TILT POLICY IN SOUTH ASIA 353

with military equipment as part of the Dulles era effort to contain the
monolithic Sino-Soviet threat; in receiving the arms, Pakistan endorsed
this anti-Communist theme, but regarded the arms primarily as a se-
curity shield against India. U.S. policy-makers later faced serious dilem-
mas when Pakistan moved toward a close relationship with China, when
the U.S. supported India against China in 1962, and when Washington
cut off military supply to both India and Pakistan during their 1965 war.

A limited arms supply relationship with Pakistan was resumed after
that war, but by 1971 Pakistan—unhappy over the U.S. failure to sup-
port it in 1965—was playing only a passive role in CENTO and SEATO.
Kissinger is wrong in suggesting that the 1959 U.S.-Pakistan Bilateral
Agreement committed the United States to assist Pakistan in the case
of an Indo-Pakistan war (during the 1965 war, the agreement did not
come into force). The language of the 1959 bilateral agreement was
carefully drafted so that the U.S. would not automatically undertake
any such obligation; rather, it called for the U.S. to provide assistance
“as is envisaged” in the Middle East Resolution—a resolution that was
directed against attacks by Communist countries.⁸¹ Even if one were to
accept Kissinger’s view, who would have decided which country was the
aggressor in late 1971? And would such a finding, and the purported U.S.
commitment, have been supported by the U.S. Congress?

In keeping with his trans-Himalayan geopolitical vision, Kissinger
had another reason for promoting the alliance with Pakistan: he wanted
to demonstrate to Beijing that the United States stood by its “ally” in
time of need. During his preparatory briefings on China, and his con-
versations in Beijing in July and October, Kissinger became convinced
that the Chinese placed a premium on the “reliability” of another coun-
try’s actions.⁸² Consequently, White House policy toward Asia was
strongly influenced by a sensitivity as to how the American actions would
be viewed through the Chinese prism. However, Nixon and Kissinger
seemed to have overemphasized the impact of American actions in the
Subcontinent on the prospective Nixon visit and on the broader Wash-
ington-Beijing relationship. In his December 1971 backgrounder, Kis-
singer said that he did not have the impression that China considered
agreement with the United States on other issues as “a prerequisite for
a successful visit,” a judgment based on the observation that prepar-
ation for the Nixon trip had not been jeopardized by U.S. policies in
Vietnam, nor UN issues on which the U.S. and China differed.⁸³ The
Chinese had a strong independent interest in forging the U.S. connec-
tion as an offset to the Soviet Union, and it seems unlikely that a more

81 For the text, see *Congressional Quarterly*, January 26, 1980, p. 176.

⁸² On the importance of assuring China that the United States was “reliable,” see the interview with Winston Lord, a member of the NSC staff who accompanied Kissinger on his trips to Beijing. Lifschultz, *Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution*, p. 156.

⁸³ *Congressional Record*, December 9, 1971, pp. S21013-S21014; *White House Years*, pp. 704, 710.

354 ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XX, No. 4, April 1980

distant U.S.-Pakistan relationship would have significantly affected the evolving U.S.-Chinese ties.

## Geopolitics Risks War

Persistent suspicions of Indian and Soviet intentions, the belief the U.S. was somehow formally committed to Pakistan, and the ultrasensitivity toward China, set the stage for the most dramatic and disturbing episode described in Kissinger's memoirs: the December 12 White House meeting between Nixon, Kissinger, and General Alexander Haig before Nixon and Kissinger left for the Azores to meet French President Pompidou. By that date, India had given several assurances that it had no territorial ambitions in West Pakistan but it had not provided assurances regarding Kashmir. On the basis of earlier hard line remarks by Huang Hua, the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, Nixon and Kissinger expected that China would "increase its assistance" to Pakistan; if the Chinese moved militarily, they thought the Soviet Union would use force against China. The President decided that the United States would not stand by if the Soviet Union threatened China; and Nixon therefore decided "to risk war in the triangular Soviet-China-America relationship."

The President did not work out the precise nature of the "significant assistance" he planned to extend to China but, to give effect to his strategy, he ordered an eight-ship U.S. Navy task force, headed by the carrier *Enterprise*, to proceed through the Straits of Malacca to the Bay of Bengal. Kissinger sums up the geopolitical rationale for the decision to risk war to save West Pakistan in the following rhetoric-laden passage in *White House Years*:

> The naked recourse to force by a partner of the Soviet Union backed by Soviet arms and buttressed by Soviet assurances threatened the very structure of international order just when our whole Middle East strategy depended on proving the inefficacy of such tactics and when America's weight as a factor in the world was already being undercut by our divisions over Indochina. The assault on Pakistan was in our view a most dangerous precedent for Soviet behavior, which had to be resisted if we were not to tempt escalating upheavals. Had we acquiesced in such a power play, we would have sent a wrong signal to Moscow and unnerved all our allies, China, and the forces for restraint in other volatile areas of the world. This was, indeed, why the Soviets had made the Indian assault on Pakistan possible in the first place.

As it turned out, there was no need to implement any high risk decisions. When the Chinese UN Ambassador next contacted the White House, he made no reference to any military move; instead, he agreed to the proposed solution through the United Nations already accepted by the Soviet Union and Pakistan—a resolution calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal, but with a fallback willingness to accept a cease-fire in

place. Nonetheless, as a precaution, the *Enterprise* task force was ordered to continue toward the margin of uncertainty near Moscow." When Mrs. Gandhi west on December 16, Kissinger decision" resulting from Soviet persistence, including the fleet in Moscow summit.

## Geopolitics Misapplied

In claiming that the White House were undertaken "to preserve mate safety of all free people essentially geopolitical point of those who conducted the policy country." But perhaps this is good "of all free people." To South Asia was flawed both attempting to resolve an essential political, the President and his or misinterpreted the policy necessarily elevated the local in keeping with their thesis to out at all levels and in all regions responsible for the actions of the government should be held responsible for "proxy war" for the USSR.

Among the defects in the failure to perceive the unique cluding the failure fully to understand the millions of refugees in political settlement in East Pakistan and the nature of U.S. combat state" philosophy caused him of the Soviet-Indian relations to Washington that "There is no support for the out assault on West Pakistan." The apocalyptic warning that "the future of international order" was volatile areas of the world"" global heights—and to the help

Despite Kissinger's concern

TILT POLICY IN SOUTH ASIA 355

place. Nonetheless, as a precaution in case the U.S. initiative in the UN failed, the *Enterprise* task force, which had been held up temporarily, was ordered to continue toward the Bay of Bengal to create "precisely the margin of uncertainty needed to force a decision by New Delhi and Moscow." When Mrs. Gandhi offered unconditional cease-fire in the west on December 16, Kissinger was convinced that it was a "reluctant decision" resulting from Soviet pressure that resulted from American insistence, including the fleet movement and the willingness to risk the Moscow summit.

## Geopolitics Misapplied

In claiming that the White House actions saved West Pakistan, and were undertaken "to preserve the world balance of power for the ultimate safety of all free people," Henry Kissinger laments that this "essentially geopolitical point of view found no understanding among those who conducted the public discourse on foreign policy in our country." But perhaps this lack of understanding was for the greater good "of all free people." The Nixon-Kissinger geopolitical approach to South Asia was flawed both in conception and implementation. By attempting to resolve an essentially regional dispute through global geopolitics, the President and his National Security Adviser deemphasized or misinterpreted the political dynamics in the Subcontinent and exaggerated the role and influence of the major external powers. They unnecessarily elevated the local crisis into one of U.S.-Soviet confrontation in keeping with their thesis that the U.S.-Soviet contest must be fought out at all levels and in all regions, and that the Soviets should be held responsible for the actions of their "allies." In this case, the Soviet Union should be held responsible for its "client" India, which was fighting a "proxy war" for the USSR.

Among the defects in this type of geopolitical theorem was the failure to perceive the unique features in the South Asia situation—including the failure fully to comprehend the political-economic impact of the millions of refugees in India, the essential requirements for a political settlement in East Pakistan, the nuances of the Kashmir issue, and the nature of U.S. commitments to Pakistan. Kissinger's "client state" philosophy caused him to misjudge the more balanced character of the Soviet-Indian relationship and to ignore or dismiss Soviet assurances to Washington that Moscow was counseling restraint on India. There is no support for the claim that India had decided upon an all-out assault on West Pakistan; there is certainly no support for the contention that the two countries were working in tandem toward that goal. The apocalyptic warning that such an attack would "threaten the structure of international order" and upset "the forces for restraint in other volatile areas of the world" represents the domino theory raised to global heights—and to the heights of incredulity.

Despite Kissinger's conclusion that skilled White House geoPO-

356 ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XX, No. 4, April 1980

litical diplomacy forced Mrs. Gandhi reluctantly to agree to a cease-fire, he produces no evidence to support this claim. All indications suggest that she reached her decision on the basis of several complex considerations, internal and external, but not as a result of pressure exerted by the Soviet Union at the U.S. behest. At the time of the cease-fire, Indian forces had achieved total military success in East Pakistan, they occupied about 2,500 square miles in the Sind and Punjab provinces of West Pakistan, and they held small parts of Azad Kashmir. But these military successes were at substantial external political cost. Two Soviet vetoes were required to block UN Security Council resolutions calling for Indian withdrawal from East Pakistan, and India was isolated when a similar resolution passed the General Assembly by a 104 to 11 vote, with 10 abstentions. Sensitive to the potential for outside intervention in disidentive regions, no Third World country except Bhutan supported the Indian government nor did any other country outside the Soviet bloc. Having achieved India's war aims in the east, the Gandhi government's decision to declare a unilateral cease-fire was probably influenced largely by the strong international climate favoring the cessation of hostilities.⁸⁴

Once the military issue in East Pakistan was resolved, the Soviet Union was also counseling India in the direction of a cease-fire in the west; at that point, Soviet and American aims were generally similar.⁸⁵ But the Soviets were not significantly influenced by American pressure nor by a potential Chinese military move. They were motivated by independent Soviet interests, in South Asia and elsewhere. Moscow, which had sought to mediate the affairs of the Subcontinent at Tashkent after the 1965 India-Pakistan war, was anxious to prevent further military conflict and to retain its political relationship with Pakistan; it was also sensitive to its negative image in the Middle East as a result of its support of India during the East Pakistan phase of the fighting.

There is no indication that the *Enterprise* deployment had any immediate political or military impact on events in South Asia, although, as noted below, it may have had adverse longer-term repercussions in terms of U.S. interests. The eight ships comprising Task Force 74 did not arrive in the Bay of Bengal until December 15, the day before the fall of Dacca to Indian and Mukti Bahini guerrilla forces; they arrived with the transparently false cover story of helping to evacuate the less than 50 Americans still in Dacca. Since the task force was some 1,300 miles from West Pakistan, and the U.S. had not clearly signaled New Delhi that its deployment had any relationship to events in the west, the Indians apparently concluded that the United States was trying to inject itself into the military picture in East Pakistan at a time when

⁸⁴ Pran Chopra, *India's Second Liberation* (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974), pp. 212-213.

⁸⁵ *Ibid.* See also Nixon interview with *Time* magazine editors. *Time*, January 3, 1972, p. 14.

Indian arms had clearly aware of the task force's needs conveyed through Kirti that the task force had an part of a 1978 Brookings political instrument, a comment concludes that "it is dian support for a cease-fire generated by Task Force the Brookings' conclusion.

In addition to misreacting also misjudged the Chinese jing might take military seemingly hard-line remark there was little to support Revolution, Beijing in mid become militarily involved; communications system in lation in the Sikkim area.⁸⁶ sions had not acted as a result thought carefully before at

## The Closed White House

While many of these tion of a global philosophy policy making under the cloud problem. In the context of tem may have worked reas major powers, such as the viet Union and China. But equipped to handle a mul had not been on the regular months, and required a num as arms supply, aid levels,

Over a period of nine view Group (SRG) and W meetings, most of them in seemed imminent or was u as two months elapsed bett occurred were often devot

⁸⁶ Barry M. Blechman and S. The Brookings Institution, 1978.

⁸⁷ *Ibid.*, pp. 205-206. See also *The Major Powers* (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

⁸⁸ See I. M. Destler, "The Journal, February 1974, pp. 9-10.

TILT POLICY IN SOUTH ASIA

357

Indian arms had clearly prevailed. Although the Soviet Union was aware of the task force's movements, through press reports and "warnings" conveyed through Kissinger's deputy Haig, there is no indication that the task force had any impact on Moscow's decision-making. As part of a 1978 Brookings Institution study of U.S. armed forces as a political instrument, a careful examination of the *Enterprise* deployment concludes that "it is important to emphasize that Soviet and Indian support for a cease-fire was *not* the result of U.S. military pressure generated by Task Force 74."²⁶ Kissinger offers no evidence to refute the Brookings' conclusion.

In addition to misreading Indian and Soviet intentions, Kissinger also misjudged the Chinese, believing, as late as December 12, that Beijing might take military action in support of Pakistan. Despite the seemingly hard-line remarks of the Chinese Permanent Representative, there was little to support this belief. Still embroiled in the Cultural Revolution, Beijing in mid-December showed no serious intention to become militarily involved; it limited itself to exercising its weather net communications system in Tibet and protesting an Indian border violation in the Sikkim area.²⁷ Even if the Chinese internal political tensions had not acted as a restraint, any government in Beijing would have thought carefully before attacking across the Himalayas in winter.

## The Closed White House System

While many of these miscalculations stemmed from a misapplication of a global philosophy to regional disputes, the process of foreign policy making under the closed Nixon-Kissinger system compounded the problem. In the context of the early 1970s, this essentially two-man system may have worked reasonably well on bilateral issues between the major powers, such as those between the United States and the Soviet Union and China. But the White House-centered system was ill-equipped to handle a multifaceted regional crisis, especially one that had not been on the regular White House agenda, extended over many months, and required a number of operational decisions on such issues as arms supply, aid levels, and executive-congressional relationships.²⁸

Over a period of nine months, there were some twenty Senior Review Group (SRG) and Washington Special Action Group (WSAG) meetings, most of them in the November-December period when war seemed imminent or was underway. During the early period, as much as two months elapsed between meetings, and even those sessions that occurred were often devoted to tactics, such as decisions to instruct

²⁶ Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, *Force Without War* (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1978), p. 200.

²⁷ *Ibid.*, pp. 203-206. See also G. W. Choudhury, *India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Major Powers* (New York: The Free Press, 1974), pp. 213-214.

²⁸ See I. M. Destler, "The Nixon System, A Further Look," *Foreign Service Journal*, February 1974, pp. 9-14, 28-29.

358 ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XX, No. 4, April 1980

American ambassadors to urge restraint on host governments, or efforts to determine how much U.S. economic assistance was in the pipeline. Much of the earlier difficulty stemmed from the intersection of the China opening with the Pakistan civil war and President Yahya's role as an intermediary between Washington and Beijing. However, even after the China initiative became public in midsummer, Kissinger failed to explain to senior officials the White House geopolitical approach to the Bangladesh crisis or the rationale for some of the White House decisions.⁸⁹

This lack of effective dialogue, and the cumulative effect of the White House suspicions of the bureaucracy, led to the December 12 meeting at which the beleaguered President and his two associates, Kissinger and Haig, reportedly risked war, isolated from the rest of the Executive Branch and the Congress. The self-induced isolation and failure to consult the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Director of the CIA, and their staffs, contributed to misjudgments of military intentions. It also caused Nixon and Kissinger to overestimate the effectiveness of U.S. actions—such as the cutoff of aid to India and the deployment of the *Enterprise*—and to rely excessively or unnecessarily on secret personal negotiations and the use of the Hot Line. The secretive, inward-looking Nixon-Kissinger system alienated the White House from the Congress on the Bangladesh issue and enhanced prospects of Executive Branch leaks, which proved so damaging to the White House image.

## Legacies of the Bangladesh Crisis

Richard Nixon, who apparently expected to receive credit for Mrs. Gandhi's cease-fire, was unprepared for the mounting postwar criticism of his policies, fueled by Jack Anderson's exposure of Kissinger's handling of the secret White House meetings. Most commentators charged that the U.S. had badly blundered. It had placed itself on the wrong moral side of a civil war and on the losing side of the international war; the Soviet Union had achieved a major diplomatic triumph by supporting India, now the unquestioned dominant power in South Asia, and by aligning itself with the Bangladesh independence cause.

The President attempted to shift blame to the coauthor of the tilt policy, who for several weeks was denied access to the Oval Office and allowed to "twist slowly, slowly in the wind." However, in Kissinger's perception, the South Asia crisis soon disappeared; he patched up his relations with the President, and a "string of spectacular foreign policy successes"—notably the Beijing and Moscow summits—soon wiped out

⁸⁹ For a review of some of the key policy decisions, and observations on the failure of the White House to communicate with the bureaucracy, see Philip Oldenburg, "The Breakup of Pakistan," Appendix, Volume 7 of the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy (The Murphy Commission) (Washington: Supt. of Documents, 1975).

the Bangladesh episode and judges the longer-term repeating it aside as an "episode" time, but without lasting damage, the third affecting adverse legacies of the tilt climate, the effect

The first legacy was the Nixon administration in the foreign affairs community. Secret military actions in Ind trality in the Indo-Pakistan Anderson Papers' revelation: the earlier impressions that were being that the U.S. arms supply was public exposure of Kissinger's than-evenhanded direction at that its public statements and leaks, including Ambassador Delhi questioning a number of forced the impression of Wh bility undoubtedly contributed to the powers of the White House in formulating foreign policy.

Failure of the Nixon administration excesses in the east, while it is sidered to be an authoritaria the mounting criticism of N ac count of the human equilib rger's contention that the civil a brutal effort to suppress t pressed in free elections. T millions of dollars for refugee Congress or with the media; atone for the White House' suffering in East Pakistan. E a higher premium on "geo poli tical Bangladesh crisis was one of human rights as an issue in t

Perhaps the most serious was its effect on the foreign a ment, including the question of mid-1960s there had been a country should take the nuc China's nuclear capability. N but the events of that year p o policy.

TILT POLICY IN SOUTH ASIA 359

the Bangladesh episode and gained popular support. But Kissinger misjudges the longer-term repercussions of the Bangladesh crisis in brushing it aside as an "episode" analogous to a storm at sea—rough at the time, but without lasting damage to the vessel. In fact, there were three adverse legacies of the tilt policy, two affecting the domestic political climate, the third affecting U.S. global security interests.

The first legacy was the further erosion of the credibility of the Nixon administration in the eyes of the Congress, the media, and the foreign affairs community. With its image already tarnished by the secret military actions in Indochina, the administration's professed neutrality in the Indo-Pakistan crisis was held up to public ridicule by the Anderson Papers' revelations of a pro-Pakistan bias. Coming on top of the earlier impressions that the administration had disassembled in claiming that the U.S. arms supply to Pakistan had been terminated, the public exposure of Kissinger's efforts to tilt American policy in a less-than-evenhanded direction opened the administration to the charges that its public statements and private actions were in conflict. Other leaks, including Ambassador Kenneth Keating's telegram from New Delhi questioning a number of Kissinger's assertions to the press, reinforced the impression of White House dissimulation. This loss of credibility undoubtedly contributed to later Congressional actions to curb the powers of the White House and to enhance the role of the Congress in formulating foreign policy.

Failure of the Nixon administration to condemn the Pakistani military excesses in the east, while simultaneously supporting what was considered to be an authoritarian dictator, contributed to a second legacy: the mounting criticism of Nixon and Kissinger for their failure to take account of the human equation in international affairs. Despite Kissinger's contention that the civil war in East Pakistan was essentially an internal affair, many Americans regarded the Pakistan army's actions as a brutal effort to suppress the political aspirations the Bengalis had expressed in free elections. The Nixon administration's expenditure of millions of dollars for refugee relief carried little weight, either with the Congress or with the media; both viewed it as "conscience money" to atone for the White House's failure to speak out against the human suffering in East Pakistan. Evidence that the Nixon administration put a higher premium on "geopolitics" than "humanitarianism" during the Bangladesh crisis was one of the strands leading to the emergence of human rights as an issue in the 1976 presidential campaign.

Perhaps the most serious longer-term legacy of the U.S. tilt policy was its effect on the foreign and defense policies of the Indian government, including the question of the nuclear weapons option. Since the mid-1960s there had been a sharp debate in India as to whether the country should take the nuclear weapons route, particularly in view of China's nuclear capability. No firm decisions had been made by 1971, but the events of that year proved a turning point in terms of Indian policy.

360 ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XX, No. 4, April 1980

In the Indian perception, the U.S.-Pakistan-Chinese alignment that emerged during the Bangladesh crisis was designed to interject superpower influences into South Asia for the purpose of thwarting Indian aspirations in the Subcontinent. The decision to send a task force into the Bay of Bengal—headed by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier *Enterprise*, which many Indians believed had nuclear weapons aboard—represented the first threat by the United States to use military force against India. As the discussions of the defense budget in the Indian parliament in 1972 attest, this action greatly intensified the Indian debate on the nuclear issue and increased pressures for the development of a military nuclear capability. Proponents of nuclear weapons for India repeatedly pointed to the American carrier as the reason such a capability was needed. They advanced the argument, suggested by Indian defense analyst K. Subrahmanyam, that "had India possessed nuclear weapons the *Enterprise* would not have steamed into the Bay of Bengal during the Indian-Pakistan war in what appeared from New Delhi to constitute atomic gunboat diplomacy."⁴⁰ India might have gone nuclear in any event but the Nixon administration's tilt toward Pakistan, including the decision to deploy the *Enterprise*, strengthened the hands of the nuclear advocates. It may have tipped the scales toward India's decision to explode a nuclear device in May 1974.

## Needed: A More Upright Policy

American interests would have been better advanced in 1971 if Nixon and Kissinger had curbed their penchant to cast the Indo-Pakistan conflict in superpower geopolitical terms and, instead, had adopted the more realistic goal of trying to resolve the dispute in the South Asian regional context. The U.S. should have issued an early public statement deploring the military repression in East Pakistan and followed with cessation of all U.S. military supply, quickly closing any loopholes that later developed. If these actions had been explained to President Yahya in advance through diplomatic channels—as reflecting the strong humanitarian and human rights concerns of the American public and Congress—they would not have jeopardized the China initiative, which was intrinsically very much in Pakistan's and China's interest. U.S. influence was limited in both India and Pakistan but such an initial public position would have increased the bona fides of the Nixon administration in urging restraint upon India; because there were few external options open to Yahya, such a stance should not have reduced U.S. leverage over the Pakistani president in encouraging him to reach a political settlement in East Pakistan.

When the war broke out, a policy of working primarily through the

⁴⁰ K. Subrahmanyam, "India: Keeping the Option Open" in Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus, eds., *Nuclear Proliferation: Phase II* (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1974), p. 122.

United Nations would have greater emphasis on the charges of aggression—the allegations of bias that were being made on the U.S. intelligence judgments, Nixon and Rani assessments of Indian, South Asian, and American interests could also have avoided the risks of including the imprudent *Enterprise*. In short, a more effective policy of working with the interests of the United Nations

CHRISTOPHER VAN HOLLEBEECK for International Peace in War and State for Near Eastern and South Asia from 1972 to 1976

Carter Flips,
Flops on Policy,
Kissinger Says

By BARRY PARIS

Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The trouble with Jimmy Carter's foreign policy is that the administration keeps doing things it previously said it wouldn't do — creating the belief among friends and enemies alike that if they just wait long enough they'll get concessions, Henry Kissinger said here last night.

The former secretary of state turned lecture circuit celebrity made the comment during a faster-than-the-speed-of-light press conference in which barely a half dozen of some 30 reporters got in a question.

The Kissinger-media rendezvous preceded his "Man and Ideas" series lecture, sponsored by Gulf Oil Corp. and Mellon Bank, at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.

Kissinger's visit was his second here in five months, and this time it was accompanied by a sideshow protest outside on Forbes Avenue staged by an ad hoc group calling itself the "Take Kissinger To Task Force," including members of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft, the New American Movement, some surviving Yippies and some representatives of the People's Reefer Party. More than a hundred demonstrators chanted slogans ("Stop the Kissinger of Death") and carried

(Continued on Page 8, Column 1)

Benedict, yesterday objected to plans of local Democrats to circulate slate cards supporting Benedict at the April 22 primary.

But it appeared there's nothing Kury can do about the situation.

The Democratic State Committee, at a February meeting, endorsed the re-nomination of Benedict, who effectively controls the statewide party organiza-tion.

Kury, at a news conference at the Hilton Hotel, Downtown, pointed out that

Auto Emission Test

(Continued from Page 1)

Bailey said, "that cars not complying with federal standards will be phased out in the natural cycle of usefulness."

Last December, the General Assembly passed legislation to delay car emission checks in Pennsylvania, but Thornburgh vetoed the bill. The governor's reasoning was the state might face contempt-of-court charges, as well as lose federal money tied to inspection-maintenance.

In January, however, EPA and the state worked out a 9-month delay under which inspections would begin on a voluntary basis early next year, then become compulsory.

Your Easter gift is hare!

## Other to U.S. 'Is Gravest in the Modern Period'

to the same vacillations," he said. "They wonder about the significance of our latest proclaimed course. Are we acting now in order to punish the Soviet Union for a single act, after which we will resume the previous rhetoric and style? Or have we truely undertaken a new policy? Can our allies make sense of a new doctrine that guarantees additional commitments but no new forces?

"Somewhere, somehow, the United States must show that it is capable of rewarding a friend or penalizing an opponent," he said. "It must be made clear, after too long an interval, that our allies benefit from association with us and our adversaries suffer. It is a simple-minded proposition, perhaps, but for a great power it is the prerequisite of an effective foreign policy." he said.

Kissinger said he warned four years ago that the Soviet-financed

intervention by Cuban soldiers in Angola was the beginning of "a pattern which, if unresisted, would have the gravest consequences for peace and stability, and it is one which the United States treats with indifference only at the risk of buying graver crises at higher costs later on."

But the Carter administration, he said, failed to heed that warning.

He criticized the contention by the Carter administration "that by demonstrating our moral values and our concern for human rights, we will gain the approbation of mankind and thus outflank the Soviets."

"But reality is more complex. Iran should teach us that... If we encourage upheavals without putting in their place a moderate democratic alternative, a foreign policy conducted in the name of justice and human rights will wind up making the world safe for anti-American

radicals," he said.

Kissinger said that without access to intelligence reports he didn't feel, it would be appropriate for him to discuss Carter's handling of the hostage situation.

"In dealing with hostage situations in general, I would say that it is important that those who hold the hostages be deprived of any expectation that they have anything further to gain by prolonging their captivity. They must be convinced that the longer they hold the hostages, the more serious will be the consequences," he said.

Kissinger did end on a hopeful note. He said the United States might restore the balance of military power, establish a clear policy of penalties and incentives to affect Soviet decisions, and then resume the SALT process, aiming for a SALT agreement that would run for 10 to 20 years.

A 20

Friday, April 11, 1980

THE WASHINGTON POST

# Carter, Kissinger

By Don Oberdorfer

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sharply differing yet overlapping views of a world of danger and tension facing the United States were presented to the nation's newspaper editors in back-to-back appearances yesterday by President Carter and former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger.

Both men portrayed a global environment of almost unrelieved trouble in the years just ahead, with particular emphasis on wider-ranging and protracted conflict with the Soviet Union. But Carter and Kissinger, in separate presentations to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, gave differing assessments of the reasons for the trouble and the effectiveness of the current remedies.

Carter called it a "complex, changing and sometimes dangerous world." He declared: "It is a world of conflicting ideologies, of unequal wealth and of uneven resources. It is a world in which the capacity for destructive violence is at once alarmingly dispersed

to every tiny terrorist band — and awesomely concentrated in the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers."

The president portrayed the world as "uncertain, suspicious, shifting, searching for balance"—a world of complexity and contradiction. Of the holding of American hostages in Tehran for more than five months, he said: "No other single event seems so clearly to mirror the disorder of our times and the competing pressures on a great and powerful nation."

Carter declared he will make "every legal use" of American power to bring the hostages home safely, but spoke as in the past, of the benefits of restraint.

The central challenge of the age, in Carter's view, arises from "the intersection of two historic trends"—the growing demands of the Third World of have-not nations and the continuing threat of Soviet expansionism.

Carter devoted the bulk of his speech to the latest manifestation of the Soviet problem. He condemned "appalling inhumanity ... brutal armed suppression" in the Soviet in-

vasion of Afghanistan, and described U.S. efforts to counter it through non-military means.

Dark depletion of Soviet challenge at the present moment was the common motif in the Carter and Kissinger portraits. Both presented the Russians as implacable, expansionist and dangerous. But Carter the politician and decision-maker and Kiss-

related issues in a complex world, in fact his highly worded portrait was simpler in concept. The motive force of trends and troubles throughout the world was Soviet power or radical forces allied with the Kremlin.

Kissinger portrayed patterns of "geo-political" reach by the Russians in a broad swath of the globe. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for example,

## News Analysis

Kissinger the historian and former diplomatic strategist painted the overall canvas in strikingly different ways.

In Kissinger's view "we are sliding toward a world out of control, with our relative military power declining, with our economic lifeline increasingly vulnerable to blackmail, with hostile radical forces growing in every continent and with the number of countries willing to stake their future on our friendship dwindling."

Although Kissinger spoke of inter-

"overshadows the Persian Gulf like the northern arm of a great pincer," he said.

While conceding that Carter inherited a difficult situation in the "post-Vietnam" national climate, Kissinger charged that the administration "compounded the problem by systematically deprecating the role of power" in foreign policy and by stretching out or canceling military programs. Even in the post-Afghanistan climate, he declared, Carter has not increased mil-

## Nation

### Dour Tour

*Kissinger gives his world view*

The contrast between the two approaches to U.S. foreign policy could hardly have been more marked. President Carter, addressing the American Society of Newspaper Editors, concentrated almost entirely on two specific crises, Iran and Afghanistan, and strongly defended his actions in each. The next speaker, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, went far beyond those issues to deliver a sweeping global critique. He charged the Administration with lacking a world view that would produce a consistent policy and offered one of his own in a dour tour d'horizon of impressive scope.

"I happen to agree with President Carter that the danger to our country is the gravest in the modern period," said Kissinger. "We are sliding toward a world out of control, with our relative military power declining, with our economic life-line increasingly vulnerable to blackmail, with hostile radical forces growing in every continent, and with the number of countries willing to stake their future on our friendship dwindling." To reverse these trends, said Kissinger, the U.S. must grapple with four interrelated issues:

1. **The Balance of Military Power.** It is shifting so rapidly against the U.S., said Kissinger, that in a future confrontation "like that in Cuba in 1962 or the Middle alert in 1973, it will be the Soviet Union which will possess the quantitative superiority in strategic weapons." The danger, he said, "is less an imminent nuclear attack on us than an increased Soviet willingness to run risks in local conflicts." In such cases, said Kissinger, Soviet superiority in conventional arms could no longer be offset by a credible threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation. "The present Administration has compounded the problem by systematically deprecating the role of power, by canceling or stretching out every strategic program it inherited."

2. **The Geopolitical Equation.** Said Kissinger: "By this I mean the alignments and assessments that determine whether moderates friendly to us or radicals hostile to us dominate key regions; whether our alliances are vital or sliding toward lassitude." He left no doubt which way he thought the tide was running: "Precariously situated countries in the Middle East see the Soviet-supported Cuban advance coming up through Africa to Ethiopia right across the Red Sea. To them the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan now overshadows the Persian Gulf like the northern arm of a great pincer. And they see no effective resistance. Somewhere, somehow, the United States must show that it is capable of rewarding a friend or penalizing an opponent." Otherwise, he said, the "inevitable effect is to accelerate the demoralization of all moderate allies,

ARTHUR GRACE

The Presidents of Egypt and the U.S. on the South Lawn of the White House

### Now Comes the Hard Part

*Sadat leaves and Begin arrives to talk about the settlement*

For more than an hour, the two men sat under a magnolia tree in the Rose Garden and talked. Yellow legal pad in lap, Jimmy Carter did more listening than speaking. They met again that afternoon with their advisers present, then by themselves the next morning. The meetings, as Press Secretary Jody Powell observed, were "very warm," and at the state dinner held that night in his guest's honor, Carter himself jokingly alluded to the admiration he felt for his visitor. "I'm thankful one man is not running against me," the President said. "How would you like to run against Anwar Sadat?"

Thus, as expected, the Egyptian President's meetings with Carter in Washington last week proceeded amicably, though the two leaders appeared not to have settled on a strategy to resolve the problem at hand: how to revive the moribund Egyptian-Israeli negotiations on granting autonomy to the 1.2 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Concerned that the May 26 goal for the autonomy talks, as set by the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, was fast approaching, Carter last month had invited both Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin to confer with him separately in Washington.

Sadat told Carter that he was prepared to try to ease Israeli fears about military security by working out an arrangement to demilitarize the West Bank and Gaza during a five-year transition period. He suggested that joint Egyptian-Israeli patrols or international forces could keep order. Sadat urged Carter to put pressure on Begin to stop planting settlements in occupied territory on the West Bank. The settlement program, he said, "generates hatred and friction."

When Begin arrives this week to talk with Carter, he is expected to demand, as steadfastly as always, that his country keep its military forces in the occupied lands during the transition period. He also plans to defend, as always, the settlement program: "This is not only our right, but it is our duty to settle. This is an integral part of our national security, and we must settle." To strengthen Begin's hand, the Israeli Cabinet instructed the Premier to discuss only those proposals contained in the Camp David accords, thus technically ruling out any negotiation of the settlement policies. Begin's basic argument is that Israel must protect itself against attack, and it was reinforced last week when Palestinian terrorists struck a kibbutz along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

About the best the Administration can hope for from Carter's talks with Sadat and Begin is that the three leaders will agree to instruct their negotiators —Sol Linowitz of the U.S., Interior Minister Yosef Burg of Israel and Premier Mustafa Khalil of Egypt—to convene in Washington for a final round of intensive negotiating. The May 26 date could readily be waived if substantial progress is being made. But if these tripartite talks turn out to be unsuccessful, White House officials are unenthusiastic about calling another Camp David summit meeting and thus putting the President on the spot to provide a settlement. In this election year, no one in the White House wants to go up to the Catoctin Mountains for some presidential diplomacy unless a round of happy handshakes is promised as the finale.

TIME, APRIL 21, 1980

## Nation

driving friends toward neutralism and neutrals toward radicalism."

**3) Revolutionary Upheaval.** The Carter Administration, said Kissinger, has encouraged revolts against right-wing regimes in the belief "that by demonstrating our moral values and concern for human rights we will gain the approbation of mankind and thus outflank the Soviets. [But] reality is more complex. It is a hard fact that some societies whose security is vital to us—particularly in the Persian Gulf—are governed by authoritarian conservative regimes." While the U.S. should not defend the status quo everywhere, "Iran should teach us that humane values are not necessarily served by the overthrow of conservative regimes."

**4) U.S.-Soviet Relations.** "We have confused the Soviet leaders by inconsistent pronouncements and unpredictable reactions. We repeatedly rejected 'linkage,' which would have made progress in areas in which the Soviets had a stake, such as trade or SALT, dependent on Soviet restraint in exploiting tensions. [But] when Soviet troops moved to the Khyber Pass, we suddenly rediscovered linkage with a vengeance." In negotiations with the Soviet Union, the U.S. should try to "spell out the limits of acceptable conduct," offering concessions only after making clear that "the era of proxy forces, military pressures and encouragement of terrorists must be ended."

In conclusion, Kissinger held out one hope: in five years or so, "the certainty is that Soviet domestic problems will mount" and limit foreign adventurism. "The Kremlin's dilemma is that one cannot run a modern economy with total planning, but it may also be impossible to run the Soviet system without such planning." But that hope also implies a threat: the Soviets will be tempted to push their advantages to the limit in the intervening period. So in the next five years, Kissinger warned, "we face a period of maximum danger."

### Victory at Home

**U.S. Olympians how to Carter**

In his speech to the newspaper editors, Carter escalated his campaign to win a diplomatic victory on the home front over an unlikely foe: the American athletes who still wanted to go to the Olympic Games in Moscow this summer. The President said that a decision by the U.S. Olympic Committee to send a team would harm American interests by seeming to condone the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan. Said Carter: "If legal actions are necessary to enforce the decision not to send a team to Moscow, I will take them." No need. Meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., the U.S.O.C. voted, by more than 2 to 1, to honor the President's request and not send anyone to the Summer Games.

### The Presidency/Hugh Sidey

## Too Good a Samaritan

It may come to pass that the Bible will be recognized as a dubious guide to the exercise of power. The Bible is, of course, President Carter's basic manual. Were he more inclined to the thunder of the Old Testament, the U.S. might have a better global position. But Carter runs to the New Testament, wherein the meek inherit the world, turn the other cheek, love enemies, are first by being last, and find strength made perfect in weakness.

In personal terms, there is no better instruction. However, the Good Samaritan on the dangerous road of modern leadership who stops too long to minister to a few fallen persons (the hostages) may harm his nation—or never get to his destination. Turning away from evil (the Shah) may invite a greater evil (the Ayatollah Khomeini). Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri F. Ustinov seems to be inheriting more of the world than are the meek.

This is, in a profoundly real way, Jimmy Carter's problem. He is so personally and mercifully tied up with the small things and the individual people he meets at whatever level, from the street to the throne, that he cannot act when the larger realities of the world require him to risk lives and fortunes. For all the President's bluster and fuss over three years, he has not taken a single real step across that Rubicon of power, where there is risk, where the solution lies in moving determinedly ahead with no lines of retreat to the old comfortable campground of the status quo.

Some friends wonder if he is spiritually and intellectually capable of performing that tougher role. Carter clings to his conviction that there must be a way through prayer and good will to let the cup pass.

Letting the cup pass may be, as former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger insists, a greater risk than drinking from it. Carter's own record in foreign affairs suggests the same: the more hesitant he has been, the more trouble has come his way.

The modern presidency certainly shows that everyone from Roosevelt to Ford has crossed that difficult line in varying degrees. Roosevelt, of course, had World War II. Truman's doctrine of aid for Greece and Turkey was not bellicose but bold. Kennedy directly confronted the Soviets in Cuba.

Nixon's ultimatum on the sub base in Cuba had the desired effect without a shot being fired. Ford sent the Marines after the Mayaguez pirates.

When Carter threatened in January to use force if the Soviets headed toward the Persian Gulf, he seemed at last to have entered the world of action. But his subsequent hesitations over acquiring bases in the area made it seem that he was again trying to avoid that world. Carter is obsessed by his claim that not a single American boy has died because of any of his orders. This attitude obscures the fact that his uncertain trumpet has surely encouraged the Cuban mercenaries in Africa, the Soviet dislocations in Ethiopia and the invasion of Afghanistan. All produced death and suffering for others. Now we are in danger of being pushed toward a conflict that could horribly mock Carter's self-righteousness.

The President's conviction that his personal grace could find a heart beneath Leonid Brezhnev's iron crust led to his massive miscalculation about Soviet intentions, as Carter has been frank to admit. But the conviction still inhibits him from devising a doctrine to counter the Soviets, and acting on it.

Last week, as he greeted Anwar Sadat on the White House lawn, the light in Carter's eyes showed that the President was again in the intimate dimensions he relishes. This week he will cozy up to Israel's Menachem Begin. By every measure, we head toward a time when the U.S. and free world interests in the Middle East should be more clearly defined and asserted. The greater probability and danger is that Carter will not be able to do it.

BETTMANN ARCHIVE

Moses breaking the Tablets of the Law

20

TIME, APRIL 21, 1980