[Lc]

KISSINGER: difficult to reconstruct. I had no reason to doubt its legality. The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI and the President all participated in it, er, it was not one of the things that filled me with wild joy, on the other hand, er, it also seemed a way by which it would be demonstrated that my staff er, was loyal. But I'm sure there were complex of reasons that er, that went into it that are very hard to disentangle in the retrospect of ten years.

FROST: When you say my office in the book, my office was not aware of all of them and...how many was it aware of and how many emanated from your office?

KISSINGER: Well, the question of emanating is very difficult to reconstruct er, er, from the record. The er, I believe we were aware of er, 13 of, of them of which, some were repeats, that is, there was a leak and the same person had had access to the document so I believe it was ten different cases but 13 different wiretaps.

FROST: ...and how many emanated from your office?

KISSINGER: Well, er, this I have attempted to er, to reconstruct and I cannot say that with absolute certainty. There may be seven or eight. Emanated in the sense that we gave to the FBI the names of the people who had had access to leak classified information.

FROST: I think that you've er, clarified things er, here today. And how, how would you characterize the relationship with Nixon...would you say it was architect and and constructor, contractor..maybe? Would you say it was er, strategist and tactitian? What would you say?

[Lc]

Page 24

KISSINGER: I...I think that er, it was a very curious relationship, because we were not personally very close. We had almost no social contact with each other. Er, but I had high professional regard for his knowledge of international affairs and some admiration for his decisiveness in crisis.

FROST: But in the case of your book, while the comments are all accurately er, paraphrased or whatever, by... or represented by what you just said, that there is a... amalgam of anecdotes er, that give a very unflattering picture...that, that touch on irrationality on a number of occasions that that...you could er, never take necessarily that he meant what he said, stories about drinks or about small mindedness, stories about one thing, the Guam doctrine, he wanted it renamed the Nixon doctrine and so on, and, was that er, picture, that unfavorable picture that emerges from the anecdotes, deliberate?

KISSINGER: No, I attempted, in my book, to describe events as they occurred on the basis of almost invariably, of documentation that I have. I tried to leave a historical record of how things happened. Now Richard Nixon is a man of extraordinary complexity. In, and...an extraordinary amalgam or, of some petty traits, and some extraordinarily good, good traits, so, er, of insecurity and courage, and ...I believe that eventaully he can be rendered adequately only by a great dramatist and not by a biographer.

[LC]

Page 25

SECTION IV

KISSINGER: The question of the relationship of morality to foreign policy is a very complex one because the average person thinks that morality can be applied as directly to the conducts of states to each other as it can to human relations. That is not always the case because sometimes statesmen have to choose among evils.

FROST: If you had to summarize your strong moral convictions, what were they?

KISSINGER: I was brought up as a young man in a totalitarian society in Germany and therefore I had perhaps a better sense for the fragility of institutions and for the potential evil that can break forth when restraints disappear than Americans who have been blessed in living in a society without these tensions. Secondly I remember the symbol America was to me a when I did not have the good fortune of living in this country, so, therefore, I believe that what America does is of great consequence to the peace of the world and to the progress of humanity. I, therefore, during the Vietnam War could not join the critics who saw in it a huge conspiracy. I thought that it was an initially, an idealistic attempt by America which went beyond our domestic consensus and our domestic capacities. I believe we have an obligation to prevent the totalitarians

[L]

Page 26

from taking over the world by force, therefore, I have
always believed that American honor and American
credibility must not be lightly jeopardized and should
be defended even in relatively marginal situations.

FROST: In terms of allying ourselves with people around the world and in the fight against totalitarianism, do you think that we have, during this period and other periods, allied ourselves, or tend to ally ourselves, too much with right-wing colonels. I suppose could be a general sort of phrase whom we, whose staying power we overestimated rather than with a leftish regimes who turn out to be more independent than we expect?

KISSINGER: There are governments in power that may not meet all our criteria for democratic principles, but the alternative to which are likely to be positively hostile to our interests. To manipulate the domestic politics of another country is always an extremely complicated matter, and you can start a process which you cannot control, and you may not know how to do it.

FROST: One specific in terms of what you were saying about the internal affairs of a of various countries, a the words of President Nixon of trying to organize and the exploratory

Page 27

attempts to organize a coup in Chile between the election
and the formal electing of the president who was a Marxist
but who was democratically elected, and that in the book,
you say that was nothing less than our duty, or words
to that effect, at the same time the fact that West
Pakistan committed genocide in East Pakistan of about
a million people, estimated figure, you say was their
internal matter?

KISSINGER: Well..

FROST: On the surface there, there, on the surface there is a double standard there it suggests that we are making convenient judgments?

KISSINGER: Of course, one obviously must make practical judgments in addition to moral judgments, but let us, let me take the case of Chile first. A, the election of Allende reflected a peculiarity of the Chilean constitution in the sense that when there were more than two people in the race then the man with a plurality obviously, it would then go to the Congress and the Congress would generally vote for the man with the plurality. Allende, whom we judged, and I believe correctly, to be a man who would transform the country into a Marxist dictatorship over a period of years. Allende received some thirty-six point three percent of the votes. What we attempted

[Lc]

Page 28

to do in, I must say a rather incompetent way, because
it was a it we, we had not expected this outcome, was to
force another election in which there would be a 2-man
race between a Christian Democrat and Allende, so that
there could be a clearcut determination by the Chilean
people between democracy and totalitarianism.

FROST:

On that figure, that fact, however, I mean pursuing a coup
d'etat, albeit incompetently, with a democratically
elected man, albeit with thirty-six percent, which is what
about the same as President Thieu got elected with in
South Vietnam.

But we didn't speak out on the genocide in East Pakistan
I mean we seemed to, I mean, we seemed to have treated
the genocide there less seriously than we did a democratic
election?

KISSINGER:

It was our judgment that if we acquiesced in the establish-
ment of another Communist state in the Western Hemisphere
that it would bring tremendous upheavals. Secondly, I
do not believe that it is anybody's judgment that there
were going to be new elections in Chile. Allende made
no secret of his determination to bring about a revolutionary
transformation in Chile.

Now with respect to Pakistan, our problem with respect
to Pakistan, if I may just explain this for the moment,
we had a very serious problem in the sense that the East

[10]

Page 29

Pakistan crisis erupted at the time that Pakistan was our
only channel of communication...to China, and that we
were in the process of arranging my secret trip to China
in the precise period that West Pakistan was trying to
put down the uprising in East Pakistan. It had taken us
two years to find a channel that the Chinese would accept
and that was an extremely complicated period. Nevertheless,
we made major efforts, quietly to be sure, to get Pakistan
to change its procedures to appoint a civilian government
and to abolish military government, to declare an amnesty,
to permit the return of refugees, to turn over control
to a civilian government, And we were well on the way
to achieving most of these objectives by the end of the
war. The thing we did not do, was to make a public
attack on the Pakistan government, because of the very
complicated situation in which we found ourselves, and
it is one of those examples where one had to balance
various considerations.

FROST: We certainly did, but, and looking at the record, it looks
as though we, we did un, undoubtedly turn an extraordinary
amount of concern towards, the mailman as it were, because
after July, '71, when the massacres were still going on,
you had established, as you tell, a direct, a direct..

KISSINGER: Yes, but I think...

[c]

Page 30

FROST: But this is an example, isn't it, which I mean, when we're talking, as you have talked on occasion, when we're talking about genocide, as a Jewish refugee, we in that case, we did choose the lesser of two evils, as you saw it, or the lesser of two evils.

KISSINGER: No, I, I think there was absolutely no question that we opposed what the Pakistan government was doing.

FROST: But if an election in Chile is not an internal matter we're entitled to interfere with, is genocide an internal matter?

KISSINGER: Genocide is not an internal matter, and er, we are of course, entitled to interfere and we did interfere. The difference here is a question of method. In the case of Pakistan, the peculiar circumstances we faced, we chose to exercise our influence, quietly.

END OF SECTION IV

[LC]

SECTION V

FROST: Nixon said you threatened to resign 6 or 7 times. Was that true?

KISSINGER: That's probably true..I er..sometimes with justice and sometimes er, out of impetuosity. You have to remember that er, er, when you work 18 hours a day, and particularly under the system of er, that was used by er, in the Nixon administration, where finally not just a design, but also the execution of foreign policy came into my office. There was great strain and er, sometimes er, one released it by a er, empty threats of resignation and I think once or twice I meant it seriously,

FROST: There have been more adjectives used about you then, than anybody and I've been asking people wh..cause..there's always with a but in the middle..er..brilliant, but insecure, everybody says. And I ask people why is this man er, er, so insecure as he sometimes appears when he knows, must know, that he is so brilliant..as well. And one of your friends said, I have met many refugees in my time, and they always are insecure. Do you think that's the reason you're insecure?

KISSINGER: I think that er, first of all, no one is in an ideal position to analyze themselves, especially not on television. Er, I don't believe that I am insecure in the conduct or the judgement of foreign policy. Er, in matters about which I have thought a great deal in my life, I have been excessively secure for some people who

Page 32

[LC]

**KISSINGER:** have had to deal with me. Er, in matters of human relationships er, I think it is probably true that I develop more slowly than in political and intellectual relationships and that there, er, there were periods of social insecurity and maybe some periods of human insecurity which, however, I believe since my marriage have been strongly attenuated.

**FROST:** You don't feel those..you don't think any more that..

**KISSINGER:** ..always keeping in mind that no one is the best judge of his own personality. Er, I think that er, my marriage has given me a, an insight into human dimension that I didn't always possess.

**FROST:** Let me conclude by asking you for a brief capsule portrait of some of the people that you had..a unique insight into, really. In terms of understanding the way they work. And, er, a capsule description. Er, Mao Tse Tung..

**KISSINGER:** A colossal personality, emanating raw willpower er, intoxicated with revolution who even after he had triumphed er, continued to make a revolution as the leader of his country by overthrowing his institutions every five or ten years.

**FROST:** Brezhnev?

**KISSINGER:** A very Russian combination of warmth, crudeness, of

NBC Photo

KISSINGER INTERVIEWED BY FROST--Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will recall some of the most turbulent years in American foreign policy when he is interviewed by David Frost in an NBC News Special Report, to be telecast Thursday, Oct. 11 (10-11 p.m. NYT), on NBC. Frost says some of the areas he hopes to examine with the former secretary include the ending of the Vietnam War; the controversies over United States policies in Cambodia; Kissinger's relationship with world leaders, including former President Nixon; various crises in the Middle East; new strategic policies; and the triangular balance of power engineered between Russia, China and the United States.

(August, 1979)

(Lc)

FROST: DR. KISSINGER, I GUESS THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT HOUR ONE WAY AND ANOTHER IS GOING TO BE POWER, AND POWER DURING YOUR WHITE HOUSE YEARS, AND YOU CAME TO OFFICE AT A TIME WHEN AMERICA WAS VERY UNCERTAIN, PERHAPS MORE UNCERTAIN THAN EVER BEFORE OF ITS ROLE IN THE WORLD. WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN FOR HOLDING ON TO, AND PERHAP'S STRENGTHENING, AMERICA'S POWER IN THE WORLD?

KISSINGER: WELL, I WOULDN'T SAY THE PROBLEM WAS ONLY POWER. THE PROBLEM FOR THE UNITED STATES WHEN I JOINED THE ADMINISTRATION WAS HOW TO DEFINE ITS ROLE IN THE WORLD...THAT INCLUDES POWER, THAT INCLUDED OUR VALUES. AND WE WERE ALSO INVOLVED IN A TREMENDOUS DOMESTIC DEBATE ABOUT THE WAR IN VIETNAM. THE PROBLEM WE FACED AT THE END OF THE SIXTIES WAS THAT THE TRADITIONAL PATTERNS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY WERE BEGINNING NO LONGER TO APPLY. WE HAD BEEN SECURE BEHIND TWO GREAT OCEANS, WE HAD HAD A TREMENDOUS ECONOMIC SUPERIORITY OVER THE REST OF THE WORLD. WE HAD HAD AN ATOMIC MONOPOLY AND WE WERE BEGINNING TO LEARN IN THE SIXTIES THAT WE COULDN'T DO EVERY-THING SIMULTANEOUSLY AND THIS CAME HARD TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND WE HAD TO TRY TO ADJUST AMERICAN CONCEPTIONS TO THE REALITY AND MAINTAIN THE AMERICAN

2-2-2

IN THE WORLD BECAUSE WE WERE STILL THE
STRONGEST FREE COUNTRY AND THE SECURITY
AND THE PROGRESS OF SO MANY OTHER NATIONS
DEPENDED ON OUR DECISIONS. THAT WAS OUR
KEY PROBLEM.

FROST:

YOU MEAN YOU WERE THE STRONGEST FREE COUNTRY
BUT, AS IT WERE, YOU NO LONGER HAD FIFTY-ONE
PER CENT, YOU HAD THIRTY-SEVEN PER CENT SAY.
I MEAN THAT, IN OTHER WORDS, YOU NO LONGER
HAD A VOTING MAJORITY IN THE WORLD.

KISSINGER:

THAT'S RIGHT. WE WERE THE STRONGEST FREE
COUNTRY, BUT WE NOW HAD TO SET PRIORITIES.
THROUGH MOST OF OUR HISTORY WE COULD WAIT
UNTIL A PROBLEM BECAME NEARLY OVERWHELMING,
AND THEN ADDRESSED RESOURCES TO IT. NOW,
A GREAT DEAL WOULD DEPEND ON WHETHER WE COULD
ANTICIPATE ISSUES, WHETHER WE COULD SELECT
OUR PRIORITIES PROPERLY, AND WHETHER WE
COULD ACT IN ANTICIPATION OF EVENTS. AND,
OF COURSE, WE HAD TO LIQUIDATE A WAR IN WHICH
WE FOUND OURSELVES INVOLVED. ALL OF THESE
EVENTS OCCURRING SIMULTANEOUSLY CREATED A
RATHER COMPLICATED SITUATION.

FROST:

WELL, THAT, AS YOU SAW IT, WAS YOUR AGENDA, AND
THAT IS THE AGENDA WE'LL BE EXAMINING IN THE
COURSE OF THE NEXT HOUR, AND WE'LL RETURN TO
THOSE THEMES AT THE END. LET'S TURN, AT THIS
POINT, TO THE SUBJECT OF THE WAR. AND, I
SUPPOSE, THE BASIC ISSUE WAS: DO YOU THINK,

3-3-3

HAVING WRITTEN YOUR MEMOIRS, HAVING REANALYZED
THE SITUATION, THAT YOU ENDED THE WAR AS
EXPEDITIOUSLY AS WAS HUMANLY POSSIBLE?

KISSINGER:

WE ENDED THE WAR AS EXPEDITIOUSLY AS WAS
HUMANLY POSSIBLE, ON TERMS COMPATIBLE WITH
OUR HONOR AND OUR VALUES. WE COULD ALWAYS
HAVE ENDED IT BY SURRENDERING. BUT IF WE
WANTED TO MAINTAIN OUR FUNDEMENTAL PRINCIPLES,
WE ENDED IT AS EXPEDITIOUSLY AS POSSIBLE.

FROST:

WELL, LET'S GO THROUGH THE WAR, AND SINCE THE
FIRST MAJOR ISSUE THAT AROSE WAS CAMBODIA,
LET'S TURN TO CAMBODIA, AND THEN LET'S COME
BACK TO THE GENERAL OVERALL SUBJECT OF THE
WAR. I SUPPOSE CAMBODIA IS THE MOST
CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT, CERTAINLY CURRENTLY,
IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR FOREIGN POLICY DURING
THESE FOUR YEARS. I SUPPOSE ONE COULD
SUMMARIZE THE CRITIC'S CASE BY SAYING THAT
THEY SAY THAT IN ORDER TO HELP YOU IN THE
MILITARY CONDUCT OF THE WAR IN VIETNAM, YOUR
POLICY ENGULFED CAMBODIA IN THE WAR IN A WAY
THAT WAS NOT THE CASE WHEN YOU TOOK OFFICE,
AND IT SET IN TRAIN A COURSE OF EVENTS THAT
WAS TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY. AND THEY SAY THAT
THAT WAS BECAUSE IF WASN'T THOUGHT THROUGH,
THAT CAMBODIA WAS PERIPHERAL, THAT YOUR
INTENTION WAS ON VIETNAM, THAT YOUR CALCULATIONS
IGNORED ANY REAL CONSIDERATION EITHER OF WHAT

4-4-4

WAS HAPPENING POLITICALLY INSIDE CAMBODIA OR
WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF SOMETHING AS POTENT
AS AMERICAN INTERVENTION WOULD BE. I MEAN
THAT, I SUPPOSE, IS THE CRITICS CASE.

KISSINGER:
THE FIRST THING TO KEEP IN MIND IS THAT WE
INHERITED A WAR IN VIETNAM. THAT IS VERY
OFTEN FORGOTTEN. WHEN WE CAME INTO OFFICE
THERE WERE 530,000 AMERICANS...

FROST:
BUT WE WERE NOT IN A WAR IN CAMBODIA AT
THAT POINT.

KISSINGER: NO, THAT IS NOT EXACTLY...

FROST: THAT WAR...

KISSINGER: JUST A MINUTE...

FROST:
FROM THE AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW, THAT WAR WAS
YOUR WAR.

KISSINGER:
THAT IS NOT EXACTLY CORRECT. WE WERE IN THE
WAR IN CAMBODIA BECAUSE THE NORTH VIETNAMESE
HAD ESTABLISHED FOR FOUR YEARS BASE AREAS ALONG
THE CAMBODIAN BORDER IN WHICH THEY HAD, WE
ESTIMATED, SOME HUNDRED THOUSAND TROOPS. LATER
ON, THE CAMBODIAN COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED
THAT THEY HAD HAD 300,000 TROOPS THERE, WHICH
WAS...

FROST: THEN YOU MEAN...THE POL POT GOVERNMENT...

KISSINGER: THE POL POT GOVERNMENT...

FROST:
YOU DON'T NORMALLY QUOTE THEM AS AUTHORITATIVE
SOURCES.

KISSINGER:
NO, BUT IT WAS CERTAINLY...OUR ESTIMATE WAS A
HUNDRED THOUSAND...IT DOESN'T MEAN...