Q Was there a discussion of Prince Sihanouk and peace in Cambodia?

DR. KISSINGER: I do not want to go into any of the details, but the Indochina situation was discussed.

Q How do you assess the possibility of some kind of mutual arrangements with the Chinese to cut off the flow of arms into Indochina?

DR. KISSINGER: The problem isn't whether any formal arrangements can be made or should be made. The problem is whether the major countries now recognize that the agreement in Vietnam gives everybody an opportunity to return that area for the first time in a generation to a period of tranquility and to permit the peoples of Indochina an opportunity to work out their own fate without force and without outside pressure. And, if this is understood by all the major countries, then they can draw their own conclusions and act on the basis of their own considerations, rather than to attempt to codify this in a formal agreement.

Q To follow that up, do you think that the Chinese do, then, understand this as we do?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate on the Chinese intentions, but I have the impression that the participants in this conference next week all have to recognize an obligation to make whatever contribution they can to peace in Indochina.

Q Could you give us an idea of the amounts of the private claims and the blocked assets?

DR. KISSINGER: The private claims are in the neighborhood of $250 million. The blocked assets are in the neighborhood of $78 million. But this may vary slightly because we are not sure we know either all the claims or all the blocked assets. But it is roughly correct.

Q In your conversations in Peking, did you exchange views on other parts of the world?

DR. KISSINGER: There was a general review of the world situation.

Q Dr. Kissinger, could we go on to the Hanoi matter?

DR. KISSINGER: I will take two more questions on China and we will go on to Hanoi.

Q Did the Chinese, at the working level, indicate any specific interest in either what they wanted to buy from the United States or what they thought they could sell to the United States?

DR. KISSINGER: I would be the most unlikely subject for such a conversation, because I couldn't respond in any intelligible way. But we will set up procedures for them to express such an interest to more qualified personnel.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, why was the communique release delayed this long if it was worked out when you were in Peking? Why was it delayed until now?

DR. KISSINGER: To enable me to get back to the United States, to give us an opportunity to inform some other countries, and to proceed in an orderly, diplomatic manner.

Q Can we clear up whether the people in the liaison office will have diplomatic privileges or not?

DR. KISSINGER: The people in the liaison office will have diplomatic privileges and will have opportunity to communicate with their own governments by code.

Q Will the Chinese be allowed freedom of movement in the United States?

DR. KISSINGER: All of this will be worked out.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on the Hanoi communique, were any specific aid figures discussed with the North Vietnamese?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make a general comment about the visit to North Vietnam.

A great deal of the comment that I have seen since my return, and also while I was traveling, concerned the Economic Commission and the economic aid that is under discussion. Now, let me try to put this into perspective. Ron has already covered the details of the communique in his briefing. I can add very little to that.

The basic purpose of my visit to Hanoi was not to work out an economic aid program. The basic purpose of my visit to Hanoi was to establish contact with the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in order to see whether it would be possible to establish with it in Indochina something like the relationship that we have managed to establish with the People's Republic of China in Asia in general.

You have to consider that the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam have spent almost all of their lives either in prison or conducting guerrilla wars or conducting international wars. At no time in their lives have they had an opportunity to participate in a normal, diplomatic relationship with other countries, or to concentrate on the peaceful evolution of their country and of their region.

Now, for whatever reason, they have indicated some interest in at least exploring the possibility of a more constructive relationship and of a more peaceful evolution. The greater part of my time in Hanoi was spent on discussing the implementation of the agreement, what forms normalization of relations might take.

You should look at the economic aid program not in terms of a handout, and not in terms of a program even of reconstruction alone, but as an attempt to enable the leaders of North Vietnam to work together with other countries, and particularly with Western countries, in a more constructive relationship, and to provide in this manner an incentive toward a more peaceful evolution.

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The Economic Commission will be the first opportunity that the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam have had to discuss something other than armistices or military arrangements with responsible Americans and therefore, the visit was part of an attempt to move from hostility toward normalization and we are asking for support for the idea of such a program, not on economic grounds and not even on humanitarian grounds primarily, but on the ground of attempting to build peace in Indochina and therefore to contribute to peace in the world.

Now, that means that the precise figures were not the principal issue at this particular moment.

Are there any other questions?

Q Doctor, in relation with Japan, two points: One point is what do you understand about Japan in context with America or China or Southeast Asia? This is one point.

The second point is what was the main subject of your discussion with the Japanese leaders?

DR. KISSINGER: Now, first of all, we have always believed that the friendship with Japan is an intregal part of our foreign policy. We are convinced that we can normalize our relations with the People's Republic of China without in any way impairing the close relationship that exists between the United States and Japan, and I might add, that we were under no pressure whatever from the People's Republic of China to loosen our friendly ties with Japan.

Secondly, with respect to Japan's role in Southeast Asia, I read with interest and occasionally astonishment, the speculations in the Japanese press about the complicated motivation that may agitate us.

As far as the United States is concerned, we welcome a responsible role by Japan in Southeast Asia. We have no objection whatever to any Japanese assistance program to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam or to any other country of Indochina. Indeed, we believe that this would be a natural exercise of Japan's sense of responsibility for stability in Asia.

In no way do we consider ourselves competitors with Japan for the privilege of extending economic aid to any country of Southeast Asia.

What did I discuss with the leaders of Japan? Three days after leaving Tokyo there can be almost nothing left to reveal that is not already in the Japanese press. (Laughter). I will only say that we briefed our Japanese allies in some detail about the discussions that I had had in the various capitals, and we had very useful and very fruitful talks.

Q Do the Japanese have a more open press policy than the United States?

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DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to make any comparison, but they have a very open press policy. (Laughter)

Q Why wasn't Japan invited to participate in the International Guaranteeing Conference?

DR. KISSINGER: Participants in the International Guaranteeing Conference were selected by agreement among the parties that negotiated the agreement. We had no objection to the participation of Japan, but we could not achieve unanimity about its membership in the Conference.

Q Dr. Kissinger, I wonder if you could comment on the Middle East situation, particularly after the incident in Sinai and prior to the visit here of Ismail.

DR. KISSINGER: I have been concentrating so, in the last few weeks, on Asian affairs, that I want to confine this briefing to my trip.

Q What is the nature of the commitment to North Vietnam to provide some kind of reconstruction aid? Is there a very firm commitment? Are they aware they may get nothing?

DR. KISSINGER: They are aware of our constitutional processes, although they have little experience with our legislative machinery. But Economic Commission will study the problem, we will then make recommendations, and it is obvious that the fate of whatever recommendations we made depends on a decision by Congress, and we have made every effort to explain the nature of our constitutional system.

Q On that same point, was the aid commitment a condition of the cease-fire agreement? There has been a debate developing here on this point.

DR. KISSINGER: No, it was always understood that the United States would not pay anything in the nature of reparations. It was always understood that except for expressing a general willingness to participate, the nature of our participation would be determined after the signature of the agreement.

Q A two-part question. You have not mentioned your discussions in Hanoi concerning journalistic, cultural, scientific or additional exchanges. Will the Economic Commission have in any way a preliminary role comparable to the liaison office in Peking, and secondly, could you tell us anything about your discussions in Hanoi concerning Laos and Cambodia and the prospect you see for the general completion of a peace agreement?

DR. KISSINGER: First, with respect to whether the Economic Commission will be a general clearing house similar to the liaison office that was established with the People's Republic of China. Primarily the Economic Commission will be concerned with the issues that have been assigned to it; that is to say, to study the economic relationship including the reconstruction problem, but not confined to the reconstruction problem, and perhaps the exchange of technical experts relevant to that problem.

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Second, we have established or further elaborated already existing means of contact between the Democratic Republic and the United States and those will be used for these other issues similar to the way the Paris channel was used between the People's Republic of China and the United States in the period prior to the establishment of the liaison office. So one would have to say that the process of normalization vis-a-vis Hanoi is at about the stage it was vis-a-vis Peking a year ago.

Now, with respect to Laos and Cambodia. The United States has always taken the position that Article 20 (b) of the agreement provides for the withdrawal of foreign troops from both Laos and Cambodia, and indeed, no other interpretation of the article is possible. We, therefore, have strongly favored -- and we had extensive discussions on this trip -- a final agreement in Laos and a settlement in Cambodia.

There now has been an agreement in Laos which was negotiated not by us, but by the Prime Minister of the Royal Laotian Government, Souvanna Phouma. This agreement essentially contains the practical provisions of the 1962 agreement with respect to political power and reflects the best judgment of the Royal Laotian Government about a free political evolution in their country. It provides for a cease-fire and for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces. This leaves only Cambodia still lacking a formal arrangement.

As I pointed out before, the situation in Cambodia is complicated by the fact that there are three or four different groups rather than one homogenous opposition group to the government that we recognize in Phnom Penh.

We had extensive discussions at all our stops about the problem and we will work on a settlement in Cambodia with energy. We maintain that all foreign troops must be withdrawn from Cambodia.

Q How big a factor is the possibility of aid to Hanoi in persuading them not to break the cease-fire agreement?

DR. KISSINGER: I would prefer not to put it on this basis. The big issue is not whether they will break the cease-fire agreement, because that obviously involves many consequences. The big problem is whether Indochina can be moved from a condition of guerrilla war or even open warfare to a condition in which the energies of the peoples of that region are concentrated on constructive purposes.

If that objective can be achieved, if that process can start for a period of three to four years, then any decision to resume the conflict by any of the parties will have to be taken in an environment of peace and against the experience of the population in tasks with which they have become almost totally unfamiliar.

So this is not a kind of ransom which we are paying for a specific undertaking to maintain the peace, because there are other reasons why the Democratic Republic of Vietnam should want to maintain the peace. It is rather a long-term

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INTERVIEW OF DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER
BY
BARBARA WALTERS, NBC NEWS

February 23, 1973

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, I would like to ask you the questions in this interview which apparently are of most concern to the American people.

After ten years of our fighting a nation we have considered our enemy, we are now asked to give our taxpayers' money to aiding that former enemy at a time when there is much that this money could be spent on at home. Why? Why is it so necessary to world peace, as you have said, for us to do this?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, we shouldn't look at it as aiding our enemy. We should look at it from the point of view of aiding ourselves. One has to look at the whole history of North Veitnam. The leaders of North Vietnam havespent most of their lives either in prison or fighting a guerrilla war or fighting an international war. Never in their lives have they known quiet, never have they dedicated themselves to primarily constructive tasks.

Now the overwhelming concern we have is to turn them towards constructive efforts in Indochina and to begin a relationship with them for the peace of Indochina similar to the relationship we established with China for the peace of Asia in general.

Now it is a difficult psychological problem for them. Not only have they spent most of their lives either in conspiracy or in war, but they really haven't had a normal relationship with any country, and we think that if we can work together with them on some constructive tasks, that this might be a very major contribution to the peace of Indochina and in a way cap what has been achieved now in making a formal settlement. This is the rationale, not an abstract desire to aid any particular country.

MISS WALTERS: Well, of course it is a difficult psychological problem for us as well. It has been reported

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that Congress is at this point two to one against appropriating
aid for North Vietnam.

Would you, yourself, consider perhaps testifying
before Congress so that this situation is more clearly
understood?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the position of my testifying
has two parts. One, do I talk to Congressmen and Senators,
secondly, do I testify under oath with records being kept?

With respect to the second point, that is do I
testify before Congress formally, that is governed by the
principle of Executive Privilege, that is to say, that
Presidential Assistants should not be subpoenaed by Congress
and should not be forced ---

MISS WALTERS: But you could if you wanted to.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I couldn't. This depends on
the relationship between the President and the Congress and
in no Administration has a Presidential Assistant testified
before Congress in formal sessions.

On the other hand, I maintain the closest relation-
ship with the appropriate Congressional committees. I
meet the key Senators personally, regularly, I have worked
out an arrangement with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and less frequently, the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
in which I appear in sessions that are called "social" and
they are called "social" only because they are not in formal
committee rooms, but in the office of some Senator at
which notes are taken.

Every Senator has an opportunity or every
Congressman has an opportunity to ask questions. The record
is kept. It isn't an official record. But we go as close
to the line of Executive Privilege as we can.

But I have not in the past testified in formal
session. After the Vietnam settlement was negotiated,
I testified, or I appeared before the entire Senate and
the entire House answering questions from everybody. So
I will play an active role in explaining our reasons for
recommending a program. I will not do it at a formal session,

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but that is primarily to protect the position of future
Presidents and future Presidential Assistants. It is in
no way an attempt to keep things from Congress.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, during the war you continuously faced criticism, some from the liberal members of your own academic circle who thought that the humanitarian aspects of the war were not being considered.

In this light were you surprised at the sudden
opposition to North Vietnamese aid? For example, the other
day Senator George McGovern expressed opposition to the aid,
whereas during the Presidential campaign he was for it. How
do you feel about these people?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to comment on any
particular individual. With respect to the academic community,
I have had close personal feelings towards them. I spent
my formative years with them, and it was extremely painful
to me, at times, that they feel constrained to engage in pretty
vocal and sometimes violent opposition to what we were doing.

I would not have judged from some of the comments
that were made during the war which emphasized that America
should be known for building rather than bombing, that when
we wanted to build that we would have found opposition from
those quarters.

But I think it is understandable. The war in
Vietnam has been such a traumatic experience for so many
people that they find it hard to go along with anything that
their government proposes.

But I think that passions are cooling, we are not
going to make a formal proposal until the Economic Commission
that we are setting up in the next few weeks has studied it.
By that time, I am confident that the humane concerned
people will understand that this is in our interest as well
as in the interest of Vietnam and that we will have a much
more calm debate than would be possible today.

MISS WALTERS: I want to go back once more to the
feeling of the American people, because a good many of the
Senators say that their reaction is based on the mail which

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they are receiving from their constituents. And the basic question seems to be, we need so much here in health, in education. Isn't this more important than building up a nation, or to put it another way, is our aiding North Vietnam absolutely essential to world peace?

DR. KISSINGER: As I said before, Barbara, we are not aiding North Vietnam in the abstract, nor are we doing it in order to aid North Vietnam. Ever since the end of World War II, whenever we have had a big decision to make, the debate has always taken the form of, "Are you active abroad?" Or, "Are you active at home?"

How can you do anything abroad until you are perfect at home?

Well, we will never be perfect at home and we will always have tasks abroad. We don't have the choice between doing things at home, doing things abroad. If we can't do both, we won't be able to do either.

In the present circumstance, when you have a peace that has many precarious aspects, after ten years of war, of a war that annually cost ten times as much as one could conceive spending, not to consider what may be psychologically, politically, and humanely necessary, is simply a wrong allocation of priorities.

MISS WALTERS: But we don't seem to be able to do both.

DR. KISSINGER: The sums that are in question will not make a decisive difference, and I don't want to get into the debate between domestic priorities and foreign priorities. We will present our case. We will present where we think the money should come from and then the Congress will have to make the decision. It is our judgment that some program is necessary.

MISS WALTERS: In all the talk about rebuilding North Vietnam, there has been little discussion of rebuilding the South. What are the plans there?

DR. KISSINGER: I think that we have an on-going program in South Vietnam and therefore there has been less need to justify continuing what we have been doing and we

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would expect to continue our economic assistance to South
Vietnam.

In South Vietnam the situation is somewhat different
in the sense that the economy is already beginning to take
hold and that one can visualize, over a period of years,
a declining rate of American participation. But in the
next few years we have to maintain our economic assistance
to South Vietnam at roughly the level that we have been
doing in recent years. And we will talk to other nations about
aid to Indochina in general.

MISS WALTERS: When you were in Hanoi can you tell us what progress you made in obtaining an accounting of the 1300 or so men missing in action?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, let me say, first of all, that the purpose of my visit to Hanoi was to have for the first time really ever since the existence of North Vietnam, a reasonable dialogue with the leaders of North Vietnam. Given their past, they are a highly suspicious people and we covered the whole range of possible U.S.-North Vietnamese relationships, including, of course, the prisoner issue.

We brought along with us our analysis of the missing
in action, particularly where we had some evidence that a
flyer had parachuted, for example, or where we had collateral
evidence that a person might have been taken prisoner. We
presented it to them in great detail. As a matter of fact,
the economic assistance part, which received so much
attention in our newspapers here, wasn't even discussed
until the third day of my stay in Hanoi.

Much of the first day was devoted to the question
of prisoners and to missing in action. The North Vietnamese
argument is that their country does not have our means of
communication, that many of these reports were concerned
with parts of their country where they would have to make
a complex investigation. They promised us a full investigation.

We will, of course, also interview all of the
prisoners who are released about any information that
they have, and we will make a major effort.

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I must say that I cannot really believe that the North Vietnamese would hide prisoners on us. I have seen nothing that they would gain from keeping prisoners that they could not acknowledge in jails in North Vietnam. But we won't rest on this theoretical supposition. We will make a full investigation and we will insist on an accounting.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, another question I think the people are asking themselves and perhaps you can answer it now that you have visited Hanoi and appraised the North Vietnamese leaders yourself.

Do you think Hanoi will ever relinquish its desire to take over South Vietnam and create, as they have always said they wanted, one Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: North Vietnam will never relinquish its desire to take over South Vietnam. This generation of leaders is a group of revolutionaries. They have spent their whole life making revolution. They are not in their 60's going to give up what they have believed in all their lives. But that isn't the issue.

The issue is will they want to unify Vietnam by force or are they willing to rely on an evolutionary process. We are not opposed to the unification of Vietnam in principle; if Vietnam is unified by peaceful means, if the performance of one part or the other is so clearly superior to that of the other that it tends to achieve a moral superiority over the other, that is not an American concern.

Therefore, if the North Vietnamese are willing to compete peacefully, if they are willing to develop their country, if they are willing to rely on a political process, then we don't object to their objective. And that is exactly what we are trying to bring about, to get a commitment from them, not on paper, but in terms of their action, to a peaceful evolution in Indochina, and that is precariously poised right now.

MISS WALTERS: Yes, because there is fighting of course still going on. You posed this question just now yourself and I wonder if you thought you had the answer, but

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at this point you don't?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I do not have the answer now and I don't think they have the answer. I do not think they have fully made up their mind. I think for the first time in their history and in their lives, they are considering a peaceful evolution and they are feeling their way towards the sort of relationship they have really never had with any country, of equality, mutual benefit, consultation. Can they bring themselves to do it? Can we manage to establish the right forum? That is what we are now working on.

MISS WALTERS: Well, this continuous fighting, do you think this is part of their testing, and will it perhaps lead then to a request from President Thieu for us to again become involved?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, at this point, the South Vietnamese seem very capable of taking care of themselves and what has happened up to now is a demonstration that Vietnamization has substantially succeeded. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong right after the cease-fire, or around the time of the cease-fire, seized about 300 hamlets. They have now lost all of them again, and the fighting in South Vietnam, while it still occurs, really if the war were still going on these actions would all be reported as very minor actions.

But of course under cease-fire conditions, every action has its own significance.

MISS WALTERS: Did you expect it? Did you expect there would be continued fighting?

DR. KISSINGER: I expected that there would be continued fighting for a few weeks. It has gone on a little longer than I thought, but --

MISS WALTERS: Are you worried?

DR. KISSINGER: No, because after all how are the two sides going to establish their areas of control except by testing each other?

MISS WALTERS: But you don't think it is going to mean a further involvement on our part or any request?

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DR. KISSINGER: No.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, as a political historian and analyst, what lessons do you think we have learned from the Vietnam experience? You hear people say, I am sure, was it worth it? Was it a useless war? Now you and President Nixon did not start this war, so perhaps objectively you can answer this question.

DR. KISSINGER: The United States slid into an ever escalating involvement without probably having ever thought through all the implications. Our problem, the problem with this Administration, was what the impact on American society would be if the war were ended in various ways, and we thought that we would be judged not by the relief that people might feel the day after the end of the war, but how it would look in some perspective, and this is why the President was so very much concerned with ending it on terms that we considered honorable.

Now, what is the lesson? The great danger is that so often in our history that we are oscillating from excessive optimism from the belief in the early 1960's that the United States could do everything, everywhere, at every moment of time and assume full responsibility, to an attitude that we withdraw from the world altogether.

If we do that, we are going to bring about very serious consequences, because as a major factor in the world, as a very powerful country, our inaction has consequences just as our action does.

What we are attempting to do now is to adjust American responsibility to American capability and also to a correct judgment of our interests. And the whole effort is to build enough of a consensus in this country and enough of a support for a long-range foreign policy and not to draw excessive lessons in the opposite direction from that which got us in.

MISS WALTERS: Let me ask you something specifically. Have we learned that we simply can't win a guerrilla war, even against a very small nation? Is that a lesson?

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DR. KISSINGER: You know, what got us involved to
being with was the theory that there was one species of war
called "guerrilla war," which applied to Indochina, Bolivia,
and any other country. Vietnam is a very special case for
many reasons, in terms of its historic experience, in terms of
its geography. Therefore, I wouldn't make the general
statement that a guerrilla war cannot be won.

One can make the general statement that for a foreign
country to get itself involved in a guerrilla war is a very
significant decision, because the guerrilla is at home, the
guerrilla lives with his own population. The foreigner can
never compete with him on that level. And therefore, it is
our view that as a general proposition domestic security
and guerrilla warfare ought to be the task of the government
concerned, and that government should be strong enough to
handle attacks below the level of conventional attack. That,
I would say, is the general lesson we have learned.

MISS WALTERS: As part of the whole question of
is it useless, did we accomplish anything, here is another
question that I know you have been asked and that is, it is
wonderful that we are out of it, all right. But couldn't we
have done it three years ago? Critics have said that.

DR. KISSINGER: We could always have gotten out by
just quitting. We could not have gotten out on the terms
on which we finally settled. What were our minimum terms?

We had always said we would not end the war by
aligning ourselves with our enemy to defeat our friends. We
would not end the war by imposing a Communist Government
on the population of South Vietnam or to put it another way,
the political future of South Vietnam and of the other
countries of Indochina should be settled by the people of
those countries.

We were always willing to make a military solution
in the sense of a cease-fire and a disengagement. We offered
a cease-fire as early as 1970. We offered a disengagement
as early as May 31, 1971. It was not until October 8, 1972
that Hanoi accepted the idea that political and military
issues could be separated, that is to say, that the future
of South Vietnam should be left to the South Vietnamese people.

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As soon as they made that offer, we, working 16 hours a day, negotiated a preliminary draft of the agreement in four days. So, it wasn't that we were unwilling to make the agreement, and it wasn't until October 8, 1972 that we received the proposition that we could seriously negotiate.

MISS WALTERS: If we may go back in history just a bit, there are still some questions which nag at the American people which you can provide the answers to. For example, at the time the decision was made in December to bomb the Hanoi-Haiphong area, did you personally advocate the bombing? I ask this, knowing that your job involves not only giving the President a choice of actions, but also recommending a choice if asked.

So, did you personally support the bombing or did you attempt to persuade the President not to take the step?

DR. KISSINGER: I have one absolute rule which is that I never discuss publicly what I recommend to the President. That does not mean that I disagree with a decision. It means that it is inappropriate for me to provide a checklist and to create the impression that it is part of my job to second guess the President.

I do make recommendations to him. But I do not publicly state what my position is towards a particular issue. But you can assume that if I could not support a major policy that I would resign.

MISS WALTERS: Well, I will ask another question and we will see if that is something that can be answered.

There was talk around Washington late last year that your relationship with the President had become strained, perhaps in part because of foreign policy disagreement over Vietnam. There was also speculation based on some evidence that the President raised the requirements for peace that you had reached agreement on in Paris. I am sure you are familiar with this speculation.

Is it something that you can comment on?

DR. KISSINGER: Some of what I said before applies here, too. But I am freer to talk about this.

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I was never conscious during that period of a strained relationship with the President. You have to remember that this town is obsessed with power, and that it lives on reading major significance into little acts.

MISS WALTERS: Does he look at you or does he not, does the President talk to you?

DR. KISSINGER: Did he talk to me on the telephone rather than see me personally? If one knew all the phone calls between the President and me and all the conversations one would have attached no significance at all to what was a newspaper speculation once that he was in town for a day and talked to me on the phone three or four times, but didn't see me. It was an accident that Ron Ziegler put out the fact that the conversation had taken place by telephone that anyone even attached any significance to it.

Now, it is inevitable that there are always people on every White House staff, and I have seen two or three in action, and in the bureaucracy, who put out to newspaper men their interpretation of what they think is happening.

MISS WALTERS: Would you like to name these people here at the White House?

DR. KISSINGER: I am not saying it was in the White House. Sometimes it is wishful thinking, but there was no strain in my relationship with the President.

Now, let me turn to a second matter. Did the President raise the terms of the agreement and therefore undo what allegedly had been achieved?

For this you have to understand how the President and I work. the President, before I go out on a diplomatic mission, doesn't write down 20 specific points that I am supposed to achieve and therefore the phrase that I didn't live within the instructions is really quite meaningless.

What the President does is write down for himself on a yellow sheet, four or five or six major issues and the pros and cons of each issue. Then he will call me in, go over them, at some times excruciating length, but he will go over them and over them, and if I have any ideas I will present them to him.

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But he talks much more in general terms of where we want to go so that I clearly understand what he has in mind. This is what happened in October. Why the agreement was not completed? The reason it was not completed was due to many factors. To the fact that the North Vietnamese were planning an attack for the time of the cease-fire, the fact that we wanted to get the International Control Commission in place, and the fact that the South Vietnamese Government was not ready to go along at that particular point.

MISS WALTERS: Did you think they would have been?

DR. KISSINGER: The President and I were in complete agreement before the last mission, before I went, that if it appeared at that particular moment that the cease-fire was too precarious, that we would not drive it through at all costs, especially because it was at the end of an election campaign and because we could not give the impression that we were doing it in order to gain votes.

So, frankly, when I was in Saigon, and when we made the final decision that led to the delay, I knew what the President wanted, and it was not at all true that I was pulled back.

MISS WALTERS: Then why did you come home and put yourself in the very difficult position of saying "peace is at hand"?

DR. KISSINGER: Because you have to understand what the situation was on whatever the date was -- October 26. First of all, when you say peace is at hand, and then peace comes ten weeks later, of a ten year war, that is not such a very bad prediction.

But what was our problem at the end of October? We had a public broadcast from Hanoi that was revealing in a slightly edited version some essential agreement which we had reached, and demanding that we sign the agreement five days later, on October 31. We had Saigon put itself into a position of opposition to the agreement, and what we had to make clear, and make clear graphically, was, first, that we were not going to sign on October 31, but nevertheless, we were not kicking over the agreement; that the agreement was essentially completed as far as we were concerned, and that it could be completed in a very brief period of time.

- 13 -

[Lc]

When we said peace was at hand, we were telling Hanoi and Saigon -- we told Hanoi that we were fundamentally sticking to the agreement. We were telling Saigon that the agreement as it stood was essentially what we would maintain.

We thought it could be negotiated in four or five days. In the interval, for whatever reason, Hanoi made the decision to prolong the negotiations. Once Hanoi decided to go back to the negotiations on January 8, that is in a serious way, we did settle it in about six days.

And I don't want to say that I had I known exactly what would happen, I might not have chosen a more ambiguous phrase.

MISS WALTERS: You are always so precise, Dr. Kissinger. Maybe it was the "is at hand," that you shouldn't have said.

DR.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, if I could have done it again, I would have chosen a somewhat more ambiguous phrase, but the meaning we had to convey, given the pressures that were at that particular time, which we had to communicate and communicate publicly, with both Hanoi and Saigon, and with the American people, our intention was to convey that peace could be achieved quickly; that we were not kicking over the agreement and that we were ready to settle it very rapidly if the conditions that we mentioned were met, as indeed, they were then met.

But there was no disagreement on that between the President and me whatsoever.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, may we turn our attention to Laos? We have resumed bombing in Laos at the request of the Prime Minister. Do you have reason to believe that this fighting will end soon?

DR. KISSINGER: Insofar as I know we have made one strike at the request of the Prime Minister in an area where the Pathet Lao had attacked after the cease-fire and we expect that the cease-fire will be observed. We have every hope that it will be.

- 14 -

[c]

MISS WALTERS: Were you surprised by the continued
high level of fighting?

DR. KISSINGER: In Laos?

MISS WALTERS: In Laos.

DR. KISSINGER: No, when you establish a cease-fire,
where the future political control depends on possession of
territory, you will inevitably have probing to determine the
limits of each side's control.

I am not surprised, but we of course insist on the
observance of the cease-fire, as we are observing it.

MISS WALTERS: And what if it isn't?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, we will face that when it comes.
We expect it to be observed.

MISS WALTERS: China, Dr. Kissinger. How do our new
relations with Mainland China affect our relations with Taiwan?
Will we eventually have to break our relations with Taiwan as
we become closer and closer to full diplomatic relations, or
what are diplomatic relations, even if we are not calling them
that?

DR. KISSINGER: We favor the peaceful resolution of
the disagreements between Mainland China and Taiwan. We have
no intention at this time to break diplomatic relations with
Taiwan. We have established a satisfactory arrangement with
Mainland China and we will establish an office there. They
are establishing an office in Washington and we believe that
for the foreseeable future that meets existing needs.

MISS WALTERS: Have you heard from the Government
of Taiwan since the communique was announced?

DR. KISSINGER: We informed them ahead of time what
we were doing.

MISS WALTERS: Can you give us any idea of what
their reaction was?

[LC]

- 15 -

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think it is safe to say they would have recommended another course.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, you have said that you cannot specifically say what you discussed with Chairman Mao Tse-tung, but obviously he is such a giant figure to all of us. Can you tell us when you talked to him if you discussed specific policy, or general policy, or political philosophy? What was the nature of the conversations?

DR. KISSINGER: I can't really conduct the sort of conversations that I do on behalf of the President if I then go on television and reveal their content.

MISS WALTERS: Give us the mood, if you can do that.

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, I can attempt to give the mood. This is the second time I have seen Chairman Mao, once when the President was there and this time alone, and the meetings always have taken place in his study, which is very spartan, very spare, with books all over the place, and the atmosphere was very cordial.

He is a very powerful man. He is the type of man who tends physically to dominate a room just by being there. I have met very few people like this. President DeGaulle was another personality like this. And it was, as the announcement said, a very wide ranging discussion covering general topics and some specific topics.

MISS WALTERS: And he seemed in very good health to you, you said?

DR. KISSINGER: He seemed in good health and he was certainly extremely alert and lively.

MISS WALTERS: Are all the books in Chinese? Were any of the titles something that you could ---

DR. KISSINGER: All of the books were in Chinese, although there is a rumor that he is learning English and he did use a few English sentences.

MISS WALTERS: You can't tell us those?

[1c]

- 16 -

DR. KISSINGER: "Sit down, please."

MISS WALTERS: That is more than you can say in Chinese, isn't it?

DR. KISSINGER: That is true.

MISS WALTERS: You said that the discussion with the Chinese leaders covered a wide range of subjects. Does the subject of the future of China come up or is it too difficult to ask perhaps after Premier Chou En-lai and Chairman Mao have gone who the new leaders will be and what the country might be like?

DR. KISSINGER: I think our relationship with China depends on an attitude on both sides that we will not interfere in each other's domestic affairs and I think it would be highly inappropriate for me to get into a discussion with Chinese leaders on how they envision their domestic evolution. Because I would certainly not welcome their comments about our domestic evolution.

MISS WALTERS: Who might take your place or something.

Do you foresee that the Chinese might be willing to join in the arms limitation talks?

DR. KISSINGER: The Chinese problem is quite different from ours, and from that of other of the major powers. Their nuclear program is in its infancy and any of the limitations that are now being discussed between us and the Soviet Union occur at a level of nuclear armaments that is probably unimaginable for the Chinese. The Chinese nuclear weapons are counted in tens, ours are counted in thousands, and so are those of the Soviet Union, and so for the Chinese, the Chinese would find it extremely difficult, just as the French would, to participate in the Strategic Arms Limitation talks.

Now, what would be the Chinese attitude if there were a general conference on; say, conventional reductions. That I don't know. Such a conference isn't now in progress. But up to now, the Chinese have taken the attitude that they would not participate in discussions on the reduction of nuclear arms. They would take part in discussions on the elimination of nuclear arms.

- 17 -

[1c]

MISS WALTERS: During the Vietnam war, the Soviet Union and China supplied North Vietnam with a great deal of its military equipment and before you went to China, you said this was a matter that would have to be resolved. Did the Chinese agree specifically to reduce or stop altogether the flow of supplies to North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: There are many things that can be discussed that cannot necessarily be agreed upon. We have certainly made it clear, publicly and one can assume privately, that we believe that restraint by all the countries, especially by the great powers, in supplying arms for Indochina is going to be one of the factors in maintaining the peace in Indochina.

Now, whether that restraint is achieved by a formal agreement or by individual actions, that is up to each country to decide. But certainly it is our belief, which we have reiterated, that all countries now have a responsibility at a minimum not to add to the tension in the area, and if it is consistent with the rest of their policy, to exercise a restraining influence.

MISS WALTERS: Was your feeling that it was consistent with the rest of their policy?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that the People's Republic of China at this time is interested in tranquility in Asia, yes.

MISS WALTERS: Did the leaders suggest that they might be willing to help provide financial aid toward the rebuilding of North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: They have been distributing financial aid and economic aid to North Vietnam. The question is should economic aid be contributed as part of an international effort or as part of a series of bilateral efforts or as a combination of both.

In the past, Communist countries have preferred to give aid bilaterally because they each have planned economies and it is easier for them to deal with it that way. We have, in some cases, had a preference for multilateral assistance, but that isn't an issue of principle, that is an issue of practical arrangements.

- 18 -

[LC]

MISS WALTERS: In that line, it is said that the Russians don't want us to help in the reconstruction of North Vietnam, that they plan a Soviet sponsored collective security system there. Are they likely to push for this, do you think?

DR. KISSINGER: In the past, the Soviet Union has been very reluctant to see other Communist countries develop with the aid of capitalist states, because it might give ideas to a lot of countries.

In the 40's, the Soviet Union prevented the participation of Czechoslovakia and of Poland in the Marshall Plan. With respect to North Vietnam, the Soviet Union hasn't really taken a formal position. There was an article in Izvestia, I think it was on February 6th, which criticized some aspects of possible American assistance to North Vietnam, but there hasn't been an official position and we don't really know what they will do. Whether they will establish a system of collective security in Southeast Asia, or whether they will try to, that remains to be seen.

I think Southeast Asia would be best off at this time, if, as the agreement provides, the countries concerned pursued a neutral policy, if they were able to conduct an independent course and if great power maneuvers were not part of it.

But I am not saying the Soviet Union is planning a collective security system.

MISS WALTERS: Well, would you rather see a community program of the United States and the Soviet Union and perhaps China and Japan?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, collective security usually means defense. Would I rather have it a community effort, you mean the economic reconstruction?

MISS WALTERS: Yes,

DR. KISSINGER: Well, we certainly welcome the participation of any other country in the reconstruction of Indochina and in a sense we believe it is an international responsibility. Now whether that assistance is going to be given by each country individually, or whether it is

- 19 -

[Lc]

given through a multilateral institution, that in part depends on the attitude of the recipient country. That is what we do not consider a basic issue of principle.

But we do believe that other countries should contribute and we have every reason to believe they will.

MISS WALTERS: Now that the Vietnam war is over, is it likely that the invitation to Chairman Brezhnev of the Soviet Union to visit Washington will be renewed or reissued?

DR. KISSINGER: The invitation doesn't need to be renewed. The invitation has been outstanding, has been accepted in principle. The only thing that remained to be settled was the date which was foreseen to be sometime this year and that remains to be the case. We expect to agree on that in the reasonably near future.

MISS WALTERS: Will there be an invitation issued to the Chinese leaders to come to Washington, specifically Premier Chou En-lai?

DR. KISSINGER: Up to now the Chinese leaders have taken the position that they would not visit the United States as long as there was the Embassy of Taiwan in the United States. Whether they will maintain this position indefinitely, we don't know. We would certainly be glad to see the Prime Minister here.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, it was just a year ago that President Nixon and you went to China, and the members of the press-- One of the things we commented on then was that we did not know who the leaders were outside of Premier Chou En-lai. In this regard, I wonder if you feel any urgency to come to the agreement you have come to while the present Chinese leaders are alive?

DR. KISSINGER: Our relationship with the Chinese has had the strange aspect that where with any other nation there is no clear beginning, it is a continuation of an on-going relationship, we started from absolute scratch in 1971. I had no idea when I went to Peking in 1971 what it would look like, whom I would find there, what we would discuss. Therefore, we have had unusually extensive philosophical discussions or general discussions of where we wanted to go, because we were really writing on a blank page.

- 20 -

[L]

We have never geared the evolution of our relationship to any particular event. We have never said this must be done this year, and the following must be done next year.

What we have done is try to assess our situation, each other's situation, the world situation, and see what could be done at any given point, and therefore, we don't press any particular solution on the Chinese. We go over a certain agenda at each meeting and then we decide what is reasonable to do. When I went there this time, we had no fixed idea what type of liaison we would establish. But I was going there with the attitude that the time might have come where some form of representation was possible.

But the answer is, we are not tying it to any one individual. We go as far as it is possible to go, given the circumstances.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, may we talk a bit about the Middle East. Friday morning you met with the National Security Adviser to President Sadat of Egypt, Mr. Hafiz Ismail, whose job has been likened to yours. I hear he has been called the Egyptian Henry Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: I told him I was called the American Ismail.

MISS WALTERS: Was he flattered?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know.

MISS WALTERS: Golda Meir is coming here very soon. With Vietnam off of your number one priority list, will you, Dr. Kissinger, be turning your primary attention to the Middle East?

DR. KISSINGER: I will certainly not turn my primary attention to the Middle East. First of all, Mr. Ismail was here not to see me, but to see the President. And I sat in as it turned out on only part of the meeting, because our delegation was leaving for the International Conference and I had to spend some time with Under Secretary Porter and Ambassador Sullivan and then Ismail spent a great deal of his time with the Secretary of State and with the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Middle Eastern Affairs today.

[L]

- 21 -

Of course, we are taking, the President is taking,
a greater interest in Middle Eastern affairs now, and he will
be spending more of his time on the problem. What we can do,
what role we can play, we will have to decide after Prime
Minister Meir has been here and we have been able to assess
the result of the conversation with King Hussein, with Mr.
Ismail and then with Prime Minister Golda Meir.

MISS WALTERS: Have you had any encouragement from
the other side, or do you feel you have to start almost right
from the beginning?

DR. KISSINGER: It is really too early to tell. I
haven't even had a chance to read yet the record of the
conversations between the Secretary of State and Mr. Ismail.

MISS WALTERS: Do you have any comment on how badly
the Libyan plane incident might affect or complicate
matters?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the Libyan incident was
a tragedy. It certainly wasn't helpful. But we don't expect
it to have a fundamental impact on the process that we are
talking about.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, if I may ask you a
personal question. There are some people who have said that
it might be difficult for you to deal in the Middle Eastern
situation because of your religion, because you are Jewish;
whether you feel this or not that it may be felt by others,
by the Arab nations. Is this a concern?

DR. KISSINGER: As I said, it is not my normal role
to conduct every negotiation. I have been involved in Middle
Eastern policy. The issue has never been raised. Many
Arab statesmen have come here and sought meetings with me.
And this is not a decision for me to make. I don't feel
any constraint.

MISS WALTERS: And now may we talk about you? There
is so much speculation and speculation is a favorite
Washington pastime, of course, but there is often a certain
amount of fire behind the smoke.

[1c]

- 22 -

Now a favorite subject these days is a script that sees John Connally becoming Secretary of State as a stepping stone towards the White House. Now if that is true, the stories go, you would have to leave because there would not be room for two such strong figures handling one major area of responsibility. If Mr. Connally were to become Secretary of State, and I do say if, would you stay on?

DR. KISSINGER: Let's separate two things. One, what factors govern my staying or not staying and secondly the future of Secretary Connally.

When Mr. Connally was Secretary of the Treasury, he and I worked extremely closely. I have very great respect for Secretary Connally. He is one of the ablest men I have ever seen in public life and one of the most dynamic and therefore, I think he is extremely well qualified for any office in public life.

So there is no tension whatever or any strain between Secretary Connally and myself.

Now, my position depends on, first of all, and primarily the confidence of the President. I have to be able to execute his policies or see to it that they are executed and that will be one primary factor. Another factor I have to decide at some point is when the policies that have been pursued should be institutionalized.

In no case will I make my decisions on whether I stay or leave depend on the sort of personality quarrels in which so much of the political gossip in Washington specializes, and if there were personality quarrels, they wouldn't be with Mr. Connally.

MISS WALTERS: Who would they be with?

This of course raises the broader question of your job and why is it necessary to have a Presidential adviser on national security. Why can't the Secretary of State handle it? Isn't there a basic conflict between the two jobs?

DR. KISSINGER: It is a fact that every President really, since 1958, has had somebody in an analogous position to mine, which means probably that there is some general need for Presidential staff assistants in the area of foreign

- 23 -

[lc]

policy, as indeed there is in the area of domestic policy. If the President did not have his own assistant, he would sooner or later become at the mercy of the bureaucracy, because the mass of papers that is sent to the White House for Presidential approval pretty soon would leave him with no choice except to say yes and no and since he would be too busy to create alternatives or work out the alternatives, he would have to say yes most of the time.

The function of my office is to make sure that the alternatives have been correctly examined. The function of the office also is to be able to cover the whole range of issues in defense, foreign policy and intelligence in a coherent way for the President.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State has the responsibility for managing the State Department, for the day to day conduct of foreign policy, for the relations with 95 percent of the countries in the world, that is to say, there are only a very few issues in foreign policy in which the President, and therefore I, is involved on a day to day basis, and therefore, while there is a certain tension between my office and that of the Cabinet members with whom one works, that tension is inevitable, it is healthy, it is not personal, and it is built into the job.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, you have not sought to keep your former position open at Harvard. Do you have any desire to re-enter the academic world as a teacher again or perhaps as the head of a college or university? What I am asking is what are you going to do?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, in fairness to Harvard, one has to point out that Harvard rules point out that one must resign if one stays away from one's position for two years. Harvard made an exception in my case and extended it by another two years, so coincidentally with the beginning of the second term of the President those four years were up and therefore, I either had to go back or my position at Harvard had to be vacated and they had to look for a successor, having waited four years for me to return. That was a reasonable position to take.

MISS WALTERS: But do you want to go back to Harvard?

- 24 -

DR. KISSINGER: Do I want to go back to academic life? From this position it is rather difficult to imagine precisely what you want to do when you leave, because you are constantly engaged in affairs of some global significance or they wouldn't come into this office, and my intention is that after I leave here, to go somewhere for three months and to think just what it is that I want to do. I really haven't made up my mind what I want.

MISS WALTERS: You really have no idea whether you want to go back to Harvard, whether you want to go back to the professorial life, none at all?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I really haven't thought it through.

MISS WALTERS: What about that book people say you are going to write that is going to make you a millionaire?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I keep reading these figures and I am enormously impressed with them, but I again haven't made a decision to do that.

MISS WALTERS: Your life style is often in strong contrast to that of the President and his other assistants. You may have noticed that.

DR. KISSINGER: I read that in the papers.

MISS WALTERS: Is this ever noted by the President? Does he tease you about it?

DR. KISSINGER: He teases me about it occasionally, yes.

MISS WALTERS: Does it bother you?

DR. KISSINGER: He does it in a most kindly manner.

MISS WALTERS: Some serious people have been concerned that the man who goes out with beautiful women and dates movie starlets, also negotiates with Chou En-lai and Le Duc Tho, do you see any conflict between these two aspects of your life?

- 25 -

[L]

DR. KISSINGER: No, I find they reinforce each other.

MISS WALTERS: Do they? I mean is it a help, and if so, how?

DR. KISSINGER: I find there is no conflict. One has to do with my social life and the other has to do with my professional life and I don't let my social life interfere with my professional life.

MISS WALTERS: There is no question of your being considered frivolous in those areas?

DR. KISSINGER: By the people I negotiate with?

MISS WALTERS: Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: That hasn't been my impression.

MISS WALTERS: You know, people do ask so often on this other part of your life, is Henry Kissinger really a playboy. I mean is this really the way he is. Is this really the way you are? Or is it exaggerated?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think I am a playboy. I think I am extremely serious about my professional work. That is the center of my activity. The other is peripheral.

MISS WALTERS: Has it been exaggerated?

DR. KISSINGER: I couldn't admit that on television.

MISS WALTERS: You don't want to admit it.

FALACCI: Recently in an interview with Italian journalist, Oriana Valache, you commented on your incredible superstar status, and you said and I quote, "The main point is that I have always acted alone. Americans admire the cowboy leading the caravan alone astride his horse."

Well, for some reason this has just intrigued so many people, so many members of the press. Is this how you see yourself, a lone cowboy?

DR. KISSINGER: I have refrained from commenting on that interview which -- I trust this is not how I see

[1c]

- 26 -

myself, and I have never been on a horse, so I would not
consider that the simile that first brings to my mind.

But I don't want to engage in a debate with Miss
Valache.

MISS WALTERS: I think what was being asked is,
is the fact that you have become a national hero, and obviously
because you have accomplished so much, I mean you walk into
a theater now and people stand up and applaud you, people
come up and ask you for your autograph and it is a difficult
position to be in, and yet a rather glorious position, this
kind of position and attention, and what one is asking is why
do you think it has happened and how does it affect you?

DR. KISSINGER: An important thing to remember is that
the decisions that I have executed were the decisions of the
President. It is the President who has had the responsibility
for standing alone, not I. And if anyone has played a lonely
role here, it has been the President.

Now, why people become popular, that is something
that one shouldn't really speculate too much about. I think
one should do what is necessary and what is right and let
popularity take care of itself.

But my position has been essentially that of an
executive and not that of the man who has had to make
the final decision.

- 27 ->

[c]

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, you do have today such power and success and admiration, do you worry about how you will adjust when you return to private life when this is over? Will you be somewhat like a deep-sea diver getting the bends as he goes up or down?

DR. KISSINGER: There will be a period of adjustment after I leave here. I was on the White House staff in 1962, as a consultant, and after one leaves it isn't so much the publicity that one misses. The most difficult thing is when you are in the White House you have access to all kinds of information. When you leave the White House, you read something in the New York Times, you know it is partly true, partly misleading, but you can't find out any more exactly what is going on.

MISS WALTERS: Is that only with the New York Times, Dr. Kissinger?

DR. KISSINGER: It is true of all newspapers, and then, until you adjust yourself to the fact that you no longer have access to all the information; that you must have access to all the knowledge like everybody else, you go through a difficult process of adjustment. But what form it will take is very difficult to foretell when you are in a job in which you are really occupied 15 hours a day.

MISS WALTERS: But you have seen other people, you have seen other leaders no longer in office, and they can sometimes be very hard to adjust to it emotionally.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, there is absolutely no sense speculating about this now. It is going to be a test.

MISS WALTERS: You can't say specifically what you want to do, but do you ever have fantasies? I mean, if you could do anything at all, do you ever think what that might be?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I have always felt in my life that if you plan it too carefully, you become too tense about it. I have always tried to do every year what I thought was most important that year, and I have confidence that after I leave here, after some period of adjustment, something will come along to which I can dedicate myself.

- 28 -

[LC]

But if I plan for that now, I won't do this job well, and I won't do the other one well.

MISS WALTERS: Sir, there is no truth to the rumor that you want to become a movie actor?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I have that slight inclination.

MISS WALTERS: Dr. Kissinger, when I knew that I was going to do this interview, various friends came up, of course, and said, "ask him this and ask him that," and one of the things that I heard again and again, and mostly from men, was, "ask him when he sleeps."

"How does he take these trips, get off -- not with jet lag -- get off the plane, walk into negotiations? When does the man sleep?"

DR. KISSINGER: You mean when I am on trips or when I am at home?

MISS WALTERS: You seem to have, you know, superhuman strength. That you can come back to Washington, go to another report with the President, do a press conference, talk to the Cabinet. One never feels that you are tired. That is why it has been joked that there are really four Henry Kissingers, three downstairs in the basement waiting to come up when you return from a trip.

DR. KISSINGER: On the trips I sleep on the plane, and somehow or other I seem now to adjust to jet lag very rapidly. I have no explanation for how that happens.

MISS WALTERS: Finally, having been so close to political life, do you have any desire at all to enter politics yourself?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MISS WALTERS: That is short, to the point, and probably the most succinct answer that we have. I thank you, Dr. Kissinger, for spending this time with us.

DR. KISSINGER: Thank you.

*****

Q. Dr. Kissinger, after ten years of our fighting a nation we considered our enemy, we are now asked to give our taxpayers' money to that former enemy at a time when there is much that it could be spent on here at home. Why? Why is it so necessary for us to do this?

A. First of all, we shouldn't look at it as aiding our enemy. We should look at it from the point of view of aiding ourselves. One has to look at the whole history of North Vietnam. The leaders of North Vietnam have spent most of their lives either in prison or fighting a guerrilla war, or fighting an international war. Never in their lives have they known quiet; never have they dedicated themselves to primarily constructive tasks.

Now, it is a difficult psychological problem for them. Not only have they spent most of their lives either in conspiracy or in war, but they really haven't had a normal relationship with any country and we think that if we can work together with them on some constructive tasks that this might be a very major contribution to the peace of Indochina and in a way cap what has been achieved now in making a formal settlement. This is the rationale. Not an abstract desire to aid any particular country.

Q. Well, of course, it is a difficult psychological problem for us as well. It is estimated now that Congress is two to one against appropriating the funds for aid to North Vietnam. Would you think it important enough for you personally

to testify before Congress so that they would understand your
point of view?

A. Well, the position of my testifying has two parts.
One, do I talk to Congressmen and Senators; secondly, do I
testify under oath with records being kept?

With respect to the second point, that is, do I testify
before Congress formally, that is governed by the principle
of executive privilege. That is to say that Presidential
Assistants should not be subpoenaed by Congress and should
not be forced to --

Q. But you could if you wanted to?

A. No, I couldn't because it is not my choice. This
depends on the relationship between the President and the
Congress and in no administration have Presidential Assistants
testified before Congress in formal sessions.

On the other hand, I maintain the closest relationship
with the appropriate congressional committees. I meet the
key Senators personally regularly. I have worked out an
arrangement with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and,
less frequently, with the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
by which I appear in sessions that are called social and
that are called social only because they are not in formal
committee rooms, but in the office of some Senator, at which
notes are taken. Every Senator has an opportunity or every
Congressman has an opportunity to ask questions. The record
is kept. It isn't an official record, but we go as close

We will, of course, also interview all the prisoners that
are released about any information they have and we will make
a major effort.

Now, I must say that I cannot really believe that they
North Vietnamese would hide prisoners on us. I see nothing
that they would gain from keeping prisoners that they could
not acknowledge in jails in North Vietnam. But we won't
rest on this theoretical supposition. We will make a full
investigation and we will insist on an accounting.

Q. Now that you have visited Hanoi and appraised for
yourself the North Vietnamese leaders, do you think that Hanoi
will ever relinquish its desire to take over South Vietnam
and create, as they have always said they wanted, one Vietnam?

A. North Vietnam will never relinquish its desire to
take over South Vietnam. This generation of leaders is a
group of revolutionaries. They have spent their whole life
making revolutions. They are not in their sixties going to
give up what they have believed in all their lives.

But that isn't the issue. The issue is will they want
to unify Vietnam by force or are they willing to rely on
an evolutionary process?

We are not opposed to the unification of Vietnam in
principle, if Vietnam is unified by peaceful means. If the
performance of one part or the other is so clearly superior

Therefore, if the North Vietnamese are willing to compete peacefully, if they are willing to develop their country, if they are willing to rely on a political process, then we don't object to their objective and that is exactly what we are trying to bring about, to get a commitment from them, not on paper, but in terms of their action to a peaceful evolution in Indochina and that is precariously poised right now.

Q. There is fighting still going on and when you met with them -- you posed this question just now yourself. I wonder if you felt you have the answer but at this point you don't?

A. No, I do not have the answer now and I don't think they have the answer. I do not think they have fully made up their mind. I think for the first time in their history and in their lives they are considering a peaceful revolution and they are feeling their way towards the sort of relationship they have really never had with any country of equality, mutual benefit, consultation.

Q. This continuous fighting, do you think this is part of their testing and will it perhaps lead them to a request from President Thieu for us to again become involved?

A. Well, at this point the South Vietnamese seem very capable of taking care of themselves and what has happened up to now is that they have not substantially

succeeded.

The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, right after the cease fire, or around the time of the cease fire, seized about 300 hamlets. They have now lost all of them again and the fighting in South Vietnam, while it still occurs, is really -- if the war was still going on, these actions would all be reported as very minor actions but, of course, under cease fire conditions every action has its own significance.

Q. Did you expect there to be continued fighting between North and South Vietnam?

A. I expected there would be continued fighting for a few weeks. It has gone on a little longer than I thought, but --

Q. Are you worried?

A. No, because after all, how are the two sides going to establish their areas of control except by testing each other?

Q. But you don't think it is going to mean a further involvement on our part, or any request?

A. No.

Q. Doctor Kissinger, as a political historian and an analyst, what lessons do you think we have learned from the Vietnam experience. Well, for example, to be more specific have we learned that we simply can't win a guerrilla war, even against a very small nation?

A. You know what got us involved to begin with was the theory that there was one species of war called guerrilla

[10]

Vietnam is a very special case for many reasons. In terms of its historical experience, in terms of its geography; therefore, I wouldn't make the general statement that a guerrilla war cannot be won. One can make the general statement that for a foreign country to get itself involved in a guerrilla war is a very significant decision because the guerrilla is at home. The guerrilla lives with his own population. The foreigner can never compete with him on that level, and therefore it is our view that as a general proposition, domestic security and guerrilla warfare ought to be the task of the government concerned and that government should be strong enough to handle attacks below the level of conventional attacks. That, we would say, is a general lesson we have learned.

Q. If we may go back in history a bit, there are still some questions which nag at the American people that you could provide the answers to. At the time the decision was made in December to bomb the Hanoi-Haiphong area, did you personally advocate the bombing? I ask this knowing that your job involves not only presenting the President with the choices available to him, but also recommending a choice of action, if asked.

So, did you support the bombing or did you attempt to persuade the President not to take this step?

A. I have no absolute rule which is that I never discuss publicly what I recommend to the President. That does not mean that I disagree with the decision. It means that it is inappropriate for me to provide a checklist and to create

the impression that it is part of my job to second-guess the
President.

I do make recommendations to him, but I do not publicly
state what my position is towards a particular issue.

Q. Well, I will ask another question and we will see
if that is something that can be answered. There was talk
around Washington late last year that your relationship with
the President had become strained. Perhaps in part because of
policy disagreements over Vietnam.

There was also speculation based on some evidence that
the President raised the requirements for peace that you had
reached agreement on in Paris. I am sure you are familiar
with this speculation. Is there any truth to it?

A. Some of what I said before applies here, too. I
feel freer to talk about this. I was never conscious during
that period of a strained relationship with the President.
You have to remember that this town is obsessed with power
and that it lives on reading little significancies or major
significancies into little acts.

Q. Does he look at you, or does he not; does the President
talk to you ----- ----- ?

A. Did he talk to me on the telephone rather than see
me personally? If one knew all the phone calls between the
President and me and all the conversations, one would have

-10-

speculation, once, that he was in town for a day and talked
to me on the phone three or four times, but didn't see me.

It was the accident that Ron Zeigler put out the fact that the
conversation had taken place by telephone that anyone even
attached any significance to it.

Now, it is inevitable that there are always people
on every White House staff -- and I have seen two or three
in action, and in the bureaucracy, who put out to newspapermen
their interpretation of what they think is happening.

Q Would you like to name these people here at the White House?

A Sometimes -- I am not saying it was in the White House...sometimes it is wishful thinking, but there was no strain in my relationship to the President.

Now, let me turn to the second matter: Did the President raise the terms of the agreement and therefore undo what allegedly had been achieved? For this you have to understand how the President and I work. The President, before I go out on a diplomatic mission, doesn't write down 20 specific points that I am supposed to achieve and therefore the phrase that I didn't live within instructions, it is really quite meaningless.

What the President does is to write down vofor himself, on a yellow sheet, four or five or six major issues, and the pros and cons of each issue. Then he will call me in, go over them and over them and if I have any ideas I will present them to him. But he talks much more in general terms of where we want to go, so that I clearly understand what he has in mind.

This is whtwhat he has in mind.

This is what happened in October. Why the agreement was not completed; the reason it was not completed was due to many factors. To the fact that the North Vietnamese were planning an attack at the time of the cease fire.

The fact that we wanted to get the International Control
Commission in place, and the fact that the South Vietnamese
Government was not ready to go along at that particular point,

Q Did you think they would have been?

A It was -- we had -- the President and I were in
complete agreement before the last mission, before I went,
that if it appeared at that particular moment that the cease
fire was too precarious, that we would not drive it through
at all costs, especially because it was at the end of an
electoral campaign and because we could not give the impression
that we were doing it in order to gain votes.

So, frankly, when I was in Saigon and when we made the
final decision that led to the delay, I knew what the
President wanted and it was not at all true that I was pulled
back.

Q Then why did you come home and put yourself in the
very difficult position of saying, "Peace is at hand?"

A Because you have to understand what the situation
was on whatever the date was, October 26th. But, first of
all, when you say "Peace is at hand," and then peace comes
along ten weeks later, of a ten-year war, that is not such
a very bad prediction. But what was our problem at the end
of October?

We had a public broadcast from Hanoi that was revealing
in a slightly edited version some essential agreements which
we had reached, and demanding that we sign the agreement.

[LW]

days later, on October 31st. We had Saigon put itself into
a position of opposition to the agreement, and what we had
to make clear and make clear rapidly was, first, that we were
not going to sign on October 31st, but nevertheless we were
not kicking over the agreement; that the agreement was
essentially completed as far as we were concerned, and that it
could be completed in a very brief period of time.

When we said "Peace is at hand," we were telling both
Hanoi and Saigon -- we told Hanoi that we were fundamentally
sticking to the agreement. We were telling Saigon that the
agreement, as it stood, was essentially what we would maintain.

Now, we thought it could be negotiated in four or five
days. In the interval, for whatever reason, Hanoi made the
decision to prolong the negotiations. Once Hanoi decided
to go back to the negotiations on January 8th, that is, in a
serious way, we did settle it in about six days. And I don't
want to say had I known exactly what would happen, I might
not have chosen a more ambiguous phrase.

Q China, Dr. Kissinger. How do our new relations with
Mainland China affect our relations with Taiwan? Will we
eventually have to break our relations with Taiwan as we
come closer and closer to full diplomatic relations, or what
are diplomatic relations even if we are not calling them that?

A We favor the peaceful resolution of the disagreements
between Mainland China and Taiwan.

We have no intention at this time to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. We have established a satisfactory arrangement with Mainland China and we have established -- we will establish an office here; they are establishing an office in Washington and we believe for the foreseeable future it meets existing needs.

Q Do you foresee that the Chinese might be willing to join in the arms limitation talks?

A The Chinese problem is quite different from ours, and from that of other of the major powers. Their nuclear program is in its infancy and any of the limitations that are now being discussed between us and the Soviet Union occur at a level of nuclear armaments that is probably unimaginable for the Chinese.

Now, what would be the Chinese attitude if there was a general conference on, say, conventional reductions. That I don't know. Such a conference isn't now in progress, but up to now the Chinese have taken the attitude that they would not participate in discussions on the reduction of nuclear arms. They would take part in discussions on the elimination of nuclear arms.

Q Dr. Kissinger, may we talk a bit about the Middle East? Friday morning you met with the National Security Advisor to President Sadat of Egypt, Mr. Haipha Ishmael, whose job has been likened to yours.

A I told him I was called the American Ishmael.

Q Was he flattered?

A I don't know.

Q Golda Meir is going to come here very soon. Now, with Vietnam off of your Number 1 priority list, will you, Dr. Kissinger, be turning your primary attention to the Middle East?

A I will certainly not turn my primary attention to the Middle East. First of all, Mr. Ishmael was here not to see me, but to see the President. Of course, we are taking, the President is taking a greater interest in Middle Eastern affairs now and he will be spending more of his time on the problem.

What we can do, what role we can play we will have to decide after Prime Minister Meir has been here, and we have been able to assess the result of the conversations with King Hudsein, with Mr. Ishmael and then with Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Q And now may we talk about you? There is so much speculation, and speculation is a favorite Washington pasttime, of course, but there is often a certain amount of fire behind the smoke.

16

Now, a favorite subject these days is a script which sees John Connally becoming Secretary of State as a stepping-stone towards the White House. Now, if that is true, as the stories go, you would have to leave because there would not be room for two such strong figures handling what is really one major area of responsibility.

If Mr. Connally were to become Secretary of State and I do say "if," would you stay on?

A Let's separate it into two things. One, what factors govern my staying or not staying and, secondly, the future of Secretary Connally. When Mr. Connally was Secretary of the Treasury, he and I worked extremely closely. I have very great respect for Secretary Connally. He is one of the ablest men I have ever seen in public life and one of the most dynamic and therefore I think he is extremely well-qualified for any office in public life.

So there is no tension whatever, or any strain, between Secretary Connally and myself. My position now depends on, first of all, and primarily, the confidence of the President. I have to be able to execute his policies, or see to it that they are executed, and that will be one primary factor.

Another factor that I have to decide at some point is when the policies that have been pursued should be institutionalized.

In no case will I make my decisions on whether I stay or
leave depend on the sort of personality quarrels in which
so much of the political gossip in Washington specializes,
and if they were personality quarrels, they wouldn't be with
Mr. Connally.

Q Who would they be with?

A. Ha, ha.

Q Some serious people have been concerned that
the man who goes out with beautiful women and dates movie
starlets also negotiates with Chou en Lai and Le Duc Tho.
Do you see any conflict between these two aspects of your
life?

A No, I find they reinforce each other.

Q Do they? Is it a help and, if so, how?

A I find there is no conflict. One has to do with
my social life and the other has to do with my professional
life and I don't let my social life interfere with my
professional life.

Q There is no question of your being considered
frivolous in those areas?

A By the people I negotiate with?

Q Yes.

A That hasn't been my impression.

Q Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, for giving us this time
in answering our questions.

A I enjoyed it.