CAN AMERICA HAVE A REALIST FOREIGN POLICY?

Lessons of the Postwar Realist Vision

David Neal Frank

A Senior Thesis
submitted to the Department of Politics
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey

April 18, 1988

FREEDOM FORUM
FREE PRESS. FREE SPEECH. FREE SPIRIT.

PAUL K. Mc MASTERS
FIRST AMENDMENT OMBUDSMAN

June 19, 1998

JUN 26 1998

Henry Kissinger
River House
435 E. 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022

Dear Mr. Kissinger,

As you may know, each year The Freedom Forum publishes a First Amendment Calendar with words of wit and wisdom from the famous and not-so-famous as a reminder of the fundamental freedoms we all enjoy. In the 1999 edition of the calendar, we are considering including a quote attributed to you and would like to confirm that you indeed said it and that you are accurately quoted.

Quote: "What should one do with anonymous sources? Well, it matters what the motive of the source is and what the position of the source is. I think it would be helpful to give at least a hint of where it comes from."

Source: "Free Press/Fair Press," 1998 Latin American Media Forum, February/March 1998

Title: Statesman

Date of quote: 1998

Please note on this page any inaccuracies or need for change and return it by mail, or fax (703-284-3519), or e-mail me at pmcmasters@freedomforum.org. If you wish to eliminate brackets or ellipses, or make small changes in wording to make the quote more readable, we certainly would consider that.

We would be pleased to add your words to a host of others who have delighted and inspired the thousands of people we send the calendar each year free of charge. We look forward to hearing back from you as soon as possible.

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TEL: 703/284-3511
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E-mail: pmcmasters@freedomforum.org

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DISCUSSION

# Kissinger says television's immediacy leads to decline in analytical journalism

Answering a question about anonymous sources, Henry Kissinger (left) says: "I was always identified as 'a high-ranking official on the secretary of state's plane' ... often 'with an accent.'" At right is interviewer Bernard Kalb.

**Bernard Kalb:** Can you say anything nice about the media?

**Henry Kissinger:** I don't feel abused by the media. I cannot complain about fairness. There were stories I disagreed with, but if you take the media that I focused on, I have no complaint. The way the political debate was carried on between (President Richard) Nixon and his critics more on the domestic side left something to be desired. On Vietnam I thought the media had a certain bias, but I'm not complaining about the media. In fact, I think with some nostalgia of some of the reporters I knew who were actually sort of students of the problems — people like Chalmers Roberts or Murrey Marder of *The Washington Post*, who didn't always agree with our policy conclusions but their

analytic ability on, say, SALT and on Vietnam was outstanding. I think maybe there's less analytic ability today or less analytic empathies with the rise of television.

**Kalb:** Could you develop that point you're

making now, that is to say a diminution of analysis in the context of the emerging proliferation of media?

**Kissinger:** Most of the important changes in foreign policy develop out of ability to spot trends. Television coverage, by necessity, focuses more on the immediate news and on the pictorially represented news, and so you get perhaps an excessive emphasis on tactical problems. Take the current issue on Iraq. The real issue there is what is the long-range policy. It isn't something that can be encompassed in the phrase "who is supporting us or who is not." In my time, even if I bled occasionally, there was more emphasis on analytic reporting.

**Kalb:** If we move from the period in which you were the secretary in the '70s to the present time, and with the emergence of new media, who's running U.S. foreign policy, the White House or television?

**Kissinger:** You're putting your finger on one important problem. The White House, which has to be conscious of its impact, seems to be more conscious of day-to-day coverage of the news than any previous one that I have seen. In that sense, they may be more driven by the need to produce certain images than would have been the case previously.

I was more conscious of the print media than of the television media. That may have been wrong, but I made more of an effort with the print media than I did with the television media.

**Kalb:** Thinking back, I can understand that the emphasis would have been on print and the impact of print and editorials in the shaping of policy, but now with instantancous images, live from the battlefield ...

**Kissinger:** It's easy to comment when you're not there. Speaking now as an outsider, the best way to conduct foreign policy is to do what you think is the right thing. And to expect that if you do the right thing and it works out in a comprehensible way, that that does you more good than to get

**TOPIC** "The Media and Foreign Policy"

**SPEAKER** Henry Kissinger, secretary of state, 1973-77

**INTERVIEWER** Bernard Kalb, moderator, CNN's "Reliable Sources"

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on the evening news for two minutes and then have to adjust the next day. That creates a sense of insecurity. Also, you have to remember you have many audiences. You don't just have the American audience. When you conduct foreign policy, for better or worse, you are creating expectations in the minds of leaders and publics around the world, so that must be taken into account.

**Kalb:** Can you think of any situation where the availability of instant television might have reshaped some of your policy initiatives?

**Kissinger:** I'd like to think no, but how do I know? I'd like to think that I would have tried to do what I had more or less thought should be done. I

used to brief mostly on back-
ground. I tried to give the
media that were traveling
with me an honest account of
what I was trying to do. Not
necessarily what I was doing,
but what I was trying to do. So
that when they saw some-
thing happening, they could
put it into a framework.

You remember that your
brother Marvin got ahead of
me actually. We loft Syria
once, and I was very discour-
aged. And he said, from what
he had observed from the
slight changes in the Syrian
thing, that he thought we
were actually making
progress, which I genuinely
did not think we were making.

So my strategy, whatever it's worth, was to be very honest with the media about the philosophy and the strategy that I was following, and then leave it up to them to figure out what any individual event might mean in terms of that strategy.

**Kalb:** If public support is critical for even the possibility of success in foreign policy, what must officials do in sharing information to the greatest extent possible, keeping in mind national security constraints, so that a public is aware of what a nation is about to do, rather than being dragged in or rather than leaders toppling in disgrace.

**Kissinger:** I don't think the public or the media can fine-tune every tactical move. But I think the public must understand what your objective is, whether you think it's achievable and [whether it] has some staying power. If you go through all these tactical maneuvers, you're usually overtaken by events and you look as if you're not in charge of

events, and you are not.

**Kalb:** Do you have any sense whether you think the public has been properly informed about the policies [on Iraq] that are being advocated by the White House?

**Kissinger:** They've been properly informed about the day-to-day policies, maybe too much. There are too many different points of view around. Every department seems to be obliged to brief the hell out of this thing. There's no coherent view that necessarily emerges. They've certainly had a lot of explanation of the day-to-day moves. I've never seen a military campaign that was described in detail ahead of time. But I don't think there has

been an adequate explana-
tion of how we visualize the
relation of Iran, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia over several years

**Kalb:** We know, of course, about the relationship between officials and the media, the way the government tries to use the media and the media resist and try to get the full story, and so forth. Can you take us back stage in any particular dramatic episode in which you were involved, the Middle East, the opening to China or the connection with the Soviet Union, and give us some sort of sense of what it is like when the strategists at your level get together with a view toward getting a view out to the public, using the media.

**Kissinger:** When I came to Washington, I had never given a press conference. It never occurred to me that I had any media responsibility. But if you remember those days, nobody was very eager to brief on Vietnam. So Nixon asked me to do backgrounder every Friday, which I conducted, I like to think, more or less like an academic seminar. For about three years, it was the White House view that my accent was disturbing to the citizens of Peoria, so I was never on television. The first time I was on television was with the so-called "peace is at hand" press conference, which I didn't know was on television. They didn't tell me that ahead of time. I thought it was a backgrounder.

I could conduct a (media) strategy only after I became secretary of state, which was well into the period. We never had a deliberate strategy. I usual-

> What should one do
> with anonymous
> sources? Well, it
> matters what the
> motive of the source is
> and what the position
> of the source is. I think
> it would be helpful to
> give at least a hint of
> where it comes from.

— Henry Kissinger

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ly picked a foreign service officer to do the day-to-day stuff, and either (executive assistant Lawrence) Eagleburger or I did the strategy things. But I hate to say, I never had an integrated media strategy.

**Kalb:** Oversight? In retrospect? If we both believe that unless you have public support, foreign policy is foredoomed, then there's the critical role the media must play and the accessibility of high government officials to help explain policy rather than throw slogans and shibboleths at the public.

**Kissinger:** I thought I had critical public support. I didn't think we failed. There was a big split that developed within the political community between neo-conservatives and liberals but that could not be dealt with by handling media. That was the disintegration of the Nixon administration. The new conservatives who had been on the other side during the Vietnam period suddenly shifted to the right. There were many special reasons why there was a big debate about *detente* and so forth, and maybe we didn't explain that well enough. Maybe we should have.

The strategy that I followed was given to me by Hubert Humphrey. [He] said, "You get a lot of flak in the Beltway. Maybe you ought to go out into the country and go state by state and see the local media and the local leaders." That's what I did. I went to 37 states and briefed the media and met local leaders. That was my strategy. But I did not have a strategy for Washington. It may have been a mistake.

Questions from the audience

**Geneva Overholser, The Washington Post:** I wonder, Mr. Secretary, if you'd be willing to speak a bit about anonymous sources. Certainly, you've been one and I assume you've seen the pernicious effects of the use of anonymity. If you were in charge of a newspaper, what would the rules be in terms of anonymous sources?

**Kissinger:** I was a very transparent anonymous source. I was always identified as "a high-ranking official on the secretary of state's plane."

**Kalb:** With an accent.

**Kissinger:** Often with an accent.

**Kalb:** This was the phrase, "A senior official on the Kissinger plane with an accent said today ..."

**Overholser:** Then why do it?

**Kissinger:** That's a good question. The belief was that foreigners need not react if it was sort of anonymous. What I generally did not do is leak things to favorite journalists. What should one do with anonymous sources? Well, it matters what the motive of the source is and what the position of the source is. I think it would be helpful to give at least a hint of where it comes from.

**Suzanne Bilello, The Freedom Forum:** President Clinton was just in this area a few months ago in both Argentina and Brazil for state visits. How do you evaluate U.S. policy toward Argentina and Brazil?

**Kissinger:** I support all the philosophical things he's saying about Latin America. I am unhappy that there has been no adequate follow-up. There has been no fast track that was pushed. I thought we should have pushed the Latin American Free Trade Zone more energetically.

**Charles Overby, The Freedom Forum:** Mr. Secretary, the current president and his administration have communicated to world leaders by way of television. That's pretty much accepted fact. Do you think that is an appropriate diplomatic initiative? If that opportunity had been available to you, would you have done that rather than [use] behind-closed-doors diplomacy?

**Kissinger:** My attitude is to try to support an administration in office and not to second-guess. It's a different generation. I grew up with print. I read books and I learned by reading.

The most important thing from a strictly foreign policy point of view is to build a network of relationships with world leaders in which they develop confidence in your purposes. This cannot be done on television.

I would look on television as a supporting aspect of that. Sound bites are a very unreliable way. They create a mood. They don't create an understanding. To the extent that it is true that this is how the administration communicates with world leaders, I think it is the wrong priority.

**Maria O'Donnell, La Nación:** I understand you had dinner last night and the night before with

Leonardo V. Santosteban, editor of the daily newspaper *La Arena*, questions Henry Kissinger about his views on how the U.S. media covered the Vietnam War.

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President (Carlos) Menem. Could you comment on what you talked about?

**Kissinger:** President Menem is a friend of mine. That is not a political statement. It's a personal statement. We talked about the general position of Argentina, especially in the light of the Southeast Asian economic crisis, how that affected Latin America. We talked about Mercosur, and a little bit about the various political trends in this country. But it was mostly about what Argentina had done and was trying to do over the next years.

**Leonardo V. Santesteban, La Arena:** You said at the beginning of this discussion that you had noticed in Journalism in your country a certain subjectivity in the coverage of the Vietnam War. Could you be more specific?

**Kissinger:** The debate was carried on as if there were some who wanted war and there were some who wanted peace. But the problem we faced when we came in was that there were 550,000 Americans in Southeast Asia. How do you get 550,000 people out when you have a million armed allies and an equal number of enemies, and where your allies might turn into enemies if you move too precipitously? That was the operational question we faced.

Some of the media were creating the impression that negotiations were like a detective story in which the Vietnamese would throw out vague clues and these stupid Americans didn't get it. The fact was that they were the toughest negotiators I've ever encountered. Unless we could establish some floor beyond which we could not be pushed, they'd never settle. We wanted to use negotiations to be able to produce a gradual withdrawal of the American forces so that we could leave under non-catastrophic conditions.

Even with that explanation, there are many arguments you can make whether every move we made was the right one, but I thought the debate got a little one-sided in the United States on that issue.

**Kall:** You see heads of state negotiating on television. They'll go on CNN. There will be a statement from, for example, the White House that is beamed to Baghdad. Saddam (Husscin) will answer, and so forth. You have instantaneous negotiations. What are the dangers that take place if you have such high-velocity diplomacy?

**Kissinger:** There's a high danger of misunderstood

and excessive emphasis on the immediate impact. I often felt in a serious negotiation, where you're not trying to demoralize the other side, the best way to begin is to tell the other side what you are trying to do. I know this sounds terribly naive, but the hardest thing, when you negotiate with somebody, is to interpret what he's proposing.

Since you are at least presumably trying to come to an agreement, I never felt you were giving away anything when you said, "What I am trying to produce is A. Now, you tell me what you're trying to produce." That's very hard to do on television. But again, I was in office in a different

period. If I were in office today, I might not practice what I'm now preaching.

**Natasha Nieblesklkwiat, Clarín:** Sometimes a foreign reader has the feeling that there is no better propaganda element than the power of the United States and the media when the civil society has to be moved to do something. What do you think about this?

**Kissinger:** The relationship between power and moral principles is elusive. It's hard to state in the abstract. In situations like Iraq, power plays a crucial element in the relation between Iraq and us. The element of consensus plays a role in how much support we get and how much support we think we need.

In the long run, as a student of foreign policy, if you base foreign policy entirely on power, you are in a difficult situation. First of all, power is difficult to evaluate properly. Secondly, it requires a degree of ruthlessness and cynicism that is difficult to sustain over an indefinite period of time.

How to relate legitimacy to power? That is a key dilemma for any leader, and it's not something for which you can give an abstract prescription, or certainly not in the time we have available.

**Henry Kissinger:** "Some of the media were creating the impression that negotiations were like a detective story in which the Vietnamese would throw out vague clues and these stupid Americans didn't get it."

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DATE

CORR. FILE [Handwritten: Somavita, Arno] [Handwritten: 5/2]

ACTION:
LPB ARB MKD SSM
DJR FG SAM [Handwritten: TO]

SUBJ. FILE

CROSS REF.

COMMENTS:
✓HAK met w/ Frei as planned on 6/11.

DC OFFICE:

INFO COPY TO:

ROUTE CC COPY TO:

TO BE FILED ✓

BOOZ ALLEN & HAMILTON INC.

225 WEST WACKER DRIVE • CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60606-1228 • TELEPHONE: (312) 578-4500 • FAX: (312) 578-4667

CYRUS F. FREIDHEIM JR.
Vice Chairman

June 18, 1998

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Dear Henry:

Here is the manuscript of *The Trillion Dollar Enterprise*. It is going through editing and a few other changes are being made ... but not to the substance.

You are mentioned on pages 8-7 and 9-18.

As I mentioned, the publisher has reserved a place on the book jacket cover for a quote from you. You asked that I propose something. I would suggest:

"Geopolitics and business are colliding. *The Trillion Dollar Enterprise* takes advantage of the forces of nationalism and globalization that are shaping the business landscape." A breakthrough in thinking."

I would welcome comments on the book from such a distinguished and successful author.

:vma
Enc.

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| 001 | OK | # | 13125784667 | 001/001 | | -KISSINGER ASSOC. - |

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BOOZ·ALLEN & HAMILTON INC.

225 WEST WACKER DRIVE • CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60606-1223 • TELEPHONE: (312) 578-4500 • FAX: (312) 578-4667

June 18, 1998

Dear Henry:

"Geopolitics and business are colliding. *The Trillion Dollar Enterprise* takes advantage of the forces of nationalism and globalization that are shaping the business landscape. "A breakthrough in thinking."

delete

:vma

Enc.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

April 1, 1998

Dear Babeth:

Your letter of March 30 convinces me that we simply are not communicating and that I must withdraw from the dinner. Rabbi Steinsaltz came to my attention because Israel Klabin has described him to me as one of the sages of our period. Certainly the annotation of the Talmud, which I have looked at, is a spectacular achievement. I am willing to be helpful to him and I have scheduled a breakfast with the Rabbi for that purpose.

What makes no sense is to go on a program during which we both speak on the same topic - even if separated by a dinner. It cannot possibly work, and it requires a degree of preparation for which I simply do not have the time.

So I regretfully withdraw. And there is really no point in trying to adjust the program. I owe you one, and I hope you give me another opportunity in a more propitious occasion when I can do something individually.

Mrs. Paul Fribourg
15 East 88th Street
New York, NY 10128

TWENTY-SIXTH FLOOR • 350 PARK AVENUE • NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022 • (212) 759-7919

Josabeth Fribourg

February 23, 1998

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021

FEB 25 1998

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Allow me, please, to again express my delight and appreciation to you for accepting our invitation to the Aleph Society dinner. Your kindness means a great deal to me.

I have consulted with Rabbi Steinsaltz on the issue that you raised. He agrees that he will not respond to your remarks directly during the program. I understand that you and the Rabbi will be meeting in May and hope that you and he will agree upon your respective themes for the dinner then.

May I respectfully suggest that you assign someone on your staff to work with us as we prepare for the evening? I want to be sure that our invitation and preparatory material appropriately reflect your own concerns.

Margy-Ruth Davis has been in touch with Christie Newman, in your Washington office, in order to set a date for the dinner. We have already set aside the week of September 14 in anticipation of this event.

I very much look forward to this special occasion and, as always, to hear your unique perspective on those questions that matter most to us.