CARMEL, CAL
PINE CONE
W. 3,437

DEC 6 1979

# ‘White House Years’--the memoirs of Henry Kissinger

## *The first meeting with the Russians*

*(Editor's note: Henry Kissinger, and Anatoly Dobrynin were a diplomatic duo for eight years. As U.S. secretary of state and Soviet ambassador to Washington, they established a personal channel that brought rapport between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev. Through their efforts, the 1972 Moscow summit was set up, resulting in Soviet-American detente. In the second excerpt from his "White House Years," Kissinger talks intimately of his early experience with the Russians.)*

By HENRY KISSINGER

ON FEB. 14, 1969, I was invited to my first official reception at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. The ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, was recuperating from a bout of flu.

I found Dobrynin robed in a dressing gown in the second living room of his small apartment. He suggested that since we would work together closely we call each other by our first names. From then on he was "Anatol" and I was "Henry" (or more often "Khenry" since the Russian language has no "h" sound). We spoke in English. I did not make fun of him because he spoke with an accent.

Dobrynin said he had a message from his leaders that he wanted to deliver personally to the new president.

He mused that great opportunities had been lost in Soviet-American affairs, especially between 1959 and 1963. He had been head of the American division of the Soviet foreign ministry during that period, and he knew that Nikita Khrushchev seriously wanted an accommodation with the United States. The chance had been lost then; we must not lose the opportunities at hand today.

I told Dobrynin that the Nixon administration was prepared to relax tensions on the basis of reciprocity. But Dobrynin's mention of the 1953-1963 period as a lost opportunity; I pointed out, was bound to sound strange to American ears. That was, after all, the time of two Berlin ultimatums, Khrushchev's brutal behavior toward John F. Kennedy in

FORT COLLINS, COLO.
COLORADO
11, 16, 713 SUN, 17, 648

NOV 22 1979

[lc]

# Imposing Kissinger book 'grand'

"White House Years," by Henry Kissinger (Boston, Mass: Little, Brown and Company, Oct. 23, 1979, 1,552 pp., $22.50.)

By ROBERT CLERC

Gannett News Service

Webster tells us that "grand" is one of those peculiarly American indeterminate words that can convey any number of meanings. Among the more common are 1) higher in rank or dignity than others in the same grouping or class, 2) most important, 3) imposing because of great size, 4) characterized by splendor or display, and 5) eminent, distinguished, illustrious.

Regardless of which definition one chooses, however, "White House Years," the first of two volumes of Dr. Henry Kissinger's memoirs, ranks as a grand book.

It is an imposing work, almost intimidating in fact, with 700,000 words contained in 1,552 pages. But if the book is grand in size, it is equally grand in style. Kissinger begins on Page 1 putting the reader's mind at ease that this will not be just another stilted, sterile essay by a retired bureaucrat. His facility with words, his wiliness to share insights clearly and succinctly and his appreciation of the humor and irony of a situation mark him quickly as an author of the highest caliber.

His first volume treats the three turbulent years from 1969, when Kissinger began his public life as special security advisor in the Nixon administration, to 1972 and the formal end of the Vietnam War. During that period, Kissinger's duties took him to the most sensitive trouble spots and brought him in contact with world leaders of every stripe and persuasion. He shares his impressions of each with an incisive candor and charm that has come to be the Kissinger trademark.

In the first chapter he sets that tone by exposing his early — and he suggests natural — aversion to the president he served so well. He explains that "all my political experience had been in the company of those who considered themselves in mortal opposition to Richard Nixon. I had taught for over 10 years at Harvard University, where among the faculty disdain for Richard Nixon was established orthodoxy. And the single most influential person in my life had been a man whom Nixon had twice defeated in futile quests for the presidential nomination, Nelson Rockefeller."

SEAT OF POWER — Henry Kissinger is met by President Nixon in San Clemente after his return from China on July 13, 1971.

He quickly admits that he "had little direct evidence on which to base a judgment" of Nixon. But that did not alter the fact that he had done so.

A side note is appropriate here. The few pages Kissinger gives to Rockefeller by way of background for his own entry into public life are nothing short of pol-igant. He gives the reader a forthright look at the inner

Rockefeller, a man perceived by Kissinger to be torn by his inability to reconcile the advantage of his great wealth with his aspirations for public office. He makes no bones about his final appraisal of the New York governor: "A man who could have been one of our great presidents would never achieve his goal. This knowledge was all the harder for his friends because we know deep down that but for tactical errors and hesitations, it should have been otherwise."

Kissinger is equally forthright in his observations on Nixon. He acknowledges that he received his appointment to the White House staff because Nixon wanted from that beginning to bridge the gap that separated him from the Ivy League intellectuals. More important, even, he wanted to run his own foreign policy. Kissinger analyzes Nixon at times with a cutting rigor:

"The meeting of any new person filled Nixon with an undefined dread. He feared being confronted with some unexpected question, some unanticipated issue, or some line of argument for which he was not prepared and which might make him appear less in control of events than his self-image required."

At the same time he is fair. Kissinger finds reasons in these personal failings to take full measure of the president's successes:

"Not by nature courageous, he had steeled himself to conspicuous acts of rare courage. Not normally outgoing he had forced himself to rally his people to its challenge. He had striven for a revolution in American foreign policy so that it would overcome the disastrous oscillations between overcommitment and isolation."

The book is laced with personal perceptions of the world leaders that shaped the course and consequences of the '60s and '70s. He recounts a reception hosted by Charlie deGaulle and observes that "other heads of government and many senators who usually proclaimed their antipathy to authoritarian generals crowded around him."

On Le Duc Tho, with whom he negotiated the settlement of the Vietnam War, he says "our private bantering grew longer as our meetings progressed and some limits Grand, Page 8.

ILWAUKEE JOURNAL

MILWAUKEE, WISC.

D 342.453 SUN. 6/22/79

[LC]

DEC 2 1979

Books

Kissinger tells his side

White House Years. By Henry Kissinger. Little, Brown. $22.50.

By JOHN W. KOLE
of The Journal Staff

WHEN HE WAS called to the Pierre Hotel to meet President-Elect Richard M. Nixon in late November, 1968, Henry Kissinger had no idea he would be offered the job as the top White House national security adviser.

After all, he was ensconced at Harvard, the heart of the Eastern Establishment that, the president believed, despised Nixon. Furthermore, Kissinger's closest political ties were with New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, a bitter party rival of Nixon.

Kissinger found Nixon strangely nervous for a man who had just won the presidency — “his movements were slightly vague and unrelated to what he was saying, as if two different impulses were behind speech and gesture.”

Nixon did not offer the job then. Kissinger left with the vague feeling that he might be asked to take some kind of foreign policy planning position.

The next day, John N. Mitchell, due to become attorney general, called him back to New York. Mitchell was amazed when Kissinger said Nixon had not told him what job he was offering, saying: “Oh, Jesus Christ, he has screwed it up again.”

Thus began the strange relationship that catapulted Kissinger to international superstar.

And he lays it out in excruciating detail in this book, the domestic and foreign publication rights for which were sold for $5 million. Massive though the volume is, it covers only the first half of his eight years of service for Nixon and President Ford.

Unlike so many academics and government officials, Kissinger is an entertaining writer, although some of the material might well have been pared for the sake of the long-suffering reader.

He tells of the agony of getting the United States out of its most tragic foreign intervention, the savage war in Vietnam.

Kissinger is particularly sensitive about criticism of US secret bombing and other military actions in Cambodia. He made several manuscript additions and changes after publication of William Shawcross' highly-critical book, "Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia."

Kissinger is apologetic about his role in the wiretapping of journalists and subordinates, outlining his frustrations about press leaks concerning Cambodia. His defense is extremely lame, but he promises more about the "moral issues" in a subsequent volume.

Even more to the point, Kissinger never really answers the question of why the US should not have pulled out of Vietnam soon after Nixon took office. Instead, the war dragged on for four more years, some 20,000 more Americans were killed and the puppet South Vietnamese government collapsed anyway.

Henry Kissinger in caricature.

Hans Hensley, a former U.S. Army colonel and author of "The American Way," has written a book that should be required reading for all American politicians and policy makers. In "The American Way: How to Win in Today's Global Economy," Hensley argues that the United States must be prepared to fight wars around the world, and that its military must be modernized and its policies more effective. He believes that the U.S. must seek to become a "world power" and that its military must be able to project power around the world, especially in Asia and the Middle East. "The American Way" is a must-read for any student of international affairs, especially those studying for tests, interviews or exams.