ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT THIS COPY PRINTED ON October 30, 1989

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I would argue that if you observe what Gorbachev has done, the one conspicuous success of his administration is the accumulation of personal power. That is one thing that has not failed.

I will also grant that that is necessary if he is going to reform the society. But it is also a fact that every one of the Politburo members who voted him into office have since been purged, which in fact repeats the pattern of every previous successor. Indeed, I have often wondered. There is a form of spider where the female eats the male after the act of procreation. I've always wondered what induces the male to engage in so hazardous an enterprise.

[Laughter.]

DR. KISSINGER: The same is true of Politburo members in the Soviet Union. None of them have ever survived the election of the new General Secretary, but that is one of the puzzles I will leave to others.

All I am saying is that we should treat Gorbachev with some respect. It is a serious matter. He came up through a brutal system. He was not selected for his entertainment value vis-a-vis westerners. He has a mission to perform, and it is an important mission.

I give Gorbachev enormous credit for his ability to analyze what is wrong with his society. That took great

October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

NAL TRANSCRIPT THIS COPY PRINTED ON October 30, 1989 19

courage, and he has done that with ruthless skepticism. But
that does not mean he has accepted Western notions of peace,

**necessarily** It certainly means that for an interim period
at least he needs a period of quiet. He runs a system which has two
major weaknesses: Its political system isn't working, and
its economic system isn't working. Otherwise, they have no
major problems.

[Laughter.]

Its political system is not working because, why, its
political system *was* brought home to me when
I visited the Soviet Union in January. On a day, *on* which I
saw Gorbachev, a member of the *Nomenklatura* governing group
said to me, "do you realize that the man you have just seen
has asserted that every leader we have had since Lenin has
been either a criminal or a fool?" That is quite true, but
*the* question *is*, *how* do you run a society in which every leader has been
described as a criminal or a fool?

In the early stages of communism, the leaders can at least
claim that they were established *in office* as a fact of revolution. But
what do you do? 70 years later, when every leader has emerged
from processes that nobody understands. In fact, when the
average citizen does not know a process is going on until
there is an announcement that *a leader* has been purged *for*
whatever charges have been levelled *against* him?
is a traitor, a criminal, a crook, or whatever else the

per 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

What is the
basis for
legitimacy

ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT

20

charges are, and when this goes on for 60-plus years, one sure result is that, at this moment, when the Soviet Union needs a Churchill or a Roosevelt or a DeGaulle, somebody who can embody the society and tell its people that sacrifices are essential, the system cannot possibly produce it. It is organically impossible that the Soviet system can now produce a leader who can make demands on the population.

Since he cannot make demands on the population, the second problem of economic reform also becomes nearly insoluble. How do you run an economy that has no credit system and no market system; whose managers are politicians in a country that has no entrepreneurial tradition, and which is not even a country, it is an empire? So the task of perestroika that Gorbachev has set for himself is almost insoluble.

When one talks to the Soviet military, whatever you think of their views, you talk to people who carry themselves with the attitude of individuals whose words have consequence. When you talk to Soviet economists, you talk to nice professors from a middle level university who never expect that anything they say can possibly be implemented. When you discuss with Soviet leaders, when I was there in January, Yakovlev, the chief aide to Gorbachev, was explaining to me the dilemmas of their economics. He said,

tober 22, 1989

21

"we have several million pairs of shoes we cannot sell."

First of all, when the head of a super power talks to you about shoes he cannot sell, you cannot have reached the core of the problem.

(Laughter)

Then when you know the Soviet Union and the total absence of consumer goods, you ask yourself another question, what kind of shoes look like that you cannot sell, in the Soviet Union and it must be that they are all left shoes or much too big or much too small. They cannot be normal shoes. It is impossible

So it is an economy that has no criteria. I asked Yakovlev where he was going to get the managers to run the market economy. He said they were going to let the workers elect them. Well, anybody who knows anything about the Soviet Union knows it subsists on a social contract in which workers do not work and managers do not manage. How do you increase productivity without consumer goods and why would the workers vote for a manager who makes them work harder, even assuming they could recognize him if he were available. It is a non-answer, and you could, one could give endless examples of the simplest questions that you can put to Soviet economists.

I asked their chief economic theoretician, once, I said, October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

22

and I really was not argumentative, I said how is a factory
in Kiev going to sell its merchandise in Vladivostock. I
thought he would say advertisement. or God knows what I
thought he would say. He said, we have not solved that
problem yet." They want to go to a market economy but above
all, they cannot go to a market economy until they have implemented
Reform. But any
price accord. They do not have the foggiest notion today
what anything costs. It is reliably said that Soviet
planners read the semi-annual CIA report on the Soviet
economy to check up on their statistics; and I think this is
probably true.

They cannot know what anything costs because everything
is subsidized. But if they establish realistic prices, they
will face the dilemma of China. I believe that the crisis
in China had only marginally to do with democracy, but it
had a lot to do with the fact that the Chinese had the
courage of their economic conditions and established price
reform, which led to inflation and unemployment, so that the
students who were interested in democracy found a lot of
support among workers who suddenly found their jobs
threatened. The Soviet Union is not anywhere near having
dealt with this problem.

however
Gorbachev has created a complex political structure
which makes him to some extent independent of the Communist

party. It is probably his greatest achievement but how he
is going to go from there to the structural reform of the
Soviet Union I cannot imagine.

Now, this leads to this conclusion, that theSWISS they absolutely
need a period of peace. This does not mean necessarily that
they are peaceful. It just means for this interim period,
which may last, forever, they are not in an adventurous,
cannot be in an adventurous posture. But it also means that
one has to look at the patterns of nations--as I spoke before about the pattern of
American politics. There is also a pattern of Russian
politics. From the day of the Romanovs in the year 1613,
the one consistency of Russian foreign policy has been
expansion, stretching from the area around Moscow to
Vladivostock, to the center of Europe, to the gates of
India; and they did not get to any of these places by
plebescite. True, they were often invaded but that just
accelerated the problem, creating a sense of security
that could only be, of insecurity, that could only be
relieved by removing every center of power that Russian
power could reach: Sweden, Turkey, Poland, the Austro-
Hungarian empire, in China, Russia was well on the way to
annexing Manchuria, when they ran into Japan which had the
exact same, Manchuria and Korea, when it ran into Japan
which had exactly the same objectives. Otherwise, they would have

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started the dismemberment of China.

So there is, in Russian foreign policy, a pattern that
has, up to now, never been broken. I grant it resides in
part in Russian insecurity, partly because they have been
invaded, partly because Russia has never been a model for
anybody. Nobody has ever emigrated into Russia. Nobody has
ever taken the Russian states as a model, under czars or
commisars, a brief period under the commisars.

Knowing they were not lovable, they felt secure only
where they were physically present, and indeed, except
possibly for Bulgaria, they have never had an ally where
they were not physically present. So even if Communism
declines, there is still the Russian problem of security,
and it is a particular issue at a time when the Russian
empire is in the process of disintegration. It is in the
process of disintegration because I frankly cannot make up
my mind whether Gorbachev is a great leader or a masterful
propagandist who creates more problems for himself than he
solves. He has got a lot of faults in here but I have not
seen him pull one down yet, except enhancing his own power.

But leaving aside now what everyone may think of
Gorbachev, what is his problem? He needs to be centralized
in order to have economic efficiency, but if he
decentralizes, he runs into his own nationality problem. He
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

25

has recognized he has to ease repression but the Communist state without terror creates a curious situation. To the extent that the Communist party has to become popular, it must reflect popular attitudes, and popular attitudes happen to be hostile, even inside the Soviet Union, to domination from Moscow. and so you have the Communist Party of Latvia, and Estonia, and Lithuania, and Moldavia, and all of these states, passing laws that are hostile to termination from Moscow. The Lithuanian Parliament voted 74 to nothing a few weeks ago that the Hitler-Stalin Pact was null and void and their annexation to the Soviet Union illegal.

Now, this is happening with the Soviet Union. Outside the Soviet Union, the trend is even more pronounced. It creates a collapse of the monolithic nature of Communism. I do not believe it is possible to be a true Communist and a true democrat. It is not possible because a true Communist must believe that he represents the advanced force of history and that he cannot follow the will of the majority. But to the extent that he has to play a democrat, he has to stop his visible subordination to Moscow, for foreign policy vis-a-vis the satellite states becomes more traditional for Russia.

This creates a problem in Germany that is insoluble for Moscow. I can imagine that Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland,

glasnost.

I do believe that the Soviet Union is now poised between chaos and repression, and we may see both. Therefore, the task of American foreign policy is not to engage in the pretense that there is a great mutuality of interest, but to come forward with specific concepts by which the foreseeable dangers are reduced. In our interest but also in the Soviet interest because I do not believe they want a war but they may not know how to avoid one.

We are all obsessed with World War II. I do not think World War II will occur again in that form. But I am fascinated by World War I in which none of the leaders on July 1, 1914, had any intention of starting a general war, and where every one of the leaders on August 1, 1914, would have recalled if they had understood what was happening, and in which they would all have loved to quit in 1915 if they had known how to do it. That is the problem; and yet they kill 30 million people. For what? What exactly was the issue in August 1914 that justified this?

I can see us sliding into a Berlin crisis or some other crisis that we cannot foresee, yet or into a policy crisis in which the Soviets, not because they want a war, are driven into major steps. And if the United States wants to do something constructive, it does not do anybody any good to

28

appeal to the various peace movements with their ritualistic struck
phrases about arms control. and similar things. Arms control
can take care of itself. There is more arms control on the
Chinese-Soviet border today than there is in Europe. I am
not against it. It is irrelevant to what I am describing or
merely irrelevant to what I am describing and it should not
be a substitute.

So this is the fundamental express issue. I want to
say one word about China because China has become the
obsession of everybody. The belief is that China, I mean,
since we do not have a Communist to kick around any more in
Russia, we all now like to descend upon the Chinese. I must
say I have known them for 15 years. I do not like what was
done in or near Tiananmen Square, but I also believe it
resulted from more successful policies than anything we have
yet seen in the Soviet Union. It was the result of economic
achievements without the adequate political framework.

Since, in China, the central problem of authority is
always how to get it obeyed, I believe that in due course,
the reformers' tendencies are bound to reassert themselves.
When Nixon met Mao, his opening words were, "the Chairman's
teachings have transformed a billion people." Mao replied,
"no, I have transformed Beijing, and a few of the suburbs."

I thought this was preposterous at the time, but those

29

of you who deal with China will recognize that there is a
lot in it. We opened to China a nation of a billion
people with 3,000 years of unbroken history, and it is essential for the
construction of any equilibrium in Asia. You cannot have
tranquility in Southeast Asia or Korea without at least the
acquiescence of China. China is needed as a balance to the
Soviet Union and it is needed to maintain the respect of
Japan. Japan will never follow us on an anti-Chinese
course; and Japan, which is in any case already convinced
that in the economic field they have little to learn from
us, and that in the military field, our importance is slipping,
should not also learn that we have become irrelevant vis-a-vis
the greatest, the largest nation in Asia.

For all of these reasons that I am more cautious than
the vast consensus about our relations with China. What it
really comes down to is whether the United States can
develop a coherent, long range policy. Winston Churchill, in
his reflecting on the 1930's, described British policy as follows: "For 400
years, the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the
strongest, most aggressive, most dominating power on the
continent. Viewed in the light of history, these four
centuries of consistent purpose, amid so many changes of
names and facts and circumstances, rank as one of the most
remarkable episodes in the history of any nation. On all
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT THIS COPY PRINTED ON October 30, 1989 30

occasions, England took the more difficult course. It would
have been easy, and must have been very tempting to join
with the stronger and share the fruits of these countries.

← However, we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong power, made a combination among them and thus defeated and frustrated the continental military tyrant, whoever he was, whatever nation he led. The policy of England takes no account of which nation it is that seeks the overlordship of Europe. It has nothing to do with rulers or nations and therefore we should not be afraid of being accused in this decade of being pro-French or anti-German. If the circumstances were reverse, we would equally be pro-German and anti-French.

← It has nothing to do with whether the Spain or the French monarchy or the French empire or the German empire or the Hitler regime. It is a law of public policy which we are following and not an expedient dictated by circumstance or likes and dislikes or any other sentiments. It is in this manner that we have preserved the liberties of Europe."

I am not saying that pattern applies precisely to the United States, but some set of national purpose must be developed in this country. Every time a new administration comes in, they start reassessing American foreign policy. It is a scary experience for foreigners who have staked

31

their reputations on us. Every time a new administration comes in, there is a wholesale displacement of all top personnel, and a compulsive reluctance to accept anything that has gone before.

I think we have a great opportunity. It is not an opportunity in the American sense of saying that there be permanent peace and a total absence of tension. But it is an opportunity to bring back Soviet power to historic limits, to restore a historic Europe, to reduce the American involvement and at the same time to create an international structure in which tensions are reduced to more regional and local levels. That is not a minor achievement for any generation.

I have a Chinese friend who claims that there exists a Chinese proverb as he claims because I do not believe there are as many Chinese proverbs as they tell us (LAUGHTER) but allegedly it goes like this: When there is turmoil under the heavens, little problems are dealt with as if they were big problems, and big problems are not dealt with at all. When there is order under the heavens, big problems are reduced to little problems and little problems need not obsess us. My argument is that the opportunity of this period, which is considerable, is to reduce big problems to smaller problems and that is not a mean task for any

32

generation.

Now, I have talked longer than I was hired for.

But I will be glad to answer a few questions. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Shall we say 15 minutes of questions?

MR. BELL: May I ask, since Deng Xiaoping is a true Communist, has had to resort to low power base to maintain himself, what then would you assume that either he or his successors are able to create a model political structure to manage transition which they have been unable to do in order to match the economy.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I think it is a great tragedy that he made two attempts at succession, and I think his commitment to remaining a Communist did him in. I think the big mistake he made was when Hu Yaobang moved to Chao Ziyang from the Prime Ministership into the General Secretaryship of the party, because if you do implement serious economic reform, the party must become less important and also must be resistant. So he moved the biggest reformer into the instrument that was least suited for reform and put the instrument more suited for reform, namely the government, in the hands of somebody who did not particularly believe in reform, at least not to the extent of October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT

33

Chao Liyang and this lead to such tension between those two men that when the challenge came, their internal struggle was one of the reasons why it got totally out of hand.

Now, you are quite right. He had to bring back the older guard that he had purged. I think a lot depends on when he leaves office. I think that the problem, if he were to die, would have died this year, I would foresee another chaotic circumstance. If he can hang in for two or three years, then I could imagine that some of the Chao elements will come back. I think they are going to get rid of Li Pung within the next year or so because he has become, in a way unjustly because he is not that important, an embarrassment, but he certainly is no great loss.

I think that the change will occur on the basis that the provinces, that the various regions, will do what is necessary to have economic reform and that this will gradually lead to political changes in Beijing. It will not be a very smooth process, and it will not be left by Deng. Sadly, Deng's primary, and it is a sadness, primary, remaining function is to keep things relatively stable in the period when there is no clear alternative available.

MR. VYNER: In your tour of Europe, you made mention of another potential problem, and that is away from Europe in the shape of Africa. Specifically South Africa, and you
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

34

mentioned American attitude toward South Africa.

DR. KISSINGER: Because I do not know an answer to the problem. I think, well, first of all there is a separate problems: What would I, as a professor, like to see in South Africa, and secondly, what should the United States invest in bringing it about. I mean, it has got some similarities in this respect to China. Now on a moral level, apartheid is unacceptable and I said this in a speech in South Africa in 1982 when it was not yet fashionable to say this and when constructive engagement was the existing policy. I warned, this was to a group of South African leaders, I did distribute that speech because I did not want to take a free ride on my house. In this country, I distributed it then.

I warned my audience, which was a group of South African leaders, that if America had to choose between strategic considerations and moral considerations, it would surely choose its moral views on this subject. There are two separate problems. One is, what we would call in America segregation. [I think that is on the way of being solved or at any rate, one knows how it could be solved.] The second is political power sharing and in political power sharing the present system is clearly unjust. On the other hand, I think a unitary parliamentary system is equally

35

unjust.

So the question is whether it is possible to imagine a solution. I mean, after all, you have eight African tribes, two white communities, and what you would like is a system in which no community can dominate the others except by combining with several other communities. Now, is it possible to construct a federal or con-federal system in which everybody has a vote but there are various federal or other structures not yet imagined in which there is some system of checks and balances? I do not know but I think that is what one should attempt to bring about to the extent that one involves oneself in South Africa.

MR. HIRSCH: What would you like to see happen in Israel and the Middle East as a solution to their problems? How likely would that be?

DR. KISSINGER: I do not think there is a solution to that problem. I think it is possible to make intermediate arrangements. One always draws from one's own experience, but I was involved in the negotiation on the Golan Heights in which an agreement was made which most people do not even know exists, and which has lasted for 15 years, and in which neither side can put its weapons within range, according to the terms of the agreement, of the front line of the other which forces the Egyptian artillery to be behind Damascus.

36

There is a U.N. force on the Golan Heights which is on the Syrian side of the dividing line, and which therefore has to be renewed every six months at Syrian request. That agreement has been meticulously observed by both sides, and in addition there has not been any terrorist act on the Golan Heights in 15 years and no Syrian and no Israeli has been killed there.

Now, there is no permanent peace between Israel and Syria and I do not foresee it. But if one could make an arrangement like this on the West Bank, I think they would last for 15 years, during which time many other things will happen in the Arab world and in the world in general that would permit a fresh look. I think the conventional wisdom now is that one should create a Palestinian state.

The conventional wisdom also is that Israel should have secure and recognized borders. I do not see how those two objectives can be combined. The whole territory between Jordan and the Mediterranean is 50 miles. How can you squeeze two nations into that territory and still speak of secure borders? On the other hand, I also do not believe that the Israeli occupation in its present form can be continued so I tend to support what is now being talked about— some sort of election to produce an autonomous, self-governing, Arab unit, and then see how that evolves over a
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

period of a few years.

But in order to do this, we have to get away from the
procedural issues and face the substantive issues, including
what the borders of this unit are going to be, and that is
inhibited right now because the Israeli political parties
are totally divided. The Likud party does not want to admit
that they can give up any territory. The Labor party does
not want to admit that they would ask for any territory even
though they surely will do so if it ever gets to the point.
Nobody has to face the issue of Jerusalem until this. I
think the prerequisite for making any progress is a
substantive dialogue between Israel and the United States on
what the substance of an agreement might be, like, a dialogue
now being avoided by both sides because neither wants to
admit what they are really up to.

MS. LANGWORTH: I think you said that a political or
economical self-interest is very much at the heart of either
policy or business. Do you ever envisage a situation where
maybe that will change?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe what Eric quoted from my
speech at the Food Conference. I believe that whether you
call it enlightened self-interest or altruism, I think many
problems in the world today are global in nature and that a
purely national approach to many of these problems is no
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

longer possible and that this in time can create a, may
create a universal consciousness. So I think there are many
issues that should be dealt with on a global basis, but I
think the issues that I have discussed require a perception
on the basis of enlightened self-interest. But the word term
enlightened self-interest also means that you also have to
take into account the perception of the other side, that it
is easy in domestic debates to pretend that you can make
agreements that are entirely for your own benefit but
No agreement that is unilaterally beneficial will ever last.
and so any thoughtful approach must take into account what
is fair to the other side. Nobody calls it altruism or
enlightened self-interest. I would not want to debate.

I think in the present situation, for example, of what I
said about the Soviet Union, I would like to remove Soviet
military power from central Europe but I would also do my
utmost to reassure them that as far as American foreign
policy is concerned, we would not threaten the Russian
state within its 1941 borders. If they cannot hold it
together, that is their problem, but we should do nothing to
undermine it within its 1941 borders, which, when I finally
say this publicly, as Irving will confirm, the conservatives
will be all over me. They would rather stay in the center of
Europe, have the Russians stay in the center of Europe, than
October 22, 1989 Presentation by Dr. Henry Kissinger

make this seeming concession.

I am not saying we should force Moldavia and other states forth, to stay in the Russian empire, I am just saying I would treat that as a Russian domestic issue; that if they cannot hold them, then the state cannot be maintained. But is it possible for us to develop such a policy? It will be not easy. It is not easy either to develop a concept of how to assure Russian security once they withdraw from the center of Europe, and it is even harder to articulate what I have said even though it is the operational policy of every American administration, including the most conservative ones.

MR. SEVAREID: On behalf of all of us, I would like to thank Dr. Kissinger for what for me anyway was a very penetrating and enormously informative speech.