MR. NIXON: Ladies and gentlemen, today I am pleased to announce the first appointment to the White House staff in a major policy position. Dr. Henry Kissinger, Professor of Government at Harvard University, has agreed to come with the White House staff as the Assistant to the President-Elect for National Security Affairs. Dr. Kissinger is a man who is known to all people who are interested in foreign policy as perhaps one of the major scholars in America and the world today in this area. He has never yet had a full time government assignment, and he will bring to this responsibility a fresh approach, and I trust under his direction he will establish a new organization, bring new men and develop new ideas and new policies for the critical problems America has in the field of foreign policy around the

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world.

We will have an opportunity later to discuss
this in more detail but now I know you would like to
hear from Dr. Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. Nixon, ladies and gentlemen, I am honored by the confidence that the President-Elect has expressed in me, for the opportunity to serve in his administration. The President-Elect and I have had many extensive conversations over the past week about the problems and the opportunities confronting the United States in the international field. He has urged me particularly to bring in new procedures and the best talent in the country, whether or not it agrees with his views. I enthusiastically accept this assignment and I shall serve the President-Elect with all of my energy and dedication. Thank you.

Now I am pleased also to announce that Dr. Richard Allen, who served as Mr. Nixon's foreign policy advisor during the campaign has consented to join my staff as one of my principal aides. I look forward to working with him very closely.

MR. NIXON: Ladies and gentlemen, we can go forward with some questions at this point, and then as Mr. Ziegler has indicated, we will then have an on the record backgrounder for all of you who would like to go

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into more detail on some of the other areas.

QUESTION. Mr. President-Elect, could you tell us whether you are in favor of President Johnson's reported move to feel out the Senate? Are you in favor of a special session to consider the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

MR. NIXON: I do not at this time intend to go into any substantive matters of that type. I think Mr. Ziegler has covered that in his briefing previously, and there has been no change in my attitude on it.

MR. ZIEGLER: On this score, we want to concentrate the questions on the subject before us.

QUESTION: I am sorry.

MR. NIXON: There is no problem. Any questions you want you may ask, but at this point we would like to discuss the national security appointment and other areas.

QUESTION: Mr. Nixon, how would you describe both Dr. Kissinger's and Dr. Allen's general views on negotiations between East and West, and how they are related to yours, just so we can get some feel as to why these people were selected in terms of foreign policy approach?

MR. NIXON: Mr. Kaplow, it would not be appropriate at this time to indicate what Dr. Kissinger's

views were to various major problems in the field of
foreign policy. This is a matter that he will have
responsibility for in terms of mobilizing the White House
staff, and also in developing within the administration,
with the Department of State, and with the Defense
Department and other departments, dealing with foreign
affairs, the policy lines that we will be following. As
we have indicated in this statement, it is our plan to
revitalize the National Security Council, and we are doing
that because my eight years on the National Security
Council convinced me that it is vitally important to
have planning procedures set up so that we may not just
react to events when they occur, but that we will have
a contingency plan ready to go into effect. We can not,
of course, be always sure that that plan will be the right
one, but failing to plan I think can be very dangerous
to the national security. This one area is one that we are
going to concentrate on particularly, the organization of
the National Security Council, its restructuring and also
revitalizing some of the other planning functions in the
State Department, for example, the State Department's
Policy Planning Board.

QUESTION: Mr. Nixon, this spring Dr. Kissinger helped Governor Rockefeller prepare a 4-point program for peace in Vietnam. I wonder if he still adheres to that program and if so, whether you agree to it.

MR. NIXON: Dr. Kissinger was Governor Rockefeller's foreign policy adviser, as you have stated. I discussed Dr. Kissinger's appointment with Governor Rockefeller and Governor Rockefeller enthusiastically recommended Dr. Kissinger for any position in this foreign policy area which I might choose him for.

As far as Dr. Kissinger's views and Governor Rockefeller's views are concerned in this area, I do not intend at this time to go into that. We have a new Administration now. We are going to have a new Secretary of State, a new Secretary of Defense, and as we approach these problems we are going to approach them without any inhibitions with regard to statements that have been made in the past by those in the planning functions.

As far as my statements are concerned, that, of course, is a different matter. I am bound by those.

QUESTION: Mr. President-Elect, there has been some talk that you really intended to serve as your own Secretary of State. Do you have any comment on that as relates to this appointment?

MR. NIXON: Dr. Kissinger will serve as my chief foreign policy adviser within the White House. Of course, the Secretary of State is the chief foreign policy adviser to the President of the United States.

As far as the government is concerned generally, there must be the very closest relationship between the Secretary of State and the White House Staff.

Dr. Kissinger is keenly aware of the necessity not to set himself up as a wall between the President and the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense. I do not think we will have a problem.

As far as your question with regard to my serving as my own Secretary of State, I can only say, based on my experience, that the Presidency is more than a full-time job. Certainly the Secretary of State is the most back-breaking job within the Cabinet. I think it takes two men, and I intend to have a very strong Secretary of State.

QUESTION: Can I ask you one question?

It says here there will be a complete reorganization and restructuring of the entire White House security planning machinery. Just exactly, could you elaborate on that just a little bit more, comparing it with the future and the past?

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MR. NIXON: I would prefer that we do that when we go into the informal session. That is one of the questions we can go into in some detail, but I prefer we do that when we go into the writing press and the reporting press session.

QUESTION: Dr. Kissinger, have you changed your position about the war in Vietnam? What kind of advice do you intend to offer in that general area in the Nixon Administration?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe very strongly that the position of a White House Assistant is inconsistent with making public statements on substantive issues. Therefore, I hope you will forgive me if I don't answer your question.

QUESTION: Could I ask one more question? I think some people have felt that both Dr. Kissinger and Dr. Allen lean more toward the harder line of negotiating than many others. What is your comment on that, Doctor?

DR. KISSINGER: I have been expressing my views publicly on international affairs for the last 15 years, and I have tried to avoid labels like "hard" and "soft" and express my best judgment on the substance. Therefore, I find it very difficult to characterize myself.

MR. NIXON: I should emphasize, Mr. Kaplow, in answer to that question, that one of the major responsibilities that Dr. Kissinger will undertake will be to bring

to the White House, in his own small staff, points of view that are not compartmentalized. We want a broad spectrum within the White House Staff. In addition to that, he is going to bring to the President the points of view outside the Government, the great well of knowledge that exists, for example, in the educational institutions, and in other areas in this Nation, and also from experts in foreign policy abroad, which will be a new departure.

I am one who likes to get a broad range of viewpoints expressed, and Dr. Kissinger has set up what I believe, or is setting up at the present time, a very exciting new procedure for seeing to it that the next President of the United States does not hear just what he wants to hear, which is always a temptation for White House staffers, but that he hears points of view covering the spectrum so that the President can make the decision which he must make after he has heard all of the arguments.

QUESTION: Mr. Nixon, would you identify for us where you will regard the most troublesome areas in the foreign policy field when your Administration takes over -- what areas?

MR. NIXON: Yes, I can go into that without going into, of course, the substantive angles, which would not be appropriate at this time, until the Inauguration.

9

The areas of the world are those that I identi-
fied during the campaign. We begin, of course, with
Vietnam, the most immediate and pressing problem.

The next area of importance is East-West relations,
the upcoming negotiations, if those negotiations do material-
ize, between the United States and the Soviet Union in a
number of areas, including the problems of national defense,
the offensive and defensive missile discussions, and so forth.

The third area, very close to the second, and
directly related to it, and an area in which I think action
must take place before too much progress can be made in the
second area, is that of strengthening and revitalizing the
NATO organization, our relations with Western Europe.

Then beyond that, there are the areas which we
all are aware of, the problems of Latin America. I have
indicated the necessity for a new approach to the problems
of Latin America, including a new approach to the Alliance
for Progress; the problems of Africa, and then in a special-
ized sense the area of the Mid-East, which I should perhaps
move up on that scale.

If you are going to say one is more important
than the other, in terms of an urgent and immediate problem,
you would have to have Vietnam first, the Mid-East second,
and then, of course, these other areas that I have mentioned

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MR. ZIEGLER: Let us go into the informal portion of the discussion.

MR. NIXON: I think you might be interested to know how I first became acquainted with Dr. Kissinger. He tells me this is the first time I met him, and sometimes you meet people when you are in government without remembering when or where, but I met him for the first time at a Christmas party at Claire Booth Luce's apartment in New York last year. But I met him before that, and I felt I knew him through his writings and his books in 1957. Dr. Kissinger said I wrote him a letter, in fact. I remembered writing it, but I was glad he remembered it.

The decision to ask him to come on the staff was reached after considering a number of people who could have taken this assignment. I felt in Dr. Kissinger's case these factors motivated me. There were several men who I considered who could have, I think, served this function well, but most of them had been in government quite recently or in foreign policy and had had major responsibilities in the past. I felt at this time there was a need to bring to government someone who had never had that responsibility before, so that there would be no question about bringing a new approach, looking at the organization without being inhibited by what had gone on before. Dr. Kissinger I thought would bring that kind of

2

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approach.

Now, if I could go on just a bit more as to why
I thought he could bring a new approach, there was a
study that was made by a group -- and I think this is the
first time such a study has been made for a President-Elect
-- which began 15 months ago at Harvard University. This
study was made by the Harvard Institute of Politics. The
Harvard Institute of Politics commissioned a study for the
President-Elect, whoever that President-Elect might
be. In January of this year, Frank Lindsay of ITEC Corporation
a man I met many years ago when he was a staff assistant
to the Herter Committee -- we went to Europe together --
came to my office and asked if I was interested in such a
study if I won the nomination and the election. I
indicated great interest. He also made the same proposal
to the other potential nominees on the Democratic and
Republican side. All welcomed the study.

After the election I received the results of the
study. The men who made this study were Frank Lindsay,
who was chairman of the group, and then three men from the
Harvard staff, Dr. Philip Areta, Dr. Kissinger in the field
of foreign policy, and the other gentleman is Professor
Maij from the History Department at Harvard.

These studies cover the whole transition period

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with recommendations as to how the transition could be
carried on smoothly and we have taken many of those
recommendations. They covered areas far beyond the national
security area, making recommendations for the reorganization
of the White House staff and for reorganization in
government generally, but particularly directed to the
White House staff relations to other agencies of government.
Many of those recommendations we have adopted, but what
particularly interested me about the study was the national
security section, because what this group did was analyze
the development of the White House staff in national
security areas since World War II. It analyzed quite
objectively and critically, I thought, the staffs under
President Kennedy and President Johnson, pointing out
strengths and weaknesses and also pointing out the fact that
each staff must be different because it had to relate to
whoever might be President. One President might want one
kind of a staff, and another another kind of staff. It
was at this time I contacted Mr. Lindsay and found that
Dr. Kissinger had done a great deal of work on that study.
I met with the whole group and that triggered my thinking
in that direction.

Dr. Kissinger, would you like to talk a bit about
what we have in mind as far as the reorganization of the
National Security Council?

14

DR. KISSINGER: The chief instruction which the President-elect has given to me, and which I enthusiastically support, is to make certain that the planning mechanism of the Government functions more effectively and present to the President all of the relevant contingencies and choices.

I would intend that on the staff of the National Security Council and of the White House, to elevate the planning function and to encourage planning functions throughout the Government.

Another effort which will be a very high priority one is the one that the President-elect mentioned before, which is to draw in the best talent in the country, whatever their point of view, and to bring their thinking to bear on the issues confronting the United States.

We will try to avoid orienting the whole National Security Council machinery to its solution of the immediate problem, and try to develop middle-term and long-range policy and contingency plans for foreseeable emergencies.

Another prospect that I find exciting is the request of the President-elect that we draw in the best talent not only in the United States, but from all over the world. There are many friends of ours who feel that their fate is closely connected with ours, and who can make a major contribution. They have not been tapped in any systematic manner or on any

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official basis in the past.

QUESTION: Mr. Nixon, does Dr. Kissinger know who will be the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense?

MR. NIXON: He doesn't, because I haven't told him yet, and I don't know.

QUESTION: Dr. Kissinger, you say there will be some people from other countries brought in. Do you have anyone specifically in mind or can you tell us in general what type of people these might be?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I have a very wide acquaintance all over the world among leading intellectuals of all points of view, with many of whom I have been meeting for a long time.

I think it would be unfair to mention their names before they have been formally requested to serve, but I have no doubt whatever that we will collect an exciting group.

MR. NIXON: Let me perhaps respond to that also. What led me to emphasize this point in my discussions with Dr. Kissinger were my own travels abroad. I have found that in addition to talking to governmental figures -- and what we are talking about here we must make very clear is not, of course, to infringe upon the responsibility of the State Department to conduct negotiations with Government officials -- what we are referring to are people outside of Government