PROFESSOR KISSINGER

by Hayim Hefer

I like that clever Yekke* with his crafty little grin
He hurries down from jets, and hop! he bustles straight back in;
Your man in Moscow and Peking, and also in Saigon
With time to make the concert by our band in Washington.
He trouble-shoots in Bonn today, or Berlin, Germany,
Tomorrow he's in Paris, in eye-catching company.
In some new London discotheque he lightly downs champagne
And then he's off to Tokyo on business again.
Oh thou who makest peace on high
When do you get to close an eye?

I don't think we've yet figured what alone this man achieves
I don't think we've yet realised just what a spell he weaves
Americans or Vietnamese, Chinese and Russians too
Bewitched by smiles and courtesy at every interview.
This week on your TV screen with black briefcase held so tight
As if the blueprints for the peace were his own copyright.
As if an ancient Jewish dybbuk had him firmly in its thrall
As if the prophet were demanding that those words he should recall:
"No nation against nation; They shall study war no more"...
For making words like these work is what Kissinger is for.
And watching him in action, we expect to hear the news
That nations may one day not lift their sword against the Jews.
For Vietnam peace is nearing, soldiers back from overseas
With their dead and with their injured and their painful memories;
And many who survived know the Professor got them out
And generations now shall learn what this peace was about.
And Kissinger's name should ever stand in archives and records
Of nations who will not now beat their ploughshares into swords;
The story of a man whose aim and passion was for peace,
Who by his smile and reasoning brought Powers to their knees,

.../2

* Yekke = Jew of German origin

- 2 -

Who breached the walls of China and who crossed the Urals too
And did more for his country than ten generals could do.
A long line of great rabbis the Professor's past must show
-Salvation was their business every century or so-
Messiahs or philosophers? That no one will agree
Rebels, then, or scientists? Who knows what they may be.
But Kissinger! A man - of gold - a diamond in our eyes,
No man deserves more than he does to win the Nobel Prize.

Professors are not all, it seems, as woolly as they say
For they can tell the wheat from chaff, and which wind blows which way.
And be it to your taste or not, when you watch such magicians
Peace looks much too important to be left only to politicians.

( Taken from the daily newspaper "Yedioth Haacharonot" of Friday 27.10.72 - which is published in Hebrew. )

ALAN N. ALPERN

20 EXCHANGE PLACE, 54TH FLOOR
NEW YORK, N. Y. 10005
---
943-1340

January 13, 1972

Personal

Dr. Henry Kissinger
The White House
Washington D.C.

Dear Henry:

I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Nat Samuels on an
aspect on the international monetary position which has
been troubling me for some time.

We had hoped to see you in Washington at Thanksgiving
because I had with me my daughter, Laura, whom you
haven't seen for a number of years, who is assembling
recommendations for Radcliffe College. There seem to
be two points of view on the usefulness of letters of
recommendation, and I have now pretty much concluded
that they are probably counter-productive.

I hope that we shall see you some day soon in New York.

With kindest regards,

Sincerely

ANA:fk

Enc.

ALAN N. ALPERN
20 EXCHANGE PLACE, 54TH FLOOR
NEW YORK, N. Y. 10005
—
943-1340

January 13, 1972

The Honorable Nathanial Samuels
Undersecretary of State
Department of State
Washington D.C.

Dear Nat:

I was unhappily ill at the time of your December 16 talk to the Council, or I most surely would have been there.

I am particularly concerned by the apparent lack of any real plan or, at least, one that is publicly disclosed to absorb the $40 billion dollar excess foreign holdings which overhang monetary markets. I remember that in 1966 I suggested to Bob Roosa the possibility of issuing a very long-term, viz 50 to 100 years, dollar bond to foreign Central Banks holding what were then considerably smaller excess dollar positions. As you know, the interim solution chosen by the Treasury at that time were the "swap" transactions which, obviously, are not pertinent in terms of the scope of today's problems.

Last Saturday evening Florio Gradi, who you may remember represents the Bank of Italy here, came to dinner and we talked about the idea of a very long-term dollar issue, and he thought we would "find many buyers." He also agreed with me that a good many Central Banks would be interested in such a solution without requiring unanimity within the EEC, and that such an arrangement would probably be viewed as a purely monetary measure and not necessarily tied to any trade negotiations.

OCTOBER 1970

17

# Reading Soviet Intentions

by Joseph Alsop

If we are wise, we must now face the fact that the Soviet Union is currently *preparing for* two nuclear wars. The question is whether the preparations are merely conditional - as they may well be.

The Soviet military build-up on the Sino-Soviet frontier is an old story; but its scope and potentially sinister character add up to a pretty disturbing new story. To begin with, there can no longer be any doubt that the build-up's basic design is offensive, rather than defensive. Consider, here, the matter of the Central Asian Military District. This is the first new military district established within the Soviet Union since the second world war. It is placed - surely not by accident - on the most vulnerable sector of China's borders, across the frontier from remote Sinkiang province. For about a century, Russian grabs for Sinkiang have been made every few decades. Since the new military district was formed a little more than a year ago, it has further received two entire armies, or about eight divisions, with all the powerful supporting weapons that are standard for a Soviet army. These two Russian armies face no more than three Chinese divisions in Sinkiang. Does this look *defensive*?

As to the nuclear aspect, it is still commonly stated that "the Soviets would never even think" of a preventive nuclear war. But to begin with, no kind of attack on China makes either political or military sense for the Soviet Union, except a surgical nuclear strike to destroy the Chinese nuclear capability - perhaps combined with seizure of exposed Sinkiang. The only serious casus belli is China's independent and increasingly impressive nuclear power. And this year, important Soviet units equipped with the "Scaleboard" nuclear-ballistic missile have been moved up towards the frontier, into the exact positions required for a surgical nuclear strike.

It may all be "war of nerves stuff," as one of the highest American policy-makers explained, when the Soviet divisions began massing on the borders of unhappy Czechoslovakia. We shall have to wait awhile, before we know the true meaning of this still-continuing military build-up, which was more powerful than ever in the summer of 1970. The Soviets can obviously afford to defer their final decision about attacking or not attacking, until China's nuclear program threatens to change the risk-factors - which has not happened as yet. But whether or no the Soviets turn out to mean business when the time comes, the *preparations* for a

nuclear war are unmistakable.

I have dealt first with the situation on the Sino-Soviet frontier, because the data there speak for themselves. This is not true of the far more urgently dangerous situation in the Middle East. It is best to begin by saying that if the Soviets are planning a serious attack on Israel, they are then, once again, consciously preparing for a potential nuclear war. This is because the Soviet general staff must be well aware of the very high probability that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. The Soviet staff must surely be aware, too, that the Israelis, in their current mood, are entirely capable of using weapons-of-last-resort if driven to extremes. So any Soviet attempt to drive Israel to extremes must certainly involve a nuclear contingency plan.

The question, then, is whether the kind of attack that may drive Israel to extremities will actually be made. No one knows the final answer to that terrible question, although it may be forthcoming all too soon. But once again, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Soviets have at least been *preparing* such an attack; and the preparations furthermore began over two years ago, when major new decisions about Soviet Middle Eastern policy were made.

Artificial resuscitation of the Kremlin's Arab clients was the immediate Soviet response to Israel's brilliant and deserved victory in the six day war of 1967. The long-term decisions above-mentioned were then taken towards the beginning of 1967's last quarter. This can be inferred, with a very high degree of confidence, from the character of the program of Soviet arms deliveries that was inaugurated at that time. The program was strikingly methodical; it had an even, fairly deliberate and unbroken tempo; and it was massive. In short, there was nothing improvised or *ad hoc* about this program, which meant that it was based on a firm prior policy-choice; and its massiveness further meant that it could not be interpreted as "defensive" in purpose. The Egyptians, after all, did not, and do not, need 1600 tanks and 1600 heavy guns to defend themselves. Yet this was what Egypt got, while 1000 tanks and 1000 heavy guns went to Syria. The Soviet program's purpose was publicly revealed in March 1969, when Gamal Abdel Nasser proclaimed a "war of attrition" against Israel.

"Nasser and his masters in Moscow really believed that they were ready to crush us by sheer weight of metal," was the explanation that General Moshe

18

THE NEW REPUBLIC (L)

Dayan later gave me; and I am sure that he was right. Indeed, the expectations General Dayan attributed to Nasser and the Soviets could well have been fulfilled, if it had not been for a single miscalculation in the plans for the war of attrition. Briefly, Israel's Bar-Lev line, along the banks of the Suez canal, was, and is, eggshell thin. Behind the Bar-Lev line there was, and is, no fall-back position that is militarily defensible, without the national mobilization that must always mean full scale war for little Israel. From March, 1969, until July, 1969, the "weight of metal" thrown upon the small strong points of the Bar-Lev line rose vertiginously, reaching 10,000 heavy artillery rounds a day. This was much more than the strong points could stand for long. The resulting debates in the Israeli Cabinet were bitter and painful. After prolonged hesitation and argument, in July, 1969, the order was given to use the tiny but magnificent Israeli air force against ground targets in Egypt for the first time since the 1967 ceasefire. The Israeli pilots promptly proved that they could go anywhere and hit anything they chose in Egypt. Nasser brought his war of attrition to a rapid halt, not publicized by Nasser of course, but announced by the virtual silencing of the Egyptian guns along the canal.

One may be certain that the Soviet military planners were both surprised and indignant. One suspects, too, that they blamed the abrupt failure of the "war of attrition" on the "Wogs," or whatever the Soviet derogatory term for Egyptians may be. After all, besides the enormous quantities of other arms already mentioned, the Soviets had provided the Egyptians with above 300 supersonic fighters and fighter-bombers, against under 80 supersonic aircraft then in the Israeli Air Force. With a favorable strength-ratio of at least four to one, the Soviet planners must have been confident that even the Egyptians could at least defend their own air-space. But the "Wogs" had failed to take care of themselves in this manner; and the evidence is again strong that a further decision was rather promptly taken, within the walls of the Soviet Defense Ministerium, to reinforce the Egyptians with Russian flyers and Russian missile-troops. I specify the Defense Ministerium, because the Soviet general staff's decision, judging by the same evidence, must have considerably preceded the Soviet government's decision. What we are talking about here is the sort of Rubicon-crossing generals do not mind but governments hate - sending Russian troops into combat beyond the recognized borders of the Soviet Empire, and for the first time since the second world war. The formal decision was reached not too long after the beginning of the Israeli air force's "deep penetration raids," which started in early January, 1970. These understandable but imprudent "deep penetration raids" played a significant role in the Soviets' Rubicon-crossing. But the movement into Egypt of

the Soviet Mig-21 squadrons and SAM-3 missile battalions was then executed with astonishing promptitude and smoothness, from which I conclude that the package was ready-wrapped, waiting to be shipped, before the Soviet presidium approved the shipment. And this indicates that the Israeli raids merely gave the Soviet military leaders an extra, very persuasive argument to bustle the Soviet civilian leaders into breaking all the precedents of the last quarter-century.

All these facts are so important, because they date the crucial Soviet policy-choice, not from the winter of this year, but from the last quarter of 1967, when the methodical and massive program of arms deliveries began. If this is correct, the sending of the Mig-21 squadrons and SAM-3 missile battalions must then be seen in an extra-unpleasant light - as a natural military planner's device to supply an unexpected missing piece in a military plan cold-bloodedly adopted, in broad outline, more than two years earlier. All the more recent facts unhappily support this way of looking at the matter. The people whose predictions have been consistently erroneous, are still saying "the Soviets need Israel" for their Middle Eastern policy. The facts appear to indicate, however, that the Soviets instead think they need to beat the Israelis to their knees, or even to crush Israel altogether.

The sordid political facts concerning the Soviets' and Egyptians' broken promises to the US State Department; the incautious and shamefully worthless US guarantees to the Israelis; and the "standstill" ceasefire that has turned into a trap - all these are well enough known to be omitted here. But it is worth setting down the new facts concerning military preparations that suggest the grimness of the Soviet intention. These may be summarized as follows:

First, with much help from the ceasefire, the Soviets and Egyptians have now moved forward their SAM-2 and SAM-3 missile battalions towards the very banks of the Suez canal. Solely because of our false economies on national defense, the US has no equipment to offer the Israelis that can deal with the advanced SAM-2s or the SAM-3s. The SAM-2-SAM-3 combination constitutes a weapons-system to which the Israelis have as yet failed to find any sort of tactical answer. If no answer is soon found, the forward deployment of these missiles will give the Soviets and Egyptians effective control of the air over the Suez canal; and it will also assure protection from Israeli air attack of the whole critical strip along the Egyptian bank of the canal. Here the Soviet-supplied heavy guns used to be emplaced, and will be again. (Before the ceasefire-trap contrived in Washington, it should be noted that the effectiveness of Israeli bombing had caused the heavy guns to be moved to the rear, out of this critical strip. But that, of course, is of no sig-

OCTOBER 3, 1970

19

nificance today – except as regards US responsibilities.)

Second, the Soviets have recently begun to supply the Egyptians with large numbers of a quiet new weapon – their huge 203 millimeter gun, which throws a 200-pound shell with remarkable accuracy. This gun of about 8-inch caliber is the best anti-fortification weapon in the modern world, and it is capable of pounding the little strong points in the Bar-Lev line into dust and rubble, and just that must be its intended function. Under the SAM-2-SAM-3 missile umbrella, moreover, these ultra powerful guns will have nothing to halt their salvoes.

Third, and again recently, the Soviets have begun pouring into Egypt large additional quantities of military bridging materiel, needed for crossing the high-banked Suez canal, and mechanized rafts, needed for crossing the wider water-areas with their much lower banks, like the Great Bitter Lake. The preparations to smash the Bar-Lev line and to effect a canal-crossing are in short being made as these words are written. The time is not yet, to be sure. Some months will be needed, for example, to train the Egyptians to use the canal-crossing equipment they are receiving. But if preparations reveal intentions, the intention to effect a canal-crossing can be plainly seen.

Faced with these menacing facts, the Israelis are reportedly divided for the moment. One group, apparently including Dayan and the army's chief of staff, General Haim Bar-Lev, believes that an attempt must be made to hold the Bar-Lev line at almost any cost, even if the costs are cruelly heavy. Another group, probably headed by General Israel Tal, who may well be the greatest tank commander in the world today, believes in treating the Bar-Lev line as obsolete, and meeting future canal-crossers further back, with a stern welcoming committee organized around Israel's incomparable armored forces. Although it would require quasi-mobilization, General Tal's plan seems more logical; yet it has one hole in it that makes the proposed gamble downright hair-raising. In brief, all theorists of armored warfare agree that no amount of verve and skill can win a tank battle in the desert against an enemy possessing air supremacy, or even a wide margin of air superiority. This hole in the Tal plan would hardly be worth considering, if the Israelis only had to worry about the Egyptian air force. But that, also, is no longer true.

Suddenly but quite deliberately, during the 10 days before the ceasefire on August 7, the Soviet high command ordered the Russian pilots in Egypt into combat with the Israeli air force. One big dog-fight resulted, with the score of four Soviet Migs shot down out of eight engaged, against a zero-loss for Israel. The very poor initial showing of the Russian pilots had been predicted to me some time previously by the Israeli Air Force Commander, General Mordecai Hod, who

based his prediction on the bad training and inept tactics the Russians had given the Egyptians. "Everybody says the Egyptian flyers have no guts," said General Hod. "But by God, I think it takes guts to come up against our pilots, with the certainty that you have a one-in-three chance of getting killed! So that's not their trouble." General Hod then made his forecast that the Russians, until they learned better, would be hardly better than the Egyptians. But he added "the trouble is that the Soviets have 10, 20, 40- what you please - to every plane and pilot we have." It is in this lurid light that one must interpret the deliberate, last-minute injection of Russian pilots into air combat with the Israelis. The Soviets always treat any precedent - at any rate, any precedent that has not been effectively opposed - as the equivalent of an open-ended prerogative: Because of our eagerness for the ceasefire, the US did not say "Booh" about the new precedent set in the Soviet-Israeli dogfight, although Secretary of State William Rogers had previously warned Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin that we would take an exceedingly dark view of any offensive use of the Soviet Migs newly based in Egypt.

Anyone who is realistic must therefore be ready for Soviet planes and Soviet pilots being used with a lavish hand, if the canal-crossing that is being prepared for takes place. Nothing could be easier than to increase the Soviet airpower in Egypt by a large factor, by staging 20 or 30 additional Mig-21 squadrons through the Syrian base at Lattakieh, to Alexandria or Cairo. The whole movement, including airborne deployment of more Soviet maintenance personnel in Egypt, would require no more than a month. If there is this kind of augmentation of Soviet airpower in Egypt, moreover, the Russian-flown Mig-21s will outnumber the total present stock of supersonic aircraft in Israel by up to five to one, without counting the Egyptians, whose supersonic aircraft still outnumber their Israeli equivalents by about three to one. And probably one must add the Syrians! So what then will be the outcome of the battle in the desert that may loom ahead?

That is literally a question of life-and-death for Israel. Yet I have been talking, I must emphasize once again, only about preparations. My own tendency, especially since Czechoslovakia's invasion, is to assume that preparations reveal intentions. Pray God that I am wrong in this view, as I can easily be. But even in this breathless but relatively quiet interval - more worrying than any time I have lived through since Pearl Harbor - it seems to me we also ought to ask ourselves some other very grave questions. May not the mere preparations I have described imply a drastic mutation in Soviet policy? Do they not perhaps even imply a drastic mutation in the unseen inner structure of the Soviet government itself? In the facts I have set forth, there is certainly a strong smell of long-range military planning, rather than normal civilian policy-making.

20

THE NEW REPUBLIC

# Stanley Kauffmann on films

## The Wild Child

(United Artists)

## Kes

(United Artists)

At a press conference after the showing of his new film at the New York Festival, François Truffaut was asked why he had made it in black and white. He said that when he saw the zoom lens used in Pasolini's *Gospel According to Saint Matthew*, he found himself thinking that there was no zoom lens in the time of Christ; and similarly he felt that there was no color film in 1978, the period of *The Wild Child*. Asked why he himself played the doctor, he said that he wanted no mediator between him and the child; by playing the role he could direct the picture while he was in it. Asked why he used so many iris shots to begin and end scenes, he said that fadeouts have to be done in a lab and are always unsatisfactory; he could do the iris shots right in the camera.

Directors should not be burdened too heavily with the things they say in interviews: there seem to be two concurrent but separate professions – film-making and interview-giving. But Truffaut's replies are cute. (Besides the obvious cuteness of the first answer, it is also cute to pretend that he couldn't have directed the boy from behind the cameras as well as he did the boys in *Les Mistons* and *The 400 Blows*; and cute, further, to pretend that lab shortcomings forced him here to use the archaic iris device that he has often used before.) The cuteness is part of his film-making psyche these days (all those cosy "inside" references in *The Bride Wore Black* and *Mississippi Mermaid*), and it is one of the reasons why *The Wild Child*, which is generally interesting, is not as good as it might have been. The visual aim of the film is not to look like 1978, but to look like an old film, a cute objective

rather than an artistic one: the many uses of the iris, the tone of the black and white which is almost like 1920s sepia, the management of the crowd scenes like those in old operettas, all these are consciously quaint devices.

The best element is the straightforward narrative, which is truly simple, not quaintly so. Truffaut follows the documents left by a Dr. Jean Itard who in 1978 acquired custody of a boy of twelve or so. This boy had apparently been living alone in a forest since he was old, enough to feed himself; the guess was that he had been abandoned for dead when he was three or four. He now loped on all fours most of the time, was naked, and had no kind of speech. The chief psychiatrist of the day thought the boy was mentally defective, but Itard, a counsellor of deaf and dumb children, thought otherwise, took the boy to his home near Paris and, after various tribulations, brought him to utter his first high-pitched word and to show some sign of moral distinction.

The film's viewpoints are mixed – sometimes objective, sometimes the boy's or the doctor's – and this mixture doesn't help a cumulative sense of the unhusking of a human soul. Sections of Dr. Itard's notes are read on the sound-track – in English, necessarily (although the dialogue is French, with sub-titles), but why did Truffaut himself do it so badly? Jean-Pierre Cagol, a gypsy boy, is only adequate as the wild child; it's hard to see how he could have done less and still have registered. Truffaut as the doctor is a nullity, with a tight constricted voice and no warmth. Another example of a director who thinks that, since he can be at ease in front of a camera, he belongs there.

Yet the picture has a certain visceral effect. I was bored through some of the middle because I knew, as anyone would, that we were going through a *gradus ad Parnassum*, that the original notion of idiocy was going to be disproved, that the savage boy was going to be transformed – to some degree, anyway – by civilized kindness and knowledge. Or else why would the picture have been made? Still there is a power in this old idea, partly because it flatters us. What a wonderful bunch we are, we civilized fellows, and how touching it is to see a forest creature being elevated to our midst. The figure of the boy is only occasionally pathetic, yet there is a tribal, almost smug pleasure in watching the doctor's gradual success with him.

But compare *The Wild Child* with the use that was made of a similar theme in *Kaspar*, a play by the young Austrian Peter Handke (reviewed here Feb. 28, 1970). Handke took the idea of Kaspar Hauser, the Nuremberg boy who spent his first fifteen years alone in a dark hole somewhere, and used it for a complex, ambiguous inquiry into the very stuff of communication, cognition, and teleology. Truffaut merely builds on a series of flat assumptions in all these matters. Handke's work has a shadowy and disturbing texture; Truffaut's work asks very little and assumes pat responses.

*The Wild Child* has had an ecstatic critical reception. No surprise. When a sophisticated artist chooses an unadorned parabolic story and treats it in a consciously unadorned manner, it's a safe bet that the result will be hailed as profound simplicity, no matter how banal it may be. This film is neither a banal disaster nor a simple symbolic triumph. But it couldn't miss. *The Wild Child* by François Truffaut! – the theme chosen by a man who himself had a troubled childhood more or less chronicled in *The 400 Blows*, the new film dedicated to Jean-Pierre Léaud who played that earlier boy – why, this film hardly had to be made at all. The title credits and the dedication would have evoked practically the same reviews.

Kes is also about a boy – in the present-day English mining town of Barnsley. He is a working-class child who captures a small hawk, a kestrel – which he calls Kes – and who trains the bird according to a book on falconry. So Kes, too, is about the training of a wild creature by a civilized one.

And Kes, too, trades on a predictable and assumed series of emotional responses. An abused, misunderstood, stubbornly independent boy; a bullying older brother; a negligent and ineffectual mother; cruel schoolmates and tyrannical teachers; and a wild-animal pet for the boy. Is there anyone who couldn't take those elements and write the script? Is there anyone who doesn't know in advance that the boy's passion for the hawk is both an emotional outlet and a symbol of his own soaring spirit? Is there anyone who doesn't know that the mean older brother will kill the bird? But probably few of us would have had the nerve to make the brother kill the bird just at the moment when the boy finishes school and is

(Continued on page 33)

Julie:

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Thought you might want to know
about this.

June 24, 1971

Muriel

General Haig:

Joe Alsop's secretary called to say that
Mr. Alsop would not now be able to attend
the dinner you and Mrs. Haig are giving
Saturday.

His Mother took ill and died last night
and he will be up in Avon, Connecticut
at least until the first of the week.

The funeral is this Saturday and I have
a number if we need any details as to time
and place, etc.

I tried to reach Mrs. Haig and tell her
but received no answer. Will try later
today.

Muriel

P.S. I have now talked to Mrs. Haig

Do you want to send flowers? Yes ____ No __
Other? ____

For details: call Mrs. Robinson, 203/278-3300

RECEIVED
JUN 2 1971

CENTRAL FILES

[x]

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

July 29, 1971

Mr. Kissinger:

Do you want to reply to this letter?

Yes ____ No ____ ✓

If yes, I will need guidance:

JOSEPH ALSOP

2720 Dumbarton Avenue
Washington, D. C. 20007

Telephone
(202) 965-1770

July 26, 1971

After some reflection, I think I must say something to you about Al Haig's two exceptionally nice and patient telephone calls to me.

To begin with, the only reminiscence of any conversation with you that was published in the two columns that so much upset you, was the series of paragraphs in the second column about the jade body stockings. And it seems to me ridiculous to suppose that touristic reminiscences should be covered by any special edict of confidentiality.

As to the other matter in all three of the columns that I have written about your trip, the following comments can be made without contradiction:

a. What was said in the first column concerning the Chinese motives for changing their policy towards us, was in fact something I had said over and over again in previous months and even years, and with special emphasis when "ping-pong diplomacy" began. If a reporter cannot reproduce what he has said himself from his own knowledge, without asking anyone at all about its validity, he might as well go out of business.

Dr. Henry Kissinger

-2-

July 26, 1971

Unless I am mistaken, in fact, I was writing about the Soviet build-up on the Chinese frontier, and also about its potential impact on Chinese Communist policy, somewhat *before* a common friend of ours popped up out of the rancid depths of the bureaucracy, to call *your* attention to this same subject.

b. As to what followed in the second column that I wrote, concerning the immediate problems about the U.N., about Formosa, and about the President's trip, not one word of this came from you---except, of course, that I was well aware you were satisfied with the results of your trip. Any informed newspaperman---an old-fashioned personage, nowadays, to be sure---would have had to conclude precisely what I concluded about these matters. There was no alternative, if one knew of your satisfaction, and particularly if one knew, as I well knew, the limits that the President had set upon the concessions that he was willing to make.

c. As to my last column, about which I have also had a telephone call, your concern seems to me really totally unjustified. If my deductions are correct, that is only because I have knowledge of the situation and some remaining brains. As I took great trouble to point out, it was impossible to learn from *anyone* who knew about the subject, what had really been discussed at such great length between you and Chou En-lai. I could have gone no further, short of including a sentence: "My old friend, Dr. Kissinger, won't tell me anything about this matter, so I have to do the best I can with my own brains." I think that would have been a most undesirable thing to do.

Dr. Henry Kissinger

-3-

July 26, 1971

I cannot of course judge the trenches and traps among
which you must find your way, unless you tell me about them
clearly and in advance. I have to tell you, all the same,
that any honest newspaperman has a duty to do the best he can
to reconstruct the current truth, even if he knows nothing
about such a trip as yours except the conditions precedent,
the subsequent atmosphere, and a single touristic experience
on the scene. Essentially, this is all I have known. And if
I am to be completely honest with you, I take it slightly ill
that you should think me so lacking in independence that I
would be bound by my admiration for the President, and by my
deep affection for you, to the extent of not writing forth-
rightly within the narrow limits above listed.

If you had wished to bind me, I may add, you could have
done so; and if you had done so, I think I can say, without
being arrogant, that you would have had no more ground for com-
plaint than President Kennedy, or Mac Bundy, or a great many
other people over the years, who have adopted this course in
dealing with me. If this had been your choice, you would have
had to say, "Can I tell you everything, on the understanding that
you will not write any of it unless the President wishes you to,
or at any rate in a way that he does not want it written?" I
should then have had to consider the answer to that question with
great care, as I have quite often done in the past. Sometimes,

Newsweek

NIXON:
I WILL
GO TO
CHINA

Peking to San Clemente: In a historic mission, Dr. Kissinger exchanged

Such is the awesome power of the Pres-
idency over the conduct of foreign
affairs that it took Richard Nixon just
three and a half minutes last week to
shatter two decades of hallowed Ameri-
can policy. And ironically, the man who
originally built his political career on an-
ti-Communist rhetoric chose to announce
his historic overture to Communist China
in a speech so devoid of emotion that, in
its initial moments, millions of his coun-
trymen failed to absorb the import of
what the President was saying. Almost
matter-of-factly, Mr. Nixon revealed that
Henry Kissinger, his top foreign policy
adviser, had just completed a secret two-
day mission to Peking to meet with Chi-
na's Premier Chou En-lai. Then Mr. Nix-
on added that he himself would be going
to China before next May "to seek the
normalization of relations" with a regime
whose malevolent design—in the view of
five U.S. Administrations, including his
own-compelled Americans to fight and
die in Korea and Vietnam.

Mr. Nixon's dramatic action to seek an end to the long hostility between Washington and Peking had been the best-kept Presidential secret since Lyndon Johnson's televised abdication speech more than three years ago. And when the full meaning of the President's announcement sank in, its impact was stunning. Clearly, the first trip by an American President to mainland China was bound to have a major impact on a vast range of foreign and domestic issues. Among the areas sure to be affected:

**VIETNAM:** Word of the talks with Peking took immediate pressure off Mr. Nixon, at home and abroad, for a more forthcoming response to Hanoi's latest peace offer: an agreement to exchange U.S.

prisoners of war for a Washington com-
mitment to withdraw from Vietnam by
the end of the year. Now the President
was free to pursue his own timetable of
withdrawal—and to negotiate in the
process for the greatest advantage in his
objective of giving the South Vietnamese
regime a "reasonable" chance to survive.
To help him negotiate, he would now
presumably have some clout with Peking,
a major source of Hanoi's means to keep
waging war.

**RUSSIA:** Though the President stated in his speech that America's "new relationship" with the People's Republic of China was "not directed against any other nation," the men in the Kremlin were certain to take a far different view. Haunted by fear of China—and even more fearful of a Sino-American alliance—the Russians might choose to react by dragging their feet on such important issues as the strategic arms limitation talks. But it seemed more likely that in their anxiety to avert a rapprochement between their two major adversaries, the Soviets would become more forthcoming in their relations with Washington.

**TAIWAN AND THE U.N.:** As part of its postwar policy of containment, the U.S. has guaranteed the security of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist regime on Taiwan and has spearheaded the annual fight to keep mainland China out of the United Nations. Now, although the President in his speech promised that better relations with China would not be bought "at the expense of our old friends," the Nationalists are already girding for rough diplomatic sailing. And if the U.S. is ready to drop its U.N. blackball against China, Peking may become a member of the world body as early as this fall.

**JAPAN:** U.S.-Japanese relations, already at a postwar low because of economic conflicts, are not likely to improve as a result of Mr. Nixon's trip to China. For by enhancing China's international stature, the President's initiative will diminish Japan's prospects for leadership in Asia. It could also lead the Japanese to question the solidity of U.S. guarantees to protect them against nuclear attack and lead them to reconsider the question of rearmament.

**PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS:** As a political masterstroke, the Presidential journey recalled Dwight Eisenhower's famous campaign pledge: "I will go to Korea." Its potential value on the hustings had already influenced campaign '72 by robbing the Democrats, at least for the moment, of one of their major themes—that the Administration has been laggard in seeking peace in Vietnam. What's more, the President is likely to be in Peking—and on the front pages of every American newspaper—just as the Democratic primaries get under way.

The world, of course, would not wait
until November 1972 to judge the Presi-
dent. And, inevitably, not everyone was
beguiled by the prospect of China's
opened door. Reflecting the mood of
many American conservatives, Rep. John
G. Schmitz, from Mr. Nixon's own Cali-
fornia voting district, declared: "I've just
disestablished diplomatic relations with
the White House." Abroad, the Nation-
alist Chinese lodged a formal protest and
described the agreement between Kis-
singer and Chou as "a shoddy deal." Of-
ficially, the Soviets almost ignored the
news with a squib on the bottom of page
5 of Pravda. But the rest of the world
was far more visibly impressed. A GREAT

16

views with Chou En-lai and reported to President Nixon on his return

TURNING POINT IN WORLD POLITICS head-
lined the prestigious French daily Le
Monde. And U.S. China expert Edgar
Snow, who was in Peking a few months
ago and may have played an intermedi-
ary role in setting up the Kissinger trip,
said: "We are witnessing the liquidation
of two decades of a U.S. East Asian pol-
icy dominated by the ghost of [former
Secretary of State] John Foster Dulles."

Love and Hate

That was no mean task, as Mr. Nixon
himself was keenly aware. For more than
a century, America's relations with Chi-
na have veered sharply between feel-
ings of love and hate—with hate being
the dominant emotion since the Com-
munists seized the mainland in 1949. As
an aspiring young congressman, Richard
Nixon himself rode the crest of the "who-
lost-China" witch hunt and won a cer-
tain reputation for memorable invasive
by blasting Secretary of State Dean
Acheson as the head of a "cowardly col-
lege of Communist containment." For-
tunately for everyone, the American
political scene—and Mr. Nixon—has
changed since then, and just before he
stepped into the White House Mr. Nix-
on acknowledged the transformation by
writing, in an article for the quarterly
Foreign Affairs: "Any American policy
toward Asia must come urgently to grips
with the reality of China." At the same
time, the President was clearly aware
that his credentials as a conservative Re-
publican made it possible for him to
seek détente with China without risking
the charge of appeasement. As Senate
Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said
last week of Mr. Nixon's forthcoming
trip: "A Democratic President would

have found it much more difficult."

Yet, despite his unassailable political
posture, Mr. Nixon apparently felt vul-
nerable enough so that, from the mo-
ment he decided last April to try to ar-
range a Presidential visit to Peking, a
tight lid of secrecy was clamped on the
operation. So closely held was the se-
cret that only Mr. Nixon himself, Kis-
singer, Secretary of State William Rog-
ers and a handful of top aides were privy
to the planning and negotiating that pre-
ceded last week's breakthrough.

Cautiously, the President and Kissin-
ger took pains to refrain from discussing
the subject in Mr. Nixon's Oval or Ex-
ecutive offices where curious visitors
might catch a glimpse of some of the
working papers pertaining to the trip.
Instead, the two men—joined, on some
occasions, by Rogers—would huddle at
night in the small Lincoln sitting room of
the Presidential mansion, isolated from
both staff and family, going over the
bulging looseleaf notebook devoted to
the subject. At last, after countless con-

ferences and consultations with Peking
—some, undoubtedly through intermedi-
aries such as Rumanian or French diplo-
mats—the Kissinger visit was arranged.

What was needed next was a conven-
ient cover story. So a junket to Asia was
arranged for the President's national se-
curity adviser, and Pakistan, which
maintains close ties with both the U.S.
and China, was brought into the drama.
(That may be the reason why Washing-
ton has pursued the controversial course
of providing economic and military aid to
the Pakistani Government despite its bru-
tal suppression of the Bengali rebellion
in East Pakistan.) On July 9, after dining
with Pakistani President Mohammed YAH-
YA Khan, Kissinger and three of his aides
—including a China expert and a special-
ist on Vietnam—boarded a plane and
flew the 2,500 miles to Peking. Report-
ers back in Islamabad were told by Kis-
singer's staff that the Presidential adviser
had contracted stomach trouble and was
recuperating in the remote Pakistani
mountain resort of Nathiagali.

Non-Stop Talks

Upon their arrival in the Chinese capi-
tal, Kissinger and his aides were greeted
by a delegation headed by Marshal Yeh
Chien-ying and then whisked off to an
official guest house in Peking's western
suburbs. From then on, for the 49 hours
that it lasted, the visit was dedicated to
hard work—except for a morning tour of
the Forbidden City (which Kissinger
could not photograph because he had
neglected to bring a camera). "Almost
every waking hour," said one White
House source, "was spent in conversation
with Premier Chou and four of his aides
at the guest house and in the Great Hall
of the People." Each side spoke in its own
language. Even meals, featuring sump-
tuous, multicourse repasts and repeated
mutual toasts, failed to interrupt the con-
versations, which were described as
"business-like," free of polemics and cov-
ering a broad range of subjects.
Throughout the approximately twenty
hours of talks, two of Kissinger's aides re-
corded the dialogue almost verbatim,
and a copy of the transcript was pro-
duced for the President. On July 11, their
work done, Kissinger's team returned
to Pakistan and then headed for home.
(During the Kissinger visit, the U.S. lift-

Don Mackay

July 26, 1971

17

## MR. NIXON'S REWARDS

Ron Alexander

In the wake of President Nixon's announcement that he will visit Peking, NEWSWEEK asked the dean of U.S. China scholars, Prof. John King Fairbank of Harvard, to assess this historic development. Below, Fairbank's reflections:

Peking's invitation to President Nixon and his acceptance bring our East Asian policy more in line with diplomatic realities—not only toward Peking and Taipei but also toward Vietnam, Tokyo and Moscow. The rewards of realism, so long beyond the reach of cold-war administrations, can now be garnered by Mr. Nixon.

For Peking, the Nixon visit means that very active negotiations of some kind with the U.S. will be required even without any formal diplomatic relations. Heads of great powers cannot afford to meet without first finding something to agree on. Informal U.S. exchanges with China's Ambassador Huang Hua in Ottawa, or elsewhere, will naturally tend to lead toward eventual recognition.

For Taipei, the Nixon visit punctures the twenty-year fantasy of a return-to-the-mainland and ends the legal fictions that have supported the Nationalist domination of the 12 million Taiwanese Chinese. Instead of maintaining its civil-war posture and proclaiming Taiwan only one "province" of the Chinese Republic, the younger Nationalist leadership now has a chance to work out for the island a realistic new status as an autonomous part of China (which it is), under the sovereignty of the great Chinese realm centered at Peking.

We Americans cannot decide Taiwan's status, though we can and should protect it against forcible take-over. But the central sovereignty of One China (and there is only one) has often been compatible with the local autonomy of provincial or border regimes. Once the state of civil war is ended and Taiwan ceases to be a military threat, Peking realists may be able to live with Taiwan's political and economic autonomy.

### IDEOLOGICAL FIXATIONS

In the U.N., the Nixon visit implies that the United States will stop opposing Peking's entry. To have Peking represented in the U.N. and in Washington will bring no millennium, only a chance for hard bargaining. This is an elementary step away from chaos and Armageddon. Its common sense highlights the stupidity in which our cherished ideological fixations have for so long enshrained us.

For our Vietnam problem, talking to Peking offers a gleam of hope that China might join in the guarantees necessary to

neutralize Vietnam or even all of Southeast Asia, something that can hardly be achieved without China's participation.

Mr. Nixon's willingness to visit Peking is a personal coup for him as peacemaker, an image he will want to preserve. It will therefore act as an incentive for him to complete the liquidation of the American intervention in Vietnam. When an intervention does not develop into colonialism, in the now outmoded nineteenth-century fashion, it naturally seeks to escape into a multilateral international agreement—since this is far more palatable than an abject retreat. To agree with China about Vietnam offers us the chance to salvage some of those valid American ideals that Dean Rusk enunciated to sanction our intervention years ago. It would also be realistic politics.

### BE FRIENDLY—OR ELSE

For Moscow, the Peking-Washington contact merely balances a natural triangle. This has been in the cards for a decade, ever since the Sino-Soviet split. Neither we nor the Chinese want the Russians to be our middlemen manipulating us both from the only two-way position in the trio. Sino-American contact, on the other hand, could very well stimulate the Soviet-American rapprochement, not in order to victimize China but merely to compete with the developing Sino-American relationship. Benumbed as we are from war and cold war, it has taken imagination in both Russia and America to see that relations in the nuclear age have to be friendly—or else. The same applies to nuclear China.

For Japan, the growth of Sino-American contact tends to legitimize the trade and contact already under way between China and Japan, and this bit of realism should help rather than hurt the position of our longtime ally, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. Mr. Nixon's extension of the American diplomatic frontier in East Asia looks toward the creation of an international political framework in the Western Pacific within which Japan's economic expansion may be less upsetting and more constructive.

On all counts, then, the prospective Peking visit is a hopeful and creative move, not least because of the hard work necessary to prepare for it and the hard bargaining likely to accompany it. Diplomacy with China is in itself no panacea but only a chance to seek genuine solutions instead of violent ones. From the Chinese view, the best aspect of the Nixon trip is that he comes to them, as an honored guest, of course, but also paying them the honor of making the journey. This makes sense in Chinese politics.

ed further curbs on trade with China.)

Once home, Kissinger went into an immediate three-day huddle with the President and the Secretary of State at the Western White House in San Clemente. "The President read every last word of the Peking transcript," said one source. Apparently he was satisfied with the results of the Kissinger-Chou talks, although Presidential spokesmen refused to divulge what topics were covered except for the agreement on Mr. Nixon's trip. At this point, the President began a first draft on his speech. An unsuspecting nation, however, believed that the San Clemente meetings were being dedicated to a review of the Administration's Vietnam policy and a tour of the foreign-policy horizon. When two top Nixon speechwriters were flown out to the Western White House, reporters began to speculate that a major address on the Paris peace talks was in the works. In an effort to throw the newsmen off the scent—and as an object lesson that, despite the recent leak of the Pentagon papers, Presidential secrets can be kept—White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler was instructed to say that Mr. Nixon had absolutely no intention of making a speech at all.

It was not, in fact, until a few hours before the speech that the lid began to come off. Rogers started the ball rolling by personally telephoning the embassies of nineteen nations the Administration felt should be given advance word of the speech. Though both Taiwan and China were given notice, South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu heard of the President's secret at the same time as U.S. soldiers in the field—over Armed Forces Radio. Similarly, Congressional leaders were advised only that the President would make a brief television statement "of extreme importance." Thus, the surprise was total when the President helicoptered over to NBC's suburban Los Angeles television studio to drop his bombshell. After the speech, immensely pleased with themselves, Mr. Nixon, Kissinger and four other White House aides celebrated their coup with dinner and a $40 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild '61 at chic Perino's.

### Diplomatic Traps

The speech itself avoided more questions than it answered. Full of glowing generalities, it revealed only that the planned Presidential trip to China was designed—beyond normalizing relations—to exchange views on questions of concern to the two sides." What these questions were and what promises or commitments, if any, had been made during the Kissinger-Chou talks remained as much a mystery after the President's address as they had been before it. Even the May deadline for the trip was misleading, since by the end of the week there were indications that Mr. Nixon might go long before then.

There was, however, no absolute certainty that the trip would ever take

18

Newsweek

MISSION TO PEKING

place. For despite the fact that, as one White House official put it, "neither we nor the Chinese will knowingly do something that would undermine the prospects for rapprochement," there was always the chance of a slip-up during the intricate negotiations that will precede the actual summit. U.S. and Chinese planners will have to avoid numerous diplomatic bear traps on the road to the achievement of a U.S.-Chinese détente. Not the least of these will be the trap of history, for in the 22 years since the Communists seized power in Peking, the U.S. and China have been constantly at

each other's throats. Even after Kissinger had clinched his boss's trip, the government of Chairman Mao Tse-tung vilified the U.S. as the world's leading "imperialist aggressor." For its part, the U.S. will naturally find it difficult to forget that it was largely out of fear of China that it has fought two wars in which it has suffered more than half a million casualties.

History aside, there are many critical issues that divide the two nations. Foremost among them is Vietnam. In the U.S. view, China, with its philosophy of fo-menting violent revolution throughout

the world, has been the main pillar of moral and ideological support for the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Peking, meanwhile, considers the American role in Vietnam a thinly veiled attempt to prop up a puppet government as part of an over-all policy of containing China by surrounding it with a ring of Southeast Asian military bases.

Equally thorny is the question of Taiwan. The Chinese contend that the island is a part of the mainland and that the Chiang Kai-shek regime is a "bandit" occupation government. They view their claim on Taiwan as totally unne-

## PEKING'S INDISPENSABLE MAN

At 72, he still retains much of the good looks and ramrod-stiff bearing of his younger days. And though his left arm is slightly bent (as a result of a fall from a Mongolian pony many years ago) and he suffers from a chronic liver ailment, Premier Chou En-lai still gazes out at the world through alert, intense eyes. As one of the most durable leaders in Peking's top echelon, he has been variously—sometimes simultaneously—described as brilliant, arrogant, suave, skillful, calculating, resilient, persuasive, ruthless and devious. Around Peking, however, he is often referred to more directly as "the indispensable man."

That reputation is all the more remarkable since, in the official Peking pecking order, Chou currently stands third in line behind Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Mao's political heir apparent, Defense Minister Lin Piao. But since the turmoil of China's cultural revolution ebbed two years ago, Chou En-lai has emerged as the man who runs the day-to-day affairs of People's China. And while the pre-eminence of the ailing Mao remains unchallenged, China's recent moves toward the restoration of order at home and greater diplomatic activity abroad bear the stamp of the pragmatic Premier. Thus, even though President Nixon is scheduled for a tête-à-tête with Mao, it is a virtual certainty that Chou En-lai will do most of the talking for the Chinese.

**Struggle:** In Chou, Mr. Nixon will be facing China's most experienced, determined and resourceful negotiator. Born to a wealthy, upper-class family, Chou became politically concerned early in life and was drawn to Marxism because he saw in it a means of rescuing his homeland from the decadence and disorder that had plagued it for more than a century. Joining a branch of the Chinese Communist Party abroad in 1922, he soon returned home and, for the next quarter century, was intimately involved with the on-again, off-again struggle between the Chinese Communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang.

With the triumph of Mao's Communists in 1949, Chou was propelled into inter-

national prominence in the dual role of Premier and Foreign Minister in the new Peking government. As his country's chief administrator, he organized a huge state bureaucracy to run every facet of life in sprawling China. As its chief diplomat, his skill on such occasions as the Geneva conference of 1954 placed him firmly in the company of world statesmen. In his diplomatic role, he repeatedly sought to drive home the message that the "New China" demanded absolute equality in its dealing with foreign countries. And where that principle was not accepted, Chou was irreconcilable. (The refusal of John Foster Dulles to shake hands with him at Geneva, for example, still rankles; recently Chou described the late U.S. Secretary of State as "an impossible man.")

There is, however, little chance that Chou will seek to revenge himself for past U.S. affronts during President Nixon's visit to China. Recent visitors to Peking report that age has done nothing to diminish Chou's wit and charm. Over the past three months at a series of re-

ceptions for Western visitors—including one old friend, former Canadian diplomat Chester Ronning—Chou has regaled his guests with freewheeling comments on everything from women's lib (he favors it) to moon shots (he thinks they are a waste of money). And though Chou carries on his conversations with foreigners through interpreters, English-speaking guests do well to watch their offhand remarks. As Henry Kissinger learned during his brief stay in Peking, Chou has enough command of spoken English to occasionally correct his own interpreter.

**Question:** But while he is the most widely traveled of the men who rule China, Chou's longtime reputation as a cosmopolitan may be wearing thin. Preoccupied with domestic affairs in recent years, he has made very few trips out of Asia since 1954. "Hungry for information about the West, particularly the U.S., the Premier often bombards visitors with more questions than they can address to him," wrote The New York Times's Seymour Topping after his China visit last month. That could suggest that, once Mr. Nixon has visited Peking, Chou might be most amenable to a return invitation to Washington.

Audrey Topping—Rapho Guilletomette

Chou with Ronning: Hungry for information about the West

July 26, 1971

19

gotiable. Not surprisingly, the U.S. does not see it that way. For more than two decades, Washington has been a generous patron of the Chiang regime, pouring in more than $4 billion in military and economic aid and committing itself to defend the island under the terms of a mutual security treaty. And this commitment has been bolstered in the past by Seventh Fleet patrols of the Taiwan Strait that separates Nationalist China from the mainland and by the continued stationing of some 10,000 American troops on the island itself.

## Sacred Guarantee

Thanks to U.S. support—and the islanders’ own industry—Taiwan has become one of the most prosperous and viable nations in all of Asia. Thus it would be a cruel irony if, at this juncture, the U.S. totally abandoned the island. Apparently, the U.S. has no intention of doing that. One State Department official said last week: “The only thing that is sacred any more is the strategic guarantee to Taiwan. Everything else is subject to change, but our security commitment is unshakeable.”

Given the gulf that separates them, why had the two nations agreed to the elaborate ritual of a state visit? One answer may be that the talks between Kissinger and Chou revealed the possibility of new flexibility on both sides. But the most obvious reason was that the U.S. and China are both convinced that their interests will be served by a round of summitry.

Foremost among Mr. Nixon's hopes is to enlist China's aid in settling the Vietnam war. As one White House official phrased it last week: "In our quest for peace in the world, peace in Southeast Asia has to be our No. 1 objective." The Administration was aware, of course, that just as the U.S. had no intention of abandoning Taiwan, China—the fountainhead

of revolution in the underdeveloped world—would not sell out Hanoi. Still there was reason to believe that the Chinese would go further than they have till now in persuading North Vietnam to accept a negotiated end to the war. Aware that the U.S. is in the midst of scaling down its presence in Asia, Peking may calculate that an Indochinese peace treaty would permit Washington to speed up the withdrawal process. In addition, the moderates under Premier Chou who now control China's destiny may hope to enhance their nation's stature by taking part as an equal in a global peace conference.

Another potential benefit to the U.S. from a rapprochement with China could be improved relations with the Soviet Union. By traveling to Peking before he has made a Presidential trip to Moscow, Mr. Nixon is underlining the fact that (1) the U.S. has international concerns in which the Russians do not play a major role and (2) the Kremlin cannot take its relationship with Washington for granted. In short, by demonstrating a new flexibility, the President is putting indirect pressure on the Soviets to continue acting in their recent spirit of détente. "I think this will make the Soviets much more amenable," one American Kremlinologist remarked. "They're going to have to try to prevent our steady thaw in relations with the Chinese. Which means, at the very least, that they'll probably tread easy for a while in such areas as the Middle East."

## Crucial Timing

Domestically, the President clearly hopes that his breakthrough with China will enhance his image as a master of foreign policy and permit him to go before the electorate in 1972 as a peace-maker. In this connection, the timing of the President's trip to Peking will be crucial. And that Mr. Nixon himself was keenly aware of this fact was underscored by one of his aides, who, with a straight face, contended that next May 1 was set as the latest possible date for his trip because, with party conventions scheduled for the summer, the President did not want his mission to "get mixed up in partisan considerations in the U.S."

As far as China's motives are concerned, its overriding hope is clearly that the Nixon visit will enhance its power, prestige and influence in Asia. "For the past 22 years," a leading Sinologist observed, "China's fundamental aim has been to be recognized as an equal among the superpowers. They now realize that this means they must be at the same table with the other superpowers. Specifically, they must be admitted to the U.N., participate at all the major conferences on world affairs and deal directly with the U.S." The mere fact of the Nixon visit will go far toward achieving this end, since it will put the U.S. stamp of approval on the legitimacy of the Communist regime.

Relations with Russia are also a major

consideration in the Chinese overtures to the U.S. "America is far down on China's priority list of problems," one U.S. expert explained. "I think that Peking is far more worried about the Soviet Union. I don't know exactly what went on in the minds of the Chinese leaders, but they must have made the decision that China should no longer confront the Russians by itself, but should somehow move closer to the U.S. as a counterpoise." The reason for this is not hard to find. For despite the gradual improvement of relations between Moscow and Peking within the past two years, the fact remains that Soviets maintain the largest single striking force in the world—45 divisions plus scores of tactical nuclear missiles—along the 4,500-mile-long Chinese border. Clearly, the Chinese hoped that the Nixon visit and improved relations between Peking and Washington might help to offset this pressure. Said one British student of international affairs: "Now if the Russians are going to be sensible and if they don't

## A SETBACK FOR

It is the instinct of Washingtonians, when faced with an important event and the prospect—even distant—of an American Presidential election, immediately to start drawing connections between the two. And so last week the President had hardly broken the news of his trip to Peking when the Capital began trying to measure the project's impact upon domestic politics. The consensus was that, at least for the time being, Mr. Nixon had scored a considerable coup. His dovish Democratic challengers were upstaged. The clamor for a fixed date of withdrawal from Vietnam was momentarily muted. The "peace issue" had suddenly acquired a major new dimension that was the President's, not the Democrats', to exploit in 1972.

The China venture, to be sure, might still go wrong in the long months ahead and turn into an electoral liability. But for the moment, almost everyone was far more intrigued with the ways in which it might go right, and Democrats as well as Republicans conceded that it was by far the best political news for Mr. Nixon in months. The boost came when he most needed it. The Viet Cong peace initiative in Paris, a domestic economic recovery that was lagging behind his "game plan" and the lowest Gail-up poll ratings of his incumbency had recently made Richard Nixon seem a very vulnerable President indeed.

But the invitation from Peking seemed to have stopped the drift. "It sure chills the prospects of all the Democratic hopefuls, doesn't it?" ventured one Congressional committee

Chiang: A bleak prospect

Keystone

20

Newsweek

THE DEMOCRATS

chairman. Most of the hopefuls rushed
forward with statements commending
the President's move, and their un-
accustomed support of the man they
hope to unseat was a measure of how
sharply they had been outflanked.
The more dovish among them—
George McGovern and Birch Bayh, as
well as Mr. Nixon's upstart GOP chal-
lenger Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey—
seemed particularly exposed. If the
China trip went well and the Vietnam
war were by that time virtually set-
tled, the peace plank in the Presi-
dent's re-election campaign would
clearly be immensely strengthened.
In that case, the Democrats would
hardly be likely to pick a candidate
primarily identified with the war is-
sue. And the tougher to beat Mr. Nix-
on seemed, the more Edward M.
Kennedy's chances for nomination
seemed to improve—in a long shot, the
Democrats might gamble on charisma.

**No Glitter:** But for the present, all the Democrats shared the political setback. Their own hopes of making dramatic visits to Peking, for one thing, had been forestalled (Kennedy had already applied for a visa). Now it seemed unlikely that the Chinese would be so discourteous as to permit a political rival to precede the President. And though they might be able to go afterward, the trip's political glitter would by then be dulled. A Peking visit, one top Democratic Party strategist reported, had been "high on the list of the right things for a Democratic candidate to do between the convention and the election next year. We had kicked it around in the game planning." Now, he conceded,

the trip would seem as obvious a
political ploy as the standard pilgrim-
age to Israel or Moscow. In addition,
if Mr. Nixon's journey took place early
next year as expected, he would neat-
ly steal the spotlight from the Demo-
eratic primaries.

What particularly irked a number
of Democrats was the feeling that a
détente with China was properly
their issue but that Mr. Nixon, with
his unassailable reputation as an anti-
Communist, was in a far better politi-
cal position to exploit it. Would a
President Hubert Humphrey have
been allowed to get away with so
bold a move if Richard Nixon had
been leader of the opposition? some-
one asked Senate Republican Leader
Hugh Scott. "No," Scott replied can-
didly. But thanks to Mr. Nixon's con-
servative credentials, the right-wing
outery against the China trip was
surprisingly slight. In the Senate, only
New York's James Buckley and Tex-
as's John Tower expressed outright
dismay.

**More to Come:** The Democrats braced for more spins of the new Washington-Peking axis soon. "There has to be much more coming," said an aide to Sen. Edmund Muskie. "Henry Kissinger didn't spend three days in Peking just advancing a Presidential trip next spring. We got only the tip of the iceberg Thursday night. They'll probably orchestrate this thing like the Singing Strings." And a GOP technician confirmed that this is precisely what he expected, too.

But if the forward movement is not
sustained, public expectations will be
frustrated. "People will demand per-
formance," a McGovern strategist
pointed out, "and this could backfire."
Muskie himself warned that "the

© Herblock in the Washington Post

glow of this symbolic step" should not
obscure the two main pieces of work
at hand: "First, how are we going to
end the fighting and the killing in In-
dochina at the earliest possible mo-
ment? And, second, how are we going
to stop the arms race before it gets
completely out of control?"

It remained to be seen whether
the President's trip to Peking would
speed either of these projects or lay
the foundation for world peace that
Mr. Nixon clearly hoped to achieve.
But the mere announcement, kindling
as it did a sense of fresh possibilities
and higher hopes, won him one im-
mediate political boon. At a moment
of mounting impatience at home, he
had bought more time for his policies
to bear fruit. And time is perhaps a
statesman's most precious asset.

want to get squeezed out of the new,
more balanced Washington-Moscow-Pe-
king triangle, they're going to have to
try to improve relations with both sides."

Closer to home, the Chinese clearly
hope that the Nixon visit will advance
their desire for a final settlement of the
Taiwan issue. At the very least, they
want to replace the Nationalist Chinese
in the U.N. Security Council and, if
possible, in the General Assembly as
well. In addition, Chou is almost certain
to remind Mr. Nixon that, in China's
view, the question of the status of Tai-
wan is a purely internal affair. Should
Mr. Nixon agree to this principle, the
Chinese might well consider their dis-
pute over this matter with Washington
as over. For rather than being interested
in an immediate military take-over of
Taiwan—an unlikely development, in any
case, in view of the military strength of
the Nationalists—the Communists seem
prepared to wait until the passage of
time brings about a Taiwanese accept-
ance of Peking's suzerainty, perhaps un-

der an arrangement whereby Taiwan
would retain economic and political au-
tonomy. Some U.S. experts believe that
this is not beyond the realm of possi-
bility. In their view, Washington might
exchange a Chinese pledge not to use
force against Taiwan for a promise to
gradually remove the U.S. military pres-
ence from the island and, ultimately, to
allow the lapse of the mutual security
treaty. This would disengage the U.S.
from the midst of the Chinese civil war
and leave the direct participants to reach
an eventual accommodation.

New Geneva Conference?

Given these long-standing and com-
plex differences, it is clear that before
the President and Chou can sit down
to talk, many months of painstaking prep-
aration by their aides will be required.
It took three months to arrange Henry
Kissinger's far less complicated trip, and
the President will have to bone up for
meetings with Mao as well as Chou.
Presumably, some of the outstanding is-

sues separating the two nations were
discussed during Kissinger's visit. In-
deed, some substantive agreements may
already have been reached—at least in
principle. Significantly, in the wake of
Kissinger's sojourn, Chou indicated to
Gough Whitlam, the leader of Australia's
Labor Party, that Peking would be will-
ing to participate in a reconvened Ge-
neva conference on Indochina.

Yet even with the best of intentions,
the success of the meeting was far from
assured. Indeed, if the past is any guide,
the summit often proves to be a slippery
slope on which to negotiate internation-
al agreements. But despite this, it was
clear that the U.S. and China calculated
that the time was ripe for the risk. After
years of fighting each other, castigating
each other, fearing each other—and just
plain wondering about each other—the
most powerful nation in the world and
the most populous nation in the world
had decided to recognize each other's
existence. And that alone represented a
great leap forward.

July 26, 1971

21

-2-

work. But God is with the President, and it will work."

Then they began talking about the yen and I lost them, although not completely, Henry, you will be surprised to hear, even that will be okay/ If as they think, the President does what they expect him to do Nov. 15th or so. Then people came out playing mandolins and guitars - and its ______ as I write to you but I couldn't not write. Naturally, my heart is in Washington, with Joe, Stewart and very much with you and Mr. Nixon.

Does this kind of silly letter do any good? One feels futile but very grateful to be an American, and hear such heartening support for one's President from two very different Englishmen.

Love -

Dear Henry-

I really cannot bore the President by becoming a persistent correspondent. I wrote him after the August 15th speech, c/o Mr. Coleman Hicks, who sounds such a friend over the telephone - will you please introduce me to him sometime? He is _so_ nice, and kind to your friends.

You can judge whether this would bore the President or not. I am staying with Marietta and Ronald Tole (?) in this wonderful, historic house. Tonight, the Tuscan moon coming up over the high cypresses - always so dramatic in silhouette. The Duomo below us. The great stars of Galileo, who lived in the next villa below us, we sat down to dinner. I between Roy Jendics (?), an old friend, and Lord Poole (?) who I had not met before. Both are old political enemies, I gathered. L. Poole told me that he was "a failed liberal" which I liked, as its me too, had been chairman of the Conservative party in England for _years_, now is head of Legard, Inc., plus head of all the Coudray interest. Over the scampi and over me, Thank God, Lord Poole said to Roy: "think what do you think about America - since Aug. 15th?" Roy said that he had no reservations - that he backed the President 150% and that the British press, although not too bad, hadn't been decent enough. The President's courage should be rewarded by a little gratitude for U.S. efforts over the last 25 years. Lord Poole then said, "By God, Roy, I agree with you - if we agree on nothing else. And there is another thing - God is with him." I then spoke up, nervously - "What do you hear, exactly, Lord Poole?" He said, and Roy joined in, "you have to be a politician to understand this. But if God isn't with you when you take a risk it doesn't"

GENERAL

PR16

KISSINGER, HENRY A. /A*

JOSEPH ALSOP

Telephone
(202) 965-1770

January 14, 1972

Without my knowledge, and to my complete fury, "The Washington Post" turns out to have been picking up its copy of my column at the "Los Angeles Times" bureau here in the city. In consequence, they published this morning the column *without* the revisions that I had telephoned to Los Angeles immediately after talking to you the other day.

This practice of taking an unofficial copy of the column is in fact contrary to "The Washington Post'''s contract with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. It was for this reason that it had not even crossed my mind that they used any copy, except the one which they receive by wire from Los Angeles in the normal course of events. This one was in fact received by "The Washington Post" with the corrections which were telephoned to Los Angeles. But inexcusably, in my opinion, it was completely disregarded. I must add, however, that I am sure that this was not the result of intentional ill will, but rather of the extreme internal inefficiency that more normally leads to bad proofreading and terrible typographical errors in every column of mine that is printed in the "Post". As soon as I saw, with genuine pain, what version of the column the "Post" had used, I telephoned Los Angeles to find out

RECEIVED

JAN18 '72

CENTRAL FILED

Dr. Henry Kissinger

-2-

January 14, 1972

the facts. As a result, the Syndicate Manager has made a
major row with the "Post", and has asked them to print a
correction tomorrow. I cannot imagine what form the cor-
rection will take. But I cannot think that any good purpose
will be served by my adding my voice to the Syndicate
Manager's.

For your records, I shall also be sending you a copy
of the way the column went out to all clients from the
Syndicate, as well as a copy of the Syndicate Manager's
rather icy letter to the "Post".

I don't suppose that any of this will undo the
damage, if there is damage. I am more sorry about the
matter than I can possibly say. I only hope that you will
understand that it was the result of an unforeseeable chap-
ter of accidents, which I did my best to prevent, and I
must add, you also sought to prevent. So I do hope you will
forgive me.

JOSEPH WRIGHT ALSOP
2720 DUMBARTON AVENUE
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20007

July 26, 1972

Dear Henry,

Herewith I enclose a shirt, which you left in
our joint room at Needwood. I brought it home for
you, to save Tish trouble.

It was wonderful seeing you over the weekend.
It would also be wonderful to have a quiet evening's
dinner together before long. Why don't you choose a
night next week, preferably Tuesday or Thursday, when
I can also ask Stew and Tish. It would cheer him up
to see you, I know. And as you know, he is going
through the pretty fair Hell of a new round of his
treatment, which he has to do on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays.

September 8, 1972

Dear Henry,

This is just a line to say that I was deeply sorry to have got you into such an evening. My aim had been to give you a good time, and to give Susan Mary a good send-off on her return to Washington from abroad. Bob Silver is one of the best talkers I know. I have always admired your interest, too, in the intellectuals who disagree with you. But I had no idea that Bob, normally a most unentious person, would seize the subject of Vietnam in his teeth, and then go on worrying it through most of the evening, so to say. With the burdens you bear, you should not be exposed to that sort of thing; and I was most upset, especially after the mix-up about whether you were indeed coming to dinner or not.

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

May 3, 1973

Nancy and I have just been communicating about one thing or another. She tells me that she plans to come down for the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, the 12th and 13th of May, in order to see you on your return. I suggested to her that we have one of our usual early Sunday suppers--meeting about 6:30, in order to sit down a bit after 7:00, so that you and she can go to her 10:00 plane without hustle or bustle at about 9:15. If you like the idea, and will also be amused by this kind of group, my plan is to ask Han Hsu and his Number Two, along with Stew and Tish, in order to round out the party.

CENTRAL FILES

Newsweek

1750 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W. - WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006 - SUITE 1220

Stewart Alsop
Phone: 202 / 298-7880

October 2nd, 1972

Dear Henry;

I hear on good authority (my aging brother) that you are
furious about my current piece. I guess I see why, and I really
am sorry if I've made trouble for you, especially after the trouble you
x took to get Moscow's opinion on my mysterious ailment. But
dammit, Henry, you're a public figure, and a very important and
visible one, and I make my living writing about public figures.
As you very well know, there wasn't a word in the column that
reflected any conversation at all between you and me, so I broke
no rules, and I was also careful to point out that "the basic
foreign policy decisions of Mr. Nixon's first term have been
Mr. Nixon's."

J. Kennedy used to say that in public life there is no
such thing as friendship, only temporary alliances. I hope he is
wrong in our case, and that in time at least I'll be forgiven. And
I really do believe that the world would be a more dangerous place
if you left Washington.

FRANK ALTSCHUL

730 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 19, N.Y.

ROOM 1701
TEL. JUDSON 6-5526

Jun 11 1969

January 9, 1969

Dear Henry,

Some of the newspaper stories in the last
few days have caused me to worry a bit. On this ac-
count I am sending you a copy of an article from the
current number of the Saturday Review, which is short
but extraordinarily penetrating. I keep hoping that
Kissinger in Foreign Affairs will prevail in the end.

With friendliest messages, I am

Dr. Henry Kissinger
c/o President-elect Richard M. Nixon
Hotel Pierre
Fifth Avenue & 61st Street
New York, N.Y. 10022

## Saturday Review

Editor: NORMAN COUSINS

Publisher: WILLIAM D. PATTERSON

Associate Editors: IRVING KOLODIN, HORACE SUTTON

Associate Publisher

RICHARD L. TOBIN

Science Editor

JOHN LEAR

Layout & Production

PEARL S. SULLIVAN

General Editor

HALLOWELL BOWSER

Executive Editor

PETER SCHBAG

Education Editor

JAMES CASS

Poetry Editor

JOHN CIARDI

Travel Editor

DAVID BUTWIN

Book Review Editor

ROCHELLE GIRSON

Art Editor

KATHARINE KUH

Editors-at-Large

CLEVELAND AMORY • HENRY BRANDON • HARRISON BROWN • JOHN MASON BROWN

CHARLES FRANKEL • FRANK G. JENNINGS • JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH

ELMO ROPER • THEODORE C. SORENSEN • PAUL WOODRING

### Contributing Editors

GOODMAN ACE • HOLLIS ALPERT • JEROME BEATTY, JR. • JAMES F. FIXX

HENRY HEWES • GRANVILLE HICKS • ARTHUR KNIGHT

MARTIN LEVIN • ROLLENE W. SAAL • ROBERT LEWIS SHAYON • ZENA SUTHERLAND

WALTER TERRY • MARGARET R. WEISS • JOHN T. WINTERICH

## Who Are the Isolationists?

THERE is a growing tendency among those who developed or defended the Americanization of the Vietnamese war to label their critics as "isolationists." Unless we are prepared to take the same stand and the same policy in future Vietnams, they say, we will return the United States to the dangerous ostrich-like position it occupied when the Second World War was first brewing. The coming "Great Debate" on U.S. foreign policy foreseen by Secretary of State Dean Rusk should heighten this issue, as he suggests; but it will not do so if isolationism is projected as the only alternative to Vietnam-type interventionism, as he seems to imply.

To be sure, critics of our policy in Vietnam have been called worse things than "isolationists." But this is more than a question of labels. Many of us share the Secretary's opposition to a return to isolationism. We know America cannot afford to be alone-politically, militarily, or economically alone-in a world dominated by hostile interests. Nor can we in good faith abandon those obligations to

the community of nations which our national power, wealth, and conscience, as well as our national interests impose upon us. We need allies in this world. We need friends. We need respect. And our past policy of escalation in Vietnam hurt far more than it helped in this regard.

If the new Administration insists on a hard line in Paris, seeking at the negotiating table what could not be won on the battlefield-if the new President believes, as some have written, that Vietnam, like Korea, can be settled with the threat to unleash our nuclear weapons-if disappointment and impatience lead to a renewal of the bombing of the North, or an increase in the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, or a new American thrust somewhere else in the world-America will truly be isolated in the worst possible way.

Those who advocate a policy of "no more Vietnams" do not thereby deserve the label of isolationists. They are responsible realists who recognize the practical limitations of our military and diplomatic power. They realize that we

have no more right than the Russians or Chinese to impose either our will or our way upon other peoples. They want us to lead by the force of example, not force of arms, by emphasizing multilateral instead of national solutions, and non-military instead of military means. That is not isolationism.

On the other hand, those who developed or now defend these past few years of America's policy in Vietnam-who look upon our role as that of world policeman and who advocate a hard line in the Paris talks today-these are the real isolationists.

Already, escalating the hot war in Vietnam, and the cold war in general, have cost us heavily in terms of international prestige and respect. They have diminished the attention and assistance we have been able to give to the Atlantic alliance, to the Alliance for Progress, and to other key spots around the globe. They have helped to build unnecessary economic barriers between ourselves and the rest of the world.

Because of the war in Vietnam, and its effects on our budget, our economy, our international accounts, and our outflow of gold, we have witnessed unprecedented controls on the overseas investments of American corporations, unsuccessful restraints on American tourism abroad, and a revival of high tariff protectionist sentiment in the Congress.

Because of the war in Vietnam, United States trade in non-strategic goods with Eastern Europe has continued at a pitiably low level, limiting our influence in the evolution of that region.

Because of the war in Vietnam, our Government has been unable and unwilling to assist those less affluent parts of the world whose freedom of choice is threatened by chaos, and equally unable and unwilling to apply sufficient resources at home to the mammoth tasks of ending the shocking conditions of urban deprivation and discrimination which are more responsible than anything else for the worsening of our image around the world.

Because of the war in Vietnam, finally, we have handicapped our nation's prospects for new agreements on disarmament with the Soviet Union, a new approach to Mao's China, and new steps toward a world of law instead of despair.

In short, the dangers of a trend toward isolationism in American foreign policy are very real. But they have been brought on less by doves than by hawks-by those whose responses to the challenge of Communism still assume that American omnipotence and omni-science require our omnipresence-by those, finally, who may have forgotten that this nation was founded by men mindful of their obligations to pay "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."

- THEODORE C. SORENSEN.

72

SR/January 11, 1969

From Gilman, Aly and Reid, *The Fundamentals of Speaking* (New York, Macmillan, 1947).

reference to the members of the audience and by personal pronouns in dialogue:

> You cannot limit this great republic by mere boundary lines, saying, "Thus far shall thou go, and no farther." Any one of you gentlemen might as well say to a son twelve years old that he is big enough, and must not grow any larger; and in order to prevent his growth put a hoop around him to keep him to his present size. What would be the result? Either the hoop must burst and be rent asunder, or the child must die. So it would be with this great nation.⁸

Lincoln was sometimes even more direct than Douglas. In his Cooper Union speech, he talked directly to his opponents:

> You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.⁹

## CREATING A COMMON FEELING

The speaker has an opportunity not open to the writer: he is in the immediate presence of his audience. Even the radio speaker and his hearers have the same time moment in common. The skillful use of this opportunity creates common feeling that the speaker can enhance. Lincoln is said to have used a striking analogy to create a common feeling within a group of visitors to the White House:

> Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara Falls on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him, "Blondin, stand up a little straighter!—Blondin, stoop a little more—go a little faster—lean a little more to the north—lean a little more to the south"? No! you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government is carrying an immense weight. Untold

⁸ George Haven Putnam, ed., *The Political Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas*. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926.) P. 269. Copyright 1926 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

⁹ John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., *Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln*. (Lincoln Memorial University, 1894.) Vol. V, pp. 314–315.

## COMPOSING THE SPEECH

[95]

treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Don't badger them. Keep silence, and we'll get you safe across.¹⁰

## AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

The audience question recognizes the dialogue between the speaker and his hearers; it rouses the interest of the listeners and keeps them alert. The speeches of Daniel Webster, of Wendell Phillips, of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and others could be noted for their use of meaningful questions directed to the audience. Alexander Hamilton constructed a portion of a famous speech delivered to the legislature of New York by using question after question:

> What must be the final issue of the present state of things? Will the few States that now contribute, be willing to contribute much longer? Shall we ourselves be long content with bearing the burthen singly? Will not our zeal for a particular system, soon give way to the pressure of so unequal a weight? And if all the States cease to pay, what is to become of the Union? It is sometimes asked, Why do not Congress oblige the States to do their duty? But where are the means? Where are the fleets and armies, where the Federal treasury to support those fleets and armies, to enforce the requisitions of the Union? All methods short of coercion, have repeatedly been tried in vain.¹¹

Sometimes the speaker is able to employ analytic audience questions to indicate the solution of the problem as well as to emphasize the consequences. Daniel Webster's address to the jury in the White murder case is an example:

> If the fact is out, why not meet it? Do they mean to deny that Capt. White is dead? One should have almost supposed even that, from some remarks that have been made. Do they mean to deny the conspiracy? Or, admitting a conspiracy, do they mean to deny only, that Frank Knapp, the prisoner at the bar, was abetting in the murder, being present, and so deny that he was a principal? If a conspiracy is proved, it bears closely upon every subsequent subject of inquiry. Why don't they come to the fact? Here the defense is wholly indistinct. The counsel neither take the ground, nor abandon it. They neither fly, nor light. They hover.¹²

¹⁰ Carl Sandburg, *Abraham Lincoln: The War Years*. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1939.) Vol. II, p. 175. Copyright 1939 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

¹¹ John C. Hamilton, ed., *The Works of Alexander Hamilton*. (New York: Charles S. Francis & Co., 1851.) Vol. II, p. 366.

¹² Daniel Webster, *Speeches and Forensic Arguments*. (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1839.) Vol. I, p. 456.