ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE

Whenever the NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels, it's customary for the U. S. Secretary of State to go immediately there-after to Spain.

Kissinger observed the custom following the NATO Brussels meeting in December, 1973, and went to Madrid.

Spain was then a Fascist dictatorship and was excluded from NATO for that reason. The United States, which maintains important military bases there, serves as a link between Spain and the Western Alliance, and Kissinger hoped to have a post-Franco Spain admitted to NATO.

The day after Kissinger left Madrid, Spanish President Luis Carrero Blanco was being driven home after attending mass when a powerful bomb was detonated beneath his car. The blast killed Carrero Blanco and blew parts of the car five stories high.

The news was flashed immediately to Kissinger, and he sent a message of condolence to Foreign Minister Lopez Rodo.

The members of the Kissinger party--and especially the security agents--were shaken by the report, not only because of the death of the Spanish President, but also because of the awareness that it could have been the Secretary of State as well.

But once the initial shock wore off, the black humorist streak in Kissinger emerged. He told a couple of his agents, "Just make sure that when I blow up that I go higher than five stories." To some aides, he cracked, "We mustn't leave this record with the Spanish."

Two years later, the NATO ministerial meeting was elevated to a heads of government Summit in Brussels, so the post-NATO trip to Madrid was taken by President Ford as well as the Secretary of State.

The President and the Secretary stayed in the Moncloa Palace. The palace had only one large bedroom, and it did not go to Kissinger. His room, he later grumbled, was so small that "when I turned around, I scraped my knees." And he told Embassy officials, "I've had bathrooms that were bigger than this room."

One of his personal aides noted wryly, "If he had been put up in that room on one of his own trips, we would have broken relations."

As if the size of the room weren't enough, the plumbing didn't work. Kissinger had to wait in line to use somebody else's toilet while the President was waiting for him elsewhere. As a Secret Service agent emerged from the bathroom, Kissinger intoned, "Mine better be working tonight." It was. But he was late for the President.

Kissinger also complained about his room to Ambassador Wells Stabler, who explained to him that the Secretary's own advance team had selected the room because of its "proximity to the President." If you don't send people here who know what you want, what can we do? Stabler wanted to know. Kissinger wanted to know why Stabler hadn't called him directly. Stabler explained he couldn't do that about a _room_, and he assured Kissinger that his people were "not doing things simply to make life difficult for you."

The Kissinger-Stabler relationship had an interesting background.

Stabler was virtually the epitome of the effete Eastern intellectual snob at the State Department sometimes derided in movies or on stage as a "cookie-pusher."

He seemed like a cookie-pushover for the Kissinger steamroller, but that did not prove to be the case. Stabler was intelligent and knowledgeable and stood his ground whenever challenged by Kissinger, and the Secretary came to recognize the appearance was deceiving.

After a couple of showdown sessions, when Stabler was a deputy Assistant Secretary of State, the relationship improved, and Stabler was promoted to Ambassador.

He remembers one exchange with Kissinger with amusement and with
some bafflement.

Kissinger told him, "I've said nice things about you to Eagleburger.
It's like a decoration." (Eagleburger was in charge of State
Department personnel).

Stabler: "I'm sorry, Foreign Service Officers can't accept decorations. I'll have to return it."

(Pause). Kissinger: "You mean you're going to say nice things to Eagleburger about me?"

When Stabler was sworn in as Ambassador to Spain in 1975, Kissinger
showed up for the ceremony, something he did not always do for Ambassadors.

During the ceremony, Stabler recounted a Kissingerian experience:
He had been up all night during a crisis, and Kissinger suggested he
go home and get some rest. At first, Stabler said, he was elated that
Kissinger had paid that much attention to him, but when he got home, he
became
concerned that maybe Kissinger had lost interest or confidence in him
and didn't want him around. He was so worried, Stabler said, that he
couldn't sleep.

Kissinger roared at the story, and later retold it with some embellishment, when he spoke to the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Turkey...

"...Only after I made him rewrite a 10-page memorandum five times in two hours did he feel reassured," Kissinger told the American community in Turkey, "and then he went home and had a good night's sleep."

Stabler also recalls attending a breakfast meeting Kissinger had in his
hotel suite with the Turkish Foreign Minister in Brussels during a NATO
session.

The coffee ran out, and since the waiters had long since vanished,
Stabler poured. Kissinger couldn't resist the obvious needling remark,
and he said to Stabler, "Finally, you're performing a useful
function."

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Prior to President Ford's visit to Madrid, Stabler had advised the White House that Generalissimo Franco was so feeble that he could only answer yes or no to any questions--if even that much--and so when Ford met Franco, the President would have to carry the entire conversation.

He almost had to carry Franco himself. The only sign of life in the moribund "Caudillo" was the palsy in his right arm and his blinking eyes.

A press release said afterward that Franco had replied to Ford's greeting, but pool reporters who were standing a foot away heard nothing.

One of the poolers, Bruce van Voorst of *Newsweek*, described Franco as the "closest thing to a cadaver" he had ever seen.

On the few occasions when Kissinger talked about Franco, he sounded like one of the writers for "Saturday Night Live" on NBC. Looking ahead to his travel schedule, he said he would accompany the President to Madrid in December, and "Franco will probably be playing tennis by then."

After the Generalissimo's funeral, the Secretary told a European correspondent who had referred to the "miracle" of Franco's death, "The miracle might be that in a few days he may come back."

One of the interesting sidelights of Kissinger's visit to Madrid, which was not public knowledge at the time, was that he called on the Chinese ambassador there. He frequently touched base with the Chinese, and the December, 1973, visit seemed an appropriate time to bring them up to date on his Middle East diplomacy and the Geneva Conference, since the Russians were involved in that and the Chinese were not.

Since Kissinger did not take along a Chinese interpreter when he went to Peking, it was hardly to be expected that he would have a Chinese interpreter with him in Madrid. But the Chinese interpreter in Madrid had no need to speak English. He spoke Spanish.

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So the Chinese ambassador spoke Chinese, which was then translated into Spanish, which Ambassador Horacio Rivera then translated into English for Kissinger. When Kissinger replied, the whole process was reversed. One of the participants remembers that "each sentence took about 10 minutes."

Because of the delay in the opening of the Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East in December, Kissinger suddenly found himself with some extra time. His manic nature would not allow him to sit around Geneva or the Middle East just waiting, and so he squeezed into his itinerary his only visit to Portugal as Secretary of State, was not totally inappropriate.

Portugal had been the only NATO ally to help the United States during the Middle East war by permitting its bases to be used for the shipment of American equipment to Israel, and besides, the Secretary of State could always discuss the new agreement on the American bases in the Azores Islands with the Portuguese.

One of the most vivid recollections of Lisbon for Kissinger and the members of the traveling press was the honor guard that passed in review at the airport. When the band came marching by, the American press broke up, and Kissinger did all he could to hold it in, although he did smile broadly when I caught his eye.

The band was a parody of itself. The members came by with stomachs as paunchy as the helmuts were spiked.

When Kissinger bade farewell to Portugal and returned to the plane, he immediately headed to the press section in the rear to comment on--and hear the comments on--that honor guard band. "After seeing that classy group, he wondered, "Don't you sleep better at night knowing Portugal is in NATO?"

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En route to Lisbon, Kissinger had wondered aloud, "You guys think you have it tough. What about me? I've got to spend three hours with the Portuguese Foreign Minister and you can imagine what that's going to be like." But that was Kissinger boiler-plate. He said the same thing about a lot of one-shot visits -- Rumania, for example, but once he got there, he had a lot to talk about. And he usually enjoyed it.

The detour to Lisbon turned out to be primarily touristic, but it wouldn't be long before Portugal would be on the front burner of American-European relations as a potential Communist-dominated member of NATO.

In May of 1976, Kissinger made one of the least substantive visits of his entire traveling career. He went to the Duchy of Luxembourg.

The visit represented a triumph of personality over substance.

Gaston Thorn, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, was the kind of guy you remember from high school or college days who was the valedictorian of the class, the captain of the baseball team, the best debater, and a great make-out artist. In short, he was multiple-threat, and Kissinger loved to tease him about all of his positions and titles.

Earlier in the month, Kissinger had been the host at a luncheon for the foreign ministers of the rich countries of the world in Nairobi, Kenya, where a U. N. conference on rich-poor economic matters was taking place.

At the time, Thorn was, among other things, the President of the European Community, and Kissinger began his after-lunch toast by referring to Thorn by that title, then adding a recitation of Thorn's positions: "Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Foreign Minister, Mr. Minister of Sports, Mr. President of the General Assembly, Mr. President of the liberal parties of Europe...it is a great pleasure to be present at what in the United States would be considered a monopoly in constraint of trade...

[10]

"I cannot possibly mention all your other titles because other people have appointments..." He also paid tribute to Thorn's own wit by saying, "My friend Gaston has indicated he will make a reply and I know that it will be crushing, so I will get to him as quickly as possible."

It was for purely personal reasons that Kissinger flew to Luxembourg for a five hour visit in May of 1976--a personal favor to his friend, Gaston Thorn. The Prime Minister entertained the Secretary of State at a luncheon in Sennigen Castle, which was either late Renaissance or early Walt Disney.

At lunch, Thorn toasted the Secretary of State as the "most celebrated diplomat of our time. We know your weight," Thorn said, "but we don't feel crushed." He concluded by saying, "But enough of this. You are eager to step out into the garden to savor a few moments of unadulterated peace and calm before facing the press. You will have a hard time convincing them that you had a day without problems. Please try!"

"Please also, when you finally get home, tell Nancy, your charming wife, that we missed her a lot. Tell her that this is the place where Henry Kissinger went without the need to solve a crisis. The country is civilized, the natives are friendly, and the runway long enough--for landing, anyhow. Should you insist on taking off, promise at least, that you will come again, both of you..."

The reference to the runway had been a delayed reply to a crack Kissinger had made at the airport when he arrived. He was talking when he was interrupted by the airport inter-com announcing a flight arriving from the Bahamas. Kissinger waited until the announcement was

79

finished, then asked wickedly, "Is that the weekly plane coming into Luxembourg?" When Thorn had first invited Kissinger to visit, the Secretary had inquired with a straight face if his Boeing 707 could land at the Luxembourg airport.

Kissinger had a good time with his reply at the luncheon:

"Mr. Prime Minister, I will not mention all of the other titles which I mentioned at the airport. I will add the 'Minister of Religion.' I know I was really not supposed to reply to this toast because if I understood your conclusion, it was that I should go right out and prepare myself for the press...."

"I very much appreciated your words. There was one sentence to which I had a slight objection, where you said that I have given answers to many but not all questions. I think I have given answers to questions that have not even been asked..."

Then referring obliquely to Thorn's U. N. prominence, Kissinger said, "There is a story at the United Nations that a new diplomat was once shown around, and he said to the guide, I would like to be President of the General Assembly, and the guide said, 'Are you out of your mind?' The diplomat said, 'Is that an absolutely necessary qualification?'"....

In a more serious vein, Kissinger said "I would like to say emphatically, and I will take an early public opportunity to repeat it, that we consider European unity not a necessary evil, but a political and moral necessity..."

It was one of those exchanges that was not at all important in the scheme of things and made no news whatsoever, but you were somehow glad that you were there when 'those two intelligent and eloquent men who liked each other got up and spoke.

The al fresco news conference which followed was more remarkable
for the setting than the substance. It was held on a huge, sweeping lawn--
it looked like a park--outside the Prime Minister's residence.

The news conference had another unusual feature. At one point, a
Luxembourg newsman thanked the Secretary of State warmly for his
comments and added his personal appreciation for all
the Secretary had done for the United States, for Europe, and in
particular, for Luxembourg.

Kissinger said he was moved by the newsman's remarks. No doubt
he wished privately he could have more news conferences like that.

Part of the news conference was conducted in German. In translation,
a reporter wanted to know, Are there any problems between Luxembourg
and the United States.

"I regret that I must say there are no differences," Kissinger replied,
"and that we have no problems between Luxembourg and the United States of
America."

Thorn later picked up on this. "We had no time to create bilateral
problems," he said, "I mean, to conjure
them up from nothing."

Thorn found it interesting that Kissinger would pay so much attention
to a diplomat from a place like Luxembourg, since the Secretary of State
was so "power-minded."

But Thorn thinks somebody said to Kissinger, "Be nice to him," meaning Thorn. And Kissinger was nice to him. A friendship developed, and the Secretary found it worthwhile politically and enjoyable personally.

Thorn and Kissinger usually spoke English. The Secretary joked that the Luxembourger spoke English with less of an accent than Kissinger did--which was true. Sometimes they talked in German, although Thorn remembers Kissinger did not like to. But Thorn also recalls that Kissinger's German was better than he admitted.

They often discussed history and politics. Thorn gave him a letter autographed by Metternich. "He admired the intellect of Metternich," Thorn says now, "but he wanted to rule like Bismarck. Only he wouldn't admit it."

Thorn cited other reasons they got along well together. "We both liked beautiful women, and we joked together."

Kissinger also went to Thorn, the most senior Foreign Minister in NATO, for a different perspective on Europe. As Thorn explained, "Luxembourg was the only place he went where nobody asked him for anything... It was mostly to listen (and as a favor to me)... He didn't have time to see everybody, but he liked to meet with those who could add to his information about Europeans."

"He was a genuine European, and he was surprised by the anti-Americanism he found in Europe."

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"It was always fascinating to talk with him, Thorn told me later,

"The second time I met him, he had just come back from China.

He had slept about an hour and a half. Most people would have been wiped out, but Henry discussed the disarmament talks in Moscow, MBFR, and he had it all in his head--the number of tanks the Soviets had, the Russian divisions...all of it."

Were there any European Foreign Ministers Kissinger did not like? Thorn replied with a diplomatic smile, "I think there were some he didn't like, but I forget them."

Thorn had another interesting insight into Kissinger's modus operandi: "He usually had lunch so he could have a press conference before or after." On a more serious note, Thorn said, "He took more time to explain things to the press than to his colleagues. He has something in common with my wife. If she meets someone for 10 minutes, she spends 45 minutes telling me what she told that person. That's how Henry was with the press."

The Luxembourg visit was part of a trip that took Kissinger to Norway and Sweden for the only time as Secretary of State. Norway was the site of the spring meeting of NATO in 1976 and since he was in the Scandanavian neighborhood, he also dropped in on Sweden.

The Oslo visit was uneventful, although when the NATO foreign ministers entered the modernistic Town Hall which served as the site of their conference, a military band played Edvard Grieg's "The Last Spring" and for those looking for symbolism, it was indeed the last spring meeting of NATO for Kissinger.

On his way to Oslo, Kissinger had told newsmen on his plane that the debate over American foreign policy had become too obsessed with personalities--meaning mostly Kissinger himself--and he hoped to avoid further public discussion in the future. It was a vain hope.

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At his regular post-NATO news conference, he dismissed some
of the criticism of the Administration's foreign policy as
"mumbling in the corridors of the White House." He was trying
to fight back at long range.

Kissinger spent four nights in Oslo, and he took time out
to visit a Viking Museum and take a spectacular boat ride among
the famed Norwegian fjords.

The boat ride produced the unavoidable pun about a "fjord in
his future."

The visit to Stockholm was ripe with irony.

At the time of the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam, Swedish
Prime Minister Olaf Palme had denounced it as comparable to the
outrages of the Nazis. President Nixon angrily ordered the
American Ambassador back to Washington, and a charge d'affaires ran
the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm until 1974.

But in the spring of 1976, Palme was running behind in his
bid for re-election, and he invited Kissinger to go to Stockholm
to bury the diplomatic hatchet and heal the Vietnam wounds.

Palme was in serious political trouble because of his liberal policies, and an improvement in Sweden's relations with the United States, as symbolized by Kissinger's visit, was calculated to be a political plus for Palme.

There was double irony in that situation. Kissinger was not always as a political asset regarded within the ranks of his own party back home.

The invitation to the Secretary of State had been proffered at the Helsinki Summit Conference in August, 1975, but Kissinger didn't accept it until 1976, when he turned his attention to a lot of minor issues which had been on the back burner, since the major issues were paralyzed by election-year political considerations.

It surprised me to learn that Kissinger was the first American Secretary of State ever to visit Sweden, although, on reflection, it was not so surprising in view of that country's traditional neutrality.

The visit immediately produced an unavoidable reminder of the strain in relations lingering from the experience of Vietnam.

In a demonstration reminiscent of days gone by, about 10,000 protesters marched past the American Embassy, carrying placards denouncing Kissinger as a war criminal and a murderer.

But Vietnam was behind him, and the Secretary of State took humorous note of the demonstrators. "I'm glad to see," he said, "that my visit has not been greeted with total indifference by the Swedish public."

At another point he joked, "I know I'm performing a very important sociological function here by demonstrating to the Swedish public the depths human depravity can reach."

He did not flinch from holding a news conference in Stockholm, and the questioning was polite but pointed. It reflected the anti-American bitterness left over from Vietnam War.

Kissinger rejected Sweden's contentions that the United States should pay reparations to North Vietnam. However, he did acknowledge, "You would have to say in retrospect, grave mistakes were made. One would also have to say the American people supported it in the belief that the freedom of other people depended on it...It was an extremely painful experience. Many people tried to do what they thought was best for the United States and indeed what they thought was best for other free peoples, and it was perhaps more painful for those directly involved than for those who had the advantage of perspective."

At a dinner given in his honor, Kissinger noted what it was like for a short, fat German to be surrounded by big, tall, blonde good-looking Swedes. He asked the Swedish Foreign Minister if he could occasionally "produce a Swede of about my size...It enhances my natural humility always to have to look up to people."

It was just before this trip that President Ford had expunged "detente" from the political lexicon back home, and Kissinger also drew a laugh when he told the Foreign Minister, "As far as the United States is concerned, I appreciated your kind words about the policy which we now call 'peace through strength'. I had to make clear that I follow instructions strictly."

In the more serious part of his remarks, he emphasized that the United States respected Sweden's neutrality.

But the big news out of Sweden was a letter sent to Palme by Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, saying Cuba would pull its forces out of Angola. The timing to the Kissinger visit was obvious, and Palme read it to the Secretary of State.

The letter said the Cubans had no intention of becoming 20th
century Crusaders and would not intervene elsewhere in Africa or Latin
America.

Time has not dealt kindly with the credibility of the Castro
letter.

One thing Kissinger missed in Stockholm was a live sex show, which
some members of the traveling entourage saw at a place called "Le Chat
Noir." (The Black Cat).

Somehow, it seems more respectable to see a live sex show -- that is,
a man and a woman engaging in sexual intercourse on stage -- in Stockholm
than it is on 42nd St. in Times Square in New York City.

In fact, VIP customers with contacts at the American Embassy get a
cut-rate admission.

It sure beat the hell out of Riyadh.

From a very personal point of view, I always regretted
that Henry Kissinger did not see fit to visit Rome more often
in his European peregrinations.

He went there only twice on his own as Secretary of State,
once after the 1974 Moscow Summit, and the second time to address the
World Food Conference in November, 1974.

Before he became Secretary of State, Kissinger's flippancy
caused a minor diplomatic stir with the Italians. Prime Minister
Emilio Colombo went to Washington on an official visit, and the
Nixon White House invited every Italian in sight—including me—
to a state dinner.

Kissinger quipped that night that he was the only person in
sight whose name ended in a consonant. The quip had a doubly
humorous ring when the name of Ohio Congressman Delbert Latta
appeared on the guest list. Latta certainly sounded Italian, but
the name was actually Welsh. (It's just as well he was invited
then; there wasn't much chance that a prominent Welsh official
would ever be feted at the White House.)

Kissinger's joking with the press that night included a
conversation with Sally Quinn, who told him that Italian reporters
said the 50-year-old bachelor Prime Minister was "married to his job."
Nonesense, Kissinger replied. "There's no such thing as an Italian
man who doesn't have a social life.

"The Italian Foreign Ministry is the only one I know where they're
bored with foreign policy."

Kissinger thought he was just cracking wise, but Sally Quinn printed
it all in _The Washington Post_ Style section the next morning.

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Kissinger was mortified when he sat in his White House office and read this conversation, duly attributed to him, in print.

He picked up the phone and called the Italian Embassy to talk to his friend, Ambassador Egidio Ortona, and to apologize. Ortona had also read *The Washington Post*, but no apologies were necessary, he said. He and the Prime Minister were sitting at the embassy chuckling about the article over their morning coffee.

The first time Kissinger went to Italy on an official visit as Secretary of State, he went out of his way to introduce me to Italian officials at the airport, in much the same way that a politician introduces an American-Italian on his staff when he goes campaigning in an Italian neighborhood.

Leaving Rome, all of us had some last minute filing to do. Herb Kaplow of ABC was taking a little extra time, and the Embassy PIO, Raul Rappaport, was nervously urging him to hurry up.

Rappaport was surprised by a tap on the shoulder. It was the Secretary of State, telling him in that rumbling, accented voice, "Don't rush him. I've been trying to leave him someplace for the past six months. He failed again, and Kaplow did make the plane.

Just before the Secretary returned to Rome for the World Food
Conference, Italian President Giovanni Leone was in Washington on an official
visit, and Kissinger was the host at a luncheon for him at the Pan
American Union.

He really laid it on for the Italians. "I speak here with some
nervousness", he said in his toast, "not only because of the natural
timidity which you all so frequently have seen in me, but also because
I know I'm going to be followed by one of the great orators that I am
familiar with. So if I prolong my remarks, it is to postpone the
moment of truth...

"Mr. President, you are here at a time when many American institutions
are under attack. But there is one American institution that seems to sur-
vive all trials--and that is your Ambassador to the United States.... (Egidio
Ortona)...

"I have had occasion at the lunch you so kindly arranged for me at
the Quirinale to see whether my requirement to report to him could be
reduced from twice a week to once a week, and I want to say that of
course I'm delighted to report to him regularly, but I wonder whether it
is really required that he give a grade to my secretary as he leaves the
office..."

And then he turned serious about American-Italian relations, but
not too serious as he concluded: "Beyond all the political and economic
matters that concern us, there is a very important gift that Italy has be-
stowed on all of its friends. We hear so much about the danger of
conformity in the modern world and the loss of individualism. But who can
speak of a lack of individualism in Italy? And whatever problems Italy
has, conformity happily isn't one of them...."

Leone replied in Italian. "Dr. Kissinger has set a trap for me. He sent me a beautiful speech in which he even quoted Cicero, in the hope that I would follow the written outline that he'd prepared.

"And that is what we call in English a dirty trick; in Neopolitan, we say 'priest's trick.'

"So I'm going to counter that by setting aside my written speech, and fully respecting the political outline, the political policy and guidelines of the Italian Government, which is authoritatively represented here by its Foreign Minister, Signore Moro, I shall now ad lib"....

The State Department transcribers had a little trouble distinguishing between Italian and Spanish and wrote "Señor Moro" instead of "Signore Moro. They did the same in referring to "Señor Ortona."

Leone also praised the American Ambassador in Rome, former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, about whom Kissinger had once joked, "I don't know whether he's our Ambassador to Italy or Italy's Ambassador to us."

Leone also took to heart Kissinger's comments about his oratory. He went on for three pages of single-spaced text.

When Kissinger arrived in Rome the following month, extraordinary security surrounded his visit in face of the Communist Party's call for massive demonstrations against him.

Thousands of extra police were on duty and Kissinger's motorcade slipped into the city along the old Appian Way, bouncing over some of the original cobblestones, rather than following the modern expressway route.

Despite a non-stop schedule, including an audience with the Pope in the Vatican--the only place newsmen were not allowed to accompany him--the Secretary of State managed to return to the Old Appian Way after midnight to keep his image intact. Having visited one Italian institution--the Pope--he went to see another--Gina Lollobrigida.

[lc]

EUROPE

Henry Kissinger is the only U. S. Secretary of State who was born in Europe. So there was considerable irony in the fact that Henry Kissinger had so much diplomatic trouble with Europe, first as a White House adviser, then as Secretary of State.

On a flight to Moscow in March of 1974, Kissinger told newsmen aboard his plane, with malicious humor, "We're inaugurating a new policy: Detente with Europe." And he laughed. It had not been a laughing matter.

Almost one year earlier, Kissinger had launched what the Nixon Administration regarded as a major initiative--"The Year of Europe."

The initiative was conceived partly in response to the charges that Nixon and Kissinger had concentrated on improving relations with adversaries--the Soviet Union and China--at the expense of Allies--Europe and Japan.

The initial response from Europe was underwhelming. One European official noted acidly, "It was like proclaiming the Year of the Wife."

European concerns about Kissinger intensified when he became Secretary of State in name as well as in fact.

Europeans felt that although Kissinger gave lip service to the concept of European unity, down deep, he really opposed it.

The British were uncertain whether Kissinger endorsed whole-heartedly their entry into the European Community.

The Germans, while flattered by the attention he paid them--he treated West Germany as the most important country in Europe--were secretly worried that Kissinger, as a Jew, didn't really like them.

One French diplomat told Don Cook of *The Los Angeles Times* that Kissinger's European background itself may have been part of his problem in dealing with Europe. "The trouble with Henry is," the Frenchman said, "he doesn't have much understanding of Europe, how we operate in Europe, and what we Europeans are trying to achieve. And because he is

himself a European with a wide acquaintanceship and many friends in Europe, he gets all the more frustrated or irritated when we don't behave the way he thinks we ought to behave."

The trans-Atlantic feuding over the "Year of Europe" was exacerbated during the October War in the Middle East. Kissinger was furious at the lack of Allied cooperation during the American airlift to Israel-- only Portugal allowed its territory to be used for the transshipment of material--and he was apoplectic when the European Community issued a statement supporting the Arab position just as the Secretary of State was undertaking his first mediating mission to the Middle East.

For their part, the Europeans were annoyed that the United States had not consulted with its principal Allies before putting its military forces on alert to counter a perceived Soviet threat during the war.

The squabbling between Washington and its European partners added considerable spice to the annual winter meeting of the NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels in December, 1973. The annual winter meeting of NATO is usually about as exciting as listening to a cricket match on radio, but Kissinger's Secretarial debut in Europe, plus the fallout from the Year of Europe, generated an unaccustomed air of excitement and expectation in Brussels. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt remarked beforehand, with some sarcasm, "Henry Kissinger will come to Brussels to spank all of us naughty Europeans."

The sense of anticipation was reflected in an exchange between a Hungarian newsman and one of the traveling reporters. The Hungarian wanted to know if Kissinger planned to hold a news conference during his stay in Brussels. The American told him it was not likely.

"But," protested the Hungarian, "I came from Budapest only to see Kissinger. Do you think I care about the NATO meeting?"

The anticipation was apparent in other ways as well.

The United States was number 14 on the list of 17 speakers, which meant Kissinger would not deliver his remarks until very late in the day, or even on the second day.

But the first 13 speakers set what was believed to be a NATO record by finishing their remarks by 1 P.M. That meant Kissinger would come up right after lunch.

The potential for conflict had been underlined in the statement Kissinger made upon his arrival at the Brussels airport: "The United States, in its attempt to build a structure of peace and to put East-West relations on a new basis, has made an initiative toward Europe to redefine our relationship in light of ... new conditions. This dialogue is continuing and has not been without stress. I intend to pursue it (Ed's note: the dialogue, not the stress) in my conversations here in Brussels. With whomever I will speak among my colleagues, I will stress that the Atlantic Alliance remains the cornerstone of American foreign policy. But I shall also emphasize that a new act of vision is necessary so that it can remain the cornerstone of our common endeavor."

However, when he took the floor at NATO headquarters, the Secretary of State adopted a conciliatory tone as he tried to patch up the cracks in the Alliance.

He reassured the Europeans about the U. S. commitment to NATO, which is a ritual for all Secretaries of State and Presidents. It's like telling your woman you love her--she knows it, but she has to keep hearing it.

And he was questioning, not contentious: Can the United States and Europe remain Allies, or will they drift into competition?

Can an organization which was created primarily to deal with defense matters now be transformed into an effective organism for diplomacy?

Can the Western world develop political and military security arrangements that its people will support at a time of diminishing international tensions?

In response to the Allies' complaints that Washington did not consult enough, he called for more consultations.

And he sought to persuade them that better relations between Washington and Moscow were not being developed at Europe's expense, that their interests were not being sacrificed on the altar of American-Soviet detente.

The newsmen all heard this second-hand, since the NATO sessions themselves were held behind closed doors. The descriptive official term was "restricted sessions." Kissinger, the ethnicist, once explained in an interview that "restricted sessions" meant "no Jews or Italians in them." He wasn't serious.

At one of those restricted sessions, photographers reported later he had implored them to "please do something to make me look thinner."

He then explained to NATO colleagues what he had previously explained to newsmen, that when he negotiated, he got nervous, and when he got nervous, he ate more. "The way it's going with the Arabs and Israel, I'll weigh 360 pounds before we get a settlement," he joked.

He never did reach 360. But, then, he never did get a settlement, either.

Nor did he escape totally unscathed from his first "restricted session" at NATO.

The last press bus was just about to leave NATO headquarters for downtown Brussels when news of a late-breaking development buzzed through the sprawling press center.

A battle had erupted after all. Kissinger and French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert had tangled at the end of the session.

The race was on to find out what happened. Newsmen buttonholed diplomats in the corridors. They got conflicting versions. A NATO spokesman described the Kissinger-Jobert exchange as "constructive." Naturally. What else from a NATO spokesman?

Eventually, a more balanced version of the exchange seeped out: Jobert suggested that the American-Soviet agreement on the prevention of nuclear war, which had been signed six months earlier at the Nixon-Brezhnev Summit in the United States, undermined the security of Western Europe. And he articulated one of Europe's major complaints--that the U. S. had placed its military forces on worldwide alert during the Middle East War in October without even notifying, let alone consulting with, its NATO allies.

Kissinger, exercising the right of reply, argued that Jobert had misrepresented the American-Soviet agreement, which he claimed enhanced the American commitment to the defense of Europe, rather than weakening it.

The next day, Jobert said the talks had been necessary to clear the air. They were important, he said, "from a psychological point of view."

For his part, the Secretary of State pooh-poohed the contentious aspects of the exchange, as he made fun of "the dramatic accounts of the great confrontation" in the media.

Besides, he pointed out, the two men had breakfast together.

Then Kissinger decided to have a news conference after all. The Hungarian journalist was not disappointed.

The Secretary acknowledged there were "some frank exchanges, and points of view were openly expressed, but" he said, "I think we have all gained a better understanding of each other's positions."

With adjectival escalation, he then cautioned that "it would be a mistake to consider...this meeting as an arena of titanic confrontation."

During his first stay in Brussels, Kissinger also met with the Foreign Ministers of the Common Market--the first time a top-ranking American official had conferred at that level with the Community as a group.

One of Kissinger's preliminary meetings for the Common Market session provided a unique experience for a top American diplomat.

The night before the meeting, the Secretary called the diplomat to his suite in the Brussels Hilton Hotel. The Common Market ministers had laid down some conditions for the meeting that Kissinger didn't like, and he wanted them changed. It was just before dinner, and the Secretary of State was preparing to take a bath as he rattled off instructions to the diplomat. He went into the bathroom, and then came out minus his shirt. He went back in, still talking, and came out minus his undershirt. Back in and out, minus his trousers.

When he finished talking to the American official, the Secretary had no clothes on at all. It was like a diplomatic strip-tease.

"It was the first time," the official recalls, "I had ever received instructions from a naked Foreign Minister."

Kissinger spared the diplomat further instructions while actually bathing.

It was during that trip in December, 1973, that Kissinger proposed a joint major effort by the United States, Europe and Japan to confront the energy crisis.

The Secretary of State had been appalled by what he saw as the Europeans' cravenness in the face of the oil embargo. Privately, he railed at the "jackal-like" quality of the Europeans, and he predicted disdainfully that they and the Japanese would immediately "abandon" Israel if a new war broke out.

His speech before the Pilgrims Society in London was an effort to organize the major oil consumers so that they could attempt to deal on an equitable basis with the cartel of major oil producers.

The speech resulted in the creation of the International Energy Agency, and the first follow-up meeting was held in Washington in early 1974.

Shades of Brussels, it featured a clash between the Americans and the French, between Kissinger and Jobert. The French Foreign Minister made few concessions to subtlety in voicing his opposition to U. S. proposals.

Kissinger later complained, "French opposition at the energy conference was not based on substance, but on the fact it was American."

He felt that the energy crisis should be resolved on a cooperative basis with the Europeans, but he was convinced the Europeans had deliberately chosen to try to solve it by themselves in competition with the United States in the Arab world.

And he scorned their efforts as pretending to be "intimately consulting while they're really out to screw one another."

Kissinger also felt the Europeans were trying to have it both ways: They wanted complete cooperation on defense matters--where they relied heavily on the United States--and complete independence on political matters, and his complaints were designed to let them know that Washington, i.e., Kissinger, was not satisfied with that arrangement.

He was also seriously concerned that expressions of anti-American sentiments in Europe would weaken domestic support for keeping American forces in Europe. And, as he argued repeatedly, those forces were not there for "altruistic" reasons, but to support U. S. national purposes.

Despite his public efforts at reconciliation, Kissinger himself exacerbated the strains in the Atlantic Alliance soon after the Energy Conference, albeit inadvertently.

He was not aware that newsmen were present when he told a group of Congressional wives at the State Department that the United States had more foreign policy problems with its Allies than with its adversaries.

And when he became aware--when his words appeared in print--he was livid.

He immediately issued a softening statement, saying that while the United States did have real and serious difficulties with its allies over consultation practices, it was determined to resolve them with patience and good will.

Later in the year, he was joking about his gaffe, as he told another State Department gathering: "The United States wants a strong Europe. The United States has always favored and continues to favor a united Europe. We do not believe that European unity needs to be defined through opposition to the United States, but we recognize that a united Europe will not always agree with us. (Pause) And, after all, we cannot expect Europe to be infallible."

He added ironically: "And if a united Europe disagrees with us, we will bear this with patience, good will, grace and the restraint for which we are noted."

Then he added a note of humorous self-deprecation: "So, as we have gone through this period, and with a pledge from me not to speak again to groups of ladies when the press is present--I think we can look to the future with some optimism."

That optimism was eventually justified. After more than a year of squabbling and back-biting, the United States and its European Allies-- especially the French--put aside their differences and decided to restore harmony to the Atlantic Alliance.

At a NATO meeting in Ottawa, Kissinger and the 14 other NATO Foreign Ministers initialed a new Declaration of Principles and Objectives which was designed to redefine the purpose of the Western Defense Alliance during a period of relaxing East-West tensions.

It was The Year of Europe, a year late.

The approval of the Declaration brought to a close more than 12 months of debate between the United States and its European allies over the nature of their relationship and their obligations to consult with one another.

Later, during an in-flight briefing, Kissinger reminiscent analytically about the problems with Europe: "We were deceived by the complaints of the Europeans for four years that we had neglected them. I referred to a 'Year of Europe' in a September, 1972 press conference. I talked to Heath, Pompidou, Everybody said, Great! When I made the April 23 speech, we thought it would go like the Marshall plan, that the Europeans would respond enthusiastically, that the whole process would be finished in July, that these declarations would be like the Shanghai Communique-- something you always referred to that gives you the excuse to keep going.

"The last thing we expected was that they would start nit-picking. Did I say regional? Did I say global? Did I mean linking political and economic things? I defy anybody to produce any European who ever warned us against doing this. It happened that way because the French, totally unexpectedly and without any warning to us, turned it into a campaign against us. I talked to Jobert four times between April 23 and July 15. Now he says 'I'm against European unity.' His position then was that this was a Machiavellian American plot to foster European unity before the French were ready. And he made it a condition for talking to me that I wouldn't talk to any other European. Now this you can say was a misjudgment. We thought the Europeans would be relieved, that they'd want it, that it would be easy, that it would start a new era in our relationship. If we had known it would be a year's debate, we'd never have done it. In terms of what it turned into, it was not

worth it. There's no big battle between us and the French any more
on this.

"The reasons we haven't taken on the French directly is we don't
want to split every European country down the middle and because we
don't want to have the Germans have to choose between Paris and Washington."

What was unstated was the knowledge that French President Georges
Pompidou was in poor health and would not live for more than another
18 months at most.

Kissinger then gave his views on how the French succeeded: "You
have in the French a clear concept of what they want and a superb
bureaucracy for implementing it. The others come there with an enormous
desire to maintain unity. The French make a proposition. They come
at it in 10 different ways. The others finally settle for the weakest
version. They then think they have shown their Atlantic loyalty by
settling for the weakest version. Often what it means is that instead
of moving 10 yards away from us, they've moved half a yard, but the
direction is clear, and it's not a question of conviction on the part
of the others...

"The Germans are not prepared for historic reasons to lead the
spearhead. The British had to prove their European loyalty, having just
joined the Common Market. It was a combination of circumstances that
favored French initiatives, not necessarily a dominant conviction...

"It's inherently inconsistent for the French to say that the Americans
are screwing us, that the Americans are running a condominium, the
Americans are betraying us all over the world, we must fight the Ameri-
qnas in every area, but the Americans must keep every last soldier in
Europe. That doesn't make any sense. If it becomes the organizing
principle..."

It did not become the organizing principle, and
a combination of factors led to an improvement in American-
European and Kissinger-European

11

relations, not the least of which was the change in the leadership in
key European capitals, especially Paris and Bonn. After the death of
Pompidou, the legacy of Charles de Gaulle withered somewhat as Valery
Giscard d'Estaing became President.

In Bonn, Willy Brandt gave way to Helmut Schmidt, one of Kissinger's
oldest friends on the German political scene. In London, Harold Wilson
replaced Edward Heath, and Kissinger established a close relationship
with the new Foreign Minister, James Callaghan.

In fact, much of Kissinger's travel in Europe had a personal,
nostalgic touch. Many of the prominent officials with whom he came
into frequent contact had attended his Harvard seminar. The list read
like a Who's Who of European politics: Belgian Premier Leo Tindemans,
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut
Frydenlund, and a flock of Cabinet ministers in various countries.

It was commonly believed that French President Valery Giscard
d'Estaing had been one of Kissinger's students, but he wasn't. He had a
cousin named Giscard d'Estaing who studied at Harvard.

During one of Kissinger's (unfortunately rare) visits to Rome,
he ran into two top officials at the Foreign Ministry who had been his
students -- Roberto Ducci and Roberto Gaja (who later became the Italian
Ambassador in Washington). He made a small joke about the pupils
always criticizing their former professor, and he challenged them josh-
ingly, "Tell me my mistakes--what have I done wrong?" Their answers
were not recorded.

In addition to going to Brussels every winter for a NATO meeting,
Kissinger also stopped there frequently to brief the NATO allies on
the results of various negotiating missions.

Following the Nixon-Brezhnev Summit in July, 1974 he breezed through Brussels on a very tight schedule and after the briefing, he held a news conference. NATO Secretary-General Joseph Luns, saying Kissinger obviously needed no introduction, did not introduce him. The Secretary seemed surprised as he took the microphone. "I expected one of the Secretary-General's briefer remarks--of 20 minutes or so," he said good naturedly. "I had asked him to say something friendly, but I suppose he couldn't bring himself to do that." Luns, who was not one to be upstaged, quickly replied, "Oh yes I can," he said with a straight face, "We had an excellent meeting."

Not only Secretaries of State make a point of organizing big meetings in Brussels as a convenient way of visiting everybody at once. So do American Presidents.

President Nixon had planned on a Brussels Summit in 1973 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of NATO and culminate the ill-fated Year of Europe, but it didn't come off because the Americans and the Europeans were still disputing what their new relationship should be.

So the Summit was postponed until the following year, and Nixon stopped in Brussels on his way to another Moscow Summit.

But by this time, the Summit was seen by some as an instrument of Impeachment Diplomacy--with Mr. Nixon dramatizing his role as the leader of the Western Alliance in order to bolster his case for survival.

During one of Brussels meetings, Nixon told the Western leaders, "We are the architects of a new world order." And then, motioning toward the Foreign Ministers present, he said, "And you are the builders."

At which point, State Department Counselor Hal Sonnenfeldt whispered undiplomatically to a British colleague: "And you know what we are? We're the plumbers."

The next spring, there was another NATO Summit, this time for the benefit of a new American President, Gerald Ford.

And Kissinger was back doing business at the same old stand, briefing the press on the President's activities.

After summarizing the President's remarks at the "restricted session," Kissinger was asked to sum up the President's bilateral meetings as well.

"The President met during the day, as you know, with the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, with the Prime Ministers of Greece and Turkey, with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic, the Prime Minister of Denmark and with the Prime Minister of Portugal.

He added: "If I have forgotten somebody, we are in a major diplomatic problem." He hadn't.

The summing up continued: "For the benefit of the fraternity of Foreign Ministers, I want to point out that in each case the Prime Ministers, or Chancellors, were accompanied by their Foreign Ministers, who made a major contribution to the discussion... Therefore, I hope you will--" He was interrupted by an irreverent question, to which he

responded amiably: "Yes, the American Foreign Minister also
contributed."

The frequent stops in Brussels were not unwelcome among the
traveling party, because although the weather was usually bad and the
prices high, the food was always good.

While American-European relations--and Kissinger-European relations—
steadily improved, the Secretary of State became involved in another
flap with the Europeans with his outspoken warnings against Communist
participation in NATO-member countries, especially Portugal and later, Italy.

Questions about Euro-communism recurred at news conferences
throughout 1976, and Kissinger's answer in Chicago became standard,
with variations of the theme: "I have expressed my view on the
Communist parties of Western Europe on a number of occasions," the
Secretary said, "and I found that I became a political issue, even
in foreign countries." The audience laughed.

"I feel that I can be a political issue in only one country at a
time, and I have to give preference to the United States." More
laughter. But he usually found a way to repeat his warnings anyway.

By the time he left office, however, Kissinger had mended most
of his European fences--Greece excepted--he had visited every NATO
capital except Athens, and he went out a respected and admired
American diplomat, with good personal relations with most of the
leaders of Europe.

He had indeed finally achieved "Detente with Europe."

Henry Kissinger finally got around to saying "discovering" Africa in the spring of 1976.

Africa was not a part of the world which had much power, and so it was not a part of the world which had occurred much of Kissinger's attention.

Angola charged all that.

The active involvement of the Russians and the Cubans in Angola generated the active involvement of Henry Kissinger in Africa.

Prior to that, American policy toward Africa resembled what erstwhile Nixon aide Daniel Patrick Moynihan had once recommended to the White House as a domestic policy toward American blacks--"benign neglect." (Winston Lord was once asked why Kissinger didn't visit Dahomey on his trips to Africa. Lord explained that our policy toward Dahomey was one of "Benin neglect").*

* Dahomey has been renamed Benin.

The original Nixon-Kissinger policy toward Africa grew out of a review of ordered by Kissinger on April 10, 1969, in National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 39.

Option two recommended that the United States take a somewhat softer line toward South Africa and Rhodesia, while increasing economic aid for countries in black Africa, especially those near South Africa, and promoting diplomatic measures to ease tensions between the white minority governments and their neighbors.

This option was secretly adopted by Nixon in the winter of 1969-70.

quality

The quality of discussion at the pertinent National Security Council meeting in the White House in December, 1969, matched the level of national interest in African affairs.

Vice President Agney reportedly delivered a lengthy disquisition on South Africa, describing how it had achieved independence, how its Declaration of Independence resembled our own, how the people who lived there were like us, and how everyone would be better off if they were simply left alone to settle their own

problems. When Agnew had finished, the President reportedly leaned
across the table and asked gently, "Ted, you mean Rhodesia, don't
you?" *

Agnew did indeed mean Rhodesia, where 270,000 whites ruled
themselves and 6,000,000 blacks.

It was still called Southern Rhodesia when, in November,
1965, Ian Smith declared independence from Great Britain.
Five years later, the Smith regime declared itself a republic.

The new republic was not formally recognized by any other country
in the world, and at Great Britain's urging, the United Nations
voted economic sanctions against it. But mineral-rich Rhodesia not
only survived, it prospered.

* This account is reported by former NSC staff member Anthony Lake
in his comprehensive and widely-unread book on American policy
toward Southern Rhodesia.

The United States observed those sanctions until 1971, when the U.S. Senate passed the so-called Byrd Amendment, named for Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia. The legislation authorized American firms to buy chrome and other scarce minerals from Rhodesia so the United States would not have to rely on the Soviet Union as its major source.

The Nixon White House did not work overtime to prevent the passage of the Byrd Amendment.

Black

XANX Africans saw the legislation as one more sign of America's identification with the racist, white-minority regimes of southern Africa.

State Department opponents of the Nixon Administration's new attitude XHIXXIXIXXIXXIX toward southern Africa dabbed it the "tar-baby" EXP policy, after the story from Uncle Remus--the one about Brer Fox, who was always trying to catch Brer Rabbit. Brer Fox mixed up some tar and turpentine and called it tar baby and left it by the side of the road while he hid in the bushes. When XANXXEXANX Brer RabbityXANXX whenXhexXxawXtheXtarXtXby, XhexXaIDXX"MX

Rabbit came along and said hello, and the tar baby didn't respond, [sic]
Brer Rabbit socked it. Only his fist got stuck. So he socked
it with his other fist. Same result. He kicked it with both feet.
They got stuck. Finally, he butted it with his head. That left
him totally stuck. At that point, Brer Fox strolled casually
out of the bushes, greeted Brer Rabbit amiably and noted that
he looked rather "occupied." Brer Fox also noted as to where Brer
Rabbit would be having dinner that night--with Brer Fox.

African specialists at the State Department feared the new
American policy would be tar-baby sticky and that the United States
would not be able to extract itself if the policy didn't work.

It was against this backdrop that the President of Zambia,
Kenneth Kaunda, showed up in Washington in April, 1975. Even though
his visit was described as private, he was invited to a White House

dinner given by President Ford. After
he had been toasted by his host, Kaunda rose to make a remarkable--and stunning--
and totally unexpected remark. It lasted 20 minutes and
took the United States severely to task for its African policy.

"What has happened to... America?" he asked. "Have the principles changed? The aspirations of the oppressed have not changed. In desperation, their anger has exploded their patience. Their resolve to fight if peaceful negotiations are impossible is borne out by history. So their struggle has now received the baptism of fire, victories in Mozambique and Angola have given them added inspiration. Africa has no reason not to support the liberation movements."

"Can America still end only with declarations of support for the principles of freedom and racial justice? This will not be enough...."

"We call upon America to support our efforts in achieving majority rule in Rhodesia and Namibia immediately, and the ending of apartheid in South Africa.....Even now, we call upon America to desist from direct and indirect support to minority regimes."

Kissinger was furious. He told one of the society reporters afterward that Kaunda's toast was a "foreign policy speech--I know the position of Zambia quite well." he declined to comment on whether he thought the occasion was appropriate for such

a speech, although it was precisely the kind of occasion he used
so often himself to make policy statements around the world. There was a difference: Kissinger's hosts
usually knew in advance what kind of a policy statement he would make.

President Ford wasn't so delighted, either. After Kaunda had
held his last meeting with the President and Kissinger at the
White House, neither one of them thanked either the American
Ambassador in Zambia, Jean Wilkowski, or the Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs, Nathanial Davis, for their help, although
it was customary to do so. In fact, Amb. Wilkowski always thought
that Kissinger somehow blamed her personally for Kaunda's provocative
remarks. (To make sure the message got across, the Zambians took
out a full page ad in the New York Times, reprinting Kaunda's speech).

In explaining the unenthusiastic American remark reaction
to Kaunda to the Zambians afterwards, Wilkowski did point out
that it was not the wisest thing in the world to ask rhetorically,
"Where is the America which sent us Soapy Williams?" (the Assistant
Secretary of State for Africa under President John F. K. Kennedy),

Williams did happen to have been the Democratic Governor of the home state--Michigan--of the sitting Republican President, who had been a longtime Republican Congressman from Michigan.

In addition to all that, Kissinger was highly ticked off at the Africans in general at the time because the NIX Organization for African Unity had passed a resolution opposing the appointment of State Davis as Assistant Secretary for Africa head of the Department's Africa Bureau. The resolution emphasized that Davis had been the U.S. Ambassador in Chile at the time of the overthrow of the Allende Government.

Kissinger had sent a blistering letter to William A. Eteki Mboumona, the Secretary-General of the OAU. It said in part: "The selection of senior officials for posts in the United States Government is a function of American sovereignty...the selection of Assistant Secretaries of State remains a purely internal domestic concern. The United States Government would never comment publicly upon the choices of other sovereign governments in filling any of their public offices. Under common accepted principles of

international decency, it has the right to expect the same of other
governments, particularly of those whom it has regarded as friends....

To suggest that such a man (Davis) has a mission to 'destablize' Africa, a continent with which we have enjoyed excellent relations and in whose development it is our policy to assist is unacceptable and offensive...I would ask you to communicate to the African heads of state at the earliest possible moment the text of this message in order that the regret felt in the United States over this unfortunate and unfair action is well understood."

It was probably the nastiest public communication Kissinger
ever sent as Secretary of State.

In retrospect, there was considerable irony attached to
Kissinger's strong defense of Davis, since the Secretary was soon
top-ranked
to have a serious falling out with his African specialist over
developments in Angola. Kissinger claimed later that Davis did not
keep him informed about what was going on there, but other officers
in that bureau said Davis was simply not Kissinger's kind of Assistant
Secretary--their styles did not mesh--and Davis was soon replaced

by William Schaurele, a veteran career officer with years of
experience in Africa, a man with a sharp mind and quick laugh,
who smoked a lot and always looked harried and slightly unkempt,
despite his Yale degree.

The Angola story broke in the summer of 1975.

Kissinger's policy of clandestine help for the pro-Western
factions fighting there got caught up and overturned in the
backwash of the collapse of South Vietnam. Congress made him
and
cease and desist, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola, backed by the Russians and thousands of Cuban soldiers,
took control (and Kissinger's lamentation that one result would
be an ever-expanding Cuban role in Africa came to pass).

Angola was a serious embarrassment for Kissinger. There
was no way to explain it away in terms of détente with the Russians.
Kissinger's view was that the Russians originally got involved
to counter the Chinese presence there, and like Xinhua News Agency,
Topski, it just

grew. However, a onetime Soviet official we now living in the

10