"[M]odest and moving... These memoirs are profound, yet easy to read; they reveal a warm, caring personality whose commitment to the principles of freedom provided the impetus for his extraordinary labors."

—Henry A. Kissinger, from the Foreword

Holmes & Meier

PUBLISHERS, INC.

New York / London

30 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003

front cover photo by E. Boubat

ISBN 0-8419-1113-4

Memoirs

Fifty Years of
Political Reflection

Raymond Aron

Translated by George Holoch

Foreword by Henry A. Kissinger

How is one to understand and benefit from the events of history? What are an individual's political responsibilities? Out of a relentless search for answers to such basic and profound questions grew the brilliant works of social and political philosophy that Raymond Aron wrote before and after World War II, as well as his work with the Free French in London during the war, his varied and distinguished careers as professor and journalist, and his cogent contributions to political discussions throughout his lifetime.

In his memoirs, Aron reflects with simplicity and depth on industrial society, communism, the future of democracy, peace and war, the nuclear age, and also on the players he encountered on the great stage of twentieth-century history: Charles de Gaulle, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, Henry Kissinger, and others. The summation of a brilliant mind's confrontation with a turbulent age, these memoirs are evocative of more than fifty years of European and world political and intellectual life.

*(continued on back flap)*

About the Author

Raymond Aron (1905-83) has won the respect and admiration of leading figures from all spheres of twentieth-century life and from all points of the political spectrum. His dispassionate, probing analyses of international affairs, social and economic problems, and contemporary history have become increasingly influential in the U.S. and foreign arenas of political discourse and public policy.

An independent thinker who was often called the lone voice of reason in the heat of political conflicts, Aron became well known for the penetration, boldness, and clear-sightedness of his ideas. Throughout his life and career, he vigorously opposed threats to political and intellectual freedoms and advocated support of the United States as the defender of democratic values. Characteristically in the political forefront, after World War II Aron was one of the first in Europe to speak out for the rearmament and reconstruction of Germany, and he encouraged the development of NATO and the Common Market. While he urged Europe to embrace American hegemony in order to prevent the Cold War from developing into a total war, Aron was also a critic of both the Soviet and American political and social systems.

Aron's accomplishments as a gifted academic, prominent journalist, and prolific author have won international acclaim. He held professorships in philosophy, political science, and sociology at distinguished universities in Europe and the United States. He served as editor of *La France libre*, regularly wrote editorials for *Le Figaro*, and frequently contributed articles to prominent journals such as *La Table Ronde*, *Foreign Affairs*, *International Affairs*, *Commentary*, and the *New York Times Magazine*. His books of social and political philosophy continue to have significant import for—and impact on—contemporary observers of world affairs.

America 1990 by

Meier Publishers, Inc. All rights
be reproduced or transmitted in
mechanical means now known or to
ing, recording, and information
out permission in writing from the
no may quote brief passages in a

Mémoires: 50 ans de réflexion
sions Julliard, Paris. The English

meets the requirements of the
permanence of Paper for Printed

ing-in-Publication Data

al reflection / Raymond Aron;
word by Henry A. Kissinger.

2. Intellectuals—France—

4. Philosophers—France—

century. 6. France—Politics

France—Intellectual life—

89-7621

CIP

CS OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY

HENRY A. KISSINGER

ix

PART I
Political Education

1905-1939

1 MY FATHER'S WILL 3

2 STUDIES AND FRIENDSHIPS 19

3 THE DISCOVERY OF GERMANY 36

4 IN THE HEART OF THE LATIN QUARTER 55

5 DESPERATE OR SATANIC 75

6 THE ROAD TO CATASTROPHE 91

PART II
The Temptation of Politics

1939-1955

7 THE WAR 111

8 THE NONLYRICAL ILLUSION 137

9 JOURNALIST AND MILITANT 160

10 THE DIVISION OF EUROPE 180

11 THE WARS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 199

12 "THE OPIUM OF THE INTELLECTUALS" 214

v

PART III
A Professor in the Storm

1955-1969

<table><tr><td>13</td><td>RETURN TO THE OLD SORBONNE</td><td>229</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>THE ALGERIAN TRAGEDY</td><td>245</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY</td><td>265</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>THE GENERAL'S GRAND DESIGN</td><td>286</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>PEACE AND WAR</td><td>301</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>"HE HAS NOT UNDERSTOOD US," OR MAY 1968</td><td>313<br>333</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>"SURE OF ITSELF AND OVERBEARING"</td><td></td></tr></table>

PART IV
The Years of the Mandarin

1969-1977

<table><tr><td>20</td><td>FROM PIERRE BRISSON TO ROBERT HERSANT</td><td>357<br>368</td></tr><tr><td>21</td><td>POST-GAULLISM</td><td>379</td></tr><tr><td>22</td><td>ON IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>23</td><td>HENRY KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY</td><td>385<br>404</td></tr><tr><td>24</td><td>ON HISTORICAL CRITICISM</td><td>412</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>THE DECADENCE OF THE WEST</td><td></td></tr></table>

PART V
The Reprieve

1977-1982

<table><tr><td>26</td><td>EMBOLISM</td><td>429<br>436</td></tr><tr><td>27</td><td>L'EXPRESS</td><td>441</td></tr><tr><td>28</td><td>THE END OF A GENERATION</td><td>465</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>EPILOGUE</td><td>487</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>BIBLIOGRAPHY</td><td>493</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>INDEX</td><td></td></tr></table>

ON THE 1

Many individuals lent invaluable language edition of Raymond several persons in particular.

Professor Stanley Hoffman well as his generous editorial the overall quality of the volu- Dominique Schnapper, Rayn whose cooperation and painst the course of the project. Fin- tion of the text for the Engli- book.

vi

# FOREWORD

## Henry A. Kissinger

Raymond Aron was a philosopher and a journalist. He wrote seminal works on the philosophy of history, on Clausewitz, on war and peace. He composed several trenchant columns a week, mostly for *Le Figaro* but also for an extraordinary range of other publications, philosophical, historical or topical in scope. And he maintained that pace with astonishing brilliance for nearly fifty years.

Raymond Aron was my friend. He was also my teacher. Few intellectuals have had a deeper impact on my thinking; none a greater one. Lest I burden his memory with my critics, let me add that he was on occasion less than satisfied with his student.

I met Raymond Aron in Paris in the fifties. It was in his apartment along the Seine—I a graduate student and he already a famous intellectual. At the time I was editing a publication called *Confluence*, a journal of limited circulation which I had launched in naive ignorance of the mechanics of publishing a small magazine, not to mention the financial vagaries. It was to be a medium through which European and American intellectuals could debate a series of issues of mutual interest. Aron seemed surprised at my youth; I was intimidated by his fame and somewhat skeptical manner. It was

ix

## Foreword

my initiation to Aron's characteristic mixture of intellectual rigor and emotional support. Though he had much better outlets, Aron not only wrote for *Confluence* but was also a great help in inducing other well-known French authors to do so.

Until his death some thirty years later, that first meeting set the tone of our relationship. I genuinely admired Raymond Aron: in turn, he gave me every indication of his regard, even of his affection, though in these memoirs he feels compelled—quite properly—to make clear that he was never one to surrender his judgment to the friendship of a Secretary of State.

In the Epilogue of these memoirs, Aron speculates about whether he was considered cold. Those who knew him had no such doubts. They realized that he was a man of passion, deeply committed to liberty, to Western culture, and to democratic ideals.

Aron was French and he was Jewish. He witnessed the decline and rebirth of France and the persecution and survival of the Jews. He lived through the confusion of prewar Europe; through exile in London during the war and all the tumults of internecine struggles, decolonization and internal debate of postwar Europe.

Through all this turbulence Raymond Aron maintained his sense of proportion and above all his sense of direction. Like a rock against which the waves hurl themselves, on the surface the very cause of their turmoil, in historical perspective Aron becomes the figure to illustrate others' transitoriness. What a record of steadfastness the writings of Aron represent in opposition to the conventional wisdom of his day! By the time the Second World War broke out he had already witnessed the fatuousness of a policy that sought to protect the small countries of Eastern Europe by a defensive strategy in the West. He warned against the failure to resist—in the name of peace and negotiation—the German reoccupation of the Rhineland, which gave Nazi Germany a glacis behind which it effected the overthrow of the existing European order. Aron understood that the British guarantee of Poland amounted as well to a guarantee of the Soviet borders since the German armies could not reach the Soviet Union without first crossing Poland. And he saw clearly that, therefore, paradoxically and unjustly, negotiations with Moscow would be rendered more difficult by Britain's decision at last to abandon appeasement.

In London during the war Aron supported the Free French. Throughout the postwar period, he was a staunch supporter of European unity, American friendship and Franco-German reconciliation. In the travails of France, he usually took the unpopular position. He was an early advocate of Algerian independence, recognizing that the "liberal" solution of greater autonomy would never satisfy on a continent where all colonies were on the road to independence.

Aron's friendship for Am-side by side with his defense-occasionally scathing—criti-being implemented, inclu-Vietnam he deplored the co-even as he understood the

Through the decades, Aron of freedom. He never joine-as Sartre and Merleu-Ponty. He walked alone for the ge-end by the turn of French too late to give him the fo-was his due.

Documenting Aron's ir-most devoted biographer-honesty and the dedicat-for posterity, Aron undert

In this intellectual biog reader through the spirit reader through the spirit most significant articles by author but also the extra-on the way. The memoirs caring personality whose the impetus for his extra

For a man like myself, diplomacy, Aron's book i-ment of my efforts as a s-tions to Western though

This is as it should b-addresses contingencies-policymaker must deal-ultimate goals; the dipl-there are few ultimate-often than not turn into

De Gaulle characteri-Aron: "It happens that I know that from the o-please believe that I enco:mpass the great f-measureless and, in an

I last saw Aron in t

word

 mixture of intellectual rigor and emo-
tion outlets, Aron not only wrote for
inducing other well-known French

than that first meeting set the tone of
Raymond Aron; in turn, he gave me
his affection, though in these memoirs
make clear that he was never one to
of a Secretary of State.

Aron speculates about whether he was
had no such doubts. They realized
committed to liberty, to Western

 witnessed the decline and rebirth
 of the Jews. He lived through the
c in London during the war and all
 colonization and internal debate of

Aron maintained his sense of pro-
ton. Like a rock against which the
be very cause of their turmoil, in
the figure to illustrate others' tran-
the writings of Aron represent in
this day! By the time the Second
nessed the fatuousness of a policy
of Eastern Europe by a defensive
the failure to resist—in the name of
cupation of the Rhineland, which
it effected the overthrow of the
that the British guarantee of
of the Soviet borders since the
iet Union without first crossing
ore, paradoxically and unjustly,
ered more difficult by Britain's

ed the Free French. Throughout
ter of European unity, American
n. In the travails of France, he
as an early advocate of Algerian
solution of greater autonomy
all colonies were on the road to

Foreword

xi

Aron's friendship for America was deep but far from uncritical. Indeed,
side by side with his defense of Atlantic partnership, persisted a masterful—
occasionally scathing—critique of the policies by which this partnership was
being implemented, including those of the author of this foreword. On
Vietnam he deplored the extent to which America had staked its prestige
even as he understood the struggle to extricate itself with honor.

Through the decades, Aron never wavered in his commitment to the cause
of freedom. He never joined the Marxism in vogue with such contemporaries
as Sartre and Merleu-Ponty, or the fashionable anti-Americanism of Malraux.
He walked alone for the greater part of his life, only to be vindicated at the
end by the turn of French intellectuals away from Marxism—though perhaps
too late to give him the formal recognition of intellectual leadership which
was his due.

Documenting Aron's intellectual life might easily overwhelm even the
most devoted biographer, for how could anyone distill the passion, the
honesty and the dedication behind such a stupendous output? Fortunately
for posterity, Aron undertook the task himself at the end of his life.

In this intellectual biography, at once modest and moving, Aron steers the
reader through the spiritual odyssey of his life using extracts from his own
reader through the spiritual odyssey of his life using extracts from his own
most significant articles and books as guideposts. One meets not only the
author but also the extraordinary group of men and women he encountered
on the way. The memoirs are profound, yet easy to read; they reveal a warm,
caring personality whose commitment to the principles of freedom provided
the impetus for his extraordinary labors.

For a man like myself, involved for many years in the mundane tasks of
diplomacy, Aron's book is not always comfortable reading. Clearly, his judg-
ment of my efforts as a statesman is less admiring than mine of his contribu-
tions to Western thought.

This is as it should be. The philosopher deals with truth: the statesman
addresses contingencies. The thinker has a duty to define what is right; the
policymaker must deal with what is attainable. The professor focuses on
ultimate goals; the diplomat knows that his is a meandering path on which
there are few ultimate solutions and whatever "solutions" there are, more
often than not turn into a threshold for a new set of problems.

De Gaulle characteristically summed up the dilemma in a letter cited by
Aron: "It happens that I am sometimes not convinced by what you write and
I know that from the outset you have rarely approved what I do. However,
please believe that I admire the way in which your mind attempts to
encompass the great flood that is carrying all of us toward an apparently
measureless and, in any event, unprecedented fate."

I last saw Aron in the summer of 1982. An obscure bank official from a

Foreword

xii

small town in the south of France wrote to him that it was his dream to bring Aron and me to Draguignan for a dialogue. Aron took up this unusual request with his usual dedication. However, he had by then become quite frail, and my wife, Nancy, urged me not to delay accepting because she feared that he soon would not have the strength to go through with it.

So we went to Draguignan in June 1982. The organizers and a group of French veterans first took Aron and me to an American military cemetery at the edge of town as a symbol of their ties to America. The mayor of the town had refused to make a public building available, whether in protest against Aron or me I no longer remember. But a large tent had been erected and Aron questioned me before an audience of several thousand. He did so with a fierce tenderness, being both demanding and confident that I would withstand his rigorous cross-examination.

In the final years he had taken to kissing me whenever we met or parted—a sign. I felt, that he thought every meeting might be our last. A few months after Draguignan, Aron died, on the steps of a courthouse where he had gone to testify for a friend unjustly accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

It was an honor to have been his contemporary.

R

M E

the Storm

PEACE AND WAR

303

of dozens of books: Who can determine what circumstances?

I thought through the consequences of the Century of Total War I raised the replacement or a preparation for total war in the international scene were obvious to all European concert; dispossession of Europeans; a distinction between the war between the two superpowers and their ideological and political; the existence of nuclear weapons.

My first conceptual essays on international relations of the book that became Peace and Great Debate: Theories of Nuclear War Press, 1965), but in my articles I was called on the other side of the table—another inaccurate term, since the war than with the possible or actual use of nuclear as the nuclear weapon changes by itself it does not exhaust strategy. This makes up only a part of strategic

strategies of courses on industrial society, International relations. These two courses, one correspond to the first two parts of biology. I then took a year's leave from Harvard, and in 1967 I became a research professor at Harvard. On the basis of my research with French and English, is equally rare in biology by a number of commentators.)

approximately a decade. I had spent a year writing it. When it was published, it was only exaggerated its value.

Criticism—even more than my election to the city and the journalist. Annales organizes the work of Pierre Renouvin, Alain Touraine, and Pierre Nora, kindred spirits, on the subject. Pierre Nora was kindred spirits, too. My second thesis. In a sense, he was a student of university figures, Alexandre Sevi, to journalism. Even Peace and War

would never have been written, if I had not commented on international affairs, week after week, from 1947 on; this time, however, the work went beyond journalism, though journalism had nourished it.

The review in the New York Times was written by Henry Kissinger, who called the book "profound, civilized, brilliant and difficult." The adjective "difficult" did not surprise me, but I do not think it is justified, unless an eight-hundred-page book is by definition difficult. In a personal letter, Leo Strauss, whom I admired deeply, and whom I had met in Berlin in 1933, but whom I had not seen since then, wrote that after reading Peace and War, he thought that it was the best book on the subject.

Even though I emphasized the changes brought about by nuclear weapons, and attempted to locate these weapons within customary diplomatic conduct, did I succeed in establishing the necessary balance between the monstrosity of the weapons and the banality of international relations? The formula "to survive is to conquer" now seems to be more equivocal than it was then, although I am still inclined to justify it, at least in part.

I can be criticized and I was—for describing today's world in terms of the past and for concentrating on state relations at the expense of transnational, international, or supranational phenomena. To be sure, in some sense I helped create these distinctions, but I did very little with them. As for the transnational—economic, ideological, or religious society that ignores and often downplays borders—I identified it conceptually and mentioned it here and there, but I did not analyze it in any depth. One might say (wrongly) that the strategic and diplomatic conduct that makes up the central theme of my book has become a sector of lesser importance in the world of international relations. I placed nuclear weapons in the context of diplomacy with respect to the "transnational," the world economy. I wanted to write a treatise on war and peace in the ordinary sense of those words—bloody war, waged with weapons. I denied neither the war of the airwaves, nor that of trade and currency, or ideology; I even considered certain aspects of these wars, or rather these rivalries; but in 1961 and 1962, the confrontation between East and West was in my eyes the center of relations among states. I would maintain this proposition today, but I should have justified my choice and summed up other development with a view toward joining the analysis of the system of relations among states with the analysis of the world market (of the two economic systems, capitalist and socialist).

I also neglected an aspect of diplomatic reality that has become more and more important, namely, the dependence of the diplomat (I used this term to mean the one who made decisions about external actions) on various influences from the political class or from the society itself. In his book, G. A. Allison asserts that finally, despite reservations and qualifications, I maintain

308

A Professor in the Storm

of a graduated response the best deterrent? Did the West have enough conventional forces for a prolonged defense without the use of tactical nuclear weapons? Wouldn't these weapons, stockpiled in a few locations, be destroyed before they could be used? Would a Soviet attack take place in accordance with NATO predictions?

*The Great Debate* was well received in the United States and used in several universities. Robert McNamara had my book on his desk when I saw him in the Pentagon. He told me that among the countless books on the subject he preferred mine (flattery to a journalist? Kissinger told me that McNamara had said the same thing to him). It hardly matters. This little book, written in the country in three weeks, immediately after the course I had given at the Institut d'Etudes politiques, hardly contributed any original ideas (was this possible?), but it undogmatically shed light on a controversy that led finally to psychological speculations. Some details sharpened the analyses: Were the Soviets, by rejecting the hypothesis of limited war, not playing poker, although they were masters at chess? Weren't the Americans, by multiplying on paper the intermediate stages between all or nothing, between apocalypse and capitulation, dreaming of a strategic chess game? Did the Americans wish to confront an adversary who was conversant with the subtleties of strategic thought, or on the contrary, an adversary who was ignorant of American thought? In short, would they invite a Politburo member to take courses at the Rand Corporation?

Robert McNamara discussed one of my sentences that had struck him: among allies, I had written, it is desirable to avoid misunderstandings and to foster reciprocal understanding, on the other hand, uncertainty, if not misunderstanding, ought to continue between enemies. The secretary of defense, inclined toward rational thinking, had difficulty in accepting the ambiguity of relations between enemies. However, an element of bluff seems to me inevitable in diplomatic crises. To be sure, looking at history, one can attribute to lack of communication some responsibility for the outbreak of wars, particularly the 1914 war. If the Austrians had known that the Russians would take the risk, or the initiative, of a major war in order to support Serbia, they might have acted otherwise. But in fact, from the very beginning, the Austrians were playing for high stakes: to punish Serbia according to their lights and, strengthened by the total support of Berlin, to intimidate Russia and force it into passivity. They were not unaware of the possibility of general war, but could they attain their objective without accepting this danger? The fact remains that, in present crises, in the shadow of the nuclear apocalypse, the actors will draw from uncertainty, from the unpredictability of the enemy's response, conclusions that are more favorable to peace. As long as the powers are in opposition, have incompatible objectives, and

exchange threats of the use, reduced to the level of a de- conflict which will not nec- which escapes from a total ra- to the intentions of the parti-

What explains the burst of or three years, near indiffer- generally unaware of the dev- think tanks. Kennedy intro- Since most ministers and cor- massive retaliation and of the tion line), the apparent sub- stood, or at least interpretec Americans. The Germans un- and thus accepted, the occu- questioned the value of Am- lois—no state can protect an would not sacrifice their cities

This thesis made up the fi- deterrent force and its effectiv- the preceding chapte: with r- *The Great Debate*, the discussion

Does the nature of nuclear w- weak against the strong? There weapons any one of which c- equality or balance changes i circumstances, deter a great p- harms he could create and th- push this plausible idea to ex- enemy that it is really ready to would inflict. A rational formu- particularly difficult: the prize re- risk that would be taken by the en- power? What is the "risk" that natively, what French president had not been attacked with nucl- Once the abstract plausibility had been accepted, it was appro- circumstances, not through a sc- what was at stake, but in a concre- France has no border with the

The Years of the Mandarin

386

excessive or unfriendly. came in part from my conception of the duties of a political commentator. in part from my inclination to keep my distance from the Princes who govern us. and above all from my disagreement with the General's diplomacy.

During the dozen years of post-Gaullism, my courses at the Collège de France and my books mobilized my time and my interest much more than my participation in *Le Figaro*, and later *L'Express*. In the 1970s, all the systems established after the war, the Bretton Woods currency agreement, the system of state relations guaranteed by the power and will of the United States, by the rivalrous connivance of the two superpowers, by the nuclear superiority of the American Republic, were shaken by blows that appeared sudden but had in fact ripened throughout the 1960s.

During the years 1969 to 1975, one man was permanently in the forefront: Henry Kissinger. I knew him better than any other American secretary of state, better than any French foreign minister, with the possible exception of Maurice Schumann. I would even say, without hesitation, that he was a friend, on condition that it is recognized that the word changes meaning according to age and circumstances. I retain a nostalgia for my youthful friendships with Lagache, Sartre, Guille, Nizan, and Canguilhem, as I experienced them or as I remember them; we gave each other everything that we had, incapable of calculating, indifferent to apparent competition. Purity or an illusion of youth? I don't know. Even if politics had not broken them, these friendships would have grown old, deeper and more solid perhaps, but different, with all of us absorbed by our professions and family obligations, less available for interminable conversations.

The friendships established among adults are quite different. I met Manès Sperber in 1937 in André Malraux's little apartment on the rue du Bac. Our friendship was forged in the terrible prewar years. It continues today without interruption or faltering. We have carried on the same fight, against the same enemy, united in feeling even when our judgments were opposed.

Henry Kissinger had paid me a visit toward the end of the 1940s, when he was hardly out of Harvard. I met him from time to time in the course of the 1950s, in Paris or the United States. I followed his career from a distance, the success of his books, particularly the one that made his reputation, *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*. I respected the book, but it did not seem to me to deserve its reputation. He did, to some extent, stand out from other professors of international relations because of his acute awareness of the predominance of politics over technical considerations.

I spent time with him in Cambridge during my semester at Harvard. He asked me to lead one of his seminars. He has respect for me, no doubt, or, if you prefer, he does not apply to me the sense of his intellectual superiority which he is said to inflict on mere mortals. Because of the difference in our

ages, he always adopted toward me the
a student. He was never my student.
Like me, closer to history than to science,
the qualities of the book.

I was not unaware that he had ear
United States in the early 1960s ac
Washington. He had not given up :
wanted to be the best among specialis
egy. But he would probably have said
form, was not sufficient in itself. Act
theory. Einstein is greatly superior to
secretary of state triumphs over the bo
With some qualifications. I agree with

Did I foresee the exceptional success
Washington? Certainly not. Nor did I
Would he succeed in imposing him
journalists through flattery, forcing the
bet yes, but I would certainly not have

Between 1969 and 1975, I met him
As I remember him, I saw him at the
Cambodian crisis, and a second time
Vietnamese offensive was threatening
membered my previous visit, since he
"You bring trouble." When he cam
gether. Once the AFP mentioned th
met President Giscard d'Estaing ar
tioned my conversations with prom
quent and I derived little from then
hour in New Delhi in 1953. I have
nothing original or secret. President
hour, and I found him more inter
about the division of Korea, pointing
divided into several kingdoms.

In our conversations between 19
that I could not have learned from
Nevertheless, contact with the ma
Vietnamese, the Israelis, and the
some extent, I sympathized with
sense of the term, placing myself in
must have had. Moreover, in our
talks, we discussed a number of
reasons behind his adoption of on
he heard the plea for an honorable

KISSINGER AND THE END (1969-1975)

10

10

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 387

Mandarin

from my conception of the departmentalism, my inclination to keep my distance from all from my disagreement with

my courses at the College and my interest much more than the other L'Express. In the 1970s, all the Bretton Woods currency agreements, by the power and will of the United Nations, the two superpowers, by the nuclear weapons were shaken by blows that appeared out the 1960s.

than was permanently in the foreground, any other American secretary of state, with the possible exception of Walter L. Nielson, without hesitation, that he was right that the word changes meaning. I retain a nostalgia for my youthful youth in New York, Nizan, and Canguilhem, as I remember; we gave each other everything, indifferent to apparent competition, now. Even if politics had not broken down, grown old, deeper and more solid, absorbed by our professions and family, able conversations.

adults are quite different. I met Manes, the apartment on the rue du Bac. Our war years. It continues today without end on the same fight, against the same judgments were opposed.

toward the end of the 1940s, when he left the department in the course of the follow-up of his career from a distance, the one that made his reputation. Nuclear d the book, but it did not seem to me some extent, stand out from other because of his acute awareness of the considerations.

during my semester at Harvard. He has respect for me, no doubt, or, if not, the sense of his intellectual superiority. Because of the difference in our

opera, he always adopted toward me the stance of a younger man, if not that of a student. He was never my student, but he learned from Peace and War, like me, closer to history than to scientific models, he praised, sincerely I think, the qualities of the book.

I was not unaware that he had career ambitions—which meant in the United States in the early 1960s accession to an important position in Washington. He had not given up strictly intellectual success—he also wanted to be the best among specialists in international relations and strategy. But he would probably have said that political science, in its current form, was not sufficient in itself. Action, in this view, is worth more than theory. Einstein is greatly superior to a nuclear energy engineer, but a great secretary of state triumphs over the best professor of international relations. With some qualifications, I agree with this hierarchy of values.

Did I foresee the exceptional success of “Doctor Kissinger” in the jungle of Washington? Certainly not. Nor did I foresee failure. I merely had doubts. Would he succeed in imposing himself on the president, charming the journalists through flattery, forcing the respect of the Senate? I might have bet yes, but I would certainly not have bet my life.

Between 1969 and 1975, I met him several times in Paris and Washington. As I remember him, I saw him at the White House first in 1970, during the Cambodian crisis, and a second time in the spring of 1972 when the North Vietnamese offensive was threatening the South Vietnamese army. He remembered my previous visit, since he began the conversation by recalling it: “You bring trouble.” When he came to Paris, we often had breakfast together. Once the AFP mentioned that Kissinger, during a stay in Paris, had met President Giscard d'Estaing and Raymond Aron. I have rarely mentioned my conversations with prominent figures, because they were infrequent and I derived little from them. Pandit Nehru received me for a half-hour in New Delhi in 1953. I have a vivid memory of the man: he told me nothing original or secret. President Park of South Korea granted me a whole hour, and I found him more interesting, in particular, he spoke sensibly about the division of Korea, pointing out that, for centuries, Korea had been divided into several kingdoms.

In our conversations between 1969 and 1978, Kissinger told me nothing that I could not have learned from the press, or from occasional leaks. Nevertheless, contact with the man who negotiated with the Soviets, the Vietnamese, the Israelis, and the Arabs helped me to interpret events. To some extent, I sympathized with Kissinger's way of thinking, in the strict sense of the term, placing myself in his position, experiencing the feelings he must have had. Moreover, in our conversations, he willingly explained the reasons behind his adoption of one attitude or another. Besides, everyone heard the plea for an honorable peace and his evocation of the cost of

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The Years of the Mandarin

surrender. Even with me, he did not always say the same things about a
particular subject, for example, on the importance (or lack of importance) of
the balance of strategic nuclear forces. In 1969, he observed with hostility
the beginnings of Willy Brandt's *Ostpolitik*. I cannot say whether he reg-
ularly read my articles. His collaborators probably sent them to him from
time to time, the ones that criticized or explicitly praised him, I suppose;
only once did he reply in writing to one of my articles, about Cyprus. I
criticized him for not having immediately condemned the Greek *coup d'état*,
for tolerating this initiative, which provoked the intervention of the Turkish
army. An exchange of letters followed. In any event, our relations were the
same during and after his reign; I agreed to join the informal study groups
that he had created on his return to private life.

Was I more indulgent toward American diplomacy in 1969-75 because of
my personal relations with one of its creators?

In leafing through the collection of articles I had written for *Le Figaro*, I
noted with surprise and a feeling of guilt, that I had commented hardly at all
on the first stages of American intervention in Vietnam (Kissinger, in his
memoirs, confesses that he, too, had not paid much attention to the begin-
nings of an interminable war). My visit to Hanoi was the first occasion on
which I heard of Ngo Dinh Diem, from the general secretary of the French
administration. This high-level bureaucrat described Diem to me as the
Americans' man, an Annamite mandarin who represented, according to this
official, the final recourse, the last card. This conversation took place in
October 1953, before Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva conference.

In the course of the years immediately following the Geneva agreements,
commentary and debate focused on Franco-American friction; our allies
were taking charge of Diem's ferociously anticommunist regime, and thereby
eliminated the influence, and even the presence of the French. An American
university replaced the Ecole Nationale d'Administration in the task of
training the bureaucrats of the new state. French troops were the first to
leave; counselors and teachers in turn left ample space for newcomers. At
least this is the way the newspapers told the story of the withdrawal of the
French, humiliated by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu and forced out by the
Americans.

The "free" elections provided for by the Geneva agreements did not take
place. I was neither surprised nor scandalized: in North Korea and East
Germany, the Communist regimes did not tolerate free elections. Would Ho
Chi Minh have tolerated a public meeting in Hanoi organized by Diem?
Would the Diem regime have resisted the shock of public meetings held by
Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants in Saigon or other cities? I did not pay
enough attention to a fact that, during the Indochina War, I had often

referred to in the context of Pari-
aries would never give up the
beginning of their enterprise:
Cochin-China. Annam, and Ton

In 1954, the Vietminh had bro-
in the South. Diem immedi-
eliminate them, or at least to
1950s, the Communist Party of
the "puppets" or the "accon
Eisenhower left the White Ho-
ican military personnel serving
to the pressure of the joint cl
suddenly increased to more th
States to the defense of a non
believe in the domino theory:
memoirs, that he was creating
east Asia? Even now, I do not k
ally, I incline toward a rather p

United States support of the
simple application of the doctri
been left outside communist d
this still "free" half.

Europeans, supporters of the
action in Korea. Did the action
answer depended on many bad
visited South Korea knows, tha
entity, a state, a people, ready
the North. There is also a patr
anticommunist, which involves
and fully justifies Harry Trum
there a South Vietnamese patr
two Vietnams to the two Kore:
the East Germans, if they coul
d condition of their brothers, "e
erGermans tried to reunite the
treated in the West as warmo
did not seem to me just to cal
Republic of South Vietnam im

Another consideration nece
ernment of the South deserve
North Vietnamese brought wi
American press, unmercifully

KISSINGER AND THE

TG

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 389

Mandarin

ways say the same things with great importance (or lack of importance) in 1969, he observed with delight. I cannot say whether he was probably sent them to him from explicitly praised him, I support them. I condemn the Greek coup d'état. I condemned the intervention of the Turkish army in any event, our relations were cut off to join the informal study group of the life.

diplomacy in 1969-75 because of the
ers?

I had written for *Le Figaro*. I had commented hardly at all on in Vietnam (Kissinger, in his book, said much attention to the beginning of the Hanoi was the first occasion on which the general secretary of the French government described Diem to me as the no represented, according to this). This conversation took place in the Geneva conference.

Following the Geneva agreements, the American friction; our allies the anticommunist regime, and thereby the resistance of the French. An American and French administration in the task of demobilizing French troops were the first to use a simple space for newcomers. At the end of the withdrawal of the French from Bien Phu and forced out by the

Geneva agreements did not take
ized: in North Korea and East
olerate free elections. Would Ho
in Hanoi organized by Diem?
book of public meetings held by
or other cities? I did not pay
to the Indochina War. I had often

involved in the context of Parisian controversies: the Vietminh revolution-
ters would never give up the objective they had set forth from the very
beginning of their enterprise: the unity of the three regions. For them,
Canton-China. Annam, and Tonkin belonged to a single whole.

In 1954, the Vietminh had brought to the North a fraction of its supporters
from the South. Diem immediately attacked the communists in order to
eliminate them, or at least to make them harmless. Toward the end of the
1950s, the Communist Party of the North decided to resume the war against
the "puppets" or the "accomplices" of American imperialism. When
Eisenhower left the White House, there were fewer than a thousand Amer-
ican military personnel serving in South Vietnam; Kennedy acceded partially
to the pressure of the joint chiefs of staff, and the number of "advisers"
suddenly increased to more than 15,000. Why did he commit the United
States to the defense of a noncommunist state in South Vietnam? Did he
believe in the domino theory? Did he think, as de Gaulle reports in his
memoirs, that he was creating a pole of anticommunist resistance in South-
east Asia? Even now, I do not know what motives inspired Kennedy. Person-
ally, I incline toward a rather primitive interpretation.

United States support of the Diem government is self-explanatory: it was a
simple application of the doctrine of containment. Since half of Vietnam had
been left outside communist domination, the West remained interested in
this still "free" half.

Europeans, supporters of the Atlantic Alliance, had approved American action in Korea. Did the action in Vietnam belong to the same category? The answer depended on many badly understood factors. We know, whoever has visited South Korea knows, that south of the 38th parallel, there is a political entity, a state, a people, ready to defend themselves against aggression from the North. There is also a patriotism, which is inextricably both Korean and anticommunist, which involves a condemnation of the 25 June 1950 invasion and fully justifies Harry Truman and Dean Acheson. In 1954, or 1960, was there a South Vietnamese patriotism? Is it legitimate or not to compare the two Vietnams to the two Koreas or the two Germanies? No one doubts that the East Germans, if they could express themselves freely, would choose the condition of their brothers. "exploited by capitalism." And yet, if the West Germans tried to reunite the two pieces of the old Reich, they would be treated in the West as warmongers, by everyone, right or left. It therefore did not seem to me just to call American participation in the survival of the Republic of South Vietnam imperialist.

Another consideration necessarily influenced our attitudes. Did the gov-
ernment of the South deserve to be saved? Was it preferable to the one the
North Vietnamese brought with them? The Western press, particularly the
American press, unmercifully criticized the violations of democratic rules

390

The Years of the Mandarin

under the government of the South. It reported the horrors of the camps—since there were camps in the South. Hence, the question arises: by fighting for South Vietnam, was the United States fighting for a strategic position, for the ideas of the West, or to preserve its prestige, or, according to Kissinger's expression, its credibility?

Personally, if memory does not deceive me, I inclined toward the following position: it would be desirable, for the South Vietnamese and the United States, for the Republic of South Vietnam to survive, but was the United States able to pursue this enterprise to the very end? The cost of the war would perhaps be greater than the value of what was at stake. In other words they risked not only committing a sin but a mistake. Divided by these divergent, if not contradictory, feelings and analyses, I sought refuge in one of my roles, that of spectator of human folly and misfortune.

The Vietnam war had an original aspect, when compared to previous so-called wars of liberation or to the Korean campaign. The North Vietnamese divisions did not cross a demarcation line as the North Korean troops had done. The "partisans" carrying on the "small war" in the South had access to logistical support, but also to constantly renewed reinforcements of soldiers recruited and trained in the North. In response to North Vietnamese aggression, the Johnson regime inaugurated a strategy inspired by the doctrine of escalation that was put into effect by the air force. The Americans did not seek out the troops and the industries of the North to fight against the former or to seize the latter; they bombarded the territory of a state with which they were not at war but one which was strengthening and supplying the fighters in the South.

What was the strategic significance of these bombings? Those directed against the Ho Chi Minh trail were aimed, if not at preventing Northern soldiers from reaching the South, at least at reducing their number. I remember a conversation with Robert McNamara at the Pentagon around 1966. As was his custom, he illustrated his ideas with diagrams. He drew three lines, one over the other: the first represented the number of people moving from North to South in the absence of bombing; the second the number in spite of bombing; the third, still lower, the number that would be necessary to change decisively the course of operations. The bombing, not on the Ho Chi Minh trail, but in North Vietnam, had the purpose of "punishing the enemy," devastating the opponent's territory—a return to the practice recorded throughout the centuries. In the last century, during the conquest of Algeria, the French did not refrain from similar methods, for example, poisoning wells and depriving caravans of their sources of water. The Washington leaders, Lyndon Johnson and his cabinet, informed Hanoi of their intentions to bomb the North if infiltration into the South and resupply of the Vietcong did not come to an end. They applied the doctrine.

KISSINGER AND THE

developed by professors in the U.S. military academy, increase in the use of violence to Hanoi to abandon their enterprise.

I analyzed this original form against subversion, skeptical about bombings caused by property damage (when the Americans visited Hanoi after the Paris agreement was essentially still standing, imagined).

The psychological effect of the bombing of Germany had been tion "held." The threat of escalation to the Vietnamese government. It did not seem to have much of a chance of success, but the Canadians seriously. It did not come on themselves. "To make others Americans had to believe in it, the Vietnamese, the Americans should have started the escalation. In each case, the moment because of the very skepticism of the Americans was the key to the success of the operation."

A few months ago, my friend, whether I had "approved" Army training, had been told so as to cure them of their different in nature from the one Missika: Did you condemn torture by the insistence of my question to Seele). In 1945, I hoped that F進 Kys. In 1965 or 1968, there was to me preferable to the totalitarism preserve this republic, in a "dulder impulse, but rather from an illusory belief that the American people would be obliged to refrain from using the answer: of course.

The battle was all the moreBARBAROUS, since they had no clear idea of what they were doing between 1954, and 1960, the expression of containment. In disaster of the Bay of Pigs and war, a way to show that he was tough

ndarin

ed the horrors of the camps—the question arises: by fighting for a strategic position, for fame, or, according to Kissinger's

I inclined toward the following view: Vietnamese and the United States survive; but was the United States the only end? The cost of the war was at stake. In other words, was it a mistake. Divided by these analyses, I sought refuge in one country and misfortune.

When compared to previous so-called Vietnam War campaigns. The North Vietnamese won the North Korean troops had won the South. In the South had access to. Reinforcements of soldiers rose to North Vietnamese aggression inspired by the doctrine of force. The Americans did not intend to fight against the former. They wanted to preserve the status quo. Territory of a state with which they were willing toaling and supplying the fighters.

These bombings? Those directed at not preventing Northern Vietnam from reducing their number. I saw them at the Pentagon around ideas with diagrams. He drew them on the blackboard. He presented the number of people killed by bombing; the second the number of those killed in operations. The bombing, not only was it not Vietnam, had the purpose of securing the country's territory—a return to the status quo. In the last century, during the Vietnam War, from similar methods, for example, the Americans of their sources of water. And his cabinet, informed Hanoi of the American infiltration into the South and North. They applied the doctrine,

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 391

developed by professors in the context of nuclear strategy, of the progressive increase in the use of violence, in order to persuade the communists of Hanoi to abandon their enterprise.

I analyzed this original form of warfare, bombing gradually intensified against subversion, skeptical about the effectiveness of such a strategy. The bombs caused property damage and loss of life; they did not destroy the cities (when the Americans who had argued the cause of North Vietnam visited Hanoi after the Paris agreements, they noted with surprise that the city was essentially still standing, far from the pile of rubble that they had imagined).

The psychological effect of the bombing turned out to be as minimal as the bombing of Germany had been during the Second World War. The population "held." The threat of escalation did not shake the resolve of the North Vietnamese government. It did not take the warnings transmitted by the Canadians seriously. It did not doubt that the Americans would impose limits on themselves. "To make others believe in the demonetarization¹ of gold, the Americans had to believe in it themselves. To intimidate the North Vietnamese, the Americans should have taken seriously their own threat of escalation. In each case, the message confronted the incredulity of its recipient because of the very skepticism of its producers" (6 March 1968).

A few months ago, my friends Claudie and Jacques Broyelle asked me whether I had "approved" American use of napalm—something they had been told so as to cure them of their friendship for me. The question is no different in nature from the one asked by Dominique Wolton and Jean-Louis Missika: Did you condemn torture in Algeria? I answered, slightly irritated by the insistence of my questioners: I am not a "beautiful soul" (eine schöne Seele). In 1945, I hoped that France would consent to the unity of the three Kys. In 1965 or 1968, there was a South Vietnamese Republic which seemed to me preferable to the totalitarianism of the North; the American effort to preserve this republic, in a "dubious battle," did not arise from an imperialist impulse, but rather from an illusion of omnipotence. As for napalm, it had to be detested just as torture had been. Should soldiers have been able or obliged to refrain from using these means? From a distance, it is easy to answer: of course.

The battle was all the more dubious because the leaders in Washington themselves had no clear idea of why they were fighting. In the beginning, between 1954, and 1960, the support given to Saigon was an automatic expression of containment. In 1961 and 1962, Kennedy, humiliated by the disaster of the Bay of Pigs and by his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, found a way to show that he was tough, to dissipate any illusions Khrushchev may

392

The Years of the Mandarin

have had as a result of the disastrous beginnings of the administration. When Lyndon Johnson visited Saigon as vice-president, he was prodigal in expressing variations on the theme of falling dominoes. As the United States became further involved in the impasse, the president and his advisers knew less and less why they were expending so many men and dollars, against whom or in view of what end they were sacrificing so many lives and so much wealth.

Walt W. Kostow, who was National Security Adviser between McGeorge Bundy and Henry Kissinger presented to me one of those *weltgeschichtlich* theories he is so fond of: Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese expansion were the latest expression of revolutionary romanticism. American victory over this ideological conqueror would signify the end of an epoch. Other Washington advisers saw, behind Ho Chi Minh, Lin Piao and the surrounding of cities by countryside, or Chinese imperialism, others still the imperialism of the Kremlin. Events since then have confirmed the latter interpretation.

The Tet offensive was, in fact, a failure on the part of the Vietcong. Nowhere did the population join the "freedom fighters." Those fighters committed inexcusable activities. They forced victims to dig the ditches into which they hurled hundreds of officials and notables of the imperial city of Hue. My friend, Pham Duy Khiem, ambassador of South Vietnam to Paris in 1954, distributed through AFP on 13 April 1968 an indignant report on the conduct of the Vietcong in the regions they controlled for a few days. "These intellectuals failed to contemplate what remains of so many simple functionaries, innocent agents of the administration and their families, soldiers on leave, French priests, German teachers with their wives buried alive (around three hundred so far), or killed after mutilations and various tortures (around seven hundred), sometimes chained together with barbed wire." This report sank into indifference and oblivion. The cause transfigured the crimes of the North, it aggravated those of the South.

Beginning in 1969, the year that Nixon and Kissinger came to power, I confined myself even more to analysis. The Republicans had no responsibility for the role assumed by the United States in the Vietnam War. Nixon could have given in to the demands of the North and, in a few months, have achieved the peace demanded by public opinion, or at least by the most vocal spokesmen of public opinion. What were the demands of the North? They could be reduced to a formula: a "coalition government," from which, obviously, would be excluded the "gang of puppets," Thieu and his supporters, in other words those who were governing South Vietnam and symbolized the resistance. The members of the "provisional government of the South," created by the communists, the "third force," which some opponents of Thieu discussed in the cafés of the capital, were not an intermediary or a mediator between the men of Saigon and those of Hanoi; allies or accomplices consciously or not, they were indistinguishable from the Viet-

cong or, if you prefer, could not and the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China eliminate the South. The Thieu and his allies to withdraw and their cause, confessed that foreign army.

Nixon and Kissinger knew that Vietnam War, but neither the war yet understood that North Vietnam United States, scarcely veiled its intention to phase out Kissinger himself, in his memoirs with Vietnam in less than a year, doubts. Before being named Nonsent the two sets of negotiations one between the United States and two Vietnamese governments, did not "recognize" the Thieu as the President of the Republic of the South, reduced to the status of the North in 1969, once the strategy of the correctly foresaw a continuation

For example, on 2 July 1969, political agreement between Ho Chi Minh and the Americans both to withdraw from Vietnam the enemy (a Vietcong government finding a replacement government continue to reject, with the same arguments as in 1968), was canceled. In 1970, in the Saigon. "A little further on: "In Vietnam were counting on the finally to carry off their political battlefield, the war has been going on for the last moments, months, will Nixon be able to remove and more and more cans, today like yesterday, and but that between politics' defenses might be a third way, on the contrary, their enemy as patient as them to make that judgment?" In other words, "defeat or prolonged war."

In 1972, after the failure of demilitarized zone, I hoped for

KISSINGER AND THE

76

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 393

cong or, if you prefer, could not distinguish themselves from the Vietcong and the Communist Party of the North. The "coalition government" implied the elimination of the South Vietnamese government, and hence the capitulation of the United States. The American Republic "should have" forced Thieu and his allies to withdraw, in which case it would have betrayed them and their cause, confessed that they existed only by grace of the power of a foreign army.

Nixon and Kissinger knew that the voters expected them to end the Vietnam War, but neither the voters nor even the members of Congress had yet understood that North Vietnam was demanding the capitulation of the United States, scarcely veiled by the formula of the coalition government. Kissinger himself, in his memoirs, tells how he hoped to reach an agreement with Vietnam in less than a year. Nixon, who was more prescient, had strong doubts. Before being named National Security Adviser, Kissinger had presented the two sets of negotiations he anticipated in a *Foreign Affairs* article, one between the United States and North Vietnam, the other between the two Vietnamese governments. The North rejected the second set, since it did not "recognize" the Thieu regime, obliterated by the communist vision of the world, reduced to the pitiful role of imperialist "puppet." Thus in 1969, once the strategy of the Republican administration was known, I correctly foresaw a continuation of the war.

For example, on 2 July 1969, I emphasized primarily the impossibility of a political agreement between Hanoi and Washington: "If President Nixon wants both to withdraw from Vietnam and not to concede political victory to the enemy (a Vietcong government in Saigon), he will have difficulty in finding a replacement government for the South. And the North Vietnamese continue to reject, with the same firmness, dialogue with the puppets of Saigon." A little further on: "It is as though the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were counting on the weariness of the American people in order finally to carry off their political victory. In the absence of a decision on the battlefield, the war has been transformed into a contest of wills. Whoever holds on for the last moments has won. If the war is not over in eighteen months, will Nixon be able to resist the opponents, who are more and more numerous and more and more violent?" And I concluded: "Do the Americans, today like yesterday, under Nixon as under Johnson, have any choice but that between political defeat and the continuation of hostilities? There might be a third way, on the day when the North Vietnamese considered their enemy as patient as themselves. But what miracle would enable them to make that judgment?" In other words, I correctly formulated the alternative: defeat or prolonged war.

In 1972, after the failure of the North Vietnamese offensive across the demilitarized zone, I hoped for a conversion of North Vietnamese diplomacy.

Kissinger

and the administration, little by little, he was prodigal in cash. As the United States became involved in the Vietnam War and his advisers knew little of the costs and dollars, against whom or to whom any lives and so much wealth could be expended, one of those "weltgeschichtliche Viets" Vietnamese expansion were the objects of an epoch. Other Washington City Advisers between McGeorge and the surrounding of cities by Thieu and his allies still the imperialism of the latter interpretation. On the part of the Vietcong freedom fighters." Those fighters killed victims to dig the ditches into which notables of the imperial city of Saigon of South Vietnam to Paris in 1968 an indignant report on the controlled for a few days. "These remains of so many simple functionaries and their families, soldiers on which their wives buried alive (around them and various tortures (around their with barbed wire." This report caused transfigured the crimes of the

and Kissinger came to power. I The Republicans had no responsible States in the Vietnam War. Nixon North and, in a few months, have opinion, or at least by the most were the demands of the North? coalition government," from which, puppets." Thieu and his supporting South Vietnam and sym- the "provisional government of the "third force," which some opposition, were not an intermediary ion and those of Hanoi: allies or the indistinguishable from the Viet-

394

The Years of the Mandarin

the acceptance of an American-Vietnamese agreement without the liquidation of the Thieu regime, in other words a cease-fire without a political solution, a resolution that the North Vietnamese had resisted up to that point. It was in October 1972, in fact, that the North Vietnamese made the major concession, on the basis of which negotiations were to result in a resolution, which only the members of the Nobel Peace Prize jury confused with peace. The government of the South, whose existence was denied by Le Duc Tho, remained in place. "Leopard skin" was the expression used to describe South Vietnam after the Paris agreements.

We know what happened to these 1973 agreements: two years later, North Vietnamese divisions massively crossed the demilitarized zone. Thieu ordered a retreat in order to contract and strengthen the defense perimeter. The retreat changed into a rout and, within a few weeks, the Communist Party reached the goal that it had set itself when it launched the war against the French in December 1946, the unity of the three Kys under a Soviet-style regime.

Kissinger presented the Paris agreements as an almost unexpected success. Nixon and his advisers, to the end, refused surrender, that is, the overthrow of the Thieu government that the Americans had supported for years and for which they had fought. To assume the responsibility for dismissing him themselves would have been dishonorable. Dealing with North Vietnam, while leaving Thieu a chance of survival, was an honorable peace. "President Nixon and his advisers do not refuse to 'lose the war' at any price, if the arrival of the Vietcong to power defines defeat; they want to preserve a chance of not losing it and, above all, not to betray their commitments. Imposing a coalition government on Saigon would signify betrayal. And defeat would become a disaster if the United States betrayed or appeared to betray their allies. In any event, they would lose much more than a limited conflict, Vietnam, or face, they would lose the confidence of their friends and the respect of their enemies," I wrote in *Le Figaro* of 30 October 1969. I did not accept, but merely reproduced, the plea that I, like many others, had heard directly from Henry Kissinger. In the same article, I also quoted a few lines from a pamphlet by Robert Kennedy: he also considered an immediate and unconditional retreat of American forces to be impossible and disastrous. "Beyond Asia, a sudden and unilateral retreat would raise doubts about 'the credibility of the United States.'"

I may be asked why I did not recommend the "radical solution" to the United States, while I had favored Algerian independence, or at least the Algerians' right to independence as early as 1957, at a moment when the "rebellion" or the resistance was barely beginning to organize its troops.

In Algeria, the French wanted to maintain all or a part of a colonial situation; I thought that so-called liberal, compromise solutions would also

KISSINGER AND THI

lead to independence. In recent years, the Americans have claimed to defend and illustrate the right of the North Vietnamese to resist the Americans' efforts to keep the government supported by the North. They claim that the people of the South wish the North? They certainly did not want to be made into the object of a military offensive that cast the United States and the American Republic to withstand an imprudent strategy, can become the object of a political judgment of this war, or that American Republic will thus be recognized for the first time.

If I had joined my voice to the Vietnamese and angrily attacked myself in strange company. The (or had committed) a mistake by the North, I would have said that the rice paddies of Vietnam. But politically, the Americans have shown themselves to be Hanoi, a barely concealed comploting Kissinger, who would recognize that the United States to cut its losses in this fatal four extra years aggravated disorder. And the result would finally have been an event, Kissinger would reply that the North Vietnam would not have the 1973 agreements. The Paris Republic of the South, but they thus recognized for the first time that the cease-fire is not the peace?

Of course, no one celebrated the cease-fire to be peace?" and I war? No one can say. The future of both sides. Thus President Thieu will find, if they wish, other of violating an agreement that cannot be kept, and that the Americans will not be able to do so without analysis, without playing the role of the world, as some of our colleagues. Since we all feel a kind of physical hope. Perhaps the Vietnamese, who are so intuively, the secret path to peace.

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 395

Mandarin

nese agreement without the benefit of a cease-fire without a political settlement. Vietnamese had resisted up to that point, but the North Vietnamese made the much negotiations were to result in a settlement. The Nobel Peace Prize jury confirmed that the North Vietnamese had won, whose existence was denied by Le Hard skin" was the expression used to describe the agreements.

1973 agreements: two years later, North Vietnam demilitarized the zone. Thieu or Ho Chi Minh and strengthen the defense perimeter. Within a few weeks, the Communist state when it launched the war against itself. The North Vietnam itself when it launched the war against the Communists of the three Kys under a Soviet

states as an almost unexpected success, refused surrender, that is, the end, refused surrender, that is, the right. To assume the responsibility for that the Americans had supported have been dishonorable. Dealing with a chance of survival, was an honorable offer. The Americans do not refuse to lose the war at any cost to power defines defeat; they want to勝 over all, not to betray their commitment. If Saigon would signify betrayal, then if the United States betrayed or ap-PEOPLE would lose much more than a chance to lose the confidence of their treaty. They would lose the confidence of their allies." I wrote in *Le Figaro* of 30 October 1973, reproduced, the plea that I, like many French Kissinger. In the same article. I also recommend the "radical solution" to the Algerian independence, or at least the Paris peace plan, at least as early as 1957, at a moment when the Paris peace plan is clearly beginning to organize its troops.

to maintain all or a part of a colonial liberal. compromise solutions would also

lead to independence. In recommending recognition of the Algerians and their right to independence, I called on the very principles that France claimed to defend and illustrate: the right of peoples to self-determination. There was no comparison to the situation of the United States in Vietnam: the Americans did not want to stay, they wanted to leave. They were protecting a government that was independent, on paper at least. Was this government supported by the people? The answer was not self-evident. Did the people of the South wish to be "liberated" by their brothers from the North? They certainly did not participate in their own liberation; it was a military offensive that cast the Thieu regime onto the rubbish heap of history. Political judgment of this war, it is true, depended also on the capacity of the American Republic to withstand such an ordeal to the end; a mistake, an imprudent strategy, can become a sin for a statesman.

If I had joined my voice to the chorus that exalted the resistance of North Vietnam and angrily attacked American "imperialism," I would have found myself in strange company. The United States, in my view, was committing or had committed) a mistake by committing their forces and their prestige in the rice paddies of Vietnam. But in 1969, should they morally, could they politically surrender, that is, themselves establish a government subject to Hanoi, a barely concealed communist government? After the fact, perhaps Kissinger would recognize that it would have been preferable for the United States to cut its losses in this fatal adventure in 1969 rather than in 1973. The four extra years aggravated disorder and dissension within the republic. The end result would finally have been less negative. I am not so sure. In any event, Kissinger would reply that, had it not been for the Watergate scandal, North Vietnam would not have launched a general offensive two years after the 1973 agreements. The Paris agreements did not definitively save the Republic of the South, but they implied its existence, which North Vietnam thus recognized for the first time.

Of course, no one celebrated on 26 January 1973. I entitled an article "Will the cease-fire be peace?" and I wrote: "The end of this war or the end of a war? No one can say. The future depends on the intentions and the wisdom of both sides. Thus President Thieu and the Provisional Revolutionary Government will find, if they wish, countless opportunities to accuse one another of violating an agreement that is probably inapplicable and certainly uncontrollable. Let us however forget, just for a moment, the rigors of analysis, without playing the role of interpreter of the conscience of the world, as some of our colleagues like to do. self-proclaimed moral arbiters. Since we all feel a kind of physical relief, let us not shut ourselves off from hope. Perhaps the Vietnamese, let to themselves, will discover together, intuitively, the secret path to peace, that reason alone is incapable of discerning."

396

The Years of the Mandarin

Unfortunately, it was reason, again, that taught us the truth.

A few months later, management of the crisis provoked by the Yom Kippur War. further increased the prestige of Henry Kissinger, an éminence grise who drew all the light to himself and cast his principal into darkness. The Yom Kippur War divided the French, but it did not provoke passions comparable to those that had troubled them before and after the Six-Day War.

In 1967, I believed that Nasser was principally responsible for the fighting, even though Israel had struck first. In 1973, in my view, the roles had been reversed. Sadat had planned and prepared the operations and taken the Israelis by surprise, but Israeli diplomacy left him no alternative. Divided between hawks and doves, supporters and opponents of Greater Israel, the Israeli political class, incapable of proposing a solution to its enemies, took the path of least resistance; it decided that the Israeli army would remain in place, and it invited the Arab countries to negotiate directly with the Jewish state. Negotiations without preconditions, which would deal with everything at stake in the conflict. The Israelis, of course, were not aware that the Arabs would reject the invitation: after the disaster of 1967, a dialogue would have appeared to the Arabs as a surrender.

I remember a conversation in Jerusalem in 1971 with a semiofficial committee charged with the responsibility of studying the military and political prospects for the next ten years in the region. Sadat, I told them, could not indefinitely postpone the time of revenge; either Egypt would in some sense explode from within, or else it would explode by attacking on the outside, in order to accomplish a success in the absence of which Sadat could not follow the path of peace. Can we not at least grant him a "small victory?" In 1973, this small victory might have become significant.

In an earlier chapter, I have alluded to my diagnosis at the time; the Egyptians surprised the Israelis, crossed the Canal without resistance and resisted the premature counterattack of an Israeli armored brigade, which wanted to destroy the bridgehead. During the early days of the fighting, in a broadcast discussion, I expressed doubt as to whether the Israelis were capable of driving the Egyptians back across the Canal before the cease-fire.

In retrospect, I admire Sadat's strategy and Kissinger's conduct during the crisis. The Egyptian president was cornered: he could not deal with Israel without losing face, he did not believe that he had the necessary means to win a decisive victory over his enemy. He therefore prepared for a battle with a limited objective. By multiplying maneuvers, he, so to speak, lulled the vigilance of the Israelis, and succeeded, as the Israelis had in 1967, in creating a surprise effect. The Israeli army had not been mobilized; the order for mobilization was given only on the morning the Egyptian and Syrian troops attacked. On the Golan front, Israel was served by the heroism and

KISSINGER AND THE

the superior flexibility of a few hundred Syrian tanks. After clearly probably have taken the mount military command, had not de military mistake was determin military success in order to er counting on revenge equivalent took place when the Israeli arm its armored vehicles to the Sina in the center of the front, gave Second Egyptian Army. Kissing destruction of the encircled ar resounding victory for Israel; I made the decision only on the c confronted by genuinely morta

Who had won? Israel had won than it had suffered; in a few Egyptian armies that had crossed the Egyptians boasted of their enough to create the condition for want of a general settlement

My article of 6 November provoked some more or less recapitulated the criticism I had its army on the Suez Canal challenge to the Soviet Union was depriving Egypt of Sinai ened the solidarity between E and invited the Soviet Union to be able for any Egyptian government, repeated, on the military level in my conversations with Israel front on the Canal, a natural limit. In 1973, for the first time, the United States during the host moment, and their dependent obvious.

Perhaps the fact that struck theork, was the refusal of all disposal of the Americans from Portugal on the eve of the re American Air Force to use the

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 397

The Mandarin

that taught us the truth.

The crisis provoked by the Yom Kippur
Attack of Henry Kissinger, an éminence grise
brought his principal into darkness. The
战, but it did not provoke passions
and them before and after the Six-Day

principally responsible for the fighting,
In 1973, in my view, the roles had been
prepared the operations and taken the
military left him no alternative. Divided
and opponents of Greater Israel, the
posing a solution to its enemies, took
that the Israeli army would remain in
possession to negotiate directly with the Jewish
states, which would deal with everything
in course, were not aware that the Arabs
disaster of 1967, a dialogue would have

Jerusalem in 1971 with a semiofficial com-
mittee of studying the military and political
region. Sadat, I told them, could not
agree; either Egypt would in some sense
 explode by attacking on the outside, in
absence of which Sadat could not follow
what he wanted. He granted him a "small victory?" In 1973,
significant.

led to my diagnosis at the time; the
ised the Canal without resistance and
of an Israeli armored brigade, which
during the early days of the fighting, in a
quid as to whether the Israelis were
to cross the Canal before the cease-fire.
ogy and Kissinger's conduct during the
bordered: he could not deal with Israel
e that he had the necessary means to
He therefore prepared for a battle with
maneuvers, he, so to speak, lulled the
Israel had not been mobilized; the order
to the morning the Egyptian and Syrian
Israel was served by the heroism and

the superior flexibility of a few dozen assault tanks confronting several hundred Syrian tanks. After crossing the Canal, the Egyptian troops would probably have taken the mountain passes if Sadat, against the advice of his military command, had not demonstrated excessive caution. Perhaps the military mistake was determined by political calculation. Sadat needed a military success in order to erase the humiliation of 1967, but he was not counting on revenge equivalent to the disaster of 1967. The great tank battle took place when the Israeli army, totally mobilized, had transferred most of its armored vehicles to the Sinai front. The bold advance of General Sharon, in the center of the front, gave the Israelis the opportunity to encircle the Second Egyptian Army. Kissinger managed to impose a cease-fire before the destruction of the encircled army. He was indifferent to the prospect of a resounding victory for Israel; he delayed the delivery of aid to Israel—he made the decision only on the day that, because of a food shortage, Israel was confronted by genuinely mortal danger.

Who had won? Israel had won in the sense that it had inflicted more losses than it had suffered; in a few more days, it would have put one of the Egyptian armies that had crossed the Canal *hors de combat*. Nevertheless, the Egyptians boasted of their initial successes; the uncertain outcome was enough to create the conditions for a peaceful Israeli-Egyptian settlement, for want of a general settlement with all the Arab states.

My article of 6 November 1973, entitled "Defeat of the Conqueror," provoked some more or less insulting letters from my coreligionists. I recapitulated the criticism I had made of Israeli policy in 1967: "By stationing its army on the Suez Canal, the Jerusalem government was issuing a challenge to the Soviet Union and, to an extent, to Western Europe itself. It was depriving Egypt of Sinai oil and revenues from the Canal. Its strengthened the solidarity between Egypt and the rich countries of the Persian Gulf and invited the Soviet Union to increase its commitment; it made it impossible for any Egyptian government to accept the situation indefinitely." I repeated, on the military level, the objections that I had formulated in 1967, in my conversations with Israeli generals, against the establishment of the front on the Canal, a natural line of defense in appearance but not in reality. In 1973, for the first time, the Israelis needed material support from the United States during the hostilities themselves. They obtained it at the last moment, and their dependence on the United States became even more obvious.

Perhaps the fact that struck the Israelis the most, during these days of
ordeal, was the refusal of all the Europeans to place their airports at the
disposal of the Americans for the airlift—of all the Europeans except for
Portugal on the eve of the revolution of the carnations, which allowed the
American Air Force to use the Azores bases. For the Israelis, resupply was a

398

The Years of the Mandarins

question of days, if not hours. None of the major European countries took the risk of irritating the Arabs, oil producers, by however limited a participation in the rescue operation. Henry Kissinger did not conceal his "contempt." his "disgust" at the cowardice of the Europeans. The Europeans in turn felt humiliated: the dialogue between the Great Powers was taking place over their heads, whether that dialogue was leading to collusion or collision.

Henry Kissinger seemed to be an extraordinary manipulator. When the Soviets alluded to the threat of the intervention of airborne troops in the theater of combat, he convinced the president in the middle of the night to place all United States military installations throughout the world in a state of alert. Simultaneously, he took a plane to Moscow and made an agreement with Brezhnev on the cease-fire, which deprived Israel of part of its victory—which the secretary of state had always wished for without saying it. Then, with tireless shuttling between Jerusalem and Cairo, he laid the foundation for an Israeli-Egyptian settlement. At the time, the man who had negotiated with Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Leonid Brezhnev, and Le Due Tho, and who had always, after hours, days, months, or years, reached an agreement, appeared with the aid of the media, as a miracle man. The leaders of two African countries at war with one another thought of calling on the services of the itinerant diplomat. The Tarpeian Rock is never far from the Capitol.

The quadrupling of the price of oil and the temporary embargo imposed on the United States placed the energy crisis in the foreground. Vietnam, after the withdrawal of American troops, suddenly became a secondary episode in the historical expansion of the Marxist-Leninist movement. Kissinger's attempts to revive the Atlantic Alliance resulted only in bland communiqués. The creation of the Energy Agency was the occasion for a futile battle between Paris and Washington, Michel Jobert and Henry Kissinger. The press reported the excesses of language into which each of the two foreign ministers fell. France refused to be a part of the "Energy Agency": participation or nonparticipation seemed to me equally insignificant. Another academic quarrel developed over the diplomatic methods that should be adopted by Europe toward the United States. Should the United States be consulted before the Common Market nations adopted a common position? The United States did not want to confront a European bloc before its voice had been heard by its allies in the Atlantic Pact. It was in 1974, I think, that I was invited by State Department officials to speak in the Secretary of State Club. The secretary of the club asked me for the title of my talk. After a few moments' reflection, and consultation with the official, I proposed, "Why has the Secretary of State forgotten the ideas of Professor Kissinger?" In fact, Kissinger had no hesitation in writing, in the book published in France under the title *Malentendu transatlantique*, that the United States cannot count on the assent, the automatic acquiescence of a united Europe. The secretary of state had little patience for the inclinations

KISSINGER AND THE

toward independence that the considered inevitable and healthy than a satellite in a state of supp

The club official had led me to await by almost two hundred Perhaps some of them derived so used in speaking of their boss. Pek had addressed, they showed their to agree with the speaker—read sympathy to a speaker of a contra the speech and the questions, w

Diplomatic storms, in themse. refus to offer their bases for the response to American diplomacy. Peking, without coordination, with contempt, justified or not, is no Bismarck. Moreover, he criticized involving themselves in an affair remained, willy-nilly, mere spec indulgent toward the Europeans,

My admiration for the manage concern over the scope of détente not initiated the dialogue with M détente. It is nevertheless true considered the administration established relations with Peking the first agreement on the limitati that, apparently, set out the spiri conduct their external affairs. Two of this good conduct code: restrai of the two Great Powers to refrain literally, this text meant that the putting an end to their global rj commentators, thought in 1972, a Union would stop supporting or r

The Yom Kippur War at least re ambiguous character of détente whether Brezhnev had urged t beyond the Suez Canal. "What w ith material: assault tanks, cannاقs... Once battle had b action at least if the letter to Pre

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 399

Kandarin

the major European countries took turns by however limited a participa-
tor. singer did not conceal his "con-
tinental Europeans. The Europeans in
the Great Powers was taking place
as leading to collusion or collision.
ordinary manipulator. When the
invention of airborne troops in the
cident in the middle of the night to
its throughout the world in a state of
Moscow and made an agreement
imprized Israel of part of its victory—
ished for without saying it. Then,
a and Cairo, he laid the foundation
time, the man who had negotiated
Brezhnev, and Le Due Tho, and who
or years, reached an agreement,
a miracle man. The leaders of two
r thought of calling on the services of
ack is never far from the Capitol.
and the temporary embargo imposed
crisis in the foreground. Vietnam.
ops, suddenly became a secondary
of the Marxist-Leninist movement.
atic Alliance resulted only in bland
ergy Agency was the occasion for a
ington. Michel Jobert and Henry
nes of language into which each of the
fused to be a part of the "Energy
tion seemed to me equally insignifi-
cied over the diplomatic methods that
the United States. Should the United
in Market nations adopted a common
ant to confront a European bloc before
in the Atlantic Pact. It was in 1974. I
department officials to speak in the
of the club asked me for the title of my
and consultation with the official. I
State forgotten the ideas of Professor
in hesitation in writing, in the book
Malentendu transatlantique, that the
present, the automatic acquiescence of a
little patience for the inclinations

toward independence that the professor had foreseen, and, in advance,
considered inevitable and healthy. It is better to have a loyal and difficult ally
than a satellite in a state of suppressed rebellion.

The club official had led me to expect an audience of a few dozen: I was
awaited by almost two hundred department officers, sitting and standing.
Perhaps some of them derived some pleasure from the freedom and irony I
used in speaking of their boss. Perhaps as well, like all American audiences I
had addressed, they showed their goodwill, their tendency, for the moment,
to agree with the speaker—ready, on another occasion to extend the same
sympathy to a speaker of a contrary opinion. I remember this occasion, both
the speech and the questions, with pleasure.

Diplomatic storms, in themselves, hardly bothered me. The Europeans'
re refusal to offer their bases for the American airlift to Israel I thought of as a
response to American diplomacy, focused on the dialogue with Moscow and
Peking, without coordination with the Europeans. The secretary of state's
contempt, justified or not, is not suitable for a disciple of Metternich and
Bismarck. Moreover, he criticized them for a common declaration—a way of
involving themselves in an affair concerning them, but at which they had
remained, willy-nilly, mere spectators. Although I think I was excessively
indulgent toward the Europeans. I cannot approve Kissinger's arrogance.

My admiration for the manager of the Yom Kippur crisis was qualified by
concern over the scope of détente. Of course, the Nixon administration had
not initiated the dialogue with Moscow, nor had it been the first to speak of
détente. It is nevertheless true that, from 1968 to 1973, public opinion
considered the administration responsible. The United States had re-
established relations with Peking, improved relations with Moscow, signed
the first agreement on the limitation of strategic weapons (SALT 1), and a text
that, apparently, set out the spirit in which Moscow and Washington would
conduct their external affairs. Two formulas summed up the essential points
of this good conduct code: restraint, that is, moderation, and the agreement
of the two Great Powers to refrain from seeking unilateral advantages. Taken
literally, this text meant that the United States and the Soviet Union were
putting an end to their global rivalry. No one, at least among professional
commentators, thought in 1972, after Nixon's trip to Moscow, that the Soviet
Union would stop supporting or manipulating movements of "national libera-
tion."

The Yom Kippur War at least revealed, to those who had any illusions, the
ambiguous character of détente. In November 1973, we did not know
whether Brezhnev had urged the Egyptian president to push his troops
beyond the Suez Canal. "What we do know is that Brezhnev was not stingy
with material assault tanks, cannons, Sam 3s, Sam 6s, individual antitank
weapons. . . . Once battle had been joined, Brezhnev urged the Arabs to
action at least if the letter to President Boumedienne is authentic, and he

400

The Years of the Mandarin

established an airlift for the resupply of his allies a few days after the outbreak of hostilities, while the United States was still refraining from resupplying Israel. Did the Soviets thereby violate the spirit of détente, the principle of moderation, attempt to gain a unilateral advantage at the expense of their rival? Of course, but it took a good deal of naïveté to take this commitment literally." (Le Figaro. 5 November 1979). But in that case, what remained of the code of good conduct signed in Moscow the year before? The Europeans. Michel Jobert in particular, denounced both collusion and collision. According to the expression of the French foreign minister, the Great Powers shook hands above the airlifts.

At the same time, public opinion, perhaps as much in Europe as in the United States, was gradually becoming half-conscious of a change in the balance of forces in favor of the Soviet Union. In SALT 1, the United States had granted the Soviet Union a forty percent superiority in the number of launch vehicles, compensated by the American advantage in numbers of nuclear warheads (thanks to the MIRV technique, which the Soviets had not yet mastered). Three years later, when the Vladivostok negotiations set forth the broad outlines of an agreement, the Soviets had "MIRV" missiles that were superior in throw-weight, the explosive power of nuclear devices. When SALT 2, negotiated under President Carter, was submitted to the Senate, its opponents raised the question of balance. Nixon and Ford had both accepted the principle of equality in strategic weapons, but did American superiority at the highest level in the scale of violence not represent an essential element of American deterrence not for the security of American territory, but for Western Europe?

During the years when Kissinger appeared to be a superman, the Soviet Union became, for the first time, a superpower, a global power able to use its military might in any part of the world. When Ford lost the election, Kissinger returned to private life and wrote his memoirs, but he retained extraordinary prestige in the United States, particularly in Congress. But it is impossible not to wonder whether he had not disguised or transfigured through his talent, the retreat of American diplomacy, the decline of the imperial republic.

In early January 1977, I wrote for *Le Figaro* an analysis which attempted to provide an equitable assessment of his accomplishments and his legacy. I noted first his triumph through the media: "No secretary of state ever gave professional journalists or sensation-mongers so much material, no one ever devoted so much time to them. He was someone who cultivated his public persona. His knowledge of the facts was astonishing, his athletic performances impressive, and his calculated improvisations and outbursts of anger

By turns accommodating and brutal endurance. Israelis and Egyptians physical resistance, to his presence in this actor, in both senses of the word. When events defeated his history. When Saigon fell and the returned to his youthful reading, and the loyal James Reston reported ical brute," out of place in the circle improvable star who had conquer

Then, I noted Kissinger's unique judgment one may make of incomparable manager of crises. I (the adjective is meant to be almost which had taken the Israelis by surprise. The management of this crisis president launched his peace offer to Jerusalem.

I then came to the essential important to him, and what will global vision which is said to have simultaneously in détente and in Italian Communists. In the inter Washington, Henry Kissinger and rope. To maintain the balance be the two superpowers, he was no Allende in Chile or declaring the A Pole made an ironic remark where they have made themselves have gained some popularity. To removed from power where they

Kissinger's policies, apart fromuous with the policies of the U. N. 1953. The combination of partial local advances of the Soviet Union unwritten law of American diplo- pointed out the novelty of "dété military forces between the U. N. context, it was hardly possible inspiration of this balancing act.

When Ronald Reagan and, w

KISSINGER AND THE E.

TC

10

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 401

By turns accommodating and brutal, he conquered his adversaries through endurance. Israelis and Egyptians surrendered less to his charm than to his physical resistance, to his presence of mind after a sleepless night. . . . But this actor, in both senses of the word, had two strings to his bow, two irons in the fire. When events defeated his hopes, he accused them in the name of history. When Saigon fell and the efforts of four years went up in smoke, he returned to his youthful reading, meditating on the decadence of the West, and the loyal James Reston reported the morose reflections of this 'philosophical brute,' out of place in the circles of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, an improbable star who had conquered Washington."

Then, I noted Kissinger's unquestioned talent to manage crises. "What-ever judgment one may make about his global vision, he has been an incomparable manager of crises. In any event, his Machiavellian masterpiece (the adjective is meant to be ambivalent) will remain the Yom Kippur War, which had taken the Israelis by surprise and in which the Egyptians and the Syrians were to win a moral victory, even though their enemy did not really lose." The management of this crisis created the basis on which the Egyptian president launched his peace offensive and startled world opinion by his visit to Jerusalem.

I then came to the essential point: "In the last analysis, what is most important to him, and what will determine the judgment of history, is the global vision which is said to have inspired him and has been demonstrated simultaneously in détente and in his refusal to establish contact with the Italian Communists. In the interest of direct relations between Moscow and Washington, Henry Kissinger accepts Russian domination of Eastern Europe. To maintain the balance between the respective spheres of influence of the two superpowers, he was not above helping the enemies of President Allende in Chile or declaring the historic compromise in Italy unacceptable. A Pole made an ironic remark about this policy: supporting communists where they have made themselves hateful and fighting them where they have gained some popularity. To which he would answer: "How can they be removed from power where they are hateful?"

Kissinger's policies, apart from the rapprochement with China, are continuous with the policies of the United States since 1947, and especially since 1953. The combination of partial agreements with Moscow and resistance to local advances of the Soviet Union defines less Kissinger's method than the unwritten law of American diplomacy for the last thirty years. I nevertheless pointed out the novelty of "détente," or rather the change in the balance of military forces between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this context, it was hardly possible not to raise the question of the underlying inspiration of this balancing act.

When Ronald Reagan and, with him, the most anticommunist wing of the

The Mandarin

His allies a few days after the outbreak was still refraining from resupplying the spirit of détente, the principle of equal advantage at the expense of their goal of naïveté to take this commitment (1). But in that case, what remained of cow the year before? The Europeans, both collusion and collision. According to the Great Powers shook

Perhaps as much in Europe as in the ing half-conscious of a change in the Union. In SALT 1, the United States percent superiority in the number of American advantage in numbers of technique, which the Soviets had not the Vladivostok negotiations set forth the Soviets had "MIRV" missiles that explosive power of nuclear devices. President Carter, was submitted to the tion of balance. Nixon and Ford had in strategic weapons, but did Ameri the scale of violence not represent an ce not for the security of American

appeared to be a superman, the Soviet manpower, a global power able to use its world. When Ford lost the election, wrote his memoirs, but he retained states, particularly in Congress. But it he had not disguised or transfigured erican diplomacy, the decline of the

Figaro an analysis which attempted to is accomplishments and his legacy. I said: "No secretary of state ever gave longers so much material, no one ever as someone who cultivated his public was astonishing, his athletic perform- improvisations and outbursts of anger.

402

The Years of the Mandarin

Republican Party, returned to power, Kissinger was seen by the new administration as the man of détente and the SALT agreements, much more a dove than a hawk in his actual conduct of foreign affairs.

Was this criticism (or praise) well founded? The answer is not self-evident. Kissinger gave the impression of being fundamentally different from the president's entourage, and from the American political class in general, by his personal qualities, his ability to articulate his views, and his gift for analysis, leavened by the humor that American journalists (and all American audiences) find so attractive. Simplifying, one might say that his intellectual superiority automatically imposed itself.

Does my judgment in 1982 differ essentially from that of 1977? For a half century, I have limited my freedom of criticism by asking the question: In his place, what would I do? Could Nixon accept the "coalition government" in Saigon? If he could not, the prolongation of the war was inevitable. The fall of Prince Sihanouk was almost a necessary result and hence the spread of military operations to Cambodia. When I read Kissinger's memoirs, I am not always convinced by his arguments, but I feel strengthened in my impressions as an observer. The President and his adviser, pressed by internal and external enemies, attempted to bring about a negotiated peace. To pacify internal opinion, they gradually brought back American forces; to save the Republic of South Vietnam, they strengthened its army; to bring the North Vietnamese leaders to compromise, they used their air force. The Paris agreements preserved the appearances; in any event, the fall of Nixon cut short the existence of those appearances.

The approaches to Peking and Moscow did not have to do exclusively with the search for a way out of Vietnam. In any event, sooner or later, the United States would have resumed diplomatic relations with Peking, relations all the more normal and useful because the quarrel between the two capitals of Marxism-Leninism, public since 1963, offered obvious opportunities to American diplomacy. Moscow and Peking both aided North Vietnam, without reconciling their differences. The American dialogue with Peking could influence Moscow's attitude toward the United States and toward Vietnam.

In retrospect, it does not appear that this diplomacy, which remains completely intelligible, changed the course of events in Vietnam. In 1972, the Communist regime in the North lacked neither artillery and missiles against the bombers nor tanks and ammunition for the spring offensive. The SALT agreements ratified parity between the United States and the USSR; the good faith requirements set out on paper did not prohibit Moscow from offering "fraternal aid" to "national liberation" movements. Détente changed to some extent the style but not the substance of the rivalry between the two superpowers. If Nixon and Kissinger had not themselves been conducting the diplomacy of the United States, they would have denounced the illusions

of détente. Thus, Nixon's philosophy of international r détente with Peking and Moscow?

Did Kissinger himself believe that through which he hoped to r ester? Perhaps, but he added America, ready to respond to Moscow. Once this policy applied, it was, as the saying went around in 1976, during and after the War, all external affairs. It refused to spend to avoid the victory it supported by Cuban troops.

Even after Nixon's resignat advocate détente. He advised When I criticized him for his oligarchs in the Kremlin, he received our dissidents?" I am their dissidents, and he did not power oscillated between two compatible: on the one hand, most resolute form—to preven t Italy, Angola—and on the other, commercial and technical agree ments. Soviet Union as a revolutionary Union, as one of the two great powers in the world in conformity with certain concessions, which the means to block. Resistance to hand, integration of the United States on the other—neither of the two ideas do not demand the democratic society; and, be domestic dissension—Kissing er enterprises.

1. They demonetarized gold i had no reason to attack those w

KISSINGER AND THE

iandarin

inger was seen by the new admin-
istrative agreements, much more a dove
affairs.

1? The answer is not self-evident. It is fundamentally different from the American political class in general, by what I would call his views, and his gift for American journalists (and all American men might say that his intellectual

essentially from that of 1977? For a half-
year by asking the question: In his
the “coalition government” in
the war was inevitable. The fall of
result and hence the spread of
read Kissinger’s memoirs, I am not
feel strengthened in my impres-
sis adviser, pressed by internal and
out a negotiated peace. To pacify
back American forces; to save the
en its army; to bring the North
y used their air force. The Paris
in any event, the fall of Nixon cut

did not have to do exclusively with
any event, sooner or later, the United
ations with Peking, relations all the
barrel between the two capitals of
offered obvious opportunities to
help both aided North Vietnam, with-
American dialogue with Peking could
United States and toward Vietnam.
at this diplomacy, which remains
wise of events in Vietnam. In 1972,
acked neither artillery and missiles
nition for the spring offensive. The
in the United States and the USSR;
aper did not prohibit Moscow from
ation” movements. Détente changed
stance of the rivalry between the two
had not themselves been conducting
would have denounced the illusions

KISSINGER AND THE END OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY 403

of détente. Thus, Nixon's 1981 book, *The Third World War*, develops a
philosophy of international relations far removed from his enthusiasm for
détente with Peking and Moscow.

Did Kissinger himself believe in détente, in the network of agreements through which he hoped to restrain and then tame the revolutionary mon-ster? Perhaps, but he added that this policy required a strong, vigilant America, ready to respond to any attempt at aggression or subversion from Moscow. Once this policy appeared to be the expression of a divided Amer-ica, weary of its imperial burden, it was condemned. Now, from 1973 to 1976, during and after the Watergate scandal, the Senate closely controlled all external affairs. It refused to appropriate the funds that Kissinger wanted to spend to avoid the victory in Angola of the party connected to Moscow and supported by Cuban troops.

Even after Nixon's resignation, while preaching firmness, he continued to advocate détente. He advised President Ford not to receive Solzhenitsyn. When I criticized him for his concern not to offend the sensibilities of the oligarchs in the Kremlin, he answered first: "What would we think if they received our dissidents?" I answered that we did not have the equivalent of their dissidents, and he did not insist on the point. At bottom, Kissinger in power oscillated between two attitudes that he considered, or hoped, to be compatible: on the one hand, the pursuit of the policy of containment in its most resolute form—to prevent Communists from coming to power in Chile, Italy, Angola—and on the other, strategic arms limitation treaties and com-mercial and technical agreements for Soviet-American cooperation. The Soviet Union as a revolutionary power, had to be contained; the Soviet Union, as one of the two great military powers, aimed to occupy a position in the world in conformity with its strength, and it was appropriate to grant it certain concessions, which the United States, incidentally, did not have the means to block. Resistance to an ideological-military imperialism on one hand, integration of the United States's alter ego into the concert of nations on the other—neither of these ideas calls for criticism. Unfortunately, the two ideas do not demand the same language—weakness can be fatal in a democratic society; and, because of circumstances—Vietnam, Watergate, domestic dissension—Kissinger achieved only imperfect success in both enterprises.

NOTES

1. They demonetarized gold in a certain sense, but the holders of the yellow metal had no reason to attack those who were responsible for this step.

EPILOGUE

475

wercome, or at least to with-

all or celebrate it as the origin according to his feelings and kind should be left to the experts, or even to a philosopher or sage. These historical judgments.

Through and suffering from the dying and a culture that they offers the path to power and what the West no longer knows, what it destroys. Deprived of the same responsibilities; they do so less through their actions. The humanity is strewn with dead unfinished in living memory. What, the Aztecs? Who can doubt that the samples on the corpses of men, how even justify the suffering of one can answer. Today, in this socialism characteristic of all past ages, also from facile relativism. The of all, nobles and commoners, states of the century have dissipated guarantee of the progress of men or of the world, and Stalin, contrary to current ideas of progressivism. We know that, but also that the worst is not yet.

He arrived at a more thoroughly revised in thought and action."⁵ How will cultures to exist and resolute reconcile in practice my belonging to my loyalty to my Jewish faith of the use of nuclear arms against nations of innocent people? Could I produce: "Human existence is a thing in an incoherent world, com-融fleeting truth, with no assurance and formal thought"?

between social values and moral

virtues, I would strengthen the foundations of scientific truth and human universalism. As for action, I would describe our historical condition more concretely, but not in fundamentally different terms. In quiet periods, within modern democratic societies, the citizen has few occasions to live through the terrors of adventurous decisions. When we hesitate between American and Soviet protection, we are involved in an incoherent world, we choose one social configuration against another, both of which are imperfect, and we resign ourselves to a possible horror that we should perhaps reject absolutely.

About fifty years ago, I wrote that our historical condition was dramatic. Should we say dramatic or tragic? In some respects, tragic is more appropriate than dramatic. Tragic is the necessity to establish security on the basis of the nuclear threat; tragic, the choice between the accumulation of conventional weapons and the nuclear threat; tragic, the destruction of old cultures by industrial civilization, but tragedy would be the final judgment only if a fortunate conclusion, beyond tragedy, was not even conceivable. I continue to think a happy end possible, far beyond the political horizon, an Idea of Reason.⁶

Have I felt regret for not having been the Kissinger of a Prince, as some have suggested, notably Jean d'Ormesson? I would answer them in a friendly way that they are wrong. Roger Martin du Gard, in his still unpublished memoirs, sketches an excessively flattering portrait of me, and explains why I "will not rule."⁷

As for me, I think that I simply never possessed the qualities necessary to exercise power, even at the level of an adviser. Prudent in my writings, I have difficulty in controlling my speech. I allow myself to express extreme ideas, to respond to circumstances or to express moods which do not represent my deepest thoughts and risk discrediting them. A political man has to hold his tongue as well as his pen. I am not incapable of adapting my words to my audience, but diplomatic language is painful to me. I like to speak without weighing my words, and even the most trivial lie costs me an effort: I lack imagination in refusing a dinner invitation or a request for a lecture.

There is more. I never claimed to have the competence of a professional economist. To be sure, most finance ministers themselves do not have the competence of those who teach or administer the economy. Why should a minister, if he were seeking an adviser outside the administration, choose a man like me, on the periphery of all disciplines, a free spirit inclined toward passions that are hardly compatible with the duties of adviser?

The case of Henry Kissinger obsesses commentators, because of my relations with him and his feelings toward me, which he expresses freely, even in my absence. My grandchildren will proudly preserve the copy of his

476

The Reprieve

Memoirs with the inscription: "To my teacher" (unless historians remove Kissinger from his pedestal and I share with him in the fickleness of fate). Presiding over the National Security Council in Washington, informing the President of the United States every morning about the state of the world, negotiating for him in Peking or Moscow—such a role would have fascinated me if I had been an American citizen. All the more so because Bundy, Rostow, Kissinger, and Brzezinski, professors at Harvard or MIT, whose status was comparable to mine, acceded to the post without an electoral campaign, without laying siege to the Prince. Of course, as an American citizen, I would have sought the experience of power, but I would—I hope—have understood in time that I did not have the stuff of a Kissinger.

Intelligence, knowledge, and judgment are not enough. Performance is also required, of which I would most probably have been incapable: to impose oneself in the jungle of Washington disputes, personal and political, to seduce the press or at least avoid its hostility, to make or inspire often necessary decisions that send young men into battle and death. Not that I reject the use of force, in theory or in practice. But it is one thing to agree abstractly to the recourse to arms, and another to convince the president here and now to take that step. My scrupulous nature and my hatred of violence would have told against me in the post occupied by an exceptional intellectual like Kissinger.

Enough of these confessions about the unreal. Let us imagine a position in France comparable to that of adviser for diplomacy and defense. None of the presidents of the Fifth Republic has needed such an adviser, and none of them would have accepted him. And the position would not have been very exciting. A substantial part of General de Gaulle's diplomacy did not go beyond stage management. What remains from his journeys to Latin America, Rumania, or Poland, but the memory of acclaim? A few of his decisions remain: leaving the integrated command of NATO, attempting and failing at a Franco-German alliance designed to remove the two countries from "American hegemony," reestablishing relations with Moscow (neither understanding nor cooperation followed from this détente). Since then, French diplomacy has been composed of two aspects: permanent negotiations with our partners in the European Community and action in the rest of the world.

In Africa, France is attempting to preserve its sphere of influence, to maintain its links with Francophone countries. From time to time, crises arise, in Chad, the Central African Republic, Kinshasa. Decisions, correct or not, require neither clairvoyance nor uncommon courage. In the Near East, French diplomacy has hardly gone beyond declarations, for lack of the means necessary to have a direct effect on events. France is absent from no part of the world but, even though the presidents of the Fifth Republic, like American presidents, act as their own foreign ministers, they delude them-

selves. Since the death of the European Community, France. This is not what gives France themselves, the quality of the

I envisaged neither a minister the Conseil Constitutionnel, and still occasionally awakens constantly asked myself: Did people who listened to me? In my country, the instructionnalism outside France? Did I which, in all circumstances,

During my dozen years at influence I might have. I bro of industrial society, the poor interpretation of Montesquieu teaching may not have had the of a specialist in questionna careers as sociologists. But transition between the Sort exploded in 1968, a more tradi following the path from analy no better than I. Better for technical training of sociolog and, in the last analysis, its fi

The question I asked my political content of my teach alluded to my contacts with the Saint-Cloud. A few months a I received from a former stu he did not intend to publish

Here we are in the twilight of Société française de philosophie, an enormous forehead and a Raymond Aron—in an awl prominent nose, a mouth by with cool detachment, on a uncertainty of the future of his Basch, his whole body trembl conviction: freedom was bor progress, it is a light that wi replies with cold courtesy th

# Memoirs

## Fifty Years of Political Reflection

### Raymond Aron

Translated by George Holoch

### Foreword by Henry A. Kissinger

*(continued on back flap)*

## About the Author

Aron's accomplishments as a gifted academic, prominent journalist, and prolific author have won international acclaim. He held professorships in philosophy, political science, and sociology at distinguished universities in Europe and the United States. He served as editor of *La France libre*, regularly wrote editorials for *Le Figaro*, and frequently contributed articles to prominent journals such as *La Table Ronde, Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, Commentary*, and the *New York Times Magazine*. His books of social and political philosophy continue to have significant import for—and impact on—contemporary observers of world affairs.

America 1990 by

Meier Publishers, Inc. All rights
be reproduced or transmitted in
mechanical means now known or to
ing, recording, and information
out permission in writing from the
who may quote brief passages in a

Mémoires: 50 ans de réflexion
ations Julliard, Paris. The English

ing-in-Publication Data

2. Intellectuals—France—

89-7621
CIP

ES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY

HENRY A. KISSINGER

ix

PART I
Political Education

1905-1939

1 MY FATHER'S WILL 3

2 STUDIES AND FRIENDSHIPS 19

3 THE DISCOVERY OF GERMANY 36

5 DESPERATE OR SATANIC 75

6 THE ROAD TO CATASTROPHE 91

1939-1955

7 THE WAR 111

8 THE NONLYRICAL ILLUSION 137

9 JOURNALIST AND MILITANT 160

10 THE DIVISION OF EUROPE 180

v

i

PEACE AND WAR

303

the Storm

dozens of books: Who can determine circumstances?

I thought through the consequences of the Century of Total War I raised the replacement or a preparation for total international scene were obvious to European concert; dispossession of Europeans; a distinction between the two superpowers and their ideological and political; the existence of nuclear weapons.

My first conceptual essays on international of the book that became Peace and Great Debate: Theories of Nuclear War Press, 1965), but in my articles I was called on the other side of the issue—an inaccurate term, since the than with the possible or actual use of nuclear as the nuclear weapon changes by itself it does not exhaust strategy. This makes up only a part of strategic

ries of courses on industrial society, International relations. These two courses, which correspond to the first two parts of biology. I then took a year's leave from a research professor at Harvard. On my return, entitled "Histoire" and "Praxist" (French and English, is equally rare in all by a number of commentators.)

approximately a decade. I had spent a year writing it. When it was published, I only exaggerated its value.

Evaluation—even more than my election city and the journalist. Annales organiser Pierre Renouvin, Alain Touraine, and the subject. Pierre Nora was kind to my second thesis. In a sense, he was deemed to university figures, Alexandre Demy to journalism. Even Peace and War

The review in the *New York Times* was written by Henry Kissinger, who called the book "profound, civilized, brilliant and difficult." The adjective "difficult" did not surprise me, but I do not think it is justified, unless an eight-hundred-page book is by definition difficult. In a personal letter, Leo Strauss, whom I admired deeply, and whom I had met in Berlin in 1933, but whom I had not seen since then, wrote that after reading *Peace and War*, he thought that it was the best book on the subject.

308

A Professor in the Storm

The Great Debate was well received in the United States and used in several universities. Robert McNamara had my book on his desk when I saw him in the Pentagon. He told me that among the countless books on the subject he preferred mine (flattery to a journalist? Kissinger told me that McNamara had said the same thing to him). It hardly matters. This little book, written in the country in three weeks, immediately after the course I had given at the Institut d'Etudes politiques, hardly contributed any original ideas (was this possible?), but it undogmatically shed light on a controversy that led finally to psychological speculations. Some details sharpened the analyses: Were the Soviets, by rejecting the hypothesis of limited war, not playing poker, although they were masters at chess? Weren't the Americans, by multiplying on paper the intermediate stages between all or nothing, between apocalypse and capitulation, dreaming of a strategic chess game? Did the Americans wish to confront an adversary who was conversant with the subtleties of strategic thought, or on the contrary, an adversary who was ignorant of American thought? In short, would they invite a Politburo member to take courses at the Rand Corporation?

Robert McNamara discussed one of my sentences that had struck him: among allies, I had written, it is desirable to avoid misunderstandings and to foster reciprocal understanding; on the other hand, uncertainty, if not misunderstanding, ought to continue between enemies. The secretary of defense, inclined toward rational thinking, had difficulty in accepting the ambiguity of relations between enemies. However, an element of bluff seems to me inevitable in diplomatic crises. To be sure, looking at history, one can attribute to lack of communication some responsibility for the outbreak of wars, particularly the 1914 war. If the Austrians had known that the Russians would take the risk, or the initiative, of a major war in order to support Serbia, they might have acted otherwise. But in fact, from the very beginning, the Austrians were playing for high stakes: to punish Serbia according to their lights and, strengthened by the total support of Berlin, to intimidate Russia and force it into passivity. They were not unaware of the possibility of general war, but could they attain their objective without accepting this danger? The fact remains that, in present crises, in the shadow of the nuclear apocalypse, the actors will draw from uncertainty, from the unpredictability of the enemy's response, conclusions that are more favorable to peace. As long as the powers are in opposition, have incompatible objectives, and

exchange threats of the use of reduced to the level of a debacle which will not neces: which escapes from a total rati to the intentions of the particij

What explains the burst of F or three years, near indifferent generally unaware of the devel think tanks. Kennedy introduc Since most ministers and com massive retaliation and of the si tion line), the apparent subtle stood, or at least interpreted i Americans. The Germans unde and thus accepted, the occup questioned the value of Ameri lois—no state can protect ano would not sacrifice their cities t

This thesis made up the final deterrent force and its effectiver the preceding chapte: with ref

Does the nature of nuclear we: weak against the strong? There are weapons any one of which cou equality or balance changes its circumstances, deter a great pow harms he could create and those push this plausible idea to extren enemy that it is really ready to a would inflict. A rational formulat ticularly difficult: the prize repre risk that would be taken by the agi power? What is the "risk" that t natively, what French president w had not been attacked with nucle

Once the abstract plausibility of had been accepted, it was appropr circumstances, not through a scheme what was at stake, but in a concrete France has no border with the S

P

[d]

# FOREWORD

## Henry A. Kissinger

ix

LC

## Foreword

x

Until his death some thirty years later, that first meeting set the tone of our relationship. I genuinely admired Raymond Aron; in turn, he gave me every indication of his regard, even of his affection, though in these memoirs he feels compelled—quite properly—to make clear that he was never one to surrender his judgment to the friendship of a Secretary of State.

Aron's friendship for Aron side by side with his defense occasionally scathing—criti- being implemented, inclu- Vietnam he deplored the death of his partner, even as he understood the...

Through the decades, Aron of freedom. He never joined Sartre and Merleu-Ponty. He walked alone for the rest of his life, too late to give him the freedom he so deeply desired. was his due.

Documenting Aron's inti- most devoted biographer, his honesty and the dedication of his fans for posterity, Aron undertook the writing of this book.

In this intellectual biog- raphy, Aron reader through the spirit of the times, through the events most significant articles and books by him, and through the extraor- dinary events on the way. The memoirs a caring personality whose character the impetus for his extraor- dinary life and his writing life.

For a man like myself, diplomacy, Aron's book is a must-read. It is a must-read for all statesmen and politicians to Western thought.

This is as it should be. Aron addresses contingencies. The policymakers must deal with ultimate goals; the diplomats must see the big picture, the overall picture, and the ultimate solution often than not turn into a...

De Gaulle characteristic of him. Aron: "It happens that I am the only one who knows that from the outside, who please believe that I can accomplish the great tasks of state, measureless and, in any event, without the aid of any outside power." I last saw Aron in the spring of 1945.

ord

 mixture of intellectual rigor and emo-
tion, Aron not only wrote for
outlets, Aron inducing other well-known French

tions, that first meeting set the tone of
Raymond Aron; in turn, he gave me
his affection, though in these memoirs
to a Secretary of State.
Aron speculates about whether he was
had no such doubts. They realized
committed to liberty, to Western

I witnessed the decline and rebirth
of the Jews. He lived through the
civil in London during the war and all
colonization and internal debate of

Aron maintained his sense of pro-
tion. Like a rock against which the
he very cause of their turmoil, in
the figure to illustrate others' tran-
slation of Aron represent in
this day! By the time the Second
nlessed the fatuousness of a policy
of Eastern Europe by a defensive
he failure to resist—in the name of
cupation of the Rhineland, which
it effected the overthrow of the
and that the British guarantee of
of the Soviet borders since the
iet Union without first crossing
more, paradoxically and unjustly,
lered more difficult by Britain's

d the Free French. Throughout
er of European unity, American
n. In the travails of France, he
an early advocate of Algerian
solution of greater autonomy
colonies were on the road to

Foreword

xi

Aron's friendship for America was deep but far from uncritical. Indeed, he was side by side with his defense of Atlantic partnership, persisted a masterful- occasionally scathing—critique of the policies by which this partnership was being implemented, including those of the author of this foreword. On Vietnam he deplored the extent to which America had staked its prestige even as he understood the struggle to extricate itself with honor. Through the decades, Aron never wavered in his commitment to the cause of freedom. He never joined the Marxism in vogue with such contemporaries as Sartre and Merleu-Ponty, or the fashionable anti-Americanism of Malraux. He walked alone for the greater part of his life, only to be vindicated at the end by the turn of French intellectuals away from Marxism—though perhaps too late to give him the formal recognition of intellectual leadership which was his due.

For a man like myself, involved for many years in the mundane tasks of diplomacy, Aron's book is not always comfortable reading. Clearly, his judgment of my efforts as a statesman is less admiring than mine of his contributions to Western thought.

This is as it should be. The philosopher deals with truth; the statesman addresses contingencies. The thinker has a duty to define what is right; the policymaker must deal with what is attainable. The professor focuses on ultimate goals; the diplomat knows that his is a meandering path on which there are few ultimate solutions and whatever "solutions" there are, more often than not turn into a threshold for a new set of problems.

[v]

R
M
E

xii

## Foreword

In the final years he had taken to kissing me whenever we met or parted—a sign, I felt, that he thought every meeting might be our last. A few months after Draguignan, Aron died, on the steps of a courthouse where he had gone to testify for a friend unjustly accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

Mandarin

on of thought amounts to a sort of self-deception; at another extreme, there are those who judge themselves to be total, judging not reserved the term *ideology* in the today.

In the same category the Statesmen of various economic systems are divided into two classes: those who, as said to lead to classless societies; on the other, we consider the nations, we study the various solutions, to explain the probable course of history. Unity of fact and value, and theism of what is and what ought to be, on the other: the opposition had not dare to describe the two attitudes.

The vocabulary, I wrote in 1977, is first of all given the two ideal types, then the perious, derived from doctrines hoste the resemblance between the themes used by propaganda, the ceaseless ness of themselves that modern society, consciousness they owe to so-called first regimes, this communication leads into a state truth a certain version of used on it. In the West, our societies edge of themselves nor a single vision

real.

To decrees a universal truth, refusing lesire; the liberal or critical thinker, are of the ambiguity of reality itself,gments into question. Skepticism? the truth, and he will never budge maxims that are as moral as they are sting my attitude to that of the true ions. I was mistaken in calling one to adapt a title used by Pascal: *Du*

2 3

Between 1947 and 1958, my columns in *Le Figaro* dealt for the most part with economic concerns and developments in international diplomacy. The rivalry among the parties of the Fourth Republic held little interest for me, since the various governments, all coalitions, all carried out essentially similar policies. The Republican Front, victorious on paper after the dissolution of the Assembly in 1955, named Guy Mollet as prime minister; it was he who assumed the responsibility of sending draftees to Algeria. At the request of Pierre Brisson, I wrote a few articles on the theme "The Fourth Republic has to reform in order to survive." I foresaw the only reforms possible within the framework of the established regime—which severely restricted their scope. In reality, there had to be a shock, a national crisis, for the republic of the deputies to capitulate so that a constitution like that of the Fifth Republic became conceivable without a break in legal continuity.

Under the reign of General de Gaulle, I had the reputation of belonging to the "opposition." I felt no nostalgia for the "abolished regime." On particular points, I disapproved of the General's diplomacy, but in May 1968, I had no hesitation in deciding which side I belonged to. My criticisms, sometimes

[ic]

385

386

The Years of the Mandarin

excessive or unfriendly, came in part from my conception of the duties of a political commentator, in part from my inclination to keep my distance from the Princes who govern us, and above all from my disagreement with the General's diplomacy.

KISSINGER AND THE ENI

ages, he always adopted toward me that a student. He was never my student. Like me, closer to history than to science, the qualities of the book.

I was not unaware that he had come to the United States in the early 1960s and to Washington. He had not given up wanted to be the best among specialists. But he would probably have said, was not sufficient in itself. Act theory. Einstein is greatly superior to secretary of state triumphs over the best. With some qualifications, I agree with

Did I foresee the exceptional success of Washington? Certainly not. Nor did I. Would he succeed in imposing himself on the world through flattery, forcing the bet yes, but I would certainly not have

Between 1969 and 1975, I met him again. As I remember him, I saw him at the Cambodian crisis, and a second time. Vietnamese offensive was threatening membered my previous visit, since he "You bring trouble." When he came together. Once the AFP mentioned that met President Giscard d'Estaing and I mentioned my conversations with prominent and I derived little from them. hour in New Delhi in 1953. I have a very nothing original or secret. President Park, and I found him more interesting about the division of Korea, pointing out a divided into several kingdoms.

In our conversations between 1969 and 1975, that I could not have learned from him. Nevertheless, contact with the man was Vietnamese, the Israelis, and the Arab. some extent, I sympathized with Kissinger's sense of the term, placing myself in his position. I must have had. Moreover, in our conversations behind his adoption of one attitude, heard the plea for an honorable peace

The Mandarin

From my conception of the chivalrous inclination to keep my distance from all from my disagreement with

my courses at the College of L'Express. In the 1970s

Bretton Woods currency agreement by the power and will of the United States, the two superpowers, by the military were shaken by blows that appalled the 1960s.

Man was permanently in the foreground, than any other American secretary of state, with the possible exception of Lyndon B. Johnson, without hesitation, that he was convinced that the word changes nothing. I retain a nostalgia for my youth in Paris, Nizan, and Canguilhem, as I remember; we gave each other everything, and different to apparent competition. Now, even if politics had not broken down, grown old, deeper and more solid, absorbed by our professions and family, we had to have able conversations.

Adults are quite different. I met Manes, the apartment on the rue du Bac. Our war years. It continues today without end on the same fight, against the same judgments were opposed.

toward the end of the 1940s, when he from time to time in the course of the allowed his career from a distance, the one that made his reputation, Nuclear and the book, but it did not seem to me some extent, stand out from other because of his acute awareness of the considerations.

during my semester at Harvard. He has respect for me, no doubt, or, if not, a sense of his intellectual superiority. Because of the difference in our

ages, he always adopted toward me the stance of a younger man, if not that of a student. He was never my student, but he learned from *Peace and War*. Like me, closer to history than to scientific models, he praised, sincerely I think, the qualities of the book.

Between 1969 and 1975, I met him several times in Paris and Washington. As I remember him, I saw him at the White House first in 1970, during the Cambodian crisis, and a second time in the spring of 1972 when the North Vietnamese offensive was threatening the South Vietnamese army. He remembered my previous visit, since he began the conversation by recalling it: “You bring trouble.” When he came to Paris, we often had breakfast together. Once the AFP mentioned that Kissinger, during a stay in Paris, had met President Giscard d'Estaing and Raymond Aron. I have rarely mentioned my conversations with prominent figures, because they were infrequent and I derived little from them. Pandit Nehru received me for a half-hour in New Delhi in 1953. I have a vivid memory of the man; he told me nothing original or secret. President Park of South Korea granted me a whole hour, and I found him more interesting; in particular, he spoke sensibly about the division of Korea, pointing out that, for centuries, Korea had been divided into several kingdoms.

388

The Years of the Mandarin

surrender. Even with me, he did not always say the same things about a particular subject, for example, on the importance (or lack of importance) of the balance of strategic nuclear forces. In 1969, he observed with hostility the beginnings of Willy Brandt's *Ostpolitik*. I cannot say whether he regularly read my articles. His collaborators probably sent them to him from time to time, the ones that criticized or explicitly praised him, I suppose: only once did he reply in writing to one of my articles, about Cyprus. I criticized him for not having immediately condemned the Greek *coup d'état*, for tolerating this initiative, which provoked the intervention of the Turkish army. An exchange of letters followed. In any event, our relations were the same during and after his reign; I agreed to join the informal study groups that he had created on his return to private life.

In leafing through the collection of articles I had written for *Le Figaro*, I noted with surprise and a feeling of guilt, that I had commented hardly at all on the first stages of American intervention in Vietnam (Kissinger, in his memoirs, confesses that he, too, had not paid much attention to the beginnings of an interminable war). My visit to Hanoi was the first occasion on which I heard of Ngo Dinh Diem, from the general secretary of the French administration. This high-level bureaucrat described Diem to me as the Americans' man, an Annamite mandarin who represented, according to this official, the final recourse, the last card. This conversation took place in October 1953, before Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva conference.

KISSINGER AND THE

referred to in the context of Pari
aries would never give up the
beginning of their enterprise: t
Cochin-China, Annam, and Toul

In 1954, the Vietminh had bro
in the South. Diem immediat
eliminate them, or at least to m
1950s, the Communist Party of t
the "puppets" or the "accomp
Eisenhower left the White Hous
ican military personnel serving i
to the pressure of the joint chi
suddenly increased to more than
States to the defense of a nonc
believe in the domino theory?
memoirs, that he was creating a
east Asia? Even now, I do not kn
ally; I incline toward a rather pri

United States support of the D
simple application of the doctrine
been left outside communist do
this still "free" half.

Europeans, supporters of the
action in Korea. Did the action in
answer depended on many badly
visited South Korea knows, that s
entity, a state, a people, ready to
the North. There is also a patrioti
anticommunist, which involves a
and fully justifies Harry Truman :
there a South Vietnamese patrioti
two Vietnams to the two Koreas c
the East Germans, if they could e
condition of their brothers, "expl
Germans tried to reunite the tw
treated in the West as warmonge
did not seem to me just to call Ar
Republic of South Vietnam imper

Another consideration necessar
erment of the South deserve to l
North Vietnamese brought with t
American press, unmercifully cri

Mandarin

ways say the same things with great importance (or lack of importance). I cannot say whether he was right or wrong, but I know that I probably sent them to him explicitly praised him, I support of my articles, about Cyprus, and condemned the Greek coup d'état. I also know that the intervention of the Turkish army in any event, our relations were the cause of the life.

diplomacy in 1969-75 because of the years?

I had written for *Le Figaro*, I had commented hardly at all on in Vietnam (Kissinger, in his book, paid much attention to the beginning of the war). Hanoi was the first occasion on which the general secretary of the French government described Diem to me as the one who represented, according to this story, to this government.

Following the Geneva agreements, anti-American friction; our allies anticommunist regime, and thereby enmity of the French. An American representative in the task of administration in the task of French troops were the first to sample space for newcomers. At the end of the withdrawal of the French troops in Bien Phu and forced out by the

Geneva agreements did not take effect in North Korea and East Europe. In 1960, Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi organized by Diem's shock of public meetings held by him in other cities? I did not pay much attention to the Indochina War, I had often

involved in the context of Parisian controversies: the Vietminh revolutionaries would never give up the objective they had set forth from the very beginning of their enterprise: the unity of the three regions. For them, Cochin-China, Annam, and Tonkin belonged to a single whole.

In 1954, the Vietminh had brought to the North a fraction of its supporters from the South. Diem immediately attacked the communists in order to eliminate them, or at least to make them harmless. Toward the end of the 1950s, the Communist Party of the North decided to resume the war against the "puppets" or the "accomplices" of American imperialism. When Eisenhower left the White House, there were fewer than a thousand American military personnel serving in South Vietnam; Kennedy acceded partially to the pressure of the joint chiefs of staff, and the number of "advisers" suddenly increased to more than 15,000. Why did he commit the United States to the defense of a noncommunist state in South Vietnam? Did he believe in the domino theory? Did he think, as de Gaulle reports in his memoirs, that he was creating a pole of anticommunist resistance in Southeast Asia? Even now, I do not know what motives inspired Kennedy. Personally, I incline toward a rather primitive interpretation.

Europeans, supporters of the Atlantic Alliance, had approved American action in Korea. Did the action in Vietnam belong to the same category? The answer depended on many badly understood factors. We know, whoever has visited South Korea knows, that south of the 38th parallel, there is a political entity, a state, a people, ready to defend themselves against aggression from the North. There is also a patriotism, which is inextricably both Korean and anticommunist, which involves a condemnation of the 25 June 1950 invasion and fully justifies Harry Truman and Dean Acheson. In 1954, or 1960, was there a South Vietnamese patriotism? Is it legitimate or not to compare the two Vietnams to the two Koreas or the two Germanies? No one doubts that the East Germans, if they could express themselves freely, would choose the condition of their brothers, "exploited by capitalism." And yet, if the West Germans tried to reunite the two pieces of the old Reich, they would be treated in the West as warmongers, by everyone, right or left. It therefore did not seem to me just to call American participation in the survival of the Republic of South Vietnam imperialist.

Another consideration necessarily influenced our attitudes. Did the government of the South deserve to be saved? Was it preferable to the one the North Vietnamese brought with them? The Western press, particularly the American press, unmercifully criticized the violations of democratic rules

390

The Years of the Mandarin

under the government of the South. It reported the horrors of the camps— since there were camps in the South. Hence, the question arises: by fighting for South Vietnam, was the United States fighting for a strategic position, for the ideas of the West, or to preserve its prestige, or, according to Kissinger's expression, its credibility?

Personally, if memory does not deceive me, I inclined toward the following position: it would be desirable, for the South Vietnamese and the United States, for the Republic of South Vietnam to survive; but was the United States able to pursue this enterprise to the very end? The cost of the war would perhaps be greater than the value of what was at stake. In other words they risked not only committing a sin but a mistake. Divided by these divergent, if not contradictory, feelings and analyses, I sought refuge in one of my roles, that of spectator of human folly and misfortune.

The Vietnam war had an original aspect, when compared to previous so- called wars of liberation or to the Korean campaign. The North Vietnamese divisions did not cross a demarcation line as the North Korean troops had done. The "partisans" carrying on the "small war" in the South had access to logistical support, but also to constantly renewed reinforcements of soldiers recruited and trained in the North. In response to North Vietnamese aggres- sion, the Johnson regime inaugurated a strategy inspired by the doctrine of escalation that was put into effect by the air force. The Americans did not seek out the troops and the industries of the North to fight against the former or to seize the latter; they bombarded the territory of a state with which they were not at war but one which was strengthening and supplying the fighters in the South.

What was the strategic significance of these bombings? Those directed against the Ho Chi Minh trail were aimed, if not at preventing Northern soldiers from reaching the South, at least at reducing their number. I remember a conversation with Robert McNamara at the Pentagon around 1966. As was his custom, he illustrated his ideas with diagrams. He drew three lines, one over the other: the first represented the number of people moving from North to South in the absence of bombing; the second the number in spite of bombing; the third, still lower, the number that would be necessary to change decisively the course of operations. The bombing, not on the Ho Chi Minh trail, but in North Vietnam, had the purpose of "punishing the enemy," devastating the opponent's territory—a return to the practice recorded throughout the centuries. In the last century, during the conquest of Algeria, the French did not refrain from similar methods, for example, poisoning wells and depriving caravans of their sources of water. The Washington leaders, Lyndon Johnson and his cabinet, informed Hanoi of their intentions to bomb the North if infiltration into the South and resupply of the Vietcong did not come to an end. They applied the doctrine,

KISSINGER AND THE E

developed by professors in the cor- increase in the use of violence, Hanoi to abandon their enterprise.

I analyzed this original form of the war against subversion, skeptical about the impact of bombings caused property damage on cities (when the Americans who visited Hanoi after the Paris agree- city was essentially still standing, imagined).

The psychological effect of the bombing of Germany had been dis- cussion "held." The threat of escalation in the Vietnam government. It did not seem to rattle the Canadians seriously. It did not double their anxiety. "To make others believe that Americans had to believe in it themselves," the Americans should do, I escalation. In each case, the mess- ient because of the very skepticism.

A few months ago, my friends, whether I had "approved" America's been told so as to cure them of the different in nature from the one as Missika: Did you condemn torture by the insistence of my questioner Seele). In 1945, I hoped that Fran Kys. In 1965 or 1968, there was a chance to me preferable to the totalitarian preserve this republic, in a "dubious impulse, but rather from an illusory be detested just as torture had obliged to refrain from using the answer: of course.

The battle was all the more difficult themselves had no clear idea of what was going on between 1954, and 1960, the su- expression of containment. In 1961 disaster of the Bay of Pigs and by the way to show that he was tough,

ndarin

ed the horrors of the camps—the question arises: by fighting for a strategic position, for justice, or, according to Kissinger's

When compared to previous so-called antiwar campaigns. The North Vietnamese and the North Korean troops had a war" in the South had access to armed reinforcements of soldiers sent to North Vietnamese aggression inspired by the doctrine of force. The Americans did not want to fight against the former territory of a state with which they were fighting and supplying the fighters

of these bombings? Those directed at not preventing Northern states from reducing their number. I saw a photo at the Pentagon around ideas with diagrams. He drew the number of people killed in a bombing; the second the number that would be killed, the number that would be operations. The bombing, not Vietnam, had the purpose of the American effort to control the territory—a return to the South. In the last century, during the rain from similar methods, for the benefit of their sources of water, did his cabinet, informed Hanoi, introduce filtration into the South and North. They applied the doctrine,

392

The Years of the Mandarin

Walt W. Fostow, who was National Security Adviser between McGeorge theories he is so fond of: Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese expansion were the latest expression of revolutionary romanticism. American victory over this ideological conqueror would signify the end of an epoch. Other Washington advisers saw, behind Ho Chi Minh, Lin Piao and the surrounding of cities by countryside, or Chinese imperialism, others still the imperialism of the Kremlin. Events since then have confirmed the latter interpretation.

The Tet offensive was, in fact, a failure on the part of the Vietcong. Nowhere did the population join the "freedom fighters." Those fighters committed inexcusable activities. They forced victims to dig the ditches into Hue. My friend, Pham Duy Khiem, ambassador of South Vietnam to Paris in 1954, distributed through AFP on 13 April 1968 an indignant report on the conduct of the Vietcong in the regions they controlled for a few days. "These intellectuals failed to contemplate what remains of so many simple functionaries, innocent agents of the administration and their families, soldiers on leave, French priests, German teachers with their wives buried alive (around three hundred so far), or killed after mutilations and various tortures (around seven hundred), sometimes chained together with barbed wire." This report sank into indifference and oblivion. The cause transfigured the crimes of the North, it aggravated those of the South.

KISSINGER AND T.

cong or, if you prefer, could and the Communist Party of the People's Republic of Vietnam eliminate the South from the government of the United States. Thieu and his allies to withdraw and their cause, confessed that foreign army.

Nixon and Kissinger knew Vietnam War, but neither the war yet understood that North Vietnam, scarcely veiled in mystery, would end with Vietnam in less than a year. Doubts. Before being named National Security Adviser, Kissinger himself, in his memoirs with Vietnam, the enemy (a Vietnamese government) one between the United States and two Vietnamese governments. They did not "recognize" the Thieu regime of the world, reduced to the pit of Vietnam, once the strategy of the war correctly foresaw a continuation of

For example, on 2 July 1969, I, the President, signed a political agreement between North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, both to withdraw from Vietnam. The enemy (a Vietcong government) is finding a replacement government if it continue to reject, with the same arguments, the Saigon.'" A little further on: "It is a Vietnam War,计 counting on the weakly to carry off their political victory, the war has been transferrable on for the last moments has will it months, will Nixon be able to resist the NUMBERS and more and more violencerears, today like yesterday, under Nix but that between politics, and might be a third way, on the day when their enemy as patient as themselves to make that judgment?" In other words, "defeat or prolonged war."

In 1972, after the failure of the North demilitarized zone, I hoped for a conv

[vi]

Indarin

ings of the administration. While evident, he was prodigal in expenses. As the United States began to float and his advisers knew little of the dollar and dollars, against whom or with whom any lives and so much wealth could be made, the one of those *weltgeschichtlichen* (world geschichtlichen) Vietnamese expansion were the basis of an epoch. Other Washington and the surrounding of cities by Americans still the imperialism of the latter interpretation.

The part of the Vietcong freedom fighters.” Those fighters killed victims to dig the ditches into notables of the imperial city of Saipan of South Vietnam to Paris in 1968 an indignant report on the controlled for a few days. “These mains of so many simple functions and their families, soldiers on their wives buried alive (around them and various tortures (around their with barbed wire.” This report use transfigured the crimes of the

and Kissinger came to power, I the Republicans had no response. States in the Vietnam War. Nixon and, in a few months, have opinion, or at least by the most were the demands of the North? tion government,” from which, puppets.” Thieu and his supporting South Vietnam and symbolizing “provisional government of the third force,” which some opposition, were not an intermediary and those of Hanoi; allies or indistinguishable from the Viet-

Kissinger, if you prefer, could not distinguish themselves from the Vietcong and the Communist Party of the North. The “coalition government” implied the elimination of the South Vietnamese government, and hence the capitulation of the United States. The American Republic “should have” forced Thieu and his allies to withdraw, in which case it would have betrayed them and their cause, confessed that they existed only by grace of the power of a foreign army.

Nixon and Kissinger knew that the voters expected them to end the Vietnam War, but neither the voters nor even the members of Congress had yet understood that North Vietnam was demanding the capitulation of the United States, scarcely veiled by the formula of the coalition government. Kissinger himself, in his memoirs, tells how he hoped to reach an agreement with Vietnam in less than a year. Nixon, who was more prescient, had strong doubts. Before being named National Security Adviser, Kissinger had presented the two sets of negotiations he anticipated in a *Foreign Affairs* article, one between the United States and North Vietnam, the other between the two Vietnamese governments. The North rejected the second set, since it did not “recognize” the Thieu regime, obliterated by the communist vision of the world, reduced to the pitiful role of imperialist “puppet.” Thus in 1969, once the strategy of the Republican administration was known, I correctly foresaw a continuation of the war.

For example, on 2 July 1969, I emphasized primarily the impossibility of a political agreement between Hanoi and Washington: "If President Nixon wants both to withdraw from Vietnam and not to concede political victory to the enemy (a Vietcong government in Saigon), he will have difficulty in finding a replacement government for the South. And the North Vietnamese continue to reject, with the same firmness, dialogue with 'the puppets of Saigon.'" A little further on: "It is as though the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were counting on the weariness of the American people in order finally to carry off their political victory. In the absence of a decision on the battlefield, the war has been transformed into a contest of wills. Whoever holds on for the last moments has won. If the war is not over in eighteen months, will Nixon be able to resist the opponents, who are more and more numerous and more and more violent?" And I concluded: "Do the Americans, today like yesterday, under Nixon as under Johnson, have any choice but that between political defeat and the continuation of hostilities? There might be a third way, on the day when the North Vietnamese considered their enemy as patient as themselves. But what miracle would enable them to make that judgment?" In other words, I correctly formulated the alternative: defeat or prolonged war.

In 1972, after the failure of the North Vietnamese offensive across the demilitarized zone, I hoped for a conversion of North Vietnamese diplomacy,

[u]

394

The Years of the Mandarin

the acceptance of an American-Vietnamese agreement without the liquida-
tion of the Thieu regime, in other words a cease-fire without a political
solution, a resolution that the North Vietnamese had resisted up to that
point. It was in October 1972, in fact, that the North Vietnamese made the
major concession, on the basis of which negotiations were to result in a
resolution, which only the members of the Nobel Peace Prize jury confused
with peace. The government of the South, whose existence was denied by Le
Duc Tho, remained in place. "Leopard skin" was the expression used to
describe South Vietnam after the Paris agreements.
We know what happened to these

Kissinger presented the Paris agreements as an almost unexpected success. Nixon and his advisers, to the end, refused surrender, that is, the overthrow of the Thieu government that the Americans had supported for years and for which they had fought. To assume the responsibility for dismissing him themselves would have been dishonorable. Dealing with North Vietnam, while leaving Thieu a chance of survival, was an honorable peace. "President Nixon and his advisers do not refuse to 'lose the war' at any price, if the arrival of the Vietcong to power defines defeat; they want to preserve a chance of not losing it and, above all, not to betray their commitments. Imposing a coalition government on Saigon would signify betrayal. And defeat would become a disaster if the United States betrayed or applied conflict, Vietnam, or face, they would lose the confidence of their friends and the respect of their enemies," I wrote in *Le Figaro* of 30 October 1969. I did not accept, but merely reproduced, the plea that I, like many others, had heard directly from Henry Kissinger. In the same article, I also quoted a few lines from a pamphlet by Robert Kennedy: he also considered an immediate and unconditional retreat of American forces to be impossible and disastrous. "Beyond Asia, a sudden and unilateral retreat would raise doubts about 'the credibility of the United States.'"

KISSINGER AND T

lead to independence. In re-
their right to independence
claimed to defend and illustr
There was no comparison to
the Americans did not want
protecting a government that
government supported by the
the people of the South wish
North? They certainly did not
military offensive that cast the T
Political judgment of this war, it
American Republic to withstand
imprudent strategy, can become

If I had joined my voice to the
Vietnam and angrily attacked Ar-
myself in strange company. The
(or had committed) a mistake by the
rice paddies of Vietnam. But
politically surrender, that is, then
Hanoi, a barely concealed commu-
Kissinger would recognize that it was
States to cut its losses in this fatal ac-
four extra years aggravated disorder
end result would finally have been
event, Kissinger would reply that, how
North Vietnam would not have launched
the 1973 agreements. The Paris ag
Republic of the South, but they implied
thus recognized for the first time.

Of course, no one celebrated on 26
the cease-fire be peace?" and I wrote
war? No one can say. The future depends
of both sides. Thus President Thieu and
ernment will find, if they wish, how
either of violating an agreement that is
uncontrollable. Let us however forge
analysis, without playing the role of
world, as some of our colleagues like to
Since we all feel a kind of physical relief
hope. Perhaps the Vietnamese, left to
intuitively, the secret path to peace, that
ing."

The Mandarin

ese agreement without the help of the North Vietnamese had resisted up to the point that the North Vietnamese made the only negotiations were to result in a treaty of peace with the Nobel Peace Prize jury confirming the death, whose existence was denied by the North Vietnamese.

1973 agreements: two years later, North Vietnam and the demilitarized zone. Thieu or Ho Chi Minh and strengthen the defense perimeter. Within a few weeks, the Communist itself when it launched the war against Communism of the three Kys under a Soviet-

sements as an almost unexpected success, refused surrender, that is, the withdrawal of the Americans had supported for the right. To assume the responsibility for have been dishonorable. Dealing with a chance of survival, was an honorable offer. The Americans do not refuse to 'lose the war' at any cost to power defines defeat; they want to win it, above all, not to betray their commitment on Saigon would signify betrayal. If the United States betrayed or approved, they would lose much more than a inch and unilateral retreat would raise the question of their futures." I wrote in *Le Figaro* of 30 October 1973, reproduced, the plea that I, like many Americans, in the same article, I also support of American forces to be impossible to WIN a unilateral retreat would raise the question of their futures."

I recommend the "radical solution" to the Algerian independence, or at least the early as 1957, at a moment when the need for beginning to organize its troops.

to maintain all or a part of a colonial liberal, compromise solutions would also

If I had joined my voice to the chorus that exalted the resistance of North Vietnam and angrily attacked American "imperialism," I would have found myself in strange company. The United States, in my view, was committing a mistake that had committed) a mistake by committing their forces and their prestige in the rice paddies of Vietnam. But in 1969, should they morally, could they politically surrender, that is, themselves establish a government subject to Hanoi, a barely concealed communist government? After the fact, perhaps Kissinger would recognize that it would have been preferable for the United States to cut its losses in this fatal adventure in 1969 rather than in 1973. The four extra years aggravated disorder and dissension within the republic. The end result would finally have been less negative. I am not so sure. In any event, Kissinger would reply that, had it not been for the Watergate scandal, North Vietnam would not have launched a general offensive two years after the 1973 agreements. The Paris agreements did not definitively save the Republic of the South, but they implied its existence, which North Vietnam thus recognized for the first time.

Of course, no one celebrated on 26 January 1973. I entitled an article "Will the cease-fire be peace?" and I wrote: "The end of this war or the end of a war? No one can say. The future depends on the intentions and the wisdom of both sides. Thus President Thieu and the Provisional Revolutionary Government will find, if they wish, countless opportunities to accuse one another of violating an agreement that is probably inapplicable and certainly uncontrollable. Let us however forget, just for a moment, the rigors of analysis, without playing the role of interpreter of the conscience of the world, as some of our colleagues like to do, self-proclaimed moral arbiters. Since we all feel a kind of physical relief, let us not shut ourselves off from hope. Perhaps the Vietnamese, left to themselves, will discover together, intuitively, the secret path to peace, that reason alone is incapable of discerning."

396

The Years of the Mandarin

A few months later, management of the crisis provoked by the Yom Kippur War, further increased the prestige of Henry Kissinger, an éminence grise who drew all the light to himself and cast his principal into darkness. The Yom Kippur War divided the French, but it did not provoke passions comparable to those that had troubled them before and after the Six-Day War.

KISSINGER AND THE

superior flexibility of a few hundred Syrian tanks. After ceding probably have taken the mountainous military command, had not done military mistake was determining military success in order to erode counting on revenge equivalent to taking place when the Israeli army its armored vehicles to the Sinai in the center of the front, gave Second Egyptian Army. Kissinger's destruction of the encircled army resounding victory for Israel; however made the decision only on the day confronted by genuinely mortal

Who had won? Israel had won than it had suffered; in a few Egyptian armies that had crossed the Egyptians boasted of their success enough to create the conditions for want of a general settlement.

My article of 6 November 1973 provoked some more or less important recapitulated the criticism I had given its army on the Suez Canal. The challenge to the Soviet Union and the world was depriving Egypt of Sinai oil. The solidarity between Egypt and the Soviet Union was unable for any Egyptian government to be created, and the repeated, on the military level, that I in my conversations with Israeli forces on the front on the Canal, a natural line of resistance in the United States during the hostilities, and their dependence on obvious.

Perhaps the fact that struck the world, was the refusal of all the Americans for the disposal of the Americans for thePortugal on the eve of the revolution of the American Air Force to use the Az

The Mandarin

that taught us the truth.

The crisis provoked by the Yom Kippur
festival of Henry Kissinger, an éminence grise
brought his principal into darkness. The
inch, but it did not provoke passions
and them before and after the Six-Day

principally responsible for the fighting.
In 1973, in my view, the roles had been
prepared the operations and taken the
military left him no alternative. Divided
and opponents of Greater Israel, the
posing a solution to its enemies, took
that the Israeli army would remain in
its to negotiate directly with the Jewish
ops, which would deal with everything
course, were not aware that the Arabs
misled by 1967, a dialogue would have

Jerusalem in 1971 with a semiofficial com-
mittee of studying the military and political
region. Sadat, I told them, could not
agree; either Egypt would in some sense
explose by attacking on the outside, in
absence of which Sadat could not follow
grant him a "small victory?" In 1973,
significant.

led to my diagnosis at the time; the
sed the Canal without resistance and
of an Israeli armored brigade, which
ring the early days of the fighting, in a
subt as to whether the Israelis were
across the Canal before the cease-fire.
ogy and Kissinger's conduct during the
rnered: he could not deal with Israel
that he had the necessary means to
he therefore prepared for a battle with
aneuvers, he, so to speak, lulled the
led, as the Israelis had in 1967, in
my had not been mobilized; the order
e morning the Egyptian and Syrian
Israel was served by the heroism and

398

The Years of the Mandarin

## KISSINGER AND THE

The club official had led me to await by almost two hundred Perhaps some of them derived some used in speaking of their boss. Pe had addressed, they showed their to agree with the speaker—ready sympathy to a speaker of a contrary the speech and the questions, wit

Diplomatic storms, in themselves refusal to offer their bases for the response to American diplomacy, Peking, without coordination with contempt, justified or not, is not Bismarck. Moreover, he criticized involving themselves in an affair of which remained, willy-nilly, mere specta indulgent toward the Europeans, I

My admiration for the manager of concern over the scope of détente. not initiated the dialogue with Mos détente. It is nevertheless true that considered the administration re established relations with Peking, in the first agreement on the limitation that, apparently, set out the spirit of conduct their external affairs. Two forms of this good conduct code: restraint, of the two Great Powers to refrain from literally, this text meant that the United States putting an end to their global rival commentators, thought in 1972, after Union would stop supporting or mani

The Yom Kippur War at least reveals ambiguous character of détente. It is whether Brezhnev had urged the Energy Department beyond the Suez Canal. "What we do with material: assault tanks, cannons, weapons. . . . Once battle had been ended, the situation (at least if the letter to President

Mandarin

The major European countries took
its, by however limited a partic-
singer did not conceal his co-
the Europeans. The Europeans in
the Great Powers was taking place
as leading to collusion or collision
aordinary manipulator. When the
vention of airborne troops in the
dent in the middle of the night to
as throughout the world in a state of
Moscow and made an agreement\ reapprived Israel of part of its victory—
wished for without saying it. Then,
and Cairo, he laid the foundation
time, the man who had negotiated
Brezhnev, and Le Duc Tho, and who
or years, reached an agreement,
a miracle man. The leaders of two
r thought of calling on the services of
ck is never far from the Capitol.
and the temporary embargo imposed
y crisis in the foreground. Vietnam,
ops, suddenly became a secondary
f the Marxist-Leninist movement.
antic Alliance resulted only in bland
ergy Agency was the occasion for a
nington, Michel Jobert and Henry
ses of language into which each of the
fused to be a part of the "Energy
ation seemed to me equally insignifi-
cied over the diplomatic methods that
the United States. Should the United
on Market nations adopted a common
ant to confront a European bloc before
in the Atlantic Pact. It was in 1974, I
Department officials to speak in the
of the club asked me for the title of my
and consultation with the official. I
State forgotten the ideas of Professor
o hesitation in writing, in the book
Malentendu transatlantique, that the
ssent, the automatic acquiescence of a
had little patience for the inclinations

The club official had led me to expect an audience of a few dozen; I was
awaited by almost two hundred department officers, sitting and standing.
Perhaps some of them derived some pleasure from the freedom and irony I
used in speaking of their boss. Perhaps as well, like all American audiences I
had addressed, they showed their goodwill, their tendency, for the moment,
to agree with the speaker—ready, on another occasion to extend the same
sympathy to a speaker of a contrary opinion. I remember this occasion, both
the speech and the questions, with pleasure.

Diplomatic storms, in themselves, hardly bothered me. The Europeans'
refusal to offer their bases for the American airlift to Israel I thought of as a
response to American diplomacy, focused on the dialogue with Moscow and
Peking, without coordination with the Europeans. The secretary of state's
contempt, justified or not, is not suitable for a disciple of Metternich and
Bismarck. Moreover, he criticized them for a common declaration—a way of
involving themselves in an affair concerning them, but at which they had
remained, willy-nilly, mere spectators. Although I think I was excessively
indulgent toward the Europeans, I cannot approve Kissinger's arrogance.

My admiration for the manager of the Yom Kippur crisis was qualified by
concern over the scope of détente. Of course, the Nixon administration had
not initiated the dialogue with Moscow, nor had it been the first to speak of
détente. It is nevertheless true that, from 1968 to 1973, public opinion
considered the administration responsible. The United States had re-
established relations with Peking, improved relations with Moscow, signed
the first agreement on the limitation of strategic weapons (SALT I), and a text
that, apparently, set out the spirit in which Moscow and Washington would
conduct their external affairs. Two formulas summed up the essential points
of this good conduct code: restraint, that is, moderation, and the agreement
of the two Great Powers to refrain from seeking unilateral advantages. Taken
literally, this text meant that the United States and the Soviet Union were
putting an end to their global rivalry. No one, at least among professional
commentators, thought in 1972, after Nixon's trip to Moscow, that the Soviet
Union would stop supporting or manipulating movements of "national libera-
tion."

The Yom Kippur War at least revealed, to those who had any illusions, the
ambiguous character of détente. In November 1973, we did not know
whether Brezhnev had urged the Egyptian president to push his troops
beyond the Suez Canal. "What we do know is that Brezhnev was not stingy
with material: assault tanks, cannons, Sam 3s, Sam 6s, individual antitank
weapons. . . . Once battle had been joined, Brezhnev urged the Arabs to
action (at least if the letter to President Boumedienne is authentic), and he

400

The Years of the Mandarin

established an airlift for the resupply of his allies a few days after the outbreak of hostilities, while the United States was still refraining from resupplying Israel. Did the Soviets thereby violate the spirit of détente, the principle of moderation, attempt to gain a unilateral advantage at the expense of their rival? Of course, but it took a good deal of naïveté to take this commitment literally.” (*Le Figaro*, 5 November 1979). But in that case, what remained of the code of good conduct signed in Moscow the year before? The Europeans, Michel Jobert in particular, denounced both collusion and collision. According to the expression of the French foreign minister, the Great Powers shook hands above the airlifts.

At the same time, public opinion, perhaps as much in Europe as in the United States, was gradually becoming half-conscious of a change in the balance of forces in favor of the Soviet Union. In SALT 1, the United States had granted the Soviet Union a forty percent superiority in the number of launch vehicles, compensated by the American advantage in numbers of nuclear warheads (thanks to the MIRV technique, which the Soviets had not yet mastered). Three years later, when the Vladivostok negotiations set forth the broad outlines of an agreement, the Soviets had “MIRV” missiles that were superior in throw-weight, the explosive power of nuclear devices. When SALT 2, negotiated under President Carter, was submitted to the Senate, its opponents raised the question of balance. Nixon and Ford had both accepted the principle of equality in strategic weapons, but did American superiority at the highest level in the scale of violence not represent an essential element of American deterrence not for the security of American territory, but for Western Europe?

In early January 1977, I wrote for *Le Figaro* an analysis which attempted to provide an equitable assessment of his accomplishments and his legacy. I noted first his triumph through the media: "No secretary of state ever gave professional journalists or sensation-mongers so much material, no one ever devoted so much time to them. He was someone who cultivated his public persona. His knowledge of the facts was astonishing, his athletic performances impressive, and his calculated improvisations and outbursts of anger.

KISSINGER AND THE EN

By turns accommodating and brutish endurance. Israelis and Egyptians physical resistance, to his presence in this actor, in both senses of the word, the fire. When events defeated his history. When Saigon fell and the Americans returned to his youthful reading, and the loyal James Reston reported the brutal, 'out of place in the circumspectible star who had conquered'

Then, I noted Kissinger's unique ever judgment one may make about incomparable manager of crises. In (the adjective is meant to be ambiguous which had taken the Israelis by surprise. Syrians were to win a moral victory lose." The management of this crisis president launched his peace offers to Jerusalem.

I then came to the essential point important to him, and what will do global vision which is said to have simultaneously in détente and in Italian Communists. In the interest of Washington, Henry Kissinger agreed. To maintain the balance between the two superpowers, he was not Allende in Chile or declaring the USA a Pole made an ironic remark about where they have made themselves have gained some popularity. To remove from power where they are

Kissinger's policies, apart from their with the policies of the United States. The combination of partial local advances of the Soviet Union, unwritten law of American diplomacy, pointed out the novelty of "détent military forces between the United States, in context, it was hardly possible no inspiration of this balancing act.

When Ronald Reagan and, with

e Mandarin

is allies a few days after the outbreak
was still refraining from resupplying
the spirit of détente, the principle of
ul advantage at the expense of their
1 of naïveté to take this commitment
). But in that case, what remained of
how the year before? The Europeans,
both collusion and collision. Accord-
ign minister, the Great Powers shook

Perhaps as much in Europe as in the
ing half-conscious of a change in the
Union. In SALT 1, the United States
percent superiority in the number of
American advantage in numbers of
technique, which the Soviets had not
the Vladivostok negotiations set forth
the Soviets had "MIRV" missiles that
explosive power of nuclear devices.
President Carter, was submitted to the
tion of balance. Nixon and Ford had
✓ in strategic weapons, but did Amer-
the scale of violence not represent an
ance not for the security of American

appeared to be a superman, the Soviet
erpower, a global power able to use its
world. When Ford lost the election,
wrote his memoirs, but he retained
states, particularly in Congress. But it
he had not disguised or transfigured
erican diplomacy, the decline of the

Figaro an analysis which attempted to
is accomplishments and his legacy. I
edia: "No secretary of state ever gave
ongers so much material, no one ever
as someone who cultivated his public
was astonishing, his athletic perform-
improvisations and outbursts of anger.

Then, I noted Kissinger's unquestioned talent to manage crises. "What-
ever judgment one may make about his global vision, he has been an
incomparable manager of crises. In any event, his Machiavellian masterpiece
(the adjective is meant to be ambivalent) will remain the Yom Kippur War,
which had taken the Israelis by surprise and in which the Egyptians and the
Syrians were to win a moral victory, even though their enemy did not really
lose." The management of this crisis created the basis on which the Egyptian
president launched his peace offensive and startled world opinion by his visit
to Jerusalem.

I then came to the essential point: "In the last analysis, what is most
important to him, and what will determine the judgment of history, is the
global vision which is said to have inspired him and has been demonstrated
simultaneously in détente and in his refusal to establish contact with the
Italian Communists. In the interest of direct relations between Moscow and
Washington, Henry Kissinger accepts Russian domination of Eastern Eu-
rope. To maintain the balance between the respective spheres of influence of
the two superpowers, he was not above helping the enemies of President
Allende in Chile or declaring the historic compromise in Italy unacceptable.
A Pole made an ironic remark about this policy: supporting communists
where they have made themselves hateful and fighting them where they
have gained some popularity. To which he would answer: "How can they be
removed from power where they are hateful?"

Kissinger's policies, apart from the rapprochement with China, are contin-
uous with the policies of the United States since 1947, and especially since
1953. The combination of partial agreements with Moscow and resistance to
local advances of the Soviet Union defines less Kissinger's method than the
unwritten law of American diplomacy for the last thirty years. I nevertheless
pointed out the novelty of "détente," or rather the change in the balance of
military forces between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this
context, it was hardly possible not to raise the question of the underlying
inspiration of this balancing act.