MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

ADMINISTRATIVELY CONFIDENTIAL

MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION

PARTICIPENTS:
Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Group of Conservative Administration
Supporters [See list attached]
Coleman Hicks (Notetaker)

PLACE:
Perino's Restaurant
Los Angeles, California

DATE AND TIME:
January 5, 1972
12:30 P. M.

[Dr. Kissinger was introduced by the host, Mr. Henry Salvatori. Mr. Salvatori noted that Dr. Kissinger would speak on a background basis. He indicated a desire for Dr. Kissinger to address the new American relations with China, especially as those developing relations might relate to the situation in Vietnam and to relations with Russia. He indicated that if time permitted, it would be desirable for Dr. Kissinger to make remarks about the shift in the military balance between the United States and Russia, in particular focusing on how that shift might affect the situation in the Middle East, Cuba, and elsewhere. Mr. Salvatori confirmed the off-the-record status of Dr. Kissinger's remarks.]

Dr. Kissinger: Mr. Salvatori, Ladies, Gentlemen. I could never have met with a group like this at the Harvard Faculty Club. As a matter of fact, if the members of the Harvard Faculty Club knew I was meeting with you today my future at Harvard would be even more assured than it is. (Laughter)

I do look forward, though, to telling you a little bit about the current foreign affairs situation, as I see it. I recognize, and I know from personal experience, that there is nothing more boring than a government official who comes in to tell you he has considered all possible alternatives, and has chosen the best possible course of action -- who concludes that only an ignorant person could question what had been done. Let me first address foreign affairs generally and then take questions from you to direct my remarks to the areas that you are interested in.

ADMINISTRATIVELY CONFIDENTIAL

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Before turning to specific subjects in foreign affairs, though, let me first emphasize the nature of the situation, both domestically and informationally, which this Administration faced when it first came into office. First of all, we were confronted with a bureaucracy which had developed without a Republican input for some 35 years. There were eight years of Republican Administration under Eisenhower, but the Eisenhower Administration did not treat the bureaucracy as something requiring Republican inputs. The bureaucracy in the 1950s did not see Eisenhower as a Republican, but today it sees our current President as a Republican -- a particularly undesirable Republican.

I have advised at the White House under four separate Presidents and I can tell you that there has been a considerable difference in the apparent capacities of the bureaucracy to produce materials for different Presidents. The volume of memoranda that were available on immediate call for President Kennedy was something to believe. We have nowhere near that capacity to get a response from the bureaucracy now.

Some of you may be aware that the *New York Times* and the *Washington Post* are back again pursuing their specialties -- publishing stolen documents. I'd like to return and make some comments on that later. But, let me say now that it is impossible to understand the situation that we confronted in the India/Pakistan problems of recent weeks without understanding the context in which we dealt a context involving a bureaucracy totally committed to the Indian position.

If you had sat where the President sat and saw India being armed with Soviet weapons, with a Soviet veto in the United Nations, and with a Soviet threat to prevent counteraction by India's neighbor, you, too, might have agreed that it was desirable to tilt our policy in favor of Pakistan. This was in the cause of world peace. We had to say it not once, not twice, but fifty times to get the bureaucracy to respond to our policy.

What I am doing is indicating an example of the serious difficulties we had with a bureaucracy (and also with the mass media) set in the direction other than that desired by the President.

ADMINISTRATIVELY CONFIDENTIAL