power is not superceding sea power entirely.
The ideas of Mahan still have some validity and, interestingly enough as
Wylie points out, Liddell Hart's ideas have application to sea power.

There is no reason why the policy of the United States
should not be similar to the old British policy in relation to the
continent - of simply maintaining a balance of power. The people on the
world island do not want to be forcibly unified under Peking, Moscow, or
even Washington. This also gets away from the ideological aspect. You
might be interested that Liddell Hart has read this paper which I have written
on this matter and agrees with it.

June 2, 1970

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Dear Michael:

The session with my Harvard colleagues has been a
painful one but I was glad that you came down.
I was impressed with your dignity and by what
you said.

Please let me know the next time you are going
to be in Washington. I would appreciate an op-
portunity to talk with you.

Professor Michael Walzer
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
02138

You had the best moral right of any to be there.

HAK:jlp:5/22/70

RECEIVED
JUN 4 1970

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