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FOR RELEASE: 6:00 PM, EDT, WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1983

KISSINGER RATES ACHESON, MARSHALL AND STIMSON "THE LEADING SECRETARIES OF STATE IN THIS CENTURY"

Former Secretary Of State Critical Of John Foster Dulles

Asserts Congress Has "Excessive Influence" Over
Day-To-Day Management Of U.S. Foreign Policy

Warns Against Giving CIA Direct Hand In Setting Foreign Policy

NEW YORK, July 20 -- Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger today cites Dean Acheson, George C. Marshall, and Henry L. Stimson as the "leading Secretaries (of State) in this century," but is critical of another of his prominent predecessors -- John Foster Dulles.

In an exclusive interview in August AMERICAN HERITAGE magazine, Kissinger declares, "Acheson was a great Secretary of State....Dulles was a strong Secretary of State but very single-minded and didn't really use the institution very well."

Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, also criticizes the current role of Congress in foreign policy. "There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that the Congress is asserting an excessive influence over the day-to-day tactical management of foreign policy," he says. This activity "undermines Congress's own power of ultimate control, which should be directed toward fundamental purposes and overall strategy, not toward tactical decisions."

As an example of this from his own tenure as Secretary of State, Kissinger says:

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"...the attempt by the Congress to legislate criteria for emigration from the Soviet Union had the practical consequence of stopping the emigration and worsening our relationship with the Soviet Union for no practical achievement."

The Central Intelligence Agency, Kissinger states in AMERICAN HERITAGE, should have no direct hand at all in setting U.S. foreign policy. "...I am extremely distrustful of getting the CIA involved in the policy process as a chief player, because there is the great danger that Intelligence will then tend to follow policy rather than guide it with objective information. I would think a major effort has to be made to keep Intelligence and policy making as far apart as possible," he asserts.

Because "most Secretaries of State spend nine-tenths of their time on the tactical issues and too little on where we are trying to go," Kissinger believes it will eventually become necessary to reorganize the State Department along the lines of "a more policy-oriented apparatus."

In the AMERICAN HERITAGE article, Kissinger denies suggestions that then-Secretary of State William Rogers and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird opposed America's initial bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. "Rogers and Laird attended the meetings at which the decision was made, and they approved the decision," he says. Kissinger then was national security advisor to President Nixon.

As for the future, Kissinger does not foresee events returning him to the State Department. "I consider myself an elder statesman who is willing to advise," he observes. "I have enormous admiration for the current Secretary (George P. Shultz) and I'm helping him in any way I can from the outside."

Robert Bendiner, author and former member of THE NEW YORK TIMES Editorial Board, conducted the AMERICAN HERITAGE interview.

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