<table>
  <tr>
    <td>An Editorial in the North Chinese newspaper, March 1, 1972, reads: "Nixon's Giveaway Of U. S. Honor"</td>
  </tr>
</table>

President Nixon and his foreign policy Svengali, Dr. Henry Kissinger, have had the un-

adulterated nerve to offer the North Vietnamese a tribute, reparation, anything you want to call it, of $2.5 billion to rebuild their country.

How do you feel, as an American taxpayer, to have your money offered to enemies who have killed American boys, not to mention hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese, whose country they invaded?

PRESIDENT NIXON

Can you imagine something so CUTLESS as this proposal — any- thing as revolting, as absolutely repugnant as the idea of paying tribute, ransom money or whatever you want to call it?

AT THE TOP OF OUR BACK PAGE TODAY IS A LETTER FROM A NEW HAMPSHIRE MAN NOW SERVING IN VIETNAM. IN IT HE EXPRESSES HIS OUTRAGE AT THIS RIDICULOUS PROPOSAL.

You can imagine that the North Vietnamese and the other Communists are saying, "Look, the United States is so SCARED that now they want to pay tribute to us."

It defies description that any person or any nation should be so foolish as to make such an offer — and with taxpayers' money, to boot!

THIS IS CERTAINLY A REASON FOR CHANGING THE ADMINISTRATION SO THAT MR. NIXON AND DR. KISSINGER CAN NOT GIVE AWAY MORE OF OUR MONEY AND THROW AWAY OUR NATION'S HONOR.

William Loeb, Publisher

["## The Gilder Age", "George Gilder's editorial and rhetorical talents are evident in this issue of the FORUM — as they have been for the past one and a half years. But for the next six months, FORUM readers will be deprived of his literary flourishes, as George is resigning as editor and devoting himself to another subject close to his heart — women's issues. When George completes his book on the subject and emerges from seclusion, FORUM readers will once again savor the style, the controversy and the logic that is pure Gilder.\n— D.B.", "# CONTENTS", "<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Page</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Editorial</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Keystones to a Progressive Republican Majority</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>The Nixon Administration Record:<br>An Analysis by the Ripon Society</td><td>5</td></tr></tbody></table>", "## I. The World", "<table><tbody><tr><td>Foreign Affairs: Swords and Plowshares</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Profile: Roger T. Kelley and the Draft</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Book Review:<br>Death of an Army — John Curtis</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>Defense: Selling John Curtis SALT to Congress</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Vietnam: The Bombs Aren't Defused</td><td>13</td></tr></tbody></table>", "## II. Economic Affairs", "<table><tbody><tr><td>Domestic Economics: The Nixon Phases</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Book Review:<br>The 1973 Brookings Counterbudget<br>- Eugene Marans</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>Overseas Economics: Trading for World Peace'</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Consumer Affairs:<br>Who's Aware Now (In the Market)?</td><td>24</td></tr></tbody></table>", "## II. Domestic Affairs", "<table><tbody><tr><td>Government Reorganization: Inertia in Reform</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>Civil Rights: The Politics of Backtracking</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>Civil Liberties: Remaking the Supreme Court</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>Environment:<br>The Quality of the Environment is Strained</td><td>35</td></tr><tr><td>Urban Affairs: Decentralizing Urban Problems</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>Human Resources: Needed: A Bobby Fischer</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>Profile: HEW and Jack Veneman</td><td>42</td></tr><tr><td>Profile: Drug Abuse Prevention</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>Education: Topics Besides Busing</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>Book Review: O Congress - Martha McCahill</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Duly Noted</td><td>49</td></tr><tr><td>Letters</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>14A Eliot Street</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>Book Review: In Search of Nixon - Barry Chabot</td><td>52</td></tr></tbody></table>", "## THE RIPON SOCIETY, INC.", "The RIPON SOCIETY, INC. is a Republican research policy organization whose members are young business, academic and professional men and women. It has national headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, chapters in thirteen cities, National Associate members throughout the fifty states, and several affiliated groups of subchapter status. The Society is supported by chapter dues, individual contributions from its publications and contract work. The Society offers the following options for annual contribution: Contributor $25 or more; Sustainer $100 or more; Founder $1000 or more. Inquiries about membership and chapter organization should be addressed to the National Executive Director.", "### NATIONAL GOVERNING BOARD", "#### Officers", "* Howard F. Gillette, Jr., President", "* Paul F. Anderson, Chairman of the Board", "* Patricia A. Goldman, Chairman of the Executive Committee", "* Howard L. Reiter, Vice President", "* Edward W. Miller, Treasurer", "* Ron Speed, Secretary", "#### Boston", "* Martha Reardon\n* Martin A. Linsky\n* Michael W. Christian", "#### Cambridge", "* Joel P. Greene", "* Bob Stewart\n* Gus Southworth", "#### Chicago", "* Jared Kaplan\n* Gene L. Armstrong\n* Thomas Russell", "#### Detroit", "* Dennis Gibson\n* Stephen Selander\n* Mary E. Low", "#### Hartford", "* Nicholas Norton", "* Stewart H. McConaughy", "#### Los Angeles", "* Michael Halliwell\n* Thomas A. Brown\n* Edward McAniff", "#### Minneapolis", "* John Cairns\n* Jim Manahan\n* Kati Sasseville", "#### Nashville", "* Robert H. Donaldson\n* Jerry H. Smith\n* Cary Miller", "#### New Haven", "* Peter V. Baugher\n* Jeffrey Miller\n* Melvin Ditman", "#### New Jersey", "* Richard Zimmer\n* Nancy Miller\n* John Brotschol", "#### New York", "* Werner Kuhn\n* Richard Rahn\n* Richard Scanlan", "#### Philadelphia", "* Robert J. Moss\n* William Horton\n* Ken Kaiserman", "#### Ex-Officio At Large", "* Ralph C. Loomis, National Executive Director", "* George Gilder, Editor of the Ripon Forum", "* Daniel J. Swillingen, National Political Director", "* Richard E. Beeman, Policy Chairman", "** Peter J. Wallison, Finance Chairman", "* Robert Gullick, Counsel", "* Clair W. Rodgers, Jr., Counsel", "* National Executive Committee Member", "** Most President, Chairman of the Board, or Chairman of the Executive Committee", "#### Pittsburgh", "* Murray Dickman\n* James Groninger\n* Bruce Guenther", "#### Seattle", "* Tom Alberg\n* Dick Dykeman\n* Mason D. Morisset", "#### Washington", "* Alice Tetelman\n* Larry Finkelstein\n* Willie Leftwich", "#### At Large", "** Josiah Lee Auspitz", "* Christopher T. Bayley\n* Christopher W. Beal\n* Robert L. Beal", "** Robert D. Behn", "* Michael Brewer\n* Jan Bridges\n* Ralph Caprio", "* Bruce Chapman\n* Pamela Curtis\n* Robert W. Davidson\n* Christopher DeMuth\n* Evelyn F. Ellis\n* Al Fezenberg\n* Emil H. Frankel\n* Glenn Gerstell\n* Ralph J. Heikkinen\n* Lee W. Huebner\n* Phillip C. Johnston\n* William J. Kilberg\n* Judith R. Lumb\n* J. Eugene Marans\n* Martha McCahill\n* Tanya Melich\n* Don Meyer", "** John R. Price, Jr.", "* John S. Salomé III\n* Jim Selt", "* Leah Thayer\n* R. Quincy White\n* William Whitten\n* Lyndon A.S. Wilson", "## THE RIPON FORUM", "", "is published semi-monthly by the Ripon Society, Inc., 14a Eliot Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Second class postage rates paid Boston, Massachusetts. Contents are copyrighted © 1972 by the Ripon Society, Inc. Correspondence to the Editor is welcomed.", "In publishing this magazine the Ripon Society seeks to provide a forum for a spirit of criticism, innovation, and independent thinking within the Republican Party. Articles do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Ripon Society, unless they are explicitly so labelled.", "SUBSCRIPTION RATES are $10 a year, $5 for students, service-men, and for Peace Corps, Vista and other volunteers. Overseas air mail, $10 extra. Advertising rates on request. $10 of any contribution to the Ripon Society is credited for a subscription to the Ripon FORUM.", "Editor: George Gilder", "Political Editor: Dick Behn", "Contributing Editors: Clifford Brown, Glenn Gerstell, Howard Reiter. Circulation Dept.: Judith H. Behn.", "Art: Leslie Morrill, David Omar White.", "### Correspondents", "* Stephanie McConaughy, Conn.\n* Michael Halliwell, California\n* James F. McCollum, Jr., Florida", "* Michael McCrery, Idaho\n* Ben Violette, Illinois", "* J. Kenneth Doka, Indiana", "* C.R. Connell, Iowa", "* Eric Kines, Kentucky", "* James Harrington, Maine", "* Julia M. Renner, Michigan", "* Arthur F. McClure, Missouri", "* William Harding, Nebraska", "* Scott Green, New Hampshire", "* Al Fezenberg, New Jersey", "* Deryl Howard, North Carolina", "* William K. Woods, Ohio", "* Henri Pell Junod, Ohio", "* Stephen Jones, Oklahoma", "* Eric R. Blackledge, Oregon\n* Richard Ober, Jr., Pennsylvania", "* Donato Andre D'Andrea, R. I.", "* Bruce M. Selya, Rhode Island", "* Foy McDavid, Tennessee", "* Stanford M. Adelstein, S. D.", "* Patrick W. Dunn, Vermont", "* Robert R. Murdoch, Virginia", "* Fred O'Brien, West Virginia", "*

# I. THE WORLD: Foreign Policy

## Swords and Plowshares

Though foreign policy is rarely a major electoral issue, the Administration's successes in promoting a "generation of peace" are a major theme in the Nixon-Agnew re-election campaign. President Nixon's televised election-year travels to the capitals of America's chief Cold War adversaries, and the considerable substantive and atmospheric results, linger in the minds of many voters as the most constructive and memorable achievements of Nixon's term in office. And indeed, to the extent that peace abroad is indispensable to domestic accomplishment, the President's foreign ventures may even contribute the most to his desire to reorder priorities at home.

A new theoretical framework for American foreign policy is a notable accomplishment in itself. The last such period of intensive rethinking of the American role was during the first months of the State Department's Policy Planning Council under George Kennan — fully a quarter-century ago. To Kennan's dismay, the containment doctrine developed at that time was mechanically applied, sometimes in situations where the U.S. had no clear strategic interest. The dominant rhetoric of the Cold War, depicting the United States as the leader of the "free world" in holding back the tide of "international communism," was at once simplistic and devoid of positive purpose. Both the interventionism which spawned the Vietnam adventure and the isolationism which began to take hold in the wake of its failure were the products of a sterile and outdated foreign policy badly in need of recasting.

It is one of our history's great ironies that a man schooled in the anti-communism of the past should preside over the quiet revolution which has produced a new, more forward-looking and purposeful global strategy for the United States. Richard Nixon has been greatly assisted in this task by a former Harvard professor whose scholarly achievements have included studies of the golden age of *realpolitik* and "balance of power" politics and its architects, Metternich and Bismarck. The President's three "State of the World" messages, which bear the strong imprint of Henry Kissinger's thinking, most fully express the new conceptual framework of American foreign policy.

As summarized in the latest of these volumes, the Administration's vision of the world of the 1970's prescribes for the U.S. "a more balanced alliance with our friends and a more creative connection with our adversaries." Proclaiming the end of rigid postwar bi-

polarity, the 1972 message cites the Administration's efforts to redirect the large American role toward helping to shape a new world order based on: 1) a greater responsibility for America's allies (Japan and West Europe); 2) a more determined effort to create through negotiation a sense of self-restraint and dedication to stability on the part of ourselves and our adversaries; and 3) a greater tolerance of the differing aspirations and national interests of third-world powers.

In the emerging multi-polar world of the 1970's and 1980's, the U.S. and the USSR will continue to play a leading role in their respective alliances and will be in political competition in many areas. But the breakup of the Sino-Soviet bloc and the greater "burden-sharing" in the Western alliance will entail greater responsibilities for other major powers than in the past. The Washington-Moscow duopoly is being replaced by a more complex, many-sided relationship involving, most prominently, Peking, Tokyo, New Delhi, Bonn, Paris and London.

In some of its essentials, the Administration's concept, based on global strategic parity and regional balances, resembles the 19th-century Concert of Europe. It assumes a willingness on the part of each member of the expanded great-power club to set limits on its own behavior aimed at: 1) avoiding unilateral "policing" actions; 2) jointly discouraging efforts by regional powers to upset balances by means of force or subversion; and 3) sponsoring more realistic channels for the negotiation of peaceful change.

Two arguments in Kissinger's book on the Congress of Vienna have particular relevance here. The first is that a stable order can be built only upon the "relative security — and thus the relative insecurity" of its members. Such stability implies not the absence of conflicting interests, but the absence of those large-scale grievances which might tempt states to overturn the system itself. Thus the 1969 State of the World message, in speaking of an "era of negotiation" with the Communist states, Nixon posited that these states should be regarded as nations pursuing their own interests — as *they* perceive them — and pledged to seek "realistic accommodation" of these interests which conflict with our own. Kissinger's second major point is that when peace — understood merely as the avoidance of war — has been the major aim, the international system has been at the mercy of the world's troublemakers. But "whenever the international order has acknowledged that certain principles could not be

6

Ripon Forum

compromised, even for the sake of peace, stability based on an equilibrium of forces was at least conceivable." Thus, the insistence in the 1972 message that the object of the Presidential negotiations would not be agreements as an end in themselves, but only those agreements which would contribute to such a "stable structure of peace."

In short, the basic premise of the new approach is that new balances based on behavioral norms of moderation can be shaped only if the two global powers exercise a "broad and mutual self-restraint," refraining from exploitation of détente or Third World instability to gain an advantage over the other. The envisioned new order (the by-words of which are "restraint, prudence, tolerance and moderation" and the attendant premise of which is a "generation of peace") thus clearly assumes a renunciation of cruciating spirit by both Washington and Moscow which will not be easy to achieve. For the United States, the Administration has decreed that henceforth our interests will shape our commitments, rather than our commitments dictating our interests.

The efforts to stake out America's new role and to construct the new international order began slowly and proceeded cautiously during the first 2½ years of Nixon's term, with events gaining momentum and results becoming evident only during the past year.

## Nixon Doctrine

The first public expression of the new posture, articulated by the President on Guam in 1969 and quickly dubbed the "Nixon Doctrine," posited a continuing active role for the United States. But with the growing influence of America's allies and the challenges and opportunities presented by communist polycentrism, the President said, the leadership of the United States in the 1970's would have to be exercised in a more subtle and creative manner. Originally directed to post-Vietnam Asia, but later applied to the broader international context, the Nixon Doctrine stated that: 1) the U.S. would keep its existing treaty commitments while carefully weighing its interests before undertaking new ones; 2) the U.S. would provide a shield if a nation allied to it or vital to its security were threatened by a nuclear power — thus hopefully precluding nuclear blackmail while discouraging nuclear proliferation; and 3) other threats would be met with American economic and military assistance, though the threatened nation itself would be expected to provide the manpower to help with its own defense. As the 1970 State of the World message put it, the U.S. would participate against attempted future aggression, where its interests dictate, as "a weight, not the weight, in the scale."

Concurrent with the Vietnamization program in Indochina, the U.S. effected a reduction of American

forces in Korea and participated in the construction of regional defense and development organizations in Southeast Asia. The Japanese, who were encouraged to take a more active role in such regional efforts, were in part rewarded by the U.S. through the return of Okinawa to the Tokyo government.

In the application of the new doctrine to Europe, the President's theme was the transformation of the American role "from dominance to partnership." One month after his inauguration, Nixon visited Europe to re-affirm the U.S. commitment there and to reassure the allies that the new American role did not imply disengagement from European affairs. A second visit to Europe in the fall of 1970 dramatized the continuing effort to revitalize and reshape NATO; to coordinate allied positions concerning issues such as Berlin, the future of Germany, the proposed Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the related issue of mutual force reductions; and to extend America's cooperative role beyond defense and diplomacy to cooperation on economic and environmental matters.

The redefinition of American interests and attention was evident in Africa and Latin America as well. In the latter area, long a special "sphere of influence" for the U.S., Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's mission in 1969 resulted in recommendations concerning ways in which the U.S. could change its role from dominator to contributor. President Nixon stated his special concern for the area and for a more balanced participation in hemispheric affairs in an address to the Interamerican Press Association in October, 1969. At the same time, he announced the partial untying of American economic assistance to Latin America (allowing purchases with aid dollars to be made from Latin American as well as U.S. businesses). This move, together with the Administration's greater reliance on multilateral channels for disbursement of developmental assistance and the separation within A.I.D. of the administration of economic and military aid, has opened

September, 1972

7

the prospect of a more effective American foreign as-
sistance program.

The Administration's concern for the stability and
development of Africa was demonstrated in 1970
when the Secretary of State toured that continent, and
by Mrs. Nixon's successful visit the following year.
Roger's visit, with its theme of insulating the con-
tinent from great-power rivalries and providing it
with assistance without interfering in the internal af-
fairs of the American states, did much to help smooth
relations which had become strained the previous year
during the Biafran secession crisis. The Administration
was widely criticized both at home and in Africa for
its policy of non-involvement in this struggle, but it
has defended its policy by stressing that its provision
of $100 million in humanitarian assistance and its
support of efforts to mediate the conflict demonstrated
that the desire not to become involved did not imply
an unconcern for the suffering generated by that tragic
war.

An indicator of the extent to which the Adminis-
tration efforts to carry out its new strategic conception
have progressively focused attention on the build-
ing of "a more creative connection with our adver-
saries" is the organization of the State of the World
messages themselves. Unlike the first two volumes,
which consider first the policies toward European and
Asian allies, the 1972 document opens with a lengthy
consideration of the agenda for negotiation in Peking
and Moscow. The reversal of the order was symbolic
of what was perceived in some allied capitals as a
larger reversal of priorities in U.S. foreign relations.

Summit talks

What did the President accomplish in his tele-
vised summits, and how close have the visits brought
us to the dream of a stable world order? The founda-
tions for the China trip were carefully laid from the
early months of 1969. A series of incremental steps
by the Administration to facilitate the opening of con-
tacts, matched by continuing hostility and lack of
negotiating progress between the Chinese and the
Soviets, led the Chinese government to a decision to
explore more closely its relations with Washington —
a decision which apparently triggered an internal crisis
within the Peking government. The carefully prepared
agenda enabled the President to discuss with Mao and
Chou the two governments' differing perceptions of
the world and the Asian landscape. The delineation of
areas of agreement and disagreement, enabling the two
sides to lay out "their own interests — as they perceive
them," and to agree on basic principles for pursuing
their competing objectives, was in itself a substantial
accomplishment. As Dr. Kissinger said, the talks them-
selves were only the beginning of a long process. But

to make such a beginning, and to open the prospect
of increased mutual understanding and greater Ameri-
can flexibility in dealing with its adversaries, was more
than previous Administrations had dared to attempt.

The trip to the Soviet Union was also preceded
by careful groundwork, but in this case the prepara-
tion consisted not of subtle signals of willingness to
talk, but of months and even years of painstaking low-
er-level negotiations, preparing the basis for the
solid substantive agreements announced at Moscow.
The 1969 State of the World message had repeated
Kissinger's long-standing belief that summits required
careful preparation and progress toward a solution of
a number of outstanding and inter-related issues. And
so the road to Moscow had been marked, as well, by
considerable forward momentum in the SALT con-
ferences, by some signs of a mutual willingness to
exercise self-restraint in the Middle Eastern situation,
and by a long-awaited and highly significant agreement
on Berlin.

The very fact that the Moscow summit was held,
in the aftermath of the mining and stepped up bomb-
ing of the USSR's fraternal Vietnamese ally, indicated
how badly Brezhnev needed the conference to bolster
his own "peace program" — and here again, the de-
cision to receive Mr. Nixon led to a minor internal
Soviet shakeup. In addition to the highly significant
SALT accords, agreements were sealed at Moscow to
prepare the way for a Conference on European Se-
curity, to create a commission to explore possibilities
of trade expansion, to set down rules to minimize in-
cidents between naval vessels, to carry out a joint space
flight, and to study common problems in environ-
mental control, technological development, and med-
icine. Though no solutions of the Indochina or Middle
Eastern conflicts were reached (or even possible) at
the summit, subsequent developments have indicated
that, at least with respect to the latter conflict, the dis-
cussions that were held encouraged a stronger mutual
resolve to avoid direct confrontation in the area. Final-
ly, Nixon and Brezhnev signed a Declaration of Prin-
ciples concerning the basis on which relations between
the two states would be conducted, and pledging the
exercise of restraint, avoidance of confrontation, and
practice of the principles of peaceful co-existence.

As the Administration is well aware, the mere
existence of a hortatory document pledging responsi-
ble, restrained and peaceful behavior is no guarantee
that an era of stability has arrived. The world may in-
deed be a less fearful and crisis-ridden place than it
was a decade ago, but the habits of cooperative be-
havior are slow to develop and will not automatically
replace years of distrust and hostility.

Some of the Administration's critics have found
fault with its strategic conception, describing it as out

8

Ripon Forum

of touch with reality. A restoration of balance of power diplomacy on the model of 19th century Europe, they say, is not possible in today's world in which only two states continue to have *global* involvement and strategic capability. China, Japan and Western Europe are not yet the equals of the U.S. and the USSR; indeed, the latter two remain militarily dependent on the U.S., and a united Europe is still a dream and not a reality. Were we to try to build up our allies so that they might share our burdens, the present détente with our adversaries, which may well be based on their assumption that the U.S. will reduce its global involvement without substituting the regional involvement of its allies, could well be shattered in the process.

Moreover, it is argued, continued concentration on creation of a new relationship with our adversaries might only reduce confidence among our allies. Rather than assuming the role we posit for them, Japan and the European States may be encouraged to make their own accommodations with the Soviet Union and China. Indeed, the Administration is vulnerable to a charge of having conducted its relations with these allies with occasional heavy-handedness or neglect in recent months. Japan presently shows signs of responding to the "Nixon shock" of last summer with a "Tanaka shock" of its own new relationship to Peking. And the Europeans have reportedly been upset with Nixon's willingness to negotiate with Brezhnev a declaration of peaceful coexistence while previously counselling the NATO states to observe more caution in the allied dealings with Moscow. The Administration's choice of Gov. Ronald Reagan as an emissary to some European capitals to explain the events in Moscow and smooth over allied relations seems an especially insensitive one.

## Foreign Economic Policy

Moreover, in the conduct of its trade and monetary relations with its allies, the U.S. has seemed, as Professor Stanley Hoffmann has put it, to be playing the role of Samson in the temple. Former Secretary Connally has engaged in a game of confrontation, behaving as though our principal allies were already partial adversaries in a pentagonal world. A continuation of such action in pursuit of a new relationship with adversaries who may not in fact be *willing* to abide by the rules of self-restraint and moderation on which the projected future stability depends would be foolish indeed. In fact, the Administration itself has acknowledged that the Soviet Union has seem inclined to fish in the troubled waters of the Middle East and South Asia, and to take advantage of opportunities to exploit regional instabilities rather than to construct regional balances. In the Middle East especially, to stake Western interests and Israel's survival on the unsubstantiated hopes of Soviet self-abnegation is a dangerous policy, and one which President Nixon has not yet been tempted to employ. Likewise, the Administration has not, as its critics imply, been so naive as to expect a fundamental and sudden post-summit change in the behavior of the Chinese with respect to their interests in Asia.

Thus, it is a useful exercise for critics to point out the possible pitfalls in the Administration's new course of American foreign policy. But it is worth remembering that Professor Kissinger's scholarly background cannot leave him unaware of the differences between the world of Metternich and that of Nixon, and that the President himself is an experienced enough

## Profile

# Roger T. Kelley and the Draft

America has a tradition of a volunteer military and minimum government interference in the private lives of its citizens. When the present draft expires on June 30, 1972, as President Nixon has announced it will, a large portion of the credit for this achievement will be due to Roger T. Kelley, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. Kelley is the man who reduced draft calls from approximately 300,000 in 1968 to 50,000 this year and engineered the switch to an all-volunteer force.

Kelly's efforts met with substantial resistance from the military services and their lobbyists. He was faced with an almost insurmountable educational problem. The bureaucrats' bureaucrats — the military — had become set in their ways after thirty years of pushing buttons to get more men. It made no difference that the draft was a costly, inefficient and ineffective means of maintaining national security. The draft permitted a larger slice of the defense budget to go to the careerists and the amenities while it avoided the need for continual modernization and professionalization of the services

to attract capable volunteers, and justified an overabundance of senior positions. In addition to educating the military, Kelley had to overcome the rigidity of the Armed Services Committees of Congress.

But beyond education, Kelley had to *make* change. Because he was not in the direct line of military authority, he could not order the services to implement any specific *change* in manpower policy. What he could do, however, was to distribute all-volunteer funds, demand studies, lead, cajole, and if necessary go to the Secretary of Defense and ask for an order. The record of the services is replete with attempts to thwart Presidential initiatives in this area. In 1947-1948, for example, the services were successful in getting the draft re-implemented after "demonstrating" that they could not do without it.

Experts in the field now agree, however, that we can reach an all-volunteer force by the President's goal of next June — and maintain the AVF. As the first assistant secretary for manpower with actual personnel experience, Kelley's expertise has been the keystone to AVF's success.

September, 1972

9

politician to be aware of the limitations, as well as the opportunities, involved in the practice of international *realpolitik*. The Administration is capable of steering a balanced and sensitive course in its relations with both allies and adversaries, and should it avoid future lapses, the prospects for a more flexible and creative American role in the international system are attractive indeed.

The targets of opportunity for Mr. Nixon's critics appear to be not so much the course he has set as the tactics with which he carries it out and the rhetoric he uses to explain it to the American public. Scholarly critics attack the vastly oversimplified image of a pentagonal "balance of power" because Mr. Nixon himself has employed such terminology. In the previous era of American foreign policy, an uncompromising opposition to the "international communist conspiracy controlled and directed from Moscow" was a stance easily understood and widely applauded by the public. But the subtle maneuvers and cautious bargaining involved in turning a limited-adversary relationship into the foundation of a new international stability must make the President's speechwriters groan as they seek the easily-remembered phrases with which to expound the new policy. Dr. Kissinger has demonstrated, in his briefings to the press, a facility in explaining the Administration's actions in a way that avoids false hopes and simple conclusions, but Kissinger's presently circumscribed position makes him virtually inaccessible not only to the public but to Congress as well.

Many of the President's foreign policy speeches have been devoted to the theme of the necessity for a continuing American involvement — if a new, responsible brand of involvement — in world affairs. But Nixon's quite credible fear of a mood of "new isolationism" in the American public has led him to oversimplify the choices and, occasionally, to oversell his policies. If the Administration seeks to capture public attention only by televised journeys to a moon-like China, or by surprise announcements of sudden departures, the result will be weariness, disillusionment and suspicion rather than the sophisticated, committed and broad public support which American foreign policy in the 1970's requires and deserves.

The President would be well advised to stress communication: not only of understanding but also of a sense of purpose in foreign policy to the American people. All Kissinger's sophisticated cultivation of leadership groups counts for little against a few ill-considered Presidential words. All the subtle and skillful maneuverings in the world of *realpolitik* will come to naught if the public has decided that it prefers the simpler and less burdensome course of non-involvement in the world's affairs.

10

## BOOK REVIEW

# Ten-SHUN!

### THE DEATH OF THE ARMY

by Edward L. King

Saturday Review Press, 244 pp., $6.95

Lt. Col. Edward L. King was a "mustang" — an officer who came up through the ranks. The author served as an infantry platoon leader in the Korean War, as an infantry company commander in Germany in the mid-Fifties, on the joint allied staffs in Europe, with the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Spain, and on the staff of the Joint Chiefs from 1966 to 1969. He never served in Vietnam — his decision to retire rather than to do so is the point of departure for *Death of the Army*.

As far as King is concerned, the Vietnam War is the same kind of folly that so distressed him as a young officer in Korea — fighting a "no win" war on the Asian periphery where the vital security interests of the United States are not at stake. But as he makes clear in the opening chapters, King's view is more emotional and ethical than rational and *realpolitik*. His most damning and disturbing charge against the Army leadership is that in both Korea and Vietnam, Army commanders have pursued their career interests by planning unnecessary operations to make themselves look "aggressive." The repeated charges up "Hamburger Hill," King says, typify this kind of operation and reflect the unfeeling, careerist attitude of the officer corps. It is King's contention that the Army is being led to its demise as an effective fighting force by an ambitious, self-seeking, narrow-minded group of senior officers, whose continued dominance, he suggests, could eventually threaten civilian control of the military.

King attempts to trace the growth of this self-serving attitude, and its allied doctrines of weaponry and warfare. As he sees it, a chief culprit was Maxwell Taylor, who as Chief of Staff sought to change the Army's democratic Ike-jacket image of World War II to the Prussian-cap-with-gold-braid of the "Pentomic Army." Taylor, says King, also encouraged the officer corps to be more elitist by stressing advanced degrees and business management techniques. (Hence, though King does not mention it, Westmoreland is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.) This policy led the officer corps to adopt an expansionist ethic, pushing for more new weapons and technologies, and seeking out new roles for the Army to play.

Therefore, in King's view, the Army's participation in the Lebanon landing in 1958 was merely a means of promoting the Army's image and the careers of some generals — Westmoreland again. Soon thereafter the doctrine of brushfire wars and quick, limited response — such as the STRAC and STRIKE commands and ta'lkh of airlifting troops to the Congo — were developed. Then the Army came up with the doctrine of counterinsurgency as the answer to wars of national liberation. — and Vietnam developed. Thus, King

Ripon Forum

Overseas Economics

Trading For World Peace

When President Nixon was inaugurated in January 1969, international economic policy did not seem very important to most people in the U.S. outside of the narrow fraternity of economists and money men who traditionally worried about such things as trade and the balance of payments. Today, however, the international branch of our national economic life is a central concern of people interested less in the "dismal science" as such than in the broader sweep of international affairs. The reasons for this change are simple. International economic relations are in visible disarray; the impact of a big, competitive outside world on the United States is beginning to hurt in some localities even as it benefits U.S. consumers and retards inflation. We are reaching the end of an era of international politics dominated by issues of military security, and ushering in one shaped by the economic relations among states and large international corporations.

How have the President and his Administration fared during this transition? The domestic economy inherited by President Nixon in 1969 was anything but healthy. Inflation was about double the current rate; the favorable balance the U.S. had always enjoyed in its international trade account was already disappearing, as American purchasing power exerted its pull on lower-priced foreign goods still relatively untouched by inflation; and, of course, the U.S. balance of payments was persistently in deficit.

At the same time, American goods were becoming less competitive than before, not only because of inflation at home and an overvalued rate of exchange for the dollar, but also on account of the relative success of foreign manufacturers, especially in Western Europe and Japan. In effect, two decades of U.S. efforts for economic self-sufficiency on the Continent and in Asia had paid off; but one result was the ending of the American advantage in international trade.

Given these developments and President Johnson's resolute refusal to impose an adequate "war tax" to soak up some inflation-producing purchasing power, President Nixon would have had to work a minor miracle to prevent the mess that finally embroiled our economic relations with other states. Since President Nixon did not work such a miracle, the Johnson trade deficit deepened to historically unprecedented dimensions and capital continued to flow abroad either to escape American recession or to exploit new opportunities elsewhere; and dollars piled up in the central bank accounts of foreign states. But unlike the 1940's and 1950's — the time when dollars were desperately sought to fuel European recovery — these dollars were far less welcome. Under the impact of inflation, they were clearly overvalued — just as currencies like the Yen and the Deutschemark, set artificially at favorable parities as part of post-war Allied policy, were now undervalued. Furthermore, the flow of dollars began to im

pose severe difficulties on the money managers of Western Europe. In effect, decisions by individual purchasers and investors were diluting the control that Common Market governments were trying to assert over their own economic policy — or at least so it seemed to them.

At the same time, though the United States is far less dependent on foreign trade than any other major state outside of the Communist world, the flow of goods into our market began to impose hardships on selected domestic industries, such as textiles and shoes. It is arguable, of course, that the United States should not impose on consumers products uncompetitive with foreign goods or subsidize industries trying to use "cheap foreign labor" as a scapegoat for their own failures of management and innovation. Nevertheless, the President acted decisively on textiles to fulfill an election promise and to avoid the messiness, expense, and complexities of shifting workers from textiles to other, more competitive and better managed industries. Even accepting the argument that the U.S. should vastly reduce such inefficient production, one can still maintain that Japan, in particular, was excessively aggressive in exploiting its advantage and Japan had been particularly dilatory and obstructive before ultimately liberalizing its own practices in trade and investment. The major growth in exports, however, occurred in poorer East Asian countries, like South Korea and Taiwan, and it is these developing nations that were really hit by U.S. textile quotas.

Otherwise, the problem with the Long-Term Textile Agreement (LTA) that the U.S. negotiated with the major textile-exporting nations ("sanforizing" the U.S. domestic market against shrinkage) lay partly in political style and partly in economic substance. The United States allowed itself to be seen as the bully boy and at times did, indeed, act in ways that were peremptory and high-handed. It appears to be a classic case of overkill, where the occasional lack of cooperation on the part of, say, Japan, paled against the more overt actions of Administration officials. The offensive style of U.S. behavior was reflected in the famous measures of August 15, 1971 and in many subsequent actions.

The merits of the New Economic Policy can be debated. But it is clear that something had to give, and that the U.S. had not been receiving as much cooperation as it needed, especially from Western Europe, despite some currency realignments earlier in the year. The Japanese, by contrast, have not received enough credit for a number of steps, even if belated, that they have finally taken toward liberalizing trade and investment, partly because of their own failures at public relations. The burden that the Europeans' Common Agricultural Policy was beginning to place on U.S. farm exports threatened to be worsened by the expansion of the Common Market. There was the increasing exclusivity practiced by France, in particular, with

20

Ripon Forum

of past programs is also evidenced in their treatment of elementary and secondary education. The authors introduce the chapter on financing elementary and secondary education with the rather cavalier assertion that the 1973 education budget as originally presented by the President would not by itself justify a chapter in the book, "The budget rejects a continuation of the present limited federal role in education." Yet this federal role happens to be estimated at $3.6 billion for 1973, 50 percent higher than in 1969. Similarly, Brookings has hardly looked at priorities of farm income stabilization ($5 billion in the 1973 budget, up 25 percent since 1963) or manned space flight (coasting down but still a healthy $1.6 billion in the 1973 Budget, with the space shuttle yet a glimmer in NASA's eye). Brookings apparently has given up on farm subsidies on the basis of the unsuccessful experience of several Administrations in trying to reduce them.

If Brookings will not bear the embarrassment of a confrontation with the emperor, who will? George McGovern? Hardly. Each new tax and welfare program he introduces is fuzzier and less related to past reality than the one before. The Republicans in Congress? Not likely, since they generally feel obliged to follow their President's budgetary leadership.

Maybe the embarrassing news will yet come to the emperor from the heart of the President's own Administration. Remember the boost the tax reform movement received from Johnson's one-month Secretary of the Treasury, Joseph W. Barr, who sounded the clarion of the "taxpayers' revolt" and helped assure passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. Now Charles E. Walker, Nixon's own Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, has had the temerity to start a mini-revolt against manpower training programs. He has reminded the taxpayer that these programs have cost the taxpayers about $40 billion since they began in 1961, were budgeted for $4 billion in the 1973 Budget ($700 million more than last year), and had succeeded in reducing the unemployment rate by less than one-half of one percentage point, a figure that he said represents only 400,000 persons. Even the .05 percent figure may overstate the success of the manpower programs, Mr. Walker adds, because it includes persons who are actually in the training program at any given time.

It would be nice if Brookings could give us some hard answers to nagging old budget problems along with probing questions about new initiatives. They might just find enough threads on the old emperor to swaddle child care, environmental protection or one of their other fiscal babes.

The Brookings' authors perceptively argue that both Congress and the executive branch need to view budget totals and major program decisions in a longer perspective; perhaps the Administration should present to Congress a five-year budgetary outlook. Maybe Congress can be persuaded to pass three-to-five-year budget authorizations and appropriations (notwithstanding the Constitution's biennial bias). This approach has already been shown to have some advantages. The Defense Department, and several others, already prepare confidential five-year budgetary outlooks for their own use. Yet again, however, Brookings is looking to the emperor's new clothes and seems to have little concern with his earlier folly. If one is to look forward five years in the budgetary process, why not invest equal effort to look back at what went wrong (or right) last year, or the year before.
— EUGENE MARANS

RIPON

FORUM

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This authoritative book tells in detail what President Nixon has done to achieve peace on a global scale.

NIXON'S QUEST
FOR PEACE

by Frank van der Linden

Washington Correspondent for
the United Features Syndicate

Here are the facts you need at your fingertips to answer the questions raised by President Nixon's opponents.

Van der Linden's book shows how, while others have *talked* about international peace, President Nixon has *acted* to achieve it. It gives a clear picture of his foreign policy and covers the whole period of his administration including details of his recent visits to China and Moscow as well as his strategy to solve the Middle East conflict, to extricate the U.S. from Vietnam, and to limit the nuclear arms race.

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September, 1972

19

regard to African markets, and an uncooperative European position on further liberalization of trade. Again, there was French obstruction in the formation of the two-tiered gold market in 1968. But most important, there was a strong sense in Europe that the "dollar problem" was essentially something for the Americans to solve.

The chief economic criticisms that can be made of the international aspects of the New Economic Policy are 1) suspension of dollar convertibility came rather late in the day; 2) The NEP merely postponed the necessary devaluation of the dollar; 3) The NEP was to some extent an effort to make other industrial nations pick up part of the tab for our failure to bring inflation under control at home. These are substantial criticisms; yet it can still be said that the Administration handled the economic aspects of the crisis better than some European countries — notably Great Britain — had handled similar problems in the past few years. Furthermore, by December, the Administration did abandon, a bit belatedly, its insistence on preserving the par value of the dollar through the transparent fiction of upvaluing every other currency that was undervalued in terms of the dollar. On balance, the Smithsonian Agreement that finally devalued the dollar was a workmanlike effort and was a step forward toward full-scale monetary reform.

Again, the real deficiencies of the August 15 agreement lie in the politics of the matter. First, there was the indiscriminate nature of the 10 percent added-duty on U.S. imports, which punished cooperative (and poor) nations along with the less-cooperative rich countries. Secondly, the Administration went much too far in insisting that sweeping accommodations be made by the other rich countries before the surcharge could be lifted. Thirdly, the President included in his August 15 message a determination to cut foreign economic aid a further 10 percent, thus adding insult to the injury the U.S. had already done to the international cooperative effort on development and further penalizing the small players in the larger international economic game.

## John Connally

There has been a long and sustained debate about U.S. actions during the period between August and December 1971, and especially about the role played by former Treasury Secretary John Connally. On the one hand, he did gain substantial agreements on currency realignments from the other Group of Ten countries, once he made clear U.S. willingness to abandon the $35 official price of gold. On the other hand, his methods fed what feelings of pique and bitterness already existed, especially in Europe. Indeed, it is arguable that Secretary Connally's aggressiveness has increased the desire and willingness of the European Community partners to rely less upon co-operation with the U.S. in international economic matters, and more upon their own economic strength. If so, then short-term U.S. gains — and gains in terms of abating a serious economic crisis — could be offset by an even faster growth of competitive mercantilism and retreat from liberal trade practices among the rich countries.

Just as important as these potential reactions by

European economic managers are the implications of U.S. international economic policies on the political strength and cohesion of the Western Alliance itself. For a number of reasons, the emphasis in Alliance affairs is shifting away from the preoccupation with military security and the U.S. nuclear guarantee that dominated deliberations for many years. The effort to preserve European security has succeeded; détente rather than confrontation is the watchword; and the strains in the Alliance have virtually ceased to center on military issues, shifting rather to very real economic differences. European equality, long proclaimed as a tenet of Allied faith, is coming true, at least in the economic realm (the only one that matters very much any more in Europe). This growing equality is not particularly to U.S. liking, as strength breeds competition. It is still true that Allied disagreements are argued out largely within the military forum of NATO, and that the Allies seek agreement in the tried and true area of mutual security. But the real emphasis of the Alliance and its problems has already shifted. Thus the squabbling attendant on the NEP and the United State's hard sell pressure may have had a serious impact upon the Alliance as a whole, and upon Atlantic "security" in the broadest sense of that word. The timing was also unfortunate. Coming during the SALT talks (when many Europeans felt their interests to be jeopardized in bilateral negotiation over the arms race), the economic crisis underscored the slow separation of interests between the U.S. and its European Allies. Moreover, the U.S. was then resisting widespread European support for a European Security Conference — a subject seemingly far removed from international economic policy, but reflecting the same needs and problems of Atlantic understanding and cooperation. Unfortunately, consultation with our European Allies remains more theory than fact, as was also true under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

The implications of the style used by the U.S. in launching the NEP for our relations in Asia are as important. The reaction of Japan to the NEP is well known, as is the explanation given by the Administration for keeping Tokyo in the dark: that the U.S. had to act quickly and, as implied by the President's announcement on his China trip, the Japanese supposedly can't keep a secret. In addition, in the Administration's view, Japan had to be "shocked" into taking drastic action, including the upvaluing of the Yen (again, giving Japan little credit for positive acts taken during the months before August 15).

The economic arguments have some merit; as does the argument that Japan needed more stimulus to act. But for all that has been said about Japanese reaction to the "twin shocks" of July and August 15, 1971, it is still hard to exaggerate their potentially dangerous long-range impact. We are in danger, particularly, of forcing the Japanese once again toward intense economic nationalism, out of a sense (real or not) that Japan is being treated as a second-class nation. At a time when the U.S. needs Japanese economic cooperation throughout East Asia, both for its own sake and to forestall further military ventures there on the part of any major power, fostering this sense of isolation in Japan is remarkably shortsighted. Thus,

September, 1972

21

an international economic policy could have a decisive im-
pact both on political relations and on Japan's decision on
whether to become a major military power, going far be-
yond the growth of mercantilism or the limiting of U.S.-
Japanese economic cooperation in the Western Pacific.

These observations are not new. What is striking, however, is that they have been made so often, yet without stirring the Administration to act forcefully to counteract them. It was more than a year before a U.S.-Japanese summit conference, and this on U.S. soil instead of in Tokyo (the one hour meeting between the President and the Emperor must be discounted almost entirely). Despite the Kissinger visit and the Nixon-Tanaka meeting, the U.S. has still not acknowledged in its policies that in the ways that most matter Japan will be the most important power in the area for at least the balance of this decade and should be our most cherished ally. The fate of Japan should be considered more important than a few votes in South Carolina.

This anomaly is only partly attributable to the much-
discussed emphasis of the White House on a "new bal-
ance of power." In addition, the higher echelons of the
Administration have been particularly slow to grasp the
emerging importance of economics in international political
relations. This is ironic, in that such a development is
implicit in the President's own claims — quite likely
justified — that Vietnam is America's last war. Further-
more, it is clearly in both Soviet and American interest
that two of the so-called pentagon of power centers, name-
ly Western Europe and Japan, be kept substantially dis-
armed. Yet to achieve this interest will require a basic
change in attitudes — attitudes about what it takes to
make a "great power," and how to respond to great pow-
ers that do not have the traditional military coin of im-
portance. If we in the United States can demonstrate that
Western Europe and Japan are just as important as, say,
China, without going the traditional military route, then
we may indeed be able to avoid this eventuality and order
our relations primarily in the much safer (however com-
petitive) area of economics.

Restructuring the international monetary and trading
system thus is important in ways that go far beyond the
need to expand international liquidity, find an alternative
to gold and the dollar in international commerce, make
necessary adjustments in currency exchange rates to re-
flect differentials of economic performance, create
a new, realistic set of rules for the GATT, establish a
code of conduct for multinational companies, and fore-
stall the growth of protectionism and mercantilism, with re-
gional north-south trading blocks. These reforms and ef-
forts, as vital as they are in substantive economic terms,
are necessary both as part of the growth of international
economic relations and as a matter of international politics,
hopefully supplanting some of the security politics of yester-
day and today.

As a first priority, therefore, there needs to be great-
er effort put into international economic reform, as part
of broader foreign policy. On this score, the Administra-
tion must share responsibility for the slow pace of
progress beyond last December's Smithsonian Agreement.

It must also bear a major share of the responsibility for
the failure to create a sense among the developed coun-
tries that the international economic system must be seen
as a whole, including poor countries as well as rich. It
is true that the U.S. (through Secretary Connally) pro-
posed that the Group of Ten be expanded to a group of
twenty based on the Government of the International
Monetary Fund. It remains to be seen whether this was
more a tactical device designed to change the nature of
bargaining with a united European Community than a
genuine commitment to greater bargaining power for the
poor nations.

Poor Countries

Yet it can be argued that, increasingly, a continuing
and active role for the poor countries will be required in
order to have an international economic system that works
very well for anyone. There must be common action to
preserve the environment, and there must be an orderly
process for bargaining with poor countries processing raw
materials, and possibly extending to other commodities as
supplier countries learn to organize themselves better.
These questions may not be urgent now; but they are
likely to become so by the end of the decade.

Like its predecessor (and much of the Congress, for
that matter), this Administration does not seem to recog-
nize the problems and potential here. It has shifted some-
what on the question of providing poor countries with
a slightly greater share of the IMF's Special Drawing
Rights (SDRs) — the so-called "paper gold." Yet at the
Third United National Conference on Trade and De-
velopment in Santiago this year, the Administration re-
peated the U.S. action of four years earlier at UNCTAD
II, in obstructing efforts to increase the flow of resources
to poor countries. Only at Stockholm at the U.N. Con-
ference on the Environment were we more receptive to
the interests of such poorer nations, but then our desire
for cooperation from them in return was more apparent.

By executive action this Administration has promoted
the disassociation of bilateral aid from purchases in this
country (and actually has permitted poor countries to
buy from one another with U.S. aid). And the President
has given some support to the principle of granting
preferential access to U.S. markets for products of poor
countries. The Administration's record is not very lauda-
ble in the area of economic aid, however. Although the
President has given some backing to the limited appro-
priations for the international lending institutions (like
the World Bank's International Development Association),
it has followed the trend set by the Johnson Administra-
tion in letting U.S. bilateral aid sink to a new low.

Thus the United States now ranks 12th out of the
16 OECD nations that belong to the Development As-
sistance Committee in terms of the percent of GNP pro-
vided in foreign aid. We are in default of our agreements
with other donor nations — a poor harbinger of other
forms of international economic cooperation. With regard
to South Asia, in particular, our record is even worse:
we have still not resumed economic aid to India, cut off
in December 1971, and thus are threatening the entire

22

Ripon Forum

World Bank-led aid consortium for India. Meanwhile, the Administration continues to place emphasis on military assistance programs in the developing world, instead of experimenting with much more hopeful — and arguably more promising — economic methods. In Asia, this is most unfortunate, where we need new tools to replace discredited military ones. Japan's success in using economic aid to develop their markets in Asia should be instructive.

Our general attitude toward poor countries can be seen as a missed opportunity, both in attempting to help promote the development that so many countries want, and in working toward better forms of international economic (and hence, political) cooperation. This Administration, like the last, may be able to indulge in myopic practices, but for how long is questionable. Indeed, what is at stake here — with regard not just to poor countries but also to international economic relations in general — is a sense of U.S. commitment to cooperative internationalism. We have had this commitment a scant 30 years, and it is now seriously in jeopardy, not because we are withdrawing from over-involvement in security matters, but rather because at the same time we are losing a sense of leadership — or even of a shared leadership in ensuring the health of the international economic system.

In its formal declarations the Administration has shown some awareness of these problems and potentials. As Secretary Connally said to the Council on Foreign Relations on March 15:

> In the public sector, we must give to foreign economic policy that same intensive effort and emphasis which, until now, has been principally reserved for foreign military and political policies.

But performance has not matched this bold and correct insight.

In part, this deficiency has been a matter of organ-

ization. During this Administration, the State Department has lost much of its influence on foreign policy. Its experience in economic matters has thus also been lost to a great extent. Some of the slack was picked up by the Treasury Department under Secretary Connally, but with notoriously mixed results. And in the White House itself, Dr. Kissinger is widely noted for having little interest in international economic policy, dealing instead with practices and concepts which may be becoming increasingly outmoded. With the departure of Fred Bergsten from the National Security Council last year, the White House effort was weakened even further. And during the crisis that preceded August 15, 1971, the international economic experts at Treasury, State and the National Security Council were hardly involved, and along with Secretary Rogers and Dr. Kissinger were noticeably absent from the famous meeting at Camp David.

## White House Leadership

Happily, the President instituted an International Economic Policy Council in 1970, designed to operate on a level with the Domestic Council and the National Security Council. Yet, when it was led by now Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, the IEPC never was a rival for Dr. Kissinger in U.S. foreign policy, or for Treasury Secretary Connally. And now, under the direction of Peter Flanigan, the Council has little salutary impact at all, and is reputed to serve more as a link to business than as a clearinghouse for enlightened policy. Thus, there is no single place in the Administration where an overview of the international economic issues can be focused. The failure of the IEPC to represent a sophisticated view of international economic problems (even, at times, under Peterson) was illustrated by the President's statement last January 19 on the expropriation of U.S. business in foreign countries. In retaliation to such action the U.S. would "presumably" cut off further adequate compensation, and would not support loans from the multilateral development banks. The unilateral act, widely decried, especially in Latin America, is evidence of the Administration's inability to grasp the complexities of the problem posed by the multinational corporation, and the need to reconcile problems, not simply react in defense of U.S. business interests, narrowly conceived. The President's statements do not promise a more enlightened approach as these problems get worse, not just with respect to poor countries, but also with regard to the operations of U.S. multinational corporations in places like Western Europe.

The one bright spot in White House handling of international economic affairs is the Office of the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations. William Eberle, and his new deputy, Harald Malmgren, are continuing in the elevated tradition maintained by Carl J. Gilbert. This office is now as talented and sophisticated as it has ever been and will hopefully exercise some counterweight to other forces acting within the White House.

Hopefully as well, the Special Representative's Office will have some impact on one trend in Administration attitudes in international economic relations; namely, the growth of protectionism. This sentiment has led American labor

September, 1972

23

to oppose trade expansion in an ill-considered and ultimately self-destructive attempt to terminate the "export of jobs" to low-wage countries by encouraging inflation and inefficiency in American industry and thus, ultimately, retarding real economic growth and job creation. At the moment, the Burke-Hartke Bill, a monstrosity that would curb both trade and investment, is pending before the Congress as the top legislative priority of the AFL-CIO. The White House fortunately opposes the bill. (See March 1972 FORUM for a full discussion of the problems of multinational corporations.)

The problems of job losses is significant and will not evaporate even if the Burke-Hartke bill is defeated in its entirety. Again, the Administration has been slow to react to the problem — with the exception of its special efforts on behalf of industries like textiles. The correct approach to the problem is not to appease special interests, but to help U.S. workers who lose their jobs, regardless of the cause, to retain them, and assist them in finding new employment. (Ironically, the Government's

largest adjustment assistance program is in the form of aid given to Turkey to discourage the cultivation of opium poppies.)

## Conclusion

This problem, as well as the growing problem of the multinational corporation, illustrated a final point about the complexity of international economic policy. Not only is this area becoming inextricably part of broader international political issues, but there is also far less distinction than before between domestic economic issues and those in the international arena. For Americans, this will imply a major change in the way we view the outside world, and major requirements to coordinate policies in the two areas. Making the shift will not be particularly to our liking, but the changes are inevitable, as are the needs of the President and his Administration to pay far more attention in the future to international economic concerns, and to deal with them with a far greater sophistication and realization of the larger political framework within which they fit.

## Consumer Affairs

# Who's Aware Now (In the Market)?

President Nixon established the standard for his Administration in consumer affairs in his Buyer's Bill of Rights submitted to Congress on October 30, 1969.

"Consumerism in the America of the 70's means that we have adopted the concept of "buyer's rights."

I believe that the buyer in America today has the right to make an intelligent choice among products and services.

The buyer has the right to accurate information on which to make his free choice.

The buyer has the right to expect that his health and safety is taken into account by those who seek his patronage.

The buyer has the right to register his dissatisfaction, and have his complaint heard and weighed, when his interests are badly served.

This "Buyer's Bill of Rights" will help provide greater personal freedom for individuals as well as better business for everyone engaged in trade."

The tone of the remarks and the selection of Virginia Knauer, a recognized consumer advocate, as Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs offered promise to the consumer movement. The lesson that consumers were a real political force was learned during the President's abortive effort to name Willie Mae Rogers, of the commercially-oriented *Good Housekeeping* to the consumer post. Still, the promises of 1969 have not become realities.

The Nixon approach to consumer affairs has evolved as an uneven mixture of classical and Keynesian economics. The stated philosophy shows a great faith in recreating a fair and just marketplace for buyers and sellers.

The same faith shaped the anti-trust policies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, yet this Administration has not employed anti-trust or anti-monopoly actions as significant tools to aid consumers. Competition, theory says, will provide consumers better choices because sellers will have to produce new and improved products to woo consumer dollars. Neither consumer advocates — with the notable exception of Ralph Nader — nor the Administration, however, has given anti-trust efforts priority among consumer protection methods, although, as in the case of Theodore Roosevelt's "trust busting," it stems logically from the free enterprise philosophy. The impetus for such anti-trust usage has come instead from state governments who have widely utilized such tactics. FTC's new Bureau of Competition and former Justice Anti-trust Division Head, Richard McLaren, have not been able to establish anti-trust momentum during the first Nixon term.

Another key to an improved marketplace is to improve the consumer's access to reliable product information. Consumer information and education programs are positive approaches which do not involve direct government action against business. By Executive Order, President Nixon has established the Consumer Product Information Coordinating Center and several million pamphlets listing government consumer publications have been issued. CPICC has stimulated increased publishing efforts on the part of federal agencies in line with the President's statement on October 26, 1970, that "Government product information is acquired in the public interest, and it should be made available to the public and to other government agencies in a manner that is useful to consumers...."

24

Ripon Forum

Lors, Léger & Ketchum

Nous ne cherchons pas à être
les plus connus.
Etre appréciés nous suffit.

Nous produisons du champagne depuis plus d'un siècle.

Nous sommes situés à Tours-sur-Marne, au cœur des vignobles champenois. Nous sommes ainsi la seule grande marque entourée de 4 grands crus à 100%: ceci nous permet d'effectuer une sélection exemplaire chaque année.

Nous attachons une grande rigueur à notre production; aussi, nous nous interdisons de l'augmenter sans cesse.
Notre champagne brut millésimé est introuvable quand la récolte n'a pas été vraiment excellente.

Lorsqu'elle l'a été, il demeure rare.

Nous produisons une cuvée prestigieuse, la cuvée Grand Siècle. Cette cuvée spéciale est le fruit de l'assemblage de vins soignement conservés, provenant de vendanges millésimées de qualité exceptionnelle. La forme des bouteilles qui la renferment n'a pas varié depuis la découverte de la méthode champenoise.

Toutes ces raisons concourent sans doute à faire en sorte que des amateurs de champagne restent fidèles à notre maison.

Toutes ces raisons font aussi que peu de gens nous connaissent.

Mais nous ne cherchons pas à être les plus connus, participer au plaisir de ceux qui apprécient vraiment le champagne demeure notre ambition.

atesa

Maison Laurent Perrier.

Domaine de Tours-sur-Marne.

EX

MONDE

Guerre pour la paix

« La paix vient... Une question de mois... » Négociation sérieuse ou comédie électorale : nos envoyés spéciaux et nos correspondants cherchent la vérité.

*(En couverture cette semaine)*

Taciturne, souriant, M. Henry Kissinger se laisse aimablement photographier, à Orly, jeudi après-midi, devant le Boeing 707 de l'United States Air Force en partance pour Washington. Le conseiller suprême du président Richard Nixon remercie Paris de son hospitalité : c'est la dix-neuvième fois en trois ans qu'il y vient parler d'armistice avec les envoyés du Nord-Vietnam. Et c'est la première fois qu'il y passe quatre jours. Mardi, par un geste de courtoisie sans précédent — sollicité, à vrai dire, depuis longtemps par les Français — M. Kissinger est venu entretenir de ses démarches M. Mau rice Schumann, ministre des Affaires étrangères. Et celui-ci, immédiatement après, s'est précipité à l'Elysée. La paix serait-elle pour demain ?

Les valises. Au pied de la passerelle du Boeing, aux côtés de M. Kissinger, l'ambassadeur des Etats-Unis, M. Arthur Watson, a, lui, la mine plus grave. Il a été convoqué la veille, à ce même ministère des Affaires étrangères, pour y entendre la protestation la plus acerbe que la France ait élevée, depuis longtemps, auprès des Etats-Unis : mercredi, par un acte que le président George Pompidou qualifie de « déplorable », des appareils du porte-avions « Midway » — peints des mêmes insignes que l'avion de M. Kissinger — ont écrasé sous leurs bombes la Délégation générale française à Hanoi, ensevelissant le représentant de la France, à demi mort, sous les décombres.

Un accident ? Il n'aurait pu tomber plus mal : en pleins pourparlers de paix, les bombes visaient, en tout cas, Hanoi et ses faubourgs. Elles rappellent que, derrière le sourire de M. Kissinger, se profile l'énorme machine de guerre américaine, dont nul ne peut prédire quand elle s'arrêtera.

M. Kissinger lui-même s'y hasarderait-il, qu'on ne le saurait pas. C'est l'homme le plus secret du monde (voir plus loin l'article sur M. Kissinger). Sa négociation est la plus secrète, sans doute, de l'Histoire. Wall Street en est réduit à observer les allées et venues à Orly des valises de M. Kissinger : si — comme mardi soir — on les décharge de nouveau du Boeing, c'est que la négociation se prolonge, et la Bourse monte en flèche. De dimanche à jeudi, M. Kissinger n'a paru que deux fois : l'une, chez M. Schumann, l'autre, à Orly. Il n'était, le reste du temps, ni — comme on l'a prétendu — chez

M. Pompidou, quai de Béthune, ni dans l'appartement de M. Jean Sainteny, ancien représentant de la France à Hanoi, ni dans la villa de Choisy-le-Roi où une équipe de télévision américaine le découvrit en septembre.

Un homme, pourtant, sait où il réside : un commissaire de police, désigné par l'Elysée. Mais il ne fait rapport qu'à l'Elysée, et le Quai d'Orsay ne le voit pas.

Le tambour. Le mystère est tel que l'on ne savait pas, jeudi, pourquoi M. Kissinger avait passé à Paris une nuit de plus. Les porte-parole nord-vietnamiens de l'avenue Kléber laisaient entendre que, ce jeudi, leurs chefs ne l'avaient pas vu. Et que les pourparlers étaient au point mort. Alors ? S'agit-il d'une négociation sérieuse, ou d'une gigantesque comédie électorale américaine ? Au second cas, pourquoi les Nord-Vietnamiens s'y prêteraient-ils ?

Les indications recueillies par L'Express semblent démontrer que la vérité se situe entre les deux.

Que la négociation se poursuive à un certain niveau de profondeur est confirmé par l'épisode suivant : à peine M. Kissinger a-t-il quitté Paris, jeudi, que deux 404 Peugeot, à 15 heures précises, déposent sept Nord-Vietnamiens au 11 de la rue Darthé, à Choisy-le-Roi. Deux Américains les y rejoignent pour un colloque qui va durer dix heures.

M. Nixon (voir, ci-après, l'article d'Emile Guikovaty) trouve un intérêt évident, à trois semaines de l'élection présidentielle, à laisser entendre que la paix est en vue : il a lui-même proclamé durant sa précédente campagne, voilà quatre ans tout juste : « Ceux qui ont eu la possibilité, pendant quatre ans, de faire la paix, et ne l'ont pas faite, ne méritent pas qu'on leur donne une autre chance. » A chaque départ « secret » de M. Kissinger pour Paris, M. Nixon, donc, fait battre tambour. Mais il sait aussi qu'il ne peut, avant l'élection, annoncer la seule concession majeure qui permettrait immédiatement un armistice : le retrait de tout appui au président Thieu. La droite américaine ne le lui pardonnerait pas.

Les Nord-Vietnamiens, eux, qui ne comptent plus sur une victoire de M. George McGovern, savent bien qu'ils ne retrouveront plus avant quatre ans période si favorable pour arracher, au moins, quelques concessions sur

d'autres plans. Et puisque les positions respectives concernant M. Thieu demeurent irréductibles, il semble que l'on soit tombé d'accord, à Paris, la semaine dernière, pour supposer, momentanément, le problème résolu. Et pour discuter d'autres choses. Notamment, des conséquences militaires d'un armistice. De la répartition des zones de contrôle. Du retrait d'unités nord-vietnamiennes du Sud-Vietnam, une fois les armes silencieuses. C'est vraisemblablement de cela que le général Alexander Haig est allé entretenir le président Thieu à Saigon, au cours d'une entrevue jugée, par M. Thieu, si importante, qu'il a convoqué, le 4 octobre, tout son « Conseil national de sécurité » pour accueillir l'envoyé américain.

Les ruines. Ainsi se monte, pièce à pièce, le mécanisme délicat qu'il suffira d'enclencher dès l'accord d'armistice : ce qui permet aux Américains de souligner, sotto voce, « des progrès considérables ». Mais, en attendant, le président Thieu reste. Ce qui fait dire aux Nord-Vietnamiens : « Rien ne bouge. » Et c'est pourquoi, sans doute, une haute personnalité française — qui ne prétend pas, d'ailleurs, tout savoir — a pu dire, jeudi, à L'Express : « La paix vient. Mais je ne crois pas qu'il s'agisse d'une question de jours, ou de semaines. Plutôt de mois. »

Devant 25 000 étudiants rassemblés, jeudi, au stade de Cholon, le président Thieu a répété qu'il ne cédera jamais la place, à Saigon, à des ministres communistes. Le Nord-Vietnam, dit-il, n'a pas gagné la guerre. Hué, An-Loc, Kontum ont tenu. L'Armée sud-vietnamienne a tenu. Celle du Nord a perdu le plupart de son matériel lourd et de ses 800 tanks. Elle n'a pas réussi à provoquer le « soulèvement général ».

C'est vrai. Mais le Sud ne peut pas espérer la victoire non plus : ses villes reconquises sont en ruine. L'offensive communiste a jeté sur les routes un million de réfugiés de plus. L'économie s'épuise. On manque de riz. Le blocus américain n'a pas étouffé le Nord. Les communistes tiennent la moitié du Sud.

« Au rythme actuel, a dit le Premier ministre du Nord, M. Pham Van Dong, nous pouvons maintenir notre effort de guerre encore quatre ans. » Des rapports secrets américains, plus sobres, disent : deux.

Mais cette guerre est déjà sans vainqueurs. Il n'y a plus de morts utiles. ■

60

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H 1

CARNET

Né : Ignat, fils d'Alexandre Soljenitsyne, 53 ans, écrivain soviétique, et de Nathalie, 32 ans, il y a quelques semaines, à Moscou.

Née : Anne, fille de Pierre Cuq, plus connu comme comédien et metteur en scène sous le pseudonyme de Pierre Mondy, et de sa troisième femme, Annie, le 6 octobre, à l'hôpital américain de Neuilly.

Mariés : Scott Carpenter, 47 ans, ancien astronaute américain, et Maria Roach, journaliste, fille du pionnier du cinéma Hal Roach, le 7 octobre, à Los Angeles.

Mariés : Christy Brown, 39 ans, écrivain irlandais paralysé de naissance, qui tapa le manuscrit de son best-seller, « Down all the Days » (« Celui qui regardait passer les jours »), avec les orteils de son pied gauche, et Mary Carr, 27 ans, secrétaire, le 5 octobre, à Dublin (Irlande).

Décédé : Robert Le Vigan, 73 ans, acteur français, le 12 octobre, à Tandil (Argentine). Dans les années 30 et 40, il fut, au générique des plus grands classiques du cinéma français, l'interprète de personnages souvent inquiétants (« Les Bas-Fonds », « Quai des brumes », « Goupi-Mains rouges »).

Décédé : Erik Eriksen, 69 ans, ancien Premier ministre danois, d'une affection cardiaque, le 7 octobre, à l'hôpital d'Odense (Danemark).

Décédée : Miriam Hopkins, 70 ans, actrice américaine, d'une crise cardiaque, le 8 octobre, à New York. Elle devait les meilleurs rôles de sa carrière cinématographique à Ernst Lubitsch, qui en fit son interprète dans « Séné-nade à trois » et « Haute Pègre ».

● Comme chaque année, la Fava, association de volontaires au service des handicapés mentaux, organise, à l'intention des personnes désireuses de consacrer un peu de leur temps en faveur des handicapés, une session d'information, du 23 octobre au 9 novembre.

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PHOTOS

P. 12 : Manuel Bidermanas ; Camera Press.
P. 14 : Michel Giannoulatos ; Apis ; Christian Taillandier. Pp. 16-17 : Bernard Cotte ; Christian Deville ; M.-P. Guéna. P. 18 : Maurice Henry ; M. Giannoulatos. P. 20 : Mopy. P. 21 : Jean Ker. P. 22 : Francis Pelletan ; François Bénard ; M. Giannoulatos ; André Gobeli. P. 23 : Hubert Giuliani. P. 24 : J. Ker ; André Allègret ; Gamma. P. 25 : Michel Causse-Gamma ; A. Gobeli ; J. Ker ; Bernard Charlon. P. 26 : Jean Guyaux ; M. Henry. P. 60 : Alain Noguès-Gamma. P. 61 : J. Anderson-Gamma ; A.p. Pp. 62 à 64 ; Caméra Press : Marc Riboud-Magnum ; Pic : A.f.p. P. 65 : Naltchayan. P. 66 : Phil Roach ; A.p. ; Upi.

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59

HANOI, 1968 : LE DÉLÉGUÉ GÉNÉRAL DE FRANCE CÉLÈBRE DANS SON BUNKER-ABRI LA FIN DES BOMBARDEMENTS AMÉRICAINS.

AVIONS US AVEC LEURS BOMBES A AILETTES.
En toute connaissance de cause, pour la première fois depuis 1966.

LES RUINES DE LA DÉLÉGATION FRANÇAISE.

LE DÉLÉGUÉ GÉNÉRAL, M. SUSINI, A L'HÔPITAL.

avoir mené sa propre petite guerre sans en référer au Pentagone, on est bien en droit de se poser plusieurs questions.

1. Pouvait-il, comme l'a dit M. Laird, s'agir d'un Sam ? Réponse : non. Parreille affirmation, selon Jean Thoraval, « indigne tout le monde ici ». Le journaliste canadien Michael Maclear, de passage à Hanoi, témoigne : « J'ai vu au moins trois jets survoler le centre de Hanoi. L'un a piqué très bas, à travers un tir de D.c.a. intense, et a lâché deux bombes sur le quartier des ambassades. » Une bombe non éclatée a été retrouvée à 50 mètres de la Délégation française.

2. L'appareil était-il en difficulté ? Michael Maclear répond : « Non. Il était indemne. »

3. Pouvait-on confondre les bâtiments français avec un objectif stratégique ? Réponse : non. Facilement repérables à 200 mètres du « Petit Lac » de Hanoi, le bâtiment principal, trois villas et le bâtiment de la chancellerie abritent la Délégation française depuis 1954, sur un terrain de 7 000 m2. Il n'y a, à proximité, ni usines ni ministères vietnamiens.

4. La mission française était-elle particulièrement visée ? Réponse : rien ne le prouve. Une soixantaine de bombes au total sont tombées sur Hanoi et sa banlieue.

Certaines ont éclaté à environ 400 mètres de l'ambassade de Suède, elle-même sise à 1 500 mètres de la Délégation française. Une école de musique a été détruite.

5. Quelle était donc la mission des appareils américains ? C'est là, sans doute, la question principale, et la plus embarrassante. Le commandement de la Marine américaine a annoncé à Saigon, jeudi, que le raid avait été effectué par « un certain nombre » d'appareils du porte-avions « Midway », qui croise au large, dans le golfe du Tonkin.

Leurs cibles : la gare de triage de Gialam et un atelier, voisin, de réparations de camions. Armement : des bombes de 250 et de 500 kilos.

**Des regrets.** Cela prouve, déjà, que ces deux cibles, proscrites jusqu'alors sur les instructions du Pentagone, qui craignait peut-être de frapper l'aéroport voisin où se posent des appareils civils russes et chinois, viennent d'être ajoutées à la liste des objectifs autorisés en pleine négociation à Paris. Mais il y a plus étrange : ces objectifs se trouvent à 3 km du quartier des ambassades de Hanoi, et en sont séparés par le fleuve Rouge. que l'on prendrait difficilement pour un ruisseau.

On voit mal quelle « autorité supérieure » aurait pu ordonner — et pour quelle raison ? — aux pilotes de s'en

64

prendre particulièrement aux diplomates français.

Reste pourtant ceci : quelques appareils ont bombardé le centre même de Hanoi en toute connaissance de cause, pour la première fois depuis 1966. Pourquoi ?

Sur ordre exprès de Washington, qui se réserve, en principe, le choix des objectifs et voudrait peser, de toute sa force, sur les négociateurs vietnamiens pour les amener à céder ? Ce serait assez grave.

Ou à l'insu de Washington, comme le faisait, en son temps, le général Lavelle, qui n'avait d'autre souci que de mener sa guerre à bien ? Ce serait peut-être plus grave encore. Jeudi, tandis que le président Nixon faisait présenter ses « regrets » — non ses excuses — au gouvernement français, le commandement américain à Saigon faisait savoir que tous les pilotes du porte-avions « Midway » qui avaient participé au raid seraient minutieusement interrogés. Un à un.

## Hanoi compte sur la France

« Pour la reconstruction de notre pays, pour son développement économique et culturel, nous aurons bientôt besoin de tous nos amis. Alors, qu'alliez-vous faire, vous, Français, pour nous aider ? Un jour proche viendra où nous aurons le droit de vous demander cette aide. Nous la méritons. Nous serons heureux d'envoyer nos jeunes étudier, faire leur expérience chez vous, et nous' accueillerons ceux qui voudront venir chez nous. La France, nous ne l'oubliens pas, est un des pays dont le soutien, l'appui moral nous a été le plus précieux. »

Ainsi s'exprimait M. Pham Van Dong, le chef du gouvernement nord-vietnamien, au cours d'une entrevue, à Hanoi, avec le journaliste photographe Marc Riboud. Il disait : bientôt. Il y a trois ans de cela. La paix n'est pas venue.

Cet automne, Marc Riboud a revu M. Pham Van Dong à Hanoi (voir L'Express n° 1109). Celui-ci n'avait pas oublié ses propos, que Marc Riboud avait reproduits dans un article pour « Le Monde ». « Votre article était très bien ; il faudra en reparler », lui a-t-il dit, confirmant que le Nord-Vietnam compte toujours sur l'aide de la France, après la guerre. « Mais c'est un peu prématuré », a-t-il ajouté, devenu prudent.

Pour la première fois, cette semaine, les journaux de Hanoi évoquent « l'après-guerre », à propos de l'aide qu'il faudra organiser en faveur de veuves, des orphelins, des mutilés. « Une œuvre de longue haleine », écrivent-ils.

Est-ce un signe ?

En tout cas, au fur et à mesure que l'heure de la paix parait plus proche, le gouvernement français s'intéresse davantage aux négociations, offre ses bons offices. Et cela n'est pas une coincidence.

## ÉTATS-UNIS

### La vraie doctrine Kissinger

Dans un livre qui vient de paraître aux Etats-Unis, un jeune universitaire éclaire les rapports Nixon-Kissinger et leur doctrine sur le Vietnam. En voici des extraits.

Dans la dernière phase de sa carrière universitaire, M. Henry Kissinger devint le premier conseiller en politique étrangère de M. Nelson Rockefeller durant la campagne de 1968, pour la désignation du candidat républicain à la présidence des Etats-Unis. Au cours de cette campagne, M. Kissinger s'était répandu en remarques extrêmement caustiques sur le compte de M. Richard Nixon. A la Convention républicaine

en M. Nixon un produit politique de marque populaire, il craignait qu'il ne fût enclin à satisfaire les humeurs versatile du plus grand nombre, plutôt que de se tenir à une ligne d'action sans défaut. Et c'est seulement après avoir été assuré que le comportement de M. Nixon n'était pas aussi simpliste — et que lui-même serait appelé à exercer une influence réelle sur l'Administration — que M. Kissinger accepta

MM. LE DUC THO ET KISSINGER, A PARIS.

C'est le Nord-Vietnam qui pousse aux contacts.

de Miami, il eut même ce jugement sévère: « Cet homme n'a pas l'étoffe d'un président. » Ce dut être un choc pour beaucoup que de voir M. Nixon, après son élection, nommer son détrateur à un poste clef de la diplomatie américaine. M. Kissinger avait été jusqu'au bout dans l'équipe de M. Rockefeller, et il avait brocardé publiquement celui qui devait être élu président. Et pourtant, au lendemain de la défaite de M. Rockefeller, il laissait déjà entendre, dans des conversations privées, qu'il était prêt à considérer toute offre pouvant venir du camp des vainqueurs.

Mais pourquoi M. Kissinger a-t-il commencé par mépriser ainsi M. Nixon ? Ce n'est pas parce qu'il était moins « libéral » que M. Rockefeller, mais parce qu'il estimait, lui, qu'il se montrerait moins disposé à braver l'opinion des masses pour faire avancer les intérêts de l'Amérique. Comme il voyait

de rejoindre le Président à Washington.

**Un refus.** M. Nixon, lui, n'avait pas attendu 1968 pour s'enticher de l'œuvre et de la pensée de M. Kissinger. Peu après la parution de son livre, « Armements nucléaires et politique extérieure », en 1957, une photographie très reproduite montra le vice-président Nixon avec un exemplaire de l'ouvrage sous le bras. En 1959, M. Nixon adressa à M. Kissinger un billet le félicitant pour un article dans lequel ce dernier s'élevait contre tout sommet prématuré avec les dirigeants soviétiques, position que M. Nixon défendit, à son grand détriment, lors des fameux débats télévisés qui l'opposèrent à John Kennedy, en 1960.

Dès sa première désignation comme candidat républicain, contre Kennedy précisément, M. Nixon invita M. Kissinger à prendre place dans son groupe

L'EXPRESS · 16-22 octobre 1972

65

de conseillers pour les affaires diplomatiques, mais il se heurta à un refus. En 1968, après avoir triomphé de son rival Rockefeller, il n'hésita pas à récuperer M. Kissinger, en qui il apprécie, avant tout, un homme d'une grande indépendance intellectuelle. Le souci du nouveau président devait être, en effet, qu'aucun de ses principaux conseillers ne fût lié à un groupe d'intérêts particulier.

Les débuts politiques du tandem Nixon - Kissinger furent euphoriques pour les amis de M. Kissinger dans le monde universitaire. Il paraissait manifeste que le conseiller exerçait sur les décisions du Président une influence temporisatrice.

L'Administration avait beau proposer le déploiement d'un système de missiles antimissiles A.b.m., le dis-

moyens, les Conservateurs, la droite idéologique. Ainsi avait-il eu des formules dures sur le Vietnam, alors qu'il comprenait, ce qu'il admit à la fin de 1968, qu'il n'existait pas l'ombre d'une possibilité de victoire pour l'Amérique, et que tout ce que celle-ci pouvait faire de mieux était de feindre de croire à la victoire afin de se trouver en meilleure position de marchandage aux conversations de Paris. Les divergences entre les deux hommes étaient minces.

Mais M. Kissinger, dans la tradition des diplomates de talent, est un maître en équivoques. Et il s'arrangea pour créer l'illusion, parmi les intellectuels, qu'il freinait le Président, et que, grâce à lui, l'esprit du libéralisme était descendu sur la Maison-Blanche. Passessu tout, M. Kissinger laissa à ses auditeurs l'impression que la guerre du Vietnam serait nécessairement terminée

endoctriner par des officiers en service commandé. M. Kissinger se mit en quête d'un traducteur, et, l'ayant trouvé, s'enfonça dans le paysage. Il eut de larges contacts avec les opposants politiques, et, prenant des risques considérables, visita des zones où régnait l'insécurité, parla avec les villageois. Par rapport à la liturgie sur le Vietnam en honneur à Washington, les observations de M. Kissinger offraient un contraste frappant : les officiels américains de rang moyen et leurs homologues sud-vietnamiens étaient incompétents et corrompus, le programme de pacification ne portait pas sur les problèmes politiques essentiels, la puissance militaire de l'Amérique ne donnait pas de résultats et les informations transmises à Washington étaient désespérément déformées.

Pendant toutes ces années, M. Kissinger a considéré une solution au Vietnam comme la priorité des priorités pour la politique étrangère américaine. Il lui apparaissait, en effet, que le Vietnam constituait un étalage injustifié et inapproprié de la force et de la diplomatie de l'Amérique, et qu'il gênerait la démarche responsable des Etats-Unis partout ailleurs sur le théâtre d'opérations mondial. Et, dans sa contribution à la politique vietnamienne de l'Amérique, il est resté fidèle à une seule idée : ne pas permettre que le Vietnam vienne troubler la stratégie américaine dans la poursuite de ses objectifs planétaires.

**A fond.** Comment pourrait-on mettre fin, de manière responsable, à l'engagement américain dans la guerre ? Pour M. Kissinger, cette question a toujours dominé toute autre considération sur le Vietnam. Et de s'être si longtemps interrogé sur ce point n'a jamais changé la réponse à laquelle il est parvenu : les Etats-Unis doivent s'en aller de telle façon que leur départ n'apparaîtra pas comme un abandon du régime de Saigon. Dans l'intérêt de son engagement global et pour le moral de ses autres alliés, l'Amérique doit montrer une volonté « d'y aller à fond » en défendant son allié sud-vietnamiem.

Car, dans l'esprit de M. Kissinger, une défaillance apparente des Etats-Unis au Sud-Vietnam aurait des conséquences graves sur le plan intérieur comme sur la scène internationale. Les ennemis des alliés de l'Amérique estimaient avoir « carte blanche » pour recourir aux armes. A l'intérieur, il redouterait un retour de flamme des forces de droite avec un nouveau macarthysme. Et si un retrait précipité était imposé à la Maison-Blanche par le Congrès ou par la pression populaire, la fonction présidentielle elle-même subirait un dommage irréparable en tant qu'agent efficace de la politique américaine.

(Copyright David Landau-Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.)

LE Président THIEU EN PRIÈRE DANS UNE CATHÉDRALE DÉTRUITE.

Un départ, oui. Un abandon, non.

cours que M. Nixon prononça sur ce sujet fut d'une remarquable modération. Plutôt que de mettre en avant la doctrine dangereuse d'une supériorité américaine « bien tranchée », comme il l'avait fait au cours de la campagne électorale, M. Nixon déclara modestement que les Etats-Unis voulaient éviter de provoquer Moscou par une quelconque initiative imprudente pouvant être interprétée comme l'intention de tirer les premiers.

Il y eut d'autres signes de l'influence kissingérienne. Un relatif esprit d'ouverture à l'égard de la Chine, l'annonce des premiers retraits de troupes du Vietnam, et l'escale roumaine du Président lors de son voyage autour du monde, en juillet 1969 — tout cela fut porté au crédit de M. Kissinger.

**Equivoques.** La réalité était bien différente. M. Nixon restait l'homme de la ligne dure, mais se retrouait un anticommuniste extraordinairement rusé et d'une tactique flexible. Beaucoup de ses opinions personnelles en matière de politique étrangère n'étaient pas éloignées de celles de M. Kissinger, mais, bien entendu, il les infléchissait, dès qu'il parlait en public, de manière à tenir compte du milieu d'où il tirait sa plus grande force : les Républicains

avant qu'aucune autre grande affaire internationale intervienne.

En 1969, ses propos privés engendrèrent la conviction optimiste que la guerre prendrait fin dans un délai de six à neuf mois. En janvier 1971 — deux semaines avant l'invasion du Laos par les forces américaines et sud-vietnamiennes — il déclara à certains de ses anciens collègues crédules, à l'Institut politique de Harvard, que lorsque l'effort des Etats-Unis au Vietnam sera parvenu à son terme, « vous n'aurez à nous critiquer en rien, sauf pour n'avoir pas fait tout cela plus tôt ».

Ceux qui avaient pris ses mots pour une promesse de retrait se sentirent trompés et furieux lorsque le Président annonça, après l'invasion du Laos, que « la vietnamisation avait réussi » et que les Etats-Unis ne quitteraient l'Indochine qu'au moment où une « chance raisonnable » de survivre aurait été donnée à Saigon.

**Des risques.** L'expérience vietnamienne de M. Kissinger n'a commencé que dans les derniers mois de 1965, quand M. Henry Cabot Lodge, ambassadeur des Etats-Unis à Saigon, lui demanda de venir sur place analyser la situation. Bien décidé à ne pas se laisser

66

Newsweek

A Deal With Hanoi, a Duel With Thieu

It was the hour of reckoning in Vietnam, a time when enemies were nearing agreement and friends were on a perilous collision course. In the wake of a dramatic breakthrough with Communist negotiators in Paris, Henry Kissinger flew into Saigon last week carrying secret plans that could bring a tortuous decade of war to an end. He immediately ran into a brick wall in the person of South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu. A man who owes his political life to the Nixon Administration's policy in Indochina, Thieu suddenly threatened to sabotage the ultimate goal of that policy—a facesaving peace.

The pressures on the South Vietnamese leader were mounting almost hourly. Along with Kissinger's considerable powers of persuasion, the U.S. had other leverage at hand—a not-so-veiled warning that it might suspend its crucial bombing and air support in Vietnam. And Hanoi was also putting the squeeze on Thieu—and the U.S. Last week the Communists invited NEWSWEEK Senior Editor Arnaud de Borchgrave to Hanoi for an exclusive interview with Premier Pham Van Dong (page 26). Among the Premier's points:

1. All American prisoners of war will be immediately released as soon as "the general agreement has been reached"—without waiting for a U.S. military withdrawal or the implementation of the peace accords.

2. A peace settlement would involve three stages: first, a standstill cease-fire followed by a total American military withdrawal; second, direct negotiations between "two administrations"—Communist and Saigon loyalists—leading to the establishment of a three-part interim coalition government; third, national elections to choose a new South Vietnamese legislature—in about six months.

3. There will be no Communist attempt to sabotage an interim tripartite coalition government and no reprisals will be taken against Saigon loyalists.

4. North Vietnam expects the U.S. to help pay for Vietnam's reconstruction.

Just how tantalizingly close the two sides were to a settlement was underscored last week when the North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry called in key foreign diplomats and told them that an agreement with the U.S. was literally ready to be signed. Details of the military aspects of the pact have been worked

out, NEWSWEEK learned, down to the mechanics for removing U.S. mines in North Vietnamese waters and the flight schedule for the prisoner release. From Saigon, moreover, NEWSWEEK's bureau chief Nicholas C. Proffitt learned that Washington and Hanoi put their major problems behind them two weeks ago and came to agreement in principle on a blueprint for a new South Vietnamese Government (page 28). Highlights of Proffitt's report:

1. After a cease-fire in place, an interim

AP

Thieu: A symbol blocking the road to peace

"coalition committee" would set up the machinery for national elections. Although Thieu would be permitted to participate, neither he nor any Communist would serve as chief executive.

2. Although he is staunchly opposing the proposal, even Thieu has already drawn up a list of the men he would nominate for the interim government.

3. The political process would be conducted under international supervision, with France prominently mentioned as the chief guarantor of fair elections.

What all this amounts to is that the U.S. and North Vietnam have virtually converged on their conditions for ending the war. For their part, the Communists have embraced the essential points of Mr. Nixon's May 8 peace proposal in which the President called for a two-stage settlement: a military accord be-

tween Hanoi and Washington and subsequent political negotiations between the Communists and Saigon. With that concession, Mr. Nixon could argue that he had ended the war on his terms—and was no longer responsible for the ultimate political fate of South Vietnam. However, the U.S. gave ground, too. Washington agreed to permit North Vietnamese troops to remain in the south (on the condition that there would be no further military infiltration). More important, it accepted Hanoi's demand for an interim coalition government, a step that could undermine the position of Thieu. That was certainly Thieu's own view—and the reason for his resistance to Mr. Nixon's Vietnam deal.

## Political Crucible

Nixon Administration officials say they believe that Thieu could enter this political crucible and win a subsequent election "even if the Angel Gabriel were to supervise it." But North Vietnam obviously was willing to take its own chances in that crucible; it was prodded by the stick of the American bombing campaign and tempted by the carrot of its position of strength in the field. Communist troops now occupy much South Vietnamese territory. And Hanoi knows that it is to its advantage to nail down a settlement before Nov. 7, since Mr. Nixon has said that, once re-elected, he will be tougher to deal with.

To try to put the deal in the bag now, Mr. Nixon dispatched an unusually large and high-powered team of aides to Saigon-led, naturally, by Kissinger.

But in contrast to previous Kissinger missions, the President's national-security adviser was surrounded this time by such ranking Administration officials as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams, whom Thieu has trusted since the days when Abrams ran the U.S. military command in Vietnam; William Sullivan, the State Department's top Southeast Asia expert, and U.S. ambassador to South Korea Philip Habib, who helped write South Vietnam's constitution and who could guide Saigon on the changes necessary to legalize a coalition government with Communist participation. Almost from the moment he arrived at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport—and gave waiting reporters a chilly smile and a small wave—Kissinger was closeted with Thieu or with U.S. officials. He met four times with Thieu, conferring with the South Vietnamese President for more

24

# THE PERISCOPE

## HOW TO SUCCEED WITHOUT WINNING

The White House is working on a way to take control of the Senate even if Republicans do not win a majority in November. (That would take a net gain of five seats; the GOP now figures on three.) The ploy under discussion is to ask Virginia's Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr., an independent, and Mississippi's Democratic Sen. James O. Eastland to switch parties. The deal would let them keep their seniority, and Eastland, whom the President admires, would stay as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

## A BARGAINER BOWS OUT

Although Gerard C. Smith, the U.S. arms-control expert who conducted the first strategic arms limitation talks (SALT I) with the U.S.S.R., will go to Geneva to open the SALT II sessions, he will quit shortly after—and he will quit mad. Smith is upset because after his long and tortuous years of dickering with the Russians, when President Nixon went to Moscow to sign the final agreement, Henry Kissinger stepped in to dot the final i's and take the final bows.

## THE CAUTIOUS SANTA CLAUS

The real reason for delaying delivery of $2.6 billion in revenue-sharing funds from the original pre-election target date until December seems to be politics and not the "technical problems" cited by the Treasury Department. The White House wanted to postpone theanguished screams expected from communities that got less than they hoped for. The disparities will occur because distribution has to be based on old data. It will take much time to get up-to-date figures on such items as per-capita income, a key factor in parceling out the funds.

## AN AIRBORNE BONANZA

The real bonanza in the new law permitting bigger-sized packages to be mailed to and from servicemen overseas will not be under the Gf Christmas trees but on airline balance sheets. The air carriers, which lobbied hard for the bill, will share an estimated $31 million in new mail business as a result.

## RIPPLES IN THE MILK PAIL

E. Howard Hunt, the ex-CIA agent indicted in the Watergate case—the bugging of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington—and M. Douglas Caddy, a lawyer who was investigated

in the case, helped set up the committees that funneled $300,000 in milk-industry contributions to the GOP campaign chest. This 1971 flood of gifts began shortly before and continued for months after then-Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin reversed an earlier decision and ordered a 6% increase in milk-price supports—a boon to the dairymen.

## HART'S TWO-EDGED SWORD

Top U.S. businessmen, who have been girding to fight Michigan Sen. Philip Hart's plan to "reorganize" major industry, are having second thoughts. Hart's idea, which he will press in the next Congress, is to set up a special three-judge court to study whether and how to break up such industries as steel, autos, energy, computers and chemicals. The second thoughts came with the realization that Hart wants to take the same tack toward big labor, and thus his plan holds both pluses and minuses for business.

## DIM FUTURE FOR A RISING STAR?

An unforeseen casualty of the passage of the $24 billion clean-water bill—enacted by the Congress over the President's veto—may be William Ruckelshaus, head of the Environmental Protection Agency and rated a rising star in the Nixon Administration. A long letter that he had written to the White House arguing against the veto surfaced in the press, and a full-scale flap is on to trace the leak. The prospects for bigger and better things for Ruckelshaus in a second Nixon term may have dimmed, both because of the leak and because his advice was ignored.

## THE JAPANESE-AMERICAN AIR FORCE

The Japanese air force called for in Tokyo's new five-year defense program will have a marked American flair. Along with Japanese aircraft, it will include U.S. Phantom jets, built under license, plus American-designed Hawk and Nike Hercules air-defense missiles.

## THE PENTAGON FACES THE AX

White House budget chief Caspar Weinberger has his cost-cutting ax aimed at the Pentagon for the next fiscal year. His prime targets are the $5 billion to $6 billion now spent on training and the $2 billion ticketed for headquarters and command staffs. The switch to an all-volunteer Army, he reasons, should mean lower personnel turnover and thus less need for training and the command manpower that function entails.

Newsweek, October 30, 1972

23

than ten hours. And while there was no official comment from the U.S. team about the discussions, Thieu and his associates let it be known that the theoretical allies were not seeing eye to eye.

Thieu was demonstrating his intransigence in a variety of Oriental ways. U.S. Ambassador to Saigon Ellsworth Bunker tried for three successive days to see him, only to be turned down each time. Then, while his first meeting with Kissinger was still in progress, Thieu began his counteroffensive—a replay of his successful 1968 effort to delay the Paris peace talks. His target this time was the proposal for a tripartite coalition government to be composed of Saigon loyalists, Communists and neutralists. A communique released in the midst of the talks with Kissinger said that Thieu “reaffirmed that the Republic of Vietnam will never accept a government of three components.” It was a refrain that was to be heard again and again. The next day, Tin Song, the newspaper run and financed by Thieu’s nephew, editorialized: “Any solution concerning Vietnam must be based on the right of self-determination of the South Vietnamese people.” Finally came a thinly veiled threat on the military radio: “The armed forces oppose any attempt by the Americans to impose tripartite coalition government on the Vietnamese people.”

Thieu's motives were no doubt mixed. He might simply want to substitute a two-part interim government, believing that he would better be able to preserve his own power in a head-to-head contest with the Communists. Or he might want to sabotage the Kissinger-Le Duc Tho agreements at least until after the U.S. election when political pressure for a settlement will have subsided. Whatever the long-range strategy, the short-range tactics put the U.S. in a bind. For not only did Thieu rail against the tripartite proposal, he offered a substitute plan of his own. Thieu demanded a referendum to determine whether the South Vietnamese want to change the constitution to allow Communist participation in the government. There could be no doubt at all what the results of

UPI

Kissinger arrives in Saigon: As enemies agreed, friends collided

such a poll would be—considering the tight military control of South Vietnam and the fact that under current law any endorsement of Communist participation in politics is a criminal offense. Neither was there any doubt that Hanoi would reject such an idea out of hand.

## 'Home to Roost'

With his combination of cleverness and desperation, Thieu put the U.S. in the decidedly embarrassing position of appearing to do what it said it never would—impose coalition on Saigon. Saddled by his own repeated support of the Thieu regime, Mr. Nixon has substantially reduced American options. “We should never have given Thieu such unqualified support,” said one U.S. official. “It was stupid, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.” Washington still has powerful leverage to use against Thieu—but using it might well harm Mr. Nixon more than it would help. Any sudden cut in military and economic aid that would be substantial enough to move Thieu would risk sealing the doom of South Vietnam along with him. For such a move could well be followed by

widescale defections from the army, an attempted military coup and massive bloodshed. Richard Nixon simply cannot afford the spectacle of chaos in Saigon two weeks before the election.

Domestic political pressures could also come to weigh on Mr. Nixon. “As long as he’s ahead by 26 points in the polls, we can continue to press for the very best deal,” said an aide. “But if his lead drops to 10, the President may get very nervous.” What’s more, Thieu’s continued refusal to compromise could cause the carefully woven understandings with Hanoi to unravel, and if the American public finally perceived that only the U.S. commitment to a recalcitrant Thieu was preventing an end to the war—and the release of the U.S. POWs—Mr. Nixon would come under tremendous pressure. In that event, he would be left with little choice: to risk the election eve consequences of twisting Thieu’s arm to the breaking point, or to shift the blame to Hanoi by claiming that it is still posing unacceptable conditions. He still had a chance, in the twilight of his first term, to redeem his four-year-old pledge to end the Vietnam war.

## WHAT PRICE VIETNAM

### CASUALTIES

U.S. dead 45,884
wounded 303,457

SOUTH VIETNAM dead 181,906

ENEMY dead 900,909
(according to U.S. body count)

CIVILIANS Out of an Indochinese population of 45 million, 1 out of 35 killed and 1 out of 15 wounded for a total of 4.3 million casualties.

UPI

### PRISONERS OF WAR

<table><tr><td>U.S.</td><td>544</td></tr><tr><td>(Missing in Action</td><td>1,151)</td></tr><tr><td>ENEMY</td><td>36,364</td></tr></table>

### REFUGEES

South Vietnam: 1.1 million at present
Indochina: 11 million over the past decade

U.S. BOMBING 6.8 million tons
(2 million tons in World War II)

### DEFOLIANTS

An estimated 20 million gallons

### DOLLAR COST TO THE U.S.

Military aid: $136 billion

Economic aid: 5 billion

October 30, 1972

25

Magnum

Dong: A pledge to free the POW's as soon as agreement is reached

EXCLUSIVE FROM HANOI

At 10 o'clock sharp one morning last week, NEWSWEEK Senior Editor Arnaud de Borchgrave was ushered into the Hanoi residence of North Vietnam's Premier Pham Van Dong. In a cordial mood, Dong invited de Borchgrave to remove his suit jacket and make himself comfortable in a white slip-covered armchair. Tea was served and for the next two hours, Dong and de Borchgrave conversed-without the aid of a translator-in French. The following day, in keeping with the ground rules, the transcript of the interview was submitted to Dong for approval. Below, the official text:

**DE BORCHGRAVE:** A high Vietnamese officer told me in Hanoi that the American blockade of your ports and estuaries as well as massive bombing raids against the Democratic Republic have caused enormous difficulties for you but that you were surmounting them. Could you give me specific examples?

**PHAM VAN DONG:** I think you have seen for yourself what we have been able to do. Thousands of trucks are moving. Our jet fighters are constantly crisscrossing the sky. These are all things you have witnessed. Despite a horrendous pounding from the air, we have surmounted obstacles that defy the imagination. And we are surmounting those that remain.

**Q.** On March 30 [when the current Communist offensive began], you set out to prove that Vietnamization was a fail-

ure. Do you think you have succeeded?

**A.** The U.S. press itself has said it was a total failure.

**Q.** One recent article from Saigon by a British correspondent said that despite their reverses Saigon's army today was in a stronger position than before March 30.

**A.** [Laughing] You must read other articles besides that one. The world press is unanimous on that point. The fact that the U.S. was forced to impose a total blockade and massive bombing to save Saigon's hide was proof enough. If Vietnamization had been a success, then why bother? Unbelievable means have been brought to bear on us. And that's the most eloquent proof of failure.

**Q.** Why didn't you wait until March 30 next year before launching your offensive, by which time all American forces would have been out of Vietnam and Mr. Nixon's foreign policy would have been re-engaged along new lines? That's what your Western friends cannot understand.

**A.** You must concede that the March 30 offensive precipitated events-and the liquidation of America's old Vietnam policy. In any event, it is better to make history than to write it. Let future historians decide whose strategy was correct.

**Q.** Do you see any common ground between your position and Washington's on the composition and duration of a three-sided caretaker government of transition?

**A.** Negotiations are in an extremely important phase. We have done everything humanly possible for a successful conclusion. And that means peace with independence and freedom. This is what we have fought for for almost three decades. Our intentions are seri-

ous. So must be the other side's. A peaceful settlement must be just for both sides-not to serve temporary political ends. We won't allow it, and we will fight against it. But we will do nothing to jeopardize a happy conclusion at this stage by talking out of turn.

**Q.** Would you agree that South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu could be part of the Saigon administration component in a three-sided coalition government pending elections, provided he was no longer President?

**A.** Thieu has been overtaken by events. And events are now following their own course.

**Q.** What about the idea of two administrations in the South-the National Liberation Front's and Saigon's-each administering the areas under its control, a cease-fire, American military withdrawal and direct negotiations between the two principal Vietnamese adversaries?

**A.** Yes, here I can say something useful. All your questions reflect the present evolution. One must accept that there are two administrations each in control of their own zones. It's an undeniable fact. Everyone must respect this state of affairs.

**Q.** Then a cease-fire followed by American withdrawal will take place first and then direct negotiations between the Provisional Revolutionary Government and the Saigon regime?

**A.** That is the present evolution, and it is a positive one. The situation will then be two armies and two administrations in the south and given that new situation they will have to work out their own arrangements for a three-sided coalition of transition and defuse the situation in the wake of the American withdrawal. They must work out arrangements that will promote democracy and speed national concord in the south because without this there will be no peace. Now is the time for both sides to dare and forge ahead.

**Q.** What would you consider a reasonable delay between the installation of a transitory regime and general elections?

**A.** It is important to determine this delay precisely, not leave it up in the air. Somebody has put forward a delay of about six months between the cease-fire and general elections, and this seems reasonable to us.

**Q.** Why wouldn't you attempt to transform a three-sided coalition regime into a Communist government? Or at least a government fairly certain to become a Communist regime?

**A.** We wouldn't do such a foolish thing. You cannot do the impossible. We are not stupid. We don't want to do anything dangerous that would imperil national concord. We now want to avoid internal divisions and a resumption of hostilities. That's our objective.

**Q.** You say you will not do anything to impose your will on the south. But observers who have followed your activities in the south have seen a will of iron and a determination seldom equaled in the his-

26

Newsweek

tory of the world. How do you explain this
apparent contradiction?

A. It is only an apparent one. Our
iron will is being applied to bring about
a three-sided coalition leading to na-
tional reconciliation and independence.

**Q.** You mean that if you had achieved all your objectives during the Tet offensive in 1968 you would have shared your victory with the vanquished and the neutralists in a coalition government?

A. The political situation in the south is such that one must have a government that reflects the realities. You must realize that war in the south has meant that an entire generation has known no other way of life. There has been terrible suffering in every family. No one has been spared. Families are divided, father on one side, son on the other. Those are the realities. One must now try to abolish these divisions and not by imposing our will. That's why national reconciliation is paramount.

**Q.** If you are not interested in the rapid Communization of South Vietnam, how then do you explain the rapid Communi- zation of North Vietnam in 1954?

A. The situation in the north was quite different. Our society was unanimous against the French colonials and for our regime. That's not the case in the south today. We are realists. Don't worry.

**Q.** In the light of your previously stated assurances that a three-sided coalition will be a government of national reconciliation and that there will be no settling of accounts, how do you explain what happened in Quang Tri while your forces held the city? And in Hué in '68 during the Tet offensive? Journalists not noted for pro-Nixon sentiments wrote about scores of people executed in Quang Tri for collaboration with the enemy.

A. I am not informed precisely about
what you say. But the Front's policy is

crystal clear. It is inconceivable that the
Front would allow reprisals after a set-
tlement; that would be diametrically
opposed to its policy of national recon-
ciliation. It would jeopardize every-
thing. These are errors that have to be
avoided at all costs. Besides, reprisals
could only be against their own fam-
ilies in many cases. If in America and
Western countries one talks about a
blood bath it is simply a matter of bad
faith.

**Q.** How can one organize free and democratic elections in such a climate?

A. First, one must re-establish peace,
concord, democracy and stabilize the
situation.

**Q.** Isn't six months a very short time to do all that?

A. I don't think so. Transition must not last too long or it could break down.

**Q.** How will free elections in the south differ from the elections you hold in the Democratic Republic from time to time?

A. The situation is entirely different. Here we have a country that is unified politically and well organized. Elections are not so difficult in a country like ours. Not so in the south. There is no possible comparison. You Westerners cannot understand our unity in the north forged through decades of combat. Look at our country. Everything appears normal, well policed, disciplined, simple, serene.

**Q.** From what you know about how the people in the south really feel, roughly what percentage would you guess will vote Communist? More than half or less than half?

A. All that we ask for is really free elections—whose freedom must be guaranteed.

**Q.** What sort of guarantees?

A. You will see.

**Q.** At what stage will the American pris-
oners be released?

A. When the general agreement has
been reached.

**Q.** You mean after the completion of our withdrawal?

A. No, we will not wait until the complete realization of the accords. It's a very simple issue actually. All military and civilian detainees, not only Americans, on both sides must be released at the same time. For us there are no complications at all on this problem now.

**Q.** How do you see the role of the Unit-
ed States in the postwar reconstruction
period?

A. Two ways. First, America is responsible for all material damages inflicted on us. Second, it is an imperative obligation for America to contribute to the rebuilding of our devastated economy.

**Q.** Could you explain, step by step, the process of reunification? To begin with, would each half of Vietnam have its own government, its own constitution, its own army and police and diplomatic representation abroad? And then do you envisage a confederation? How would its President

be picked? What would happen to the two
Presidents of north and south? Where
would the capital be located?

A. [Holding his sides with laughter]
We have not even begun to think about
such details. Reunification is in our
blood, in our hearts. But no one is
thinking about practical details.

**Q.** Why not?

A. It will happen eventually. We have lots of time to think it over. Our No. 1 priority is putting an end to the war with a just solution for all parties.

**Q.** You don't have any planners work-
ing on reunification problems?

A. We can't spare them. You Americans have so much money you can afford to have planners even for non-existent problems. We operate on the basis of first things first.

François Chalais—Caméra Press

'It is better
to make history
than to write it'

**Q.** How does one re-establish peace in the entire Indochinese peninsula? What comes first: Vietnam before Laos or Laos before Vietnam? Can you really have peace in Indochina before accords have been negotiated for the three countries?

A. You have distinct problems for each country. Don't confuse them.

**Q.** But surely Laos is linked to South Vietnam through the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A. Of course, they are linked. But they must be resolved separately.

**Q.** Do you think that a negotiated set-
tlement and the end of the war are near?

A. I hope so. And we are working very hard at it, with goodwill and good faith. And this must be reciprocal. I would like to conclude our talk on an optimistic note. Following our agreement, we will form new relationships between our two countries and our two peoples on a new basis. Some of our detractors always wrote and said that we were trying to humiliate the world's mightiest power and that this war had gone to our heads. Well, my friend, this has never been our intention. This was imposed on us. We fought intelligently and heroically, not to humiliate you, but to end American intervention in our affairs and to establish friendship between our two peoples. Together, we must inaugurate a new era.

Magnum

'Now is the time for
both sides to dare
and forge ahead'

October 30, 1972

27

# The Blueprint For a Postwar Saigon Regime

It was a tale of agonizing compromise and daring diplomacy, and in the swirl of rumors, few Americans understood how close Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho have come to the brink of peace. Over the past two weeks, NEWSWEEK'S Saigon bureau chief Nicholas C. Proffitt has interviewed officials privy to the thinking of the U.S. and South Vietnamese participants in the peace talks. Below, Proffitt's account on the current status of the Vietnam deal:

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were ready to strike agreements in principle on four basic points of a Vietnam settlement when they met in Paris two weeks ago. And they did just that. On the military side, both the U.S. and North Vietnam accepted the idea of a ceasefire in place and the simultaneous release of American POW's. As one insider put it, "It is only a matter of mechanics now."

On the political side, Kissinger made a major compromise by accepting Hanoi's long-standing demand for a coalition government in Saigon. In turn, Hanoi made a significant concession—agreeing to deal directly with Saigon on Vietnam's political future. But there was still one sticking point. Would the interim coalition government be a tripartite body—Saigon loyalists, Communists and neutrals? Or would it omit the neutrals?

Hanoi clung resolutely to its insistence that the interim ruling body be a three-part coalition. Either proposal was basically acceptable to Washington—but not to South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu, who adamantly refused to accept any tripartite body. From the standpoint of his own best interests, Thieu had logic on his side. He was convinced—with good reason—that he would be unable to dominate any three-part government. For while the Communist bloc would be fully united, there was bound to be discord among Saigon's fractious group of representatives. Moreover, while each side would handpick half of the neutralist members, the Communist nominees would be solid allies of the Viet Cong's Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) while the Saigon-approved neutrals would be susceptible to Communist siren songs. In short, this "third force" appeared to Thieu to be a guarantee that he would eventually be forced out of power.

For a moment, it seemed that the peace negotiations might once again run into an insurmountable obstacle—a road-block manned by Thieu. Not wanting to see the bargaining session's earlz prom-

ise dissolve, both Kissinger and Le Duc Tho agreed to set aside the question of the government's composition for the moment and move on to other facets of a potential political settlement. Once they did, progress was rapid. To be sure, all the accords reached were highly tentative—and they remain so. What's more, they could be amended, or even shattered, if the U.S. is forced to make concessions to Thieu. But Washington and Hanoi, at least, put their major problems behind them two weeks ago, and Kissinger and Le Duc Tho came to agreement on the general shape of a postwar political structure for South Vietnam.

## Familiar Faces

According to my sources, the interim government would look like this: a "coalition committee" of still undetermined size—but probably composed of some eighteen to 30 members—would be formed and charged with the task of arranging elections for a national constituent assembly. The committee would decide which of South Vietnam's myriad political and religious groups could nominate candidates for the election. The criterion would be that any such group must have the proven support of a significant number of Vietnamese. Above the coalition committee would be an "executive committee"—a smaller body created to run the day-to-day affairs of South Vietnam. It would have the same proportional representation as the coalition committee and would be chaired by a Vietnamese acceptable to both sides. Under the present general agreement reached by Le Duc Tho and Kissinger, no overt Communist member would be eligible to serve as chairman—nor would Thieu be permitted to lead the group or even be a member of it (although he could serve on the coalition committee).

Neither the potential Communist representatives on the coalition committee nor Saigon's nominees were debated by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, for it was recognized that each side was free to make its own selection. The Communists are expected to staff their bloc with middle-level politicians—chosen from among the countless competent cadres serving in the Viet Cong's political arms. Ironi-

cally, despite ten years spent fighting the Vietnamese Communists, U.S. officials admit they do not know the names of such politicians. The big names of the National Liberation Front—such as Central Committee Chairman Nguyen Huu Tho, PRG President Huynh Tan Phat and Foreign Minister Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh—most likely would be kept in reserve, held back to play more lasting roles in the government to follow. (Somewhat surprisingly, however, U.S. diplomats suggested that Madame Binh might fit the description of a second-rank Communist official despite her prestigious title. "Her position is a sop to women's lib," said a U.S. aide. "She's a competent official but not much more and would be an ideal candidate to step out and test the water in an interim coalition.")

In contrast, Saigon most likely would flood any interim body with familiar faces—to lend an air of continuity to the new regime and thereby prevent a collective nervous breakdown on the part of the edgy South Vietnamese population. Under the terms of the Paris agreement, each faction would have six seats, although an option remains to expand that number to ten. Thieu has already

Tran Thien Khiem

SAIGON LOYALISTS

Cao Van Vien

Nguyen Van Huyen

Ngo Cong Due

Newsweek

28

THE WAR IN INDOCHINA

COMMUNISTS

VNA-Japan Press

Nguyen Huu Tho

AP

Nguyen Thi Binh

selected the men he would name to his team in a two-part coalition. His personal list: Nguyen Van Huyen, chairman of the South Vietnamese Senate; Tran Van Tuyen, leader of the Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam Nationalist Party); Tran Quoc Buu, a labor leader; Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem; Gen. Cao Van Vien, chairman of the Joint General Staff, and retired Lt. Gen. Tran Van Don. If the delegation were enlarged to ten, Thieu would add Supreme Court chairman Tran Van Linh, National Assembly chairman Nguyen Ba Can, Military Region I commander Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong and Military Region III commander Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Minh.

Despite the fact that Thieu has flatly refused to entertain the idea of having a neutralist bloc in the interim government, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho discussed the possibility-in the event Thieu could be jarred loose from his stand. To test each other, the two negotiators suggested some possible neutral members. If he were not named to the pro-Saigon delegation, would Senate chairman Huyen perhaps be acceptable as a neutralist? Kissinger asked. The North Vietnamese immediately balked-no ranking member of the current Saigon hierarchy could be considered, not even a man who is a political opponent of Thieu. In turn, Le Duc Tho proposed Au Truong Thanh, a former economics minister in the government of Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, and now director of the Japanese Sanyo Corp. in France. Kissinger did not object.

## Political Beachhead

If a neutral bloc eventually is incorporated into the coalition committee, it would consist of representatives of significant groups in Vietnamese politics. Some would be Vietnamese now living abroad but still actively concerned with political affairs at home-men such as Au Truong Thanh and former National Assembly deputy and publisher Ngo Cong

Duc. Some would be leaders of independent political blocs-men like Nguyen Ngoc Huy, leader of the Progressive Nationalist movement. And some would be representatives of splinter religious sects such as the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai. But the most prominent anti-Thieu religious group-the Buddhists-probably would not have direct representation as such. Nor would the Roman Catholics. Instead, their interests would be protected by individuals chosen for other criteria as well as their religion. Hanoi and the Viet Cong can be expected to press for the inclusion of men from among the fragile political opposition to Thieu, such as Truong Dinh Dzu, the "peace candidate" who was jailed after running an impressive second to Thieu in the 1967 presidential election, and Truong Noc Linh, a radical reformer with close ties to Vietnamese student groups.

However the coalition committee is eventually manned, its tenure would be brief. It would organize the election for an assembly-an election supervised by France and perhaps other foreign countries. That done, the committee would be disbanded and its executive committee replaced by people chosen by the new assembly, expected to be a sizable body of perhaps 300 members.

The Communists are not expected to win a plurality in the new assembly since, if all goes according to plan, the body would represent a cross section of the Vietnamese population-Communists and Saigon loyalists, Buddhists and Catholics, the various minority sects such as the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai, and tribes like the montagnards. But even without a plurality, Communist representation almost certainly would be substantial enough to give them a major beachhead in South Vietnamese political life, and there is little doubt that they would be able to extend that influence by wooing members of the "independent" blocs.

The assembly's first major assignment would be to draft a new constitution for South Vietnam. (But even before implementation of a peace settlement and the creation of the coalition committee, the South Vietnamese Congress may well amend the current constitution to rec-

ognize the National Liberation Front as a legitimate political party-giving a veneer of legal approval to Communist governmental participation. That possibility may be one reason for the urgent summons last week that brought Philip Habib, U.S. ambassador to South Korea, to Saigon-for Habib helped to draft both the South Vietnamese and South Korean constitutions.)

## Hanoi's History Lesson

While current speculation about the new constitution is guesswork at this preliminary stage, analysts in Saigon expect that it will provide for a weak executive-to allow the competing forces to maneuver for strength. One likely candidate, in the eyes of U.S. officials in Washington, for that "weak executive" post is popular Gen. Duong Van (Big) Minh, who led the 1963 coup against Ngo Dinh Diem and who would lend an air of respectability to the new government. Minh is a notoriously indecisive administrator whom both sides feel they could manipulate. As one U.S. official put it, "Minh would become a big carcass with all the vultures circling around."

Whoever heads the new administration, the circling would be intense. It would also mark the acid test of whether the Saigon forces can hold their own against the Communists. Obviously, the Communists are betting that they cannot, and history is with Hanoi. In 1945 and 1954, the Communists allowed so-called "nationalists" to assume the most vital positions within the Hanoi government during the crucial postwar era of nation building. Many false starts and early failures by the inexperienced administrators gave the Communists the opportunity they dreamed of-replacement of the bungling nationalists by hardline Communists. Better trained and better disciplined, the Communists at least made the machinery of government work. That record is well known to the U.S. Still, for years Washington has sought to shift the Vietnam struggle from the battlefield to the political arena. Now, if that occurs, the risks of political confrontation may prove every bit as great as those of military conflict.

NEUTRALISTS

Au Truong Thanh

Tran Van Tuyen

October 30, 1972

29