America's Role in the World.

Speaker: Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. President, Jim, friends through so many common battles, and ladies and gentlemen. Mr. President, you should have been so lucky as to hear Jim Schlesinger say such good things about me when we were in your Cabinet together. (Laughter.) But I appreciated them greatly, as colleagues for many decades and having learned so much from Jim.

When I was asked by the President to be a speaker here I thought it would be one of those philosophical meetings where I could give a ponderous speech on the new world order. Bill Safire could then have written that my verbs appeared only every five minutes. (Laughter.) It has, however, now turned into what I think will be a rather seminal occasion.

It is an astonishing tribute to President Nixon that after all these years he could in one speech have charted again a path in the direction of which we need to go, and to have started a debate which will contribute decisively to the creation of the new international system and, above all, to the reintegration of the countries of the communist world into an international community.

Whenever I have the privilege of speaking in the presence of President Nixon, I have to remember occasions when

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I would present some document to him in my somewhat ponderous
style (which passed for profundity at Harvard), and he would
pick out a few words with more than two syllables and say,
"Now remember, the average person will think that this is a
soft drink." (Laughter.)

There was one other crucial lesson, among many,
that I learned from President Nixon. The major foreign policy
decisions of his administration, regardless of what was
reported at the time, were not ever taken impulsively,
sometimes to the great regret of the President's staff that
went through excruciating deliberations while the decision was
being made. Occasionally my tendency was to suggest some way
to hedge what was being decided. And the President would
always say, "Remember, you pay the same price for doing
something half way as for doing it completely." I think that
is an important lesson for the conduct of foreign policy.

Leaders have the choice to act or not to act. They
get no reward for failing by half measures. And it is a
lesson that applies in every period, including, obviously, our
own.

So it is a privilege for me to see what grade I
get when I conclude my remarks from somebody from whom I have
learned such an enormous amount.

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The subject which I was asked to address was America's role in the new world order. As a student of history I can think of no example where a nation achieved so completely what it set out to do as the United States has in the last two or three years. If one looks back on what the bipartisan leaders of the late '40s and early '50s were saying about the kind of world they wanted to bring about, one can see that is almost exactly what has happened, except that nobody believed it would happen so quickly. I know of no one, at least I knew of no one before this morning, who had predicted the present evolution in the Soviet Union.

Now Mr. President, if you hold another conference a couple of years from now and do me the honor of inviting me, I will no doubt have convinced myself that I had thought clearly about this at every stage. (Laughter, followed by applause.) But at this point, I must say that while I believed in some sort of disintegration of the satellite orbit, it did not occur to me that we would see the twin revolutions through which we are now living -- the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union, and the simultaneous collapse of the imperial system of the Russian empire.

The first revolution destroyed institutions that are 75 years old. The second revolution destroyed an

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enterprise that has gone on relentlessly, uninterruptedly, for
300 years. And this is in part an achievement by the United
States, yet it has projected our country into a world for
which it has very little philosophical preparation or
apparatus.

The Cold War coincided with certain categories of
thought with which we were quite familiar. One was the
experience of the New Deal through which we learned that
political instability can be cured if the gap between economic
expectation and reality can be closed. That lesson became the
foundation for the Marshall Plan, for economic aid programs,
and other similar activities. The second was the experience
of the 1930s and '40s when appeasement failed, and, under
American leadership, total victory was achieved in a struggle
against Nazi Germany, a country which at that time represented
absolute evil, and an unusually aggressive Japan.

Those two experiences provided the leadership
groups and concepts which could be applied to the two-power
world of the Cold War, which, too, required great American
efforts and was perceived correctly as a struggle of good
versus evil.

We in America do not always realize how unique our
American approach to foreign policy has been historically.

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I know of no other nation that believes in a similar way a
number of the following propositions.

First, that what the nation does and says if of
national significance: it is not an expression of the national
interest but an expression of universal principles. Secondly,
that that national interest is somehow wrong, and instead one
has to stand for universal principles. It follows that
America has an obligation as a beacon of liberty. Thirdly,
Americans believe that personal morality and international
morality are identical. And finally, that America defends not
special concerns but collective security.

And when you read what American presidents, from
Wilson to the incumbent, have said about foreign policy, you
will find these same themes always repeated over and over
again. The one exception was President Nixon, who repeated
these themes but also managed to relate them to concepts by
which all other nations, without exception, have had to
conduct foreign policy. That is, he understood that nations
live on narrow margins of survival, and have to put up with
the relative satisfaction of their goals and living with
nuances of foreign policy.

The great challenge to contemporary American
foreign policy is that we have now graduated into a world of

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four, five, six, seven -- depending on the time frame you pick
-- more or less equal power centers. (I know of documents
which claim that we can impose our particular preference on
a universal scale. But, in the long term, it is beyond the
capacity of our political system to be the military policeman
of the whole world, even though without us there can be no
security.) In such a world, we need to have some concept of
equilibrium, and some relationship between objectives and
historical processes. I do not say that we have to become
like the nations of the old world; for the nations of the old
world managed, in their pursuit of perfectly sound
international theory, to produce the colossal catastrophe that
was World War I.

We have at times overextended ourselves in pursuit
of crucial and fundamental values. If you look at the history
of the Cold War, the victory that I described could never have
been achieved without American idealism. Even if some of our
particular applications were marginally naive, one has to
remember as well that cynics do not build cathedrals.

Now, it is in this context that I would like to
make a few observations about the theme that has preoccupied
this conference, and particularly the theme of a major aid
program to Russia in support of the Russian leadership; which
I would like to put in the context of the general observations

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that I have advanced.

First, let me repeat what I said at the beginning.
President Nixon has described a path with which I agree.
There has been a huge revolution which has destroyed
ideologies and international systems in the area of Europe
from the Elbe to Vladivostok and encompassing an empire that
reached into Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Something
has to replace that vacuum, or it will become a source of
eternal turmoil. And I agree with the call to this effort.
I have told President Nixon that there are certain nuances
which, if we sat down together, I would raise with the
confidence that after a few days of discussion we would reach
the complete agreement that always existed between us on all
major policy decisions -- and I must say as well on all minor
foreign policy decisions. And I also want to make it clear
that he was the one who made the decisions.

Now, the question I want to raise is whether one
should make the justification of a program depend on the
political future of any one leader of any one country.
Secondly, whether we should make the political evolution of
the vast area of the former Soviet Union depend on the
political and economic progress of one of the countries there,
even though it is the largest and the most important of them.
And thirdly, whether it is enough to concentrate only on an

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economic program, of whatever magnitude, for one of those
constituent countries. I want to emphasize that this is not
a disagreement in principle; it is agreement in principle, and
a question of implementation.

It was learning from President Nixon's brilliant account of his visit to the Soviet Union that I came to share his view that, much as I respected Gorbachev's contributions to getting the system into motion, Yeltsin probably represented a more viable future. I have no reason to question what the director of Central Intelligence said a few minutes ago about his role. But, in the long run, I believe that the foreign policy of any country must be determined by its fundamental interests, and that the foreign policy of the United States must be related to the weighing of these interests. Therefore it is the role of that country that must be judged, not simply of one particular leader, no matter how important it is and no matter what its role.

Secondly, if one looks at history, one is compelled to say that one source of the tragedies of possibly centuries has been the extraordinary expansionism of Russia. And it has been a tragedy for the Russian people even more than for all the surrounding countries. For 300 years, that state has expanded from the area around Moscow to the shores of the Pacific, to the gates of India, and to the center of Europe,

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touching very many different cultures.

Now I tend to believe that a rhythm of that nature
represents a certain proclivity. Since Peter the Great,
Russian troops have invaded their neighbors at least 17 times.
One can explain some of it by a compulsive sense of insecurity
produced by the absence of any natural borders, but some of
that compulsive insecurity was also created by the acquisition
of more and more foreign populations, which could be kept
together only by inventing -- or believing in -- an outside
threat greater than the internal animosities.

So the United States has two apparently
contradictory necessities at this moment. One, that a Russia
extending from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok is one of the
greatest nations in the world. It extends over 11 time zones,
so it need not suffer from claustrophobia.

At the same time, Russia has never stayed within
its borders. As a great nation, we have no conflicting
national interests with it that I can discover, unless it
starts again on its historic rhythm of reacquiring all the
republics that have now become independent. Therefore, it is
not enough to talk to their leaders only about economic
development. They must understand that if this process starts
again, whether we like it or not, the political processes in

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the democracies and the historic fears of Eastern Europe and
of Asia and the Middle East will inevitably produce the
suspicion and hostility which have been the source of tensions
between Russia and the outside world, poisoning these
relations for 300 years, under both czars and commissars.

So, this is our challenge. And for this reason,
while I agree completely that the economic turn towards
democracy and market economics is of crucial importance, it
is also important that the new republics -- such as Ukraine,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states -- be perceived both
in Russia and in the outside world as the independent states
which they aspire to be. Of course, they can and should and
will have close relationships with a country as important and
powerful as neighboring Russia. What must be prevented is
recentralization, and that is in the interests of the Russian
people as well as of world peace.

This is why I believe that the program, with which
I agree in principle, should be focused on all of Central
Europe. It cannot be in our interests to see a no-man's-land
develop between a powerful Germany and a recovering Russia,
tempting hegemonial aspirations of either or both or creating
conflicts between them. This is why I believe that the area
in-between must be built into a relationship that is
commensurate, and must receive the attention commensurate, to

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the same one being given to Russia.

I want to repeat: Russia will have over 150 million people. It has a huge nuclear capacity. It will be a major power. There is no reason why Russia cannot be a friend to the United States or why it should not be treated as a partner on many important international issues. But structure contributes to motivation. And in this historic moment, to which President Nixon has so importantly called our attention, I want to take the liberty of elaborating on his concept. For if what I described happens, then the center of gravity of Russia will move towards the Urals.

In Central Asia today we see an evolution that no one had thought possible: an infusion of Turkish, Iranian, and Russian influences, and in time of Chinese as well. With respect to that evolution, I believe that Russia and the United States have quite parallel interests in preventing the domination of these areas by Islamic fundamentalism. Indeed, I see in no part of the world the need for the confrontations that we have experienced, and, if the scope of the necessary evolution is kept in mind, there is no reason why Russian economic progress should be something that the United States should not support. Indeed, I think we should support it. I just want to fill in the territory between the German border and the Russian border. And I want to remind people,

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especially with respect to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary which for forty years were told that if they threw off their fetters they would find a home in the West, that the democracies have a major obligation toward them, not only an obligation, but a self-interest. Still, I want to come back to where I started.

A vacuum today has been produced by the collapse of two major historical forces. That vacuum must be filled. Indeed, it will be filled. What President Nixon has done is to call our attention to that need and to some specific programs that can fill that need. As for the role of America, I have spoken here of certain concepts -- such as equilibrium and problems that have no final solutions, nor have been part of the American vocabulary or of American convictions.

But I want to make it clear that I do not believe these can be the end of foreign policy. It was America's perfectionism and its conviction that it represented values deeper than self-interest that propelled America into the adventure and the success of the cold war period. And the curious thing is that, with all the criticisms one can make of this or that aspect of American foreign policy, the people who tore themselves apart most were the American people themselves -- groping for perfection, lacerating their conscience, keeping on track, and, in the end, achieving what

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they had set out to do.

Now, I can only hope that in the opportunity that
has opened up before us we can analyze the new situation in
terms of the very conditions we brought about, perhaps to
avoid the anguish through which we went. So I want to
conclude by thanking President Nixon for giving me this
opportunity to appear on a program with him, and to tell him
that, as a solitary individual without a huge machinery, he
has again recalled us to our duty.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

I'll take a few questions until -- Dimitri? And
then this gentleman. Okay, you first, and then Dimitri.

Q Okay. How do you see Siberia fitting into
the Russian puzzle? Will it be part of Russia or will they
go it alone?

MR. KISSINGER: Who?

Q Siberia.

MR. KISSINGER: I consider Siberia as historically
part of Russia. And it is now part of the Russian republic.

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What may happen in the various autonomous regions within the
Russian republic is something I have no clear opinion on.
And I must say I have another view. I do not believe that
every problem in the world needs to be solved by the United
States. (Scattered applause.)

Q Mr. Secretary, my question is about
principle, policy, and outcome, the relationship between the
three. You outlined principles which are commendable and
noncontroversial, I believe, at least as far as the vast
majority of people in this room are concerned. But what about
policy?

It seems to me that Russia accepted that all these
former republics are sovereign and entitled to be independent.
That is not in dispute. Russia established diplomatic
relations with these former republics and accepted their
territorial integrity. It seems to me that under those
circumstances, the United States would logically want to
support the Russian government and the Russian leader because
when you support governments you support their leaders which
are willing to do all the things which we wanted them to do
for so long.

Is it possible that if we failed to take yes for
an answer and if we are too unwilling to understand Russian
pride, Russian concerns, and Russian legitimate interests
vis-a-vis republics, with many of which they have long

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histories of rivalry and complicated disputes, is it possible
that instead of creating this great equilibrium and zone of
stability which you so eloquently described and which I
believe is in everybody's interest, is it possible that we
would push Russia in the direction of chauvanism, that we'd
appeal to Russian wounded pride, would undermine Yeltsin, and
add then, would create a new Russian challenge to America?

MR. KISSINGER: Well, as I tried to make clear, I
do not accept the proposition that we should conduct our
foreign policy in order to support any one particular leader.
Nor do I accept the proposition that a country can make us do
something we should not do for fear that somebody terrible
will come along, which, incidentally, is what we've been
saying about Russia for 50 years. But I support economic
assistance to Russia. I only want it to be part of a program
in which comparable assistance, of course allowing for the
differences in size and economies, is given to other
republics, like Belorus and Ukraine. I have no objection
whatever to a specific program for Russia.

Secondly, my impression is that, for very
understandable reasons, Russian leaders find it very difficult
to accept the proposition that they are now leaders of Russia.
I think they find it very difficult to treat Ukraine, Belorus,
and the other nations as truly separate nations. From talking

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with many of them myself, I believe that in many of their
minds, they have the idea that just as between 1917 and 1922,
when these republics were independent, Russia will eventually
bring them back.

Now, if Russia wanted to form a genuine
confederation or a European-type community, there is no
conceivable reason why the United States should have any
objection to it. I am not, incidentally, aware that Russia
has sent any ambassadors to these countries, which I believe
would be a very useful step. I am not asking that Russia do
anything that some leaders have not already mentioned. I
would like the United States to treat these republics as truly
sovereign states, and not just send three or four people to
Ukraine, which is after all a country of 52 million. We
should give it adequate representation.

This is not to the detriment of Russia. It is to
avoid temptations, since if you say these temptations exist,
then they may come to the surface and ought to be discouraged.
Yet I am not opposed to an economic program as part of a total
program for Central Europe that also includes the former
satellite countries.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you spoke of --

Q Mr. Secretary, could I just follow that up
before we go on to another question? Isn't the point that

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Dimitri was making that in policy you don't have the luxury of often making that choice. For example, you say that you have no objection to providing economic aid to the other republics, if --

MR. KISSINGER: No, I am for it.

Q I understand that. But the -- if we provide a stabilization fund for the ruble, it makes the ruble the currency, in effect, that's internationally recognized, not only in Russia, but in the other republics. You yourself in your speech talk about the importance of interests. Isn't it in the American interest for Russia -- the largest republic, the most important republic, the republic that is trusted by -- at the moment -- by Ukraine and by the other republics to a degree which even has surprised us. Is it not in our interest to help and support Russia as the linchpin, the bulwark that can hold -- provide stability and hold this whole thing together? That's the issue.

MR. KISSINGER: Well, that is the issue, and I just don't accept the proposition that the United States ought to build Russia into the position of centralizing these countries again. It is also not my impression that this universal trust exists, but I may be meeting the wrong people. (Laughter.) But that is exactly the issue. I simply do not accept the

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proposition that if somebody comes here and says, "Something horrible is going to happen in my country unless you do what I want" we must accept that.

I also want to make it clear that a Russia that is genuinely carrying out what many of its leaders have said it is, has no conflicting interest with the United States, and should be treated with respect, care, and in many respects, partnership. This is not intended as an anti-Russian statement, but rather to avoid temptations that 300 years of history have produced and that cannot be eradicated by any one leader.

Dr. Kissinger, you spoke of the -- over here, it's Charles Krauthammer. You spoke of the historical proclivity of Russia to expand, but one could also speak of the historical proclivity of France to expand, which ended with Waterloo, and the century-old proclivity of Germany to expand, which ended with the (EDITOR: NOTE SPELLING CORRECTION:catastrophe) of World War II.

Isn't it equally possible that the Russian proclivity to expand, however historical it is, could equally as well be tempered, if not ended, by the catastrophy of the collapse of the system and the loss of the Cold War?

MR. KISSINGER: The historical proclivity of France

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to expand was produced when it was surrounded by weak states. It ended when what Pitt called in his Pitt Plan the "great masses" were created in Central Europe so that the physical capacity of France to expand was curbed. It went on for another forty years, but they never found a good place to exercise it, and --

Q They tried after that for awhile --

MR. KISSINGER: And I've just -- I -- one has to --
Q My point simply is that defeat can be -- can change historical proclivities.

MR. KISSINGER: Certainly. And I say that you cannot base foreign policy entirely on conversion. I consider it quite possible that if Russia were to emphasize the development of its own country for twenty years, it would once again become a superpower; secondly, it would live in peace with its environment; and, third, it would have a major influence on all the smaller countries in the region. But we have to create the space in which that can happen because, neither in the case of France nor in the case of Germany, did it occur simply by the appearance of any one leader.

Q But I -- if I could just, to follow up -- but right now there is a plurality of leadership in Russia. It isn't as if we're dealing with a unified country with a single perspective or proclivity, and there is a party of

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non-expansion, there's a non-imperial party which happens to be in power. And wouldn't it be in our interest and also a way of promoting non-expansion on the part of the Russian to actually help that party to succeed? And --

MR. KISSINGER: First of all, one would have to define what one means by "succeed." Secondly, what I am saying is that we should not single out Russia. Thirdly, I do not want on this occasion to go through it leader by leader as to what their *arrière pensée* may be on various subjects. I do not believe the views of the political leadership are as simple as you describe them, but they could certainly be influenced by what Americans think they should be.

Q I'm not imputing you -- simplicity to them, but I think Yeltsin, by his actions -- for example, of being the first to recognize the Baltics, is certainly the least imperial --

MR. KISSINGER: Yes, but the Russian army has not yet left the Baltics, and shows no sign of leaving. All I am saying is that there are certain tendencies, and the American position with respect to them ought to be made clear. We ought not to gamble everything on just dealing with one of what are many republics. I am not saying we should not give some aid -- even some significant aid to Russia.

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If what you say is true, it should cause them
absolutely no pain to be asked to confirm what you say they've
already said.

(Applause.)

END OF KISSINGER REMARKS

America's Role in the World.

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that I have advanced.

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I want to repeat: Russia will have over 150 million people. It has a huge nuclear capacity. It will be a major power, There is no reason why Russia cannot be a friend to the United States or why it should not be treated as a partner on many important international issues. But structure contributes to motivation. And in this historic moment, to which President Nixon has so importantly called our attention, I want to take the liberty of elaborating on his concept. For if what I described happens, then the center of gravity of Russia will move towards the Urals.

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they had set out to do.

MR. KISSINGER: Who?

Q Siberia.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, you spoke of the -- over here, it's Charles Krauthammer. You spoke of the historical proclivity of Russia to expand, but one could also speak of the historical proclivity of France to expand, which ended with Waterloo, and the century-old proclivity of Germany to expand, which ended with the (EDITOR: NOTE SPELLING CORRECTION:catastrophe) of World War II.

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APR.09 '92 14:07 212 753 7248

America's Role in the World.

When I was asked by the President to be a speaker here I thought it would be one of those philosophical meetings where I could give a ponderous speech on the new world order. Bill Safire could then have written that my words appeared only every five minutes. (Laughter.) It has, however, now turned into what I think will be a rather seminal occasion.

APR.09 '92 14:08 212 753 7248

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APR.09 '92 14:09 212 753 7248

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The subject which I was asked to address was America's role in the new world order. As a student of history I can think of few examples, in fact I can think of no example, where a nation achieved so completely what it set out to do as the United States has in the last two or three years. If one looks back on what the bipartisan leaders of the late '40s and early '50s were saying about the kind of world they wanted to bring about, one can see that is almost exactly what has happened, except that nobody believed it would happen so quickly. I know of no one, at least I knew of no one before this morning, who had predicted the present evolution in the Soviet Union.

APR.09 '92 14:10 212 753 7248

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are 75 years old. The second revolution destroyed an enterprise that has gone on relentlessly, uninterruptedly, for 300 years. And this is in part an achievement by the United States, yet it has projected our country into a world for which it has very little philosophical preparation or apparatus.

APR.09 '92 14:11 212 753 7248

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American approach to foreign policy has been historically. I know of no other nation that believes in a similar way a number of the following propositions.

APR.09 '92 14:12 212 753 7248

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foreign policy is that we have now graduated into a world of four, five, six, seven -- depending on the time frame you pick -- more or less equal power centers. (I know of documents which claim that we can impose our particular preference on a universal scale. But, in the long term, it is beyond the capacity of our political system to be the military policeman of the whole world, even though without us there can be no security.) In such a world, we need to have some concept of equilibrium, and some relationship between objectives and historical processes. I do not say that we have to become like the nations of the old world; for the nations of the old world managed, in their pursuit of perfectly sound international theory, to produce the colossal catastrophe that was World War I.

APR.09 '92 14:13 212 753 7248

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I would like to put in the context of the general observations
that I have advanced.

Now, the question I want to raise is whether one
should make the justification of a program depend on the
political future of any one leader of any one country.
Secondly, whether it is ambitious enough to make the political
evolution of the vast area of the former Soviet Union depend
on the political and economic progress of one of the countries
there, even though it is the largest and the most important

APR.09 '92 14:14 212 753 7248

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of them. And thirdly, whether it is enough to concentrate
only on an economic program, of whatever magnitude, for one
of those constituent countries. I want to emphasize that this
is not a disagreement in principle; it is agreement in
principle, and a question of implementation.

APR.09 '92 14:15 212 753 7248

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P.11

Pacific, to the gates of India, and to the center of Europe, touching very many different cultures.

APR.09 '92 14:16 212 753 7248

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again, whether we like it or not, the political processes in the democracies and the historic fears of Eastern Europe and of Asia and the Middle East will inevitably produce the suspicion and hostility which have been the source of tensions between Russia and the outside world, poisoning these relations for 300 years, under both czars and commissars.

So, this is our challenge. And for this reason, while I agree completely that the economic turn towards democracy and market economics is of crucial importance, it is also important that the new republics -- Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states -- be perceived both in Russia and in the outside world as the independent states which they aspire to be. Of course, they can and should and will have close relationships with a country as important and powerful as neighboring Russia. What must be prevented is recentralization, and that is in the interests of the Russian people as well as of world peace.

APR.09 '92 14:17 212 753 7248

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commensurate, and must receive the attention commensurate, to the same one being given to Russia.

APR.09 '92 14:18 212 753 7248

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and the Russian border. And I want to remind people, especially with respect to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary which for forty years were told that if they threw off their fetters they would find a home in the West, that the democracies have a major obligation toward them, not only an obligation, but a self-interest. Still, I want to come back to where I started.

APR.09 '92 14:19 212 753 7248

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conscience, keeping on track, and, in the end, achieving what they had set out to do.

MR. KISSINGER: Who?

Q Siberia.

APR.09 '92 14:19 212 753 7248

P.16

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part of Russia. And it is now part of the Russian republic.
What may happen in the various autonomous regions within the
Russian republic is something I have no clear opinion on.
And I must say I have another view. I do not believe that
every problem in the world needs to be solved by the United
States. (Scattered applause.)

APR.09 '92 14:20 212 753 7248

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vis-a-vis republics, with many of which they have long histories of rivalry and complicated disputes, is it possible that instead of creating this great equilibrium and zone of stability which you so eloquently described and which I believe is in everybody's interest, is it possible that we would push Russia in the direction of chauvanism, that we'd appeal to Russian wounded pride, would undermine Yeltsin, and add then, would create a new Russian challenge to America?

APR.09 '92 14:21 212 753 7248

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and the other nations as truly separate nations. From talking with many of them myself, I believe that in many of their minds, they have the idea that just as between 1917 and 1922, when these republics were independent, Russia will eventually bring them back.

APR.09 '92 14:22 212 753 7248

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before we go on to another question? Isn't the point that
Dimitri was making that in policy you don't have the luxury
of often making that choice. For example, you say that you
have no objection to providing economic aid to the other
republics, if --

MR. KISSINGER: Well, that is the issue, and I just
don't accept the proposition that the United States ought to
build Russia into the position of <u>pulling</u> these countries
together again. It is also not my impression that this
universal trust exists, but I may be meeting the wrong people.

APR.09 '92 14:23 212 753 7248

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(Laughter.) But that is exactly the issue. I simply do not accept the proposition that if somebody comes here and says, "Something horrible is going to happen in my country unless you do what I want" we must accept that.

Isn't it equally possible that the Russian proclivity to expand, however historical it is, could equally as well be tempered, if not ended, by the catastrophe of the collapse of the system and the loss of the Cold War?

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MR. KISSINGER: The historical proclivity of France to expand was produced when it was surrounded by weak states. It ended when what Pitt called in his Pitt Plan the "great masses" were created in Central Europe so that the physical capacity of France to expand was curbed. It went on for another forty years, but they never found a good place to exercise it, and --

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perspective or proclivity, and there is a party of
non-expansion, there's a non-imperial party which happens to
be in power. And wouldn't it be in our interest and also a
way of promoting non-expansion on the part of the Russian to
actually help that party to succeed? And --

MR. KISSINGER: First of all, one would have to
define what one means by "succeed." Secondly, what I am
saying is that we should not single out Russia. Thirdly, I
do not want on this occasion to go through it leader by leader
as to what their *arriere pensee* may be on various subjects.
I do not believe the views of the political leadership are as
simple as you describe them, but they could certainly be
influenced by what Americans think they should be.

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END OF HAX REMARKS