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The Washington Post, Tuesday, December 4, 1979

China Will Publish
Kissinger Excerpts

HONG KONG, Dec. 3 (AP)—China has translated excerpts from Henry Kissinger's memoirs, "White House Years," and will distribute them throughout the country this month, according to a Peking newspaper.

The newspaper Guangming said the excerpts cover the period from 1968 to 19673 when Kissinger was national security chief and then secretary of state.

The installments include reports on a secret trip Kissinger made to China in 1971, his meetings with Chinese leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, and Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972.

Henry Kissinger, had better be intelligent and low-profile enough to blend into the woodwork,” says Hill, whose credits include deputy chief of dignitary protection, regional officer for the U.S. anti-terrorist program in West Germany and federal security officer for the 1984 Olympics. “Anything that might draw attention in a subdued social situation is taboo; we match our wardrobe and demeanor to suit the occasion.

“We realize we’re not one of the guests,” Hill concludes, “but there’s got to be a mutual understanding and respect. Most professional hostesses, who are accustomed to security, don’t make us feel like excess baggage.”

Indeed, many of them look forward to and sometimes fawn over these men in the background. Says Texan Lynn Wyatt: “I like having them around and have never found them to be annoying or intrusive. They appreciate our house being equipped with armed guards, electric gates and barbed wire—and they have a wonderful time in my home. I’ve entertained Princess Margaret, King Hussein and Raul Alfonsin (president of Argentina)—and always served their agents old-fashioned pick-up food, like fried chicken and corn muffins.”

“At our own dinner parties,” Nancy Kissinger adds, “we rotate security so that they can all get something to eat in our recreation room—which is equipped with television and beers—but when we visit friends or take trips, they’re pretty good at taking care of themselves,” which is exactly what some hostesses prefer. “I don’t worry about feeding them, but neither do I ask them to stand out in the rain,” exclaims New York socialite Annette Reed.

Sometimes, it’s not quite that simple. When Mary Lou Whitney entertained Prin-

“Some hostesses prefer when the security men take care of themselves. “I don’t worry about feeding them, but neither did I, until I had to stand out in the rain,” says New York socialite Annette Reed.

Kissinger: Never alone, never unprotected

cess Margaret at the Whitney’s farm in Lexington, Ky., during the 1976 Bicentennial, she remembers that “because of threats made by Irish terrorists, we had 264 security men and a slightly smaller troop of police dogs surrounding the farm. Except for my tiny poodle—who couldn’t travel one bush from the house—I had to incarcerate my 12 dogs in the local kennel, in order to keep them away from the police dogs.”

Rising to the logistical challenge of the royal visit, Whitney recalls, “I set up dormitories with endless bunk beds—just like an army barracks. Sonny caught some fish, and I had cooks working in shifts around the clock—and those beds in the dormitory never got cooled off.”

But not everyone responds so merrily to the disruption of

68

DECEMBER 1985

Prince Andrew goes to Hollywood: With Michael and Shakira Caine, and the man with the telltale earphone.

With Queen Elizabeth, dressed to blend

THE QUEEN'S STAGE

household life. A prominent international hostess remembers incredulously the visit of a former U.S. cabinet member and his wife with their entourage: "The security men were after the help for food and beer at all hours. They wanted their laundry done day and night. And when they finally departed, they left not a sou for the staff."

"But I've never run into any unpleasantness from either private security or from the Secret Service," notes Pat Buckley. "When Nancy Reagan stayed at our house for a few nights during the New York hotel strike, her security went out of their

A day at the circus with Nancy Reagan

way to remain inconspicuous and to cause no extra trouble for my staff. And at dinner parties, although I'm observant, I never even notice security, though lots of people have got to have it."

"My God," adds Reed, "every bank president in New York has a bodyguard. . . . David Rockefeller doesn't move without a small troop and George Shultz is covered with them."

"Agnelli," says Slim Keith, "has enormous protection and, like many successful men in Italy, he's scared to death about being kidnapped. Henry's protection is American-style—less intense and much more expensive—while Frank Sinatra, perhaps because of his 'exotic' connections, is never seen without at least four guards at his side."

The palatability of bodyguards has everything to do with the subtlety of their presence, which is largely a function of their employers' sensitivity. Jerry Glazebrooke, Henry Kissinger's current chief of security, remembers: "When I worked for one of the wealthiest families in America, the entire security detail was given titles that camouflaged our real purpose. I was alternately an executive assistant or a vice-president, which made my presence at meetings and public events palatable and, in some cases, more effective."

Aside from his title, Glazebrooke reveals that his "family" also provided free lodging, meals and a generous budget for his wardrobe—everything from "black, white tie to swimming suits and tennis gear—although I did begin to feel that the family owned me."

Like any member of the family, bodyguards—who can easily become surrogate children of their protectees—frequently benefit from the nepotism that their influential protectees can provide.

70

DECEMBER 1985

GUY BELORD

BODYGUARDS:
A CONSUMER'S GUIDE

"Once a gun has been drawn and the shooting begins, we've failed," says State Department security expert Kenneth Hill, above. "In 11 years at the State Department, I've never had to use my gun, and I've protected everyone from Prince Charles, Moshe Dayan, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, to our ambassadors in Beirut, Salvador and Nicaragua. In fact, the chances of our ever using a gun are about as remote as a plane crash—remote if you do your homework."

The point is that while muscle and facility with firearms are important, personal security professionals agree that they are not the key factors one should look for.

Jerome H. Glazebrook, director of security for Henry Kissinger, warns that "CEOs and 'name' families who are spending $250,000 to $300,000 each year for private security (often in the form of shifts of retired policemen hired because their employers feel comfortable with them) aren't always getting their money's worth." A good security man ought to be strong in the following areas, Glazebrook says.

1. Counter-terrorist tactics.

2. Detailed knowledge and understanding of client's medical history.

3. Extensive first-aid training, ability to administer oxygen, expertise in recognizing symptoms of heart attack.

4. Proper wardrobe—ability to dress appropriately to blend in at any occasion.

5. Training in formal dining etiquette—"A security man has got to know which glass is for his dessert wine."

6. Muscle power and the ability to shoot a gun.

7. Knowledge of politics—he has to know where the client's enemies might come from, and why.

8. A comprehensive network of contacts with government and law-enforcement agencies, enabling the security man to fully assess and research threats.

9. Knowledge of martial arts—especially useful in locales where shooting of firearms is illegal.

10. Ability to pose as a chauffeur and to drive defensively/evasively. Ability to defuse car bombs and drive through roadblocks is especially apropos.

BELL HAYNES SYSTEMS

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DENNIS BRACE, BLACK STAR

The President in public: A man and his shadow

72

DECEMBER 1985

notes that "there is an elbow-
rubbing syndrome that's
unavoidable.

When you're living with
the Kissingers, day in and
day out, they know (after
three years) whether or not
you have something on the
ball," Hill says.

And despite the objectivity
and concentration required
for bodyguards, their form-
ing close relationships with
protectees is inevitable, Sit-
man says: "We get attached
and they get attached. My
God, the only time we
weren't with the Kissingers
was when they were in their
bedroom. In fact, the State
Department had trouble
rotating new security men to
protect the Kissingers
because Nancy had become
accustomed to having the
same men around her for six
years—and she didn't want
any changes. She'd come
schlepping down the stairs in
her ripped up blue terry cloth
bathrobe, and if there was a
new security guy, she didn't
like it."

"In the beginning, having security around me all the time drove me absolutely out of my mind," Nancy Kissinger exclaims. "I felt as if I had no privacy, but within six months, I was entirely acclimated to them. They remind me of submarine commanders: They're stable, they're incredibly polite, and they have great senses of humor."

Sitman's favorite Kissinger story, told to him by a secret service driver, illustrates that humorous camaderie that turns out to be the most enjoyable aspect of the protector-protectee relationship. "One day Henry asked the driver what would happen if a group of terrorists forced the car off the road. The driver looked him straight in the eye and said: 'Mr. Secretary: don't worry; they'll never get you alive!' And poor Henry wasn't quite sure how to take that." M

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Verdi's careful orchestration: by adding trumpets and trombones, for example, to Verdi's clarinets, bassoons, and cellos just after Amelia's words "il feroce decreto mi vuol parte ad un'opra di sangue" in Act III. The Covent Garden Orchestra is excellent throughout (whereas the NBC strings were occasionally ragged and the winds harsh), and Davis's cast is at least a match for Toscanini's: as Riccardo, Carreras is lighter (though no more elegant) than the robust and energetic Jan Peerce; Caballé is a stronger and more full-bodied Amelia than the nonetheless excellent Herva Nelli; Wixler is smoother and suaver as Renato than Robert Merrill, whose voice, especially in Act III of the Toscanini version, becomes somewhat coarse and unpleasant. But the two performances are very close in tempi and overall conception. Listening to Toscanini's for the first time in perhaps 10 years, I felt the same regret that I felt 25 years ago when I heard it broadcast: that when he finally came to broadcast and record complete

operas, Toscanini chose a minor (though still delightful) work like *The Masked Ball* (to say nothing of *La Bohème*) rather than the *Tristan* or *Figaro* he might have given us. But this time I also felt grateful that Davis is young, ambitious, and versatile enough so that at the end of his career we probably won't have such regrets.

Finally, there is one last very important recording event of the year: the excellent first volume (Columbia M4-35193) of the long-awaited two-volume set of the complete music of Anton Webern, prepared under the supervision of Boulez. It contains all of what we used to think of as the Webern canon: Opp. 1-31. But Hans Moldenhauer, whose definitive biography of the composer, written in collaboration with his wife Rosaleen, has just appeared this year, has recently discovered many other Webern works. These will appear in the second volume of the Columbia set, and I would prefer to withhold detailed comment on the first volume until I can hear them.

## White House Years by Henry Kissinger

(Little, Brown; $22.50)

Of few other books could it more appropriately be said that there is less here than meets the eye. Or the hand. For this massive volume, impossible to carry on the bus or even to read in bed, tells us far more than we need to know about the author's first four years as Richard Nixon's foreign policy adviser. This book harbors many gems, to be sure, but they are deeply encased in padding, like a set of old dishes packed in styrofoam. Henry Kissinger, or "Doctor," as he prefers to be addressed in the academic title he quaintly brought along with him into the corridors of power, has not resisted the attempt to tell nearly everything he knows. And a good deal more besides.

He cannot resist the temptation to pontificate, a habit no doubt induced by years of lecturing to captive students, or of demonstrating his erudition. Thus, before each major foreign trip, the reader is treated to a slide-show capsule history. "Bordered on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the

Himalayas, and on the west by the Hindu Kush mountains that merge with the heavens as if determined to seal off the teeming masses, and petering out in the east in the marshes of Bengal, the Indian subcontinent has existed through millennia as a world apart," we are told in preparation for his celebrated "tilt" toward Pakistan in the 1971 war. This lecture, which goes on and on for paragraphs, reveals the good doctor's talent for travelogues, but also why his text runs to 1476 pages.

Unfortunately the exigencies of a huge publisher's advance, said to amount to some five million dollars, and the 1980 presidential elections, in which, as an unemployed statesman, he has a professional interest, did not permit him to write the reflective volume of which he is no doubt capable. This one is more in the nature of what might be called a campaign autobiography: the campaign for his return as secretary of state in some future Republican administration.

Nonetheless, buried deep in these

multitudinous pages is a book worthy of his scholarly, as well as of his worldly, ambitions. One gets glimpses of it from time to time, particularly in the cameo vignettes of the great and the not so great. Here Kissinger's unexpected talents as a biographer, and his well-known expertise at vindictiveness and flattery, are put to good use.

In a few striking paragraphs the author draws portraits of some of the foreign leaders he encountered in his years at the top—Mao, Chou, Brezhnev, De Gaulle, Wilson, Heath—and twists his rapier in the back of those who, like McGeorge Bundy, have given him less than he believes to be his due. The capsule biography form also offers him the opportunity to lay flowery wreaths at the bier of past benefactors, such as Nelson Rockefeller, to whom he has most appropriately dedicated this volume, and at the feet of such possible future ones as John Connally. Any future employer, however, would do well to watch his step. Kissinger's comments on his former boss, Richard Nixon, are sly, vicious, and dripping with innuendo. Doctor Kissinger proves himself to be, on a very high level indeed, accomplished both as a flatterer and a character assassin.

But Kissinger is not Keynes, and one does not read his little essays in biography for revelation. One is merely surprised that they are written so deftly. Nor does one read Kissinger to find out what the guiding principles of American foreign policy ought to be. For what is most striking about this book is that the celebrated diplomatist does not seem to know. He does, to be sure, incant such phrases as "equilibrium," "balance of power," and "national interest," but they tend to float errantly in an undefined void.

For him the purpose of foreign policy is simply the aggrandizement of the power of the state. The uses to which such power may be put are purely incidental. There are, to be sure, a few ritualistic curtsies to "morality." No foreign policy text would be complete without them. But the author uses the word in a very special sense. For him it does not mean equity, justice, self-determination, or dedication to principles higher than the law of nations. Rather, as he makes clear in relating his part in the devastation of Cambodia, the plotting against Allende's Chile, the unqualified support of the shah of Iran, and the encouragement of Pakistani genocide, morality is whatever seems most advantageous to the power of the

28

The New Republic

done with the Concertgebouw, deserves to rank with his excellent versions of *Sacre du Printemps* and the 1947 *Petrouchka* that I commented on last spring. Superbly cohesive and dramatic throughout, this new *Firebird* reminds us once again how much is lost in the familiar *Suite*, which until recently was the form in which one almost always heard this music. In the complete version the dramatic conflict between good (Prince Ivan) and evil (Katschei) is clearly and richly played out, and the benediction offered by the Firebird's *Berceuse* is all the more satisfying if we have experienced the conflict fully—and so is the triumphant conclusion if the *Berceuse* is interrupted by Katschei's death, which intervenes between the two episodes but is omitted from the *Suite*. *Sacre*, so far as I know, was never played in cut form and people long ago stopped playing the *Suite* drawn from *Petrouchka*; it is high time to consign the *Firebird Suite* to the scrap-heap of history and to hear the work only in its original uncut form.

Second, there is Davis's new version of Berlioz's delightful *Beatrice and Benedict*, which supplants his earlier version, still available on Oiseau Lyre S-256/7, because now he has included at least some of the spoken dialogue, which was totally omitted before, creating numerous dramatic confusions. But why not go whole hog and use all the dialogue? Surely anyone who is going to buy a recording of *Beatrice and Benedict* would not object to the few extra minutes and would appreciate the still further dramatic clarification that would result—the understanding, for example, that Somarone's drunken "improvisation" at the beginning of Act II does not come out of thin air but is prepared for by a conversational introduction. Davis's conception of the work has scarcely changed. But the playing of the London Symphony, also employed on the earlier version, is more beautiful and sensitive this time. And the cast is at least as good: Christiane Eda-Pierre, as Hero, has all the clarity and brilliance that April Cantelo brought to the role, and in addition a fullness and warmth, especially in her lower register, that Cantelo lacked; as Benedict, Robert Tear is a match for the earlier version's John Mitchinson, Tear's lighter and more elegant voice contrasting with Mitchinson's more full-bodied one; and Helen Watts is again excellent in the minor role of Ursula. The big surprise is the great Janet Baker, who replaces Josephine Veasey as

Beatrice. The music of her ironic Act I duet with Benedict is conventional and boring, but on the old recording at least it was sung straight, whereas Baker and Tear, and especially Baker, ham it up—which does nothing to hide the conventionality of the music, as was perhaps the intent, but rather emphasizes it. The opportunity to hear Baker again doesn't come until the long dramatic *scena* in Act II which is the high point of the opera. And I was astonished to find her again, and this time with no possible dramatic justification, hamming it up: leaning on notes, underscoring the meanings of words, even occasionally managing to make her ravishing voice sound downright unattractive. On the older version Veasey was far more convincing, and Davis shaped the music into a more effective dramatic whole, emphasizing contrasts between fast and slow sections more sharply. But in the concluding *cabaletta* Baker is thrilling as only Baker can be.

Third, there is Verdi's *The Masked Ball* (Philips 6769 020), with the Covent Garden Orchestra and Chorus, and José Carreras, Montserrat Caballé, and Ingvar Wixell in the principal roles. The touchstone for judging any performance of this work is of course Toscanini's

classic 1954 recording, and on close comparison Davis comes out with flying colors. Just as when I made a similar comparison between Levine's and Toscanini's versions of *Otello*, I felt that Davis, like Levine, has learned the best of what Toscanini had to teach about the conducting of opera: how to make the music follow and yet simultaneously control the dramatic action. Davis's performance is flawlessly shaped, the work's predominant contrasts of sparkling lightness and sinister conspiracy perfectly brought out at every point without exaggeration or forcing. On Toscanini's recording string and wind phrases are often more intimately played and more highly inflected, and inner parts often given greater (and occasionally excessive) energy. Certainly his account of the Act II love-duet between Riccardo and Amelia is more passionate than Davis's, but there, and occasionally elsewhere, Toscanini's striving for passion and intensity brings out the vulgarity of the music—which at times comes perilously close to Gilbert and Sullivan—more clearly than does Davis's slightly more relaxed approach. Also, Davis adheres faithfully to the score, which Toscanini further vulgarized by making a few alterations in

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state he happens to serve.

Kissinger does not offer a view of foreign policy so much as a set of negotiating tactics. He tells us how to pin an opponent to the ground, or even how to cripple him for life, but not the reasons why he should be considered an opponent. For Henry Kissinger such questions do not even seem to arise. Life is a struggle for supremacy. Victory goes to the strongest. Anything that stands in the way—the Congress, the press, a recalcitrant public—should be cajoled, lied to, intimidated, “contained.”

But we live in a country that expects its foreign policy to have at least some relation to moral values. And so Kissinger tells us, in recounting the resignation of three of his key aides over the invasion of Cambodia, that “morality can best be demonstrated not by a grand gesture but by the willingness to persevere through imperfect stages for a better world.” But the decision to devastate “poor Cambodia” was most definitely, he assures us, “not a moral issue.” It was all part of what he calls, in a frequent incantation, a “Greek tragedy.” Presumably by that phrase he does not mean what the Greeks meant—the moment of searing revelation that

comes in the aftermath of blind and violent passion. If so, there is no indication of such self-knowledge here, only self-justification.

No, this is not a book about morality in foreign policy, and Kissinger is ill-advised even to raise an issue that can only cast doubt on his motives, if not his decency. Any man who can calmly recount how he plotted to overthrow the democratically elected government of another country—in this case Chile— does not have a serious claim to our attention on moral grounds.

The case of Chile is instructive and, together with the chapter on the India-Pakistan war over Bangladesh, perhaps the most significant in the book. Not because it deals with events that captured the attention of many Americans—the long sections on the Indochina war have understandably aroused greater controversy—but because it reveals the assumptions that govern Kissinger's view of foreign policy. Salvador Allende was expendable on three counts. First, having won only a 36 percent plurality, he was not “really” elected. (By this logic Woodrow Wilson, who in 1912 garnered but 41 percent of the vote in a three-way race, should

have been replaced by William Howard Taft in a British-engineered coup.) Second, he might not observe “democratic guarantees” (although Kissinger fails to note that Allende did hold a democratic election three years later and increased his plurality in parliament). Third, and obviously most important, he had “avowed his dedication to totalitarian Marxism-Leninism.”

We can forget about the problem of democratic guarantees, which seemed not to concern Kissinger at all with regard to the shah of Iran, whom he describes as a “gentle, even sentimental man” whose authoritarian methods were “in keeping with the traditions” of his society. No, Allende’s sin was that he was an “admirer of the Cuban dictatorship and a resolute opponent of ‘American imperialism.’” That being the case, it was clearly “neither morally nor politically unjustified for the United States to support those internal political forces seeking to maintain a democratic counterweight to radical dominance.” In other words, it was “moral” to funnel money into opposition parties and, after Allende won the election, to foment civil unrest, encourage a military coup d'état, and finance terrorist groups that, in a

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# The Russian Empire: A Portrait in Photographs by Chloe Obolensky with an introduction by Max Hayward

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Holy Russia has never been captured more fully than in this excellent collection of photographs. This is the Russia of the ordinary people—metalworkers in St. Petersburg, peasants on country estates, Cossacks in the Ukraine, convicts in Siberia. The book includes only a handful of photographs of the czars and their families, and one of Tolstoy playing a board game with his family. It is a matchless depiction of the Russia we have lost.

Peasants of Nizhny-Novgorod, c. 1880.

Blind wandering pilgrims, c. 1870.

botched kidnapping attempt, murdered the head of the Chilean armed forces when he refused to go along with a coup. "I cannot accept the proposition that the United States is debarred from acting in the gray area between diplomacy and military intervention," Kissinger blandly observes. This is, to be sure, a logical policy, given his premises. But to pretend it has anything to do with morality is unworthy of such an avowed exponent of realpolitik. Kissinger should, like Dean Acheson, whom he professedly admires, have the courage not to pay lip service to sentiments he so clearly despises.

What are his convictions? That we live in a Hobbesian world where power is the only arbiter and the only morality. That international life is an incessant struggle for dominance. That the weak are meant to be victims and that the strong can avoid that fate only by being merciless. What he refers to as the "national interest" must be based upon such principles. Anything else, to use one of his favorite derogatory terms, is purely sentimental. Thus those State Department officials who wondered whether it was right for the United States to try to prevent Chileans from electing a president of their choice are contemptuously

dismissed for "confusing social reform with geopolitics." Secretary of State William Rogers, Kissinger's hated bureaucratic rival, is described as having "no grasp of geopolitical stakes." And what are those stakes? "By geopolitical," he explains, "I mean an approach that pays attention to the requirements of equilibrium." And what is equilibrium? Essentially the balance of power, which is to say, the status quo.

One could, of course, argue over the morality of a policy dedicated to counterrevolution and the perpetuation of the status quo. Such an argument might be interesting, but not to Kissinger. Even on his grounds, however, one could ask whether such a policy is realistic. Is it really in America's "national interest" to go to war in defense of the status quo? Is it reasonable to interpret any political change anywhere as a threat to the balance of power? Is every third world palace coup equally crucial to America's vital interests? The trouble with Kissinger's definition is that it is devoid of any sense of proportion or priority—the failing that led him to pursue "honor" for four futile years in Vietnam and to attempt an intervention in Angola. He still has not learned the

difference between a vital interest and a peripheral one. For him it is all "linkage."

It is this curious concept of linkage that led him to prolong the war in Vietnam and to devastate Cambodia. Obsessed with the Soviets and indifferent to the moral claims of others less powerful, he sees the world as a vast chessboard with two kings, a few rooks, and a field of pawns. Thus the revolt of the Bengalis in 1971 against the murderous Yahya Kahn regime in West Pakistan is seen only in terms of Kissinger's own diplomatic preoccupations. "There was no doubt about the strong-arm tactics of the Pakistani military," he admits of the slaughter in Bangladesh. "But Pakistan was our sole channel to China." Too bad for the Bengalis, who got in the way when Kissinger needed a postman to deliver his *billet-doux* to Chou En-Lai. To have failed to back the Khan regime "would have undone our China initiative." That the Bengalis might have had priorities that, to their minds, were more important than ensuring that Henry Kissinger had pressed duck in Peking is apparently not worthy of a serious statesman's consideration.

But it may be worthy of ours. Particularly since Kissinger reveals that

30

The New Republic

"Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord."

A Yakut riding a reindeer.

Blacksmiths

he was urging Nixon to threaten the Soviet Union with war if it put pressure on China. The logic goes something like this. The Indians, with Russian weapons and encouragement, were backing the Bengali secessionists and making vague threatening noises at West Pakistan. The Pakistanis had linked up with India's old nemesis, China. If Pakistan were humiliated by a friend of Moscow, that is, India, then the Chinese would not take Uncle Sam "seriously." Thus the puzzling "tilt" toward Pakistan. "The major problem now is that the Russians retain their respect for us," Kissinger explained to Nixon in their coded language of geopolitics. "We have to prevent India from attacking West Pakistan." If the Indians did attack—and it is questionable that they ever intended to—then the United States would "have no choice" but to aid China. And if the Soviets should then threaten Peking, Washington "would not stand idly by."

So, folks, while the fighting in Vietnam was still going on, we almost got embroiled in a war with Russia in order to save face for China—a nation which at that time we did not even officially recognize. Such is realpolitik as played by the masters: the same kind that plunged Europe into war over the

assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists in 1914. Thus does Nixon, in Kissinger's words, deserve our everlasting thanks for having the courage to "preserve the world balance of power for the ultimate safety of all free peoples."

Kissinger's obsession with the Russians leads him down other curious byways. Allende, for example, had to be overthrown not only because he was a "Marxist-Leninist," but because halfway around the world the Syrians, presumably with a wink from Moscow, had made forays into Jordan. And to wrap it all up, Washington was at the time putting pressure on the Russians to dismantle their nuclear submarine refueling base in Cuba. This, in Kissinger's language, was an example of "linkage." There is a kind of logic in all this; there is also a kind of madness. Not madness of the certifiable sort, to be sure, for it takes a great deal more to certify a statesman than it does an ordinary citizen, but madness nonetheless. Linkage may have its uses, but only if the connection between events remains somewhere this side of around the White House it was not only Nixon who had to be humored lest he go

off the deep end, but the good doctor himself.

Diplomacy as conducted by Kissinger, for all its Byzantine intricacy, was hobbled by an intellectual straightjacket. Kissinger's tendency to see every nationalistic contretemps everywhere in the world as linked to the Russo-American cold war suggests not only intellectual blinders, but intellectual narcissism as well. That is, an incapacity to see the world except in reference to an abused and insufficiently-appreciated self. His celebrated megalomania, which he often uses as the object of gentle jokes designed to charm his admirers and disarm his critics, is merely the other side of an ill-concealed insecurity. Fame and power seem to have made Kissinger more at ease with the insecurity, but have made him no less intolerant of those with other views on how the world operates.

All of this would be of no public consequence—certainly we are all entitled to our own neuroses—did it not deeply affect his perception of international relations and his conduct of American diplomacy. An inability to perceive the validity of others is matched by an incapacity to view their struggles as anything more than an

December 15, 1979

31

extension of one's own. Thus the Cambodians, Bengalis, Chileans, and Vietnamese, for example, are not only treated as pawns in the great battle of the superpowers, but viewed as entities of a lesser order of reality. A diplomacy that sees the world in terms of pawns may or may not be immoral. But it is certainly self-deceiving and prone to dangerous obsessions. Were Kissinger still directing American foreign policy we would, no doubt, long ago have sent the Marines into Nicaragua to defend Somoza—"a friend of our country and a pillar of stability in a turbulent and vital region," to use Kissinger's description of another free world friend, the shah of Iran. We would be aiding the Moroccans in the Sahara war and the South Africans against Angola. And it would all be done in the name of the higher logic of "equilibrium" and the balance of power.

Kissinger is in no sense an ideologue. He is a game player, as bored by matters of ideology, not to mention morality, as are the Soviets themselves. The game is all, and what makes it worth playing is a competitor worthy of one's own guile. Were the French, for example, as powerful as the Russians, he would be absorbed in containing them. He is a counterrevolutionary, to be sure, but because he lives in a satiated status quo country. Were he an Iranian or a Cuban he would be calling for a "new international order." Kissinger gets on with the Soviets because he shares their view of the world as a jungle in which every beast is out for his own advantage. He could serve their government, or any other, with equal distinction because he is concerned only with the mechanics of foreign policy, not its political content or

moral weight. Indeed, one can almost see him in Andrei Gromyko's shoes, or Brezhnev's, for that matter, cynically manipulating other countries for the greater glory of his own, piously defining the exercise of his nation's power as coterminous with the interests of mankind, brutally squashing rebellious satellites, bankrolling congenial dictators, and defending it all as a "historical responsibility for preserving the balance of power."

Henry Kissinger's world is one where power is exercised for its own sake, power devoid of moral restraint, of responsibility for its consequences, even at times of rational objective. There is something compelling about such a cynical use of power, particularly when it is rationalized with such intellectual verve. Kissinger not only appeals to the "Sockless Joe" in all of us, the redneck who wants to give some pesky little runt a sock in the jaw, but provides a certified PhD reason for doing so. Thus the continuing fascination Kissinger holds over the public mind, not to mention itchy politicians and moonstruck journalists.

Doctor Henry Kissinger has constructed a diplomacy for a Hobbesian world. When he exercised that diplomacy he helped create the kind of world that would justify it. This book tells how he did it. And it also reveals what might happen were he to regain the power for which he so palpably yearns.

## Ronald Steel

Ronald Steel's biography of Walter Lippmann will be published next year by Little, Brown-Atlantic Monthly Press.

## Night of the Aurochs
by Dalton Trumbo
edited and with an introduction by Robert Kirsch

(Viking; $9.95)

It was impossible to dislike Dalton Trumbo. In Hollywood, where you are only as good as your last marriage, he stayed wed to the same woman for almost 40 years. In an epoch of family dissolution, he wrote scores of affectionate, self-mocking letters to his son and daughters. When others became informers, or watched their lives

destroyed during the years of the Red Menace, the blacklisted screen writer poured out scripts under a variety of pseudonyms (one of which won an Oscar), and when the pendulum swung back in the 1960s, refused to malign those who had done him in. Years ago, when I was in servitude as a film critic, I spent a long afternoon listening to

him—people rarely talked to Trumbo; the only time you got to speak was during his inhalations. He was witty, forthcoming, and, in his declining years, still full of wonder at the Day-Glo extravagances of Celluloid City.

Trumbo's decency and restless intelligence were evident in his pacifist 1939 novel, Johnny Got His Gun, and they enliven portions of his last book, Night of the Aurochs. Unhappily, portions are all there are. Trumbo never completed the novel; he suffered from cancer during the writing of much of the work, and at the time of his death three years ago only 10 chapters were completed. They, and a file of notes and emendations, were edited by Robert Kirsch. It cannot

have been an easy or pleasant task. For one thing, the subject—the Holocaust—is too monumental to be apprehended in fragments, if at all. Second, Trumbo's idea—the investigation of evil—seems to have been too demanding for his fading powers. This is not to say that a healthy Trumbo could have done any better. We have a flourishing and robust William Styron and look at what he has given us.

In Night of the Aurochs the author presents the story of one concentration camp official, Ludwig Richard Johann Grieben. Like a parent who makes sure that his children go off to school with all things clearly labeled, Trumbo announced in this first-person account that "My Christian names (were) derived from Beethoven, Wagner and Bach." In other words, a Good German about to go Wrong. Trumbo did a good deal of reading in Freud and Adler and he adroitly connects the binary lusts for sex and power. Grieben, the nominal Catholic, wonders, "what is it that makes us cruel when we long to be

photo of Dalton Trumbo by Mitzi Trumbo

32

The New Republic

## viewing the news...

...continued

tinian issue as the reason for renewed relations, noting that Soviet support may be necessary if the issue requires UN mediation.

Other indications of renewed relations between the two countries are the reported delivery of Soviet spare parts for Egyptian military aircraft, and increased trade.

According to *The New York Times*, Arab and Western diplomats say the move "is evidence that Egypt no longer thinks that the United States can persuade Israel to offer satisfactory conditions for Palestinian home rule in the West Bank and Gaza before the autonomy talks end in May." They also believe Moscow wants to improve ties with Cairo to increase its limited influence in the Middle East.

Relations between Egypt and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate in 1972, when Sadat expelled more than 15,000 Soviet military advisers and technicians from Egypt. In 1977, when the Soviet Union criticized Sadat's trip to Israel, Sadat closed the Soviet cultural center in Cairo and consulates in Alexandria, Aswan and Port Said.

### Kissinger on Connally

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has denied "approving" John Connally's controversial Middle East policy. "I read a draft but did not 'approve' the final version [of Connally's speech], which I did not see before delivery," Kissinger said in an interview with *U.S. News & World Report*. "I have very high regard for Governor Connally. He's a good friend of mine. I disagree with him on some aspects of the Middle East." Connally, a Republican presidential candidate, has called for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories, and would accept a Palestinian state.

Kissinger voiced strong opposition to a Palestinian state. "I believe that a Palestinian state governed by the PLO cannot simply remain an insignificant agricultural ministate in the West Bank," he said. "Such a 'solution' would only be a first stage. It will inevitably undermine the position of Jordan, and therefore will complete the encirclement of Saudi Arabia by radical states.

"So let us not confuse what some leaders in the area say, for domestic reasons, with their real preferences. My view has always been that the negotiation should be between Jordan and Israel, and to turn the PLO into an Arab rather than an international problem." ☐

heard In...

Washington

## Support for U.S. Sinai Bases

Growing unrest in the Middle East has prompted renewed congressional interest in Israel's importance as a stable U.S. ally and in the possibility of establishing American military bases in the region.

"Whether we in the United States like it or not, there can be no dispute that Soviet strategic influence in this region is increasing," wrote Sen. RICHARD STONE (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East, in *The Washington Star* last week. "They . . . supply Iraq, Syria, Libya, North and South Yemen, Ethiopia, the Polisario and the PLO with large quantities of sophisticated weaponry." The senator criticized the "half-measures" the Carter administration has taken to increase the U.S. capacity to react quickly to Middle East crises.

Stone suggested that the United States take over the Sinai bases Israel is scheduled to return to Egypt in 1982 under the terms of the peace treaty. "These particular bases, offer ready-made, sophisticated, strategic staging platforms with no construction costs," he said. He acknowledged that Egypt's President Sadat might face criticism from his Arab neighbors for leasing the bases to the United States, but stressed Sadat's courage and the economic advantages for Egypt if an arrangement could be made.

The United States, Stone said, needs "both naval and air facilities in the Middle East to provide notice to all that we consider the stability of the region and the continued supply of oil to be in our vital national interests, and that we are in a position to respond quickly from nearby to any request for assistance from our friends there."

Sen. HOWARD H. BAKER JR. (R-Tenn.) also favors leasing the Sinai bases from Egypt. Baker, the Senate Minority Leader, and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, called last week for a reassessment of Middle East security in light of the Iranian crisis and the situation in the Arab world. "Stable governments that exercise authority in the region must have reason to believe that the United States can and will do whatever is necessary to assist them in maintaining the stability of their institutions," he said in a Senate speech.

Rep. DAN GLICKMAN (D-Kans.) expressed concern over Middle East stability and stressed the importance of Israel as the "most stable, independent and democratic nation in the Middle East." He characterized Israel as "an unfailing ally." The "existence of a strong and independent Israel clearly buttresses . . . America in that area of the world where we seem to be becoming more and more alone," Glickman said. ☐

### Kennedy's Letter to Begin

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) sent a personal letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel last month, reaffirming his support for the Jewish state. Following are the substantive portions of the letter, which was reprinted in the November 28 Jerusalem Post.

Of paramount importance to both of us and to the world is the issue of peace. You and I passionately desire it for all nations, particularly the nations of the Middle East who have been deprived of this blessing for so long. I applaud the statesmanship, the ingenuity, the patience, and the resolve displayed in the pursuit of this goal. I assure you of my full support, as you and your nation seek to further this vital effort.

American foreign policy in the Middle East must look toward the implementation of an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, an undivided Jerusalem, and an Israel with secure, defensible and recognized borders. On these issues there can be no compromise. The vital interests of the United States and its special relationship to Israel require that everything be done to ensure a strong Israel able to defend itself. I am confident that Israel and Egypt will maintain their commitments to each other and, in good faith, take the steps necessary toward genuine and lasting peace in the Middle East. I pledge myself to do all within my power to assist you toward that end.

As you move toward the implementation of the peace treaty, you may rely upon my firm support for continued political, economic and military assistance from the United States. I would hope we can persuade other nations in the Middle East to join Israel and Egypt in efforts to achieve genuine and lasting peace. Against this historic effort, we see that the PLO has not abandoned terrorism as an instrument of policy, has not recognized Israel's nationhood and right to exist in peace, and has not accepted UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338; and this is why there should be no U.S. negotiations with that organization.

Near East Report. Published weekly at 444 N. Capitol St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001. Subscription $16 per year.

Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C., and additional offices

Alan M. Tigay, Editor Lori S. Bierman, Assistant Editor Morris J. Amitay, Leonard J. Davis, Aaron D. Rosenbaum, Contributing Editors

I. L. Kenen, Editor Emeritus Morris S. Edeson, Business Manager Lori G. Tolchin, Advertising Manager Amy Levinson, Staff Assistant

214

## Editorial

# Lessons of Iran

When the Iranian crisis is over, however it ends, there will undoubtedly be many lessons to be learned from it. But it's not a bad idea now to go over a few of the lessons that are clear even while the hostages are still being held in Teheran. Following are some truths that will be unaffected by the outcome of the crisis.

Anti-American rhetoric isn't always just rhetoric and we shouldn't reward those who use it. For months before our embassy was seized, Ayatollah Khomeini and the officials of his regime made no effort to mask their hostility toward the United States. Not only did Washington respond with a conciliatory tone, it also continued to sell Iran spare parts for its military equipment, trained its military personnel, and even made a dramatic shipment of heating oil to Iran when it appeared the oil giant might have a temporary shortage of refined products. If the United States were just a little more sensitive about its dignity and its responsibility as a world power, the message might have gotten through that it is not a nation to be trifled with.

The embassy seizure in Iran, the related incidents in Libya and Pakistan, and the decision to reduce embassy staffs in a dozen Moslem countries, indicate the vulnerability of non-Moslems in much of the Islamic world. The United States is learning what Israel, the Lebanese Christians, the Iranian Bahais and others have known all along: With some exceptions, the Moslem world of today is not as tolerant of non-Moslems—even "people of the book"—as certain passages of the Koran might indicate. The United States has now become a symbol in much of the Islamic world for corrupting western influences and it is unlikely to recoup a position of respect without a deeper understanding of the fanatic elements of Islam.

The terrorist forces with whom the Carter administration has attempted to start a dialogue are in league with the terrorists holding our diplomats in Teheran. The United States has been better than most western countries on terrorism, but it has not done all it could to delegitimize the Palestine Liberation Organization. Not only has the PLO been responsible for the execution of American diplomats, it was also instrumental in bringing Khomeini to power. The PLO has boasted of the Iranian mujahaddin it trained over the years, possibly including some of those now occupying the U.S. embassy in Teheran, and Yasir Arafat was the first official visitor to Iran after Khomeini came to power.

Our allies are not willing to stick their necks out for us. With the possible exceptions of Libya and the PLO, no one has expressed support of the Iranian militants at the U.S. embassy in Teheran. At the same time, it is difficult to find any statement of support for the American position that is so strong that it evokes feelings of, "Now there's a friend in our time of crisis." Not all of our allies are utterly dependent on Iranian oil; some are less dependent than we are. At the very least, not to show support for the United States so much as to demonstrate support for international law, our allies with embassies in Teheran could have shut them down for the duration of the crisis. The only truly helpful things we've heard have been Egypt's offer of asylum for the shah and Israel's offer of support in the event the United States decides to exercise the military option. Both offers have been taken less than seriously.

Finally, there's no substitute for a reliable, democratic, politically stable ally in the Middle East. While the shah was not a democratic ruler, he at least added to the stability of his region until the excesses of his regime caught up with him. When he fell to forces hostile to the United States, the obvious lesson was that the oil of other pro-American states in the area became more important. The more subtle lesson was that, for strategic purposes, Israel took on greater importance as the only power in the Middle East—let alone the only pro-American power—that has never had a violent change of government. All of our friends in the Middle East take on added importance as Khomeini rants on, but none can match the stabilizing force of Israel.

Other lessons will emerge from the Iranian crisis, both before and after it has played itself out. But as long as some of them are already so obvious, it's never too early to start learning from them. ☐

# NEAR EAST report

## Washington letter on American policy in the Middle East

Vol. XXIII, No. 49, Dec. 5, 1979

### Viewing the news

## Saudi Unrest?

The Saudi Arabian government sent 20,000 troops to put down massive pro-Iranian demonstrations last week, killing or wounding several protesters, according to western diplomats and the Beirut newspaper As Safir. The demonstrations took place in the oil-rich eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, where most of the kingdom's Shi'ite minority lives. The main discrepancy in reports on the disturbances is whether they were merely "pro-Khomeini" or if there were anti-American overtones as well.

As Safir reported that the demonstrators, numbering "many thousands," chanted anti-American slogans; diplomatic sources in Saudi Arabia contended the demonstrations were only pro-Khomeini. Nevertheless, security was reportedly increased at the U.S. consulate in Dhahran, the oil capital of eastern Saudi Arabia, even though the demonstrations did not take place near the consulate. Security was also tightened at the U.S. embassy in Jidda. Saudi Arabia was not one of the 11 Islamic nations in which the State Department has recently reduced the staff at U.S. diplomatic missions.

Agence France Presse reported last week that the Moslem fanatics who seized the Great Mosque in Mecca may have numbered more than 500, and that 600 people died in the seige.

## Soviet-Egyptian Thaw

Relations between Egypt and the Soviet Union are improving, as indicated by the recent appointment of the first Egyptian ambassador to Moscow since 1977. Egyptian officials suggest the Whites.

*(Continued on page 214)*

213

III. 5 Dec 79

A 6

USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES & CANADA

Observers do not exclude the possibility of the use by the United States of armed force to solve the crisis. The Baltimore SUN reported that the U.S. naval base in Bahrain had, without undue fuss, been turned into a strongpoint of military operation by the Near Eastern grouping of the U.S. Navy. The Pentagon, according to a naval representative's admission, had never before sent such a powerful and numerous armada of naval vessels to that region.

At the same time, the Baltimore SUN notes, the U.S. administration is getting closer to offering the shah permanent asylum. After the refusal of Mexico to grant the shah permission to enter the country, the United States tried to gain agreement on his departure to some other place. But these attempts produced no results. Another U.S. paper, the New York TIMES, points out that after the United States had approached practically every major Western country it became clear that there were no signs that any country other than Egypt was ready to receive the shah.

MAGAZINE SAYS IRANIAN 'COUP D'ETAT' BEING DISCUSSED

ID051044 Moscow TASS in English 1000 GMT 5 Dec 79 ID

[Text] New York, December 5, TASS--The United States is elaborating plans of staging a coup d'état in Iran.

According to the American magazine NEW YORK, two weeks after the seizure by the Iranian students of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and its employees as hostages, the Carter administration started examining a series of possible economic and military actions aimed at removing Ayatollah Khomeyni from his present post. The U.S. Government came to a conclusion that this step meets the "national interests" of the country. High ranking administration officials do not discuss in public the possibility of the direct U.S. interference in Iran's domestic affairs. Still, such a variant is now being discussed at the National Security Council, the CIA, the Pentagon and other governmental bodies, the magazine points out.

CARTER ANNOUNCES INTENTION TO RUN FOR REELECTION

ID042100 Moscow TASS in English 2106 GMT 4 Dec 79 ID

[Text] Washington, December 4, TASS--President of the United States Jimmy Carter has officially announced that he will stand for nomination for the presidency of the United States from the Democratic Party at the elections of 1980.

Thus, there are three main contenders of the U.S. presidency from the Democratic Party at the elections next year--Jimmy Carter, Senator Edward Kennedy and California Governor Edmund Brown.

PRAVDA HITS 'METAMORPHOSIS' OF KISSINGER'S ATTITUDE ON DETENTE

ID031541 Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 27 Nov 79 p 5 ID

[G. Vasilyev article under rubric "International Notes": "On Hawk's Wings"]

[Text] An American will not be surprised at a change of political masks. At yesterday's Democrat becoming a Republican. A liberal metamorphosing into a conservative. A former "dove" flapping hawk's wings. Opportunism, unscrupulousness, readiness for anything for the sake of immediate benefits--these features are typical of a bourgeois politician's career.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Technical Information Service
Springfield, Va. 22161

An Ensign C-

III. 5 Dec 79

A 7

Our newspaper has already written about the promilitarist, inflammatory statements of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the recent NATO conference in Brussels. Since then the indefatigable Henry has found time to say a lot more, and all in the same spirit. The doctor of philosophy and professor at Georgetown University is rapidly going downhill into the gloomy valley where cold war dinosaurs and mastodons of anticommunism roam. We used to know Kissinger as a politician not devoid of realism, as a figure involved in the process of normalizing Soviet-American relations and in preparing the SALT II treaty. The "new Kissinger" is a "hawk" intimidating his listeners with the "Soviet military danger" and calling for an arms buildup. On listening to this bellicose screaming, you think: Is it the same Henry? For the professor's new revelations are very like the standard invocations of his namesake--Henry Jackson, "Senator for Boeing."

Kissinger's latest contribution to the bad cause of misinforming the public is a lengthy interview in the magazine U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT. The questions and answers resemble a kind of game of giveaway (poddavki). The corresponent of the publication, which is known to be close to circles of the military-industrial complex, puts forward questions full of false premises, and the interviewee readily develops them, reinforcing them with his own not yet quite evaporated authority:

[Question] It is said that the United States is losing the competition in the sphere of strategic might.

[Answer] Our relative position is steadily worsening.... The imbalance in the military sphere is growing.

[Question] What can be done to reverse this unfavorable trend?

[Answer] Immediately and firmly launch a broad effort in the military sphere in order to eliminate the lag that exists in strategic forces, in theater nuclear arms and in conventional armed forces. Otherwise, some sort of disturbance will prove mathematically inevitable....

This interview has just about everything: "communist expansionism," the bugaboo of the "Soviet military presence" in Cuba and calls for the latest American medium-range missiles to be deployed in West Europe at all costs. He is even scornful of the SALT II treaty, in whose preparation the former secretary of state was involved: The agreement "inspires a false sense of security."

Yet not so long ago Kissinger was saying something else. He would publicly declare that there is no alternative to the relaxation of tension, acknowledge the general equality of the Soviet and U.S. military forces and voice the hope that the arms race could be halted. In the opinion of experts, Kissinger's metamorphoses are easily explained: his professor's gown is too constricting for him. The indefatigable Henry is dying to get back into politics. He wants to become a senator. But since times in America are not simple--the military-industrial complex has sharply stepped up its activities--the best way to achieve his desired goal, in his opinion, is to flap the tails of his professional gown like hawk's wings.

It is said that among friends Henry Kissinger used to like to parody Dr Strangelove--the half-mad nuclear scientist featured in the movie "Dr Strangelove, or How I learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

III. 5 Dec 79

A 8

He entertained his friends in the total conviction that no one would take his parodies seriously. But, really, it is hard to shake off the feeling of surprise when you see a responsible politician of yesterday in the role of someone who, even if he has not yet come to love war, is at any rate already smitten with tender feelings toward missiles.

ZORIN COMMENTS ON TONING DOWN OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN

ID031102 Moscow in English to North America 2300 GMT 1 Dec 79 ID

[Valentin Zorin commentary]

[Text] Today I'd like to draw your attention to something I think is rather significant. It's the report published a short while ago in the United States examining how the United States is fulfilling the Helsinki accords of 1975, specifically a section dealing with human rights. That report was drawn up by a Commission on European Security and Cooperation which included 12 congressmen and State Department and Pentagon representatives, one from each [branch of the armed forces].

However before getting down to the document itself I'd like to draw your attention to something that's interesting and revealing but which you might have failed to notice, being swamped daily by the materials of the United States news media. In the past few months the human rights topic, if one examines statements by Washington politicians and United States press comment, has receded into the background--even the deep background. Let's recall how things stood some 2 or 3 years ago. Human rights talk in what was apparently a well orchestrated move, began to dominate the scene pushing out all other topics. Day in day out the top men in Washington and the United States news media held forth on that subject hurling angry tirades against others and making boastful assertions when speaking about the situation in the United States. (?Morals were preached) in Washington with the purpose of telling other nations how to live and what order to establish to get the White House's stamp of approval and be recognized in America as champions of genuine democracy.

Without an attempt at even token modesty the top men in Washington assumed what they regarded as the right to hand out to anybody outside America certificates of decency and good behavior. One of the men behind the whole idea was the President's national security adviser, Dr. Brzezinski, and he both orally and in the press proclaimed the human rights campaign, as it was called, the main direction of the Carter administration's foreign policy, its ideological and moral basis. I recall it all and would like our listeners to ask themselves why Washington and the United States news media are now dealing much less with the human rights topic and rather reluctantly at that.

I'd like our listeners to ask themselves what the reason is for the fact that what had once been termed as the cornerstone of America's foreign policy is now being turned into something that officials and the United States press alike are dealing with much more rarely and with greater caution. Could it be that Washington's 2 years of efforts have led to a cardinal change in the human rights reel both inside the United States and abroad and today there is no reason to alert the public to human rights violation on a mass and systematic scale? Or maybe the top men in the Carter administration consider that all the rhetoric and political gestures (?sent our from) Washington with such pomp and circumstances have solved the problem and the attention to the use can be lessened.

### Adventure CONTINUED

ly lacking in technical knowledge. "I spent the first few months confusing latitude and longitude," she confesses, "but by that time it didn't matter because I'd already navigated halfway around the world." A solitary personality ("I don't miss people generally"), she passed the time by reading some 200 books, listening to Edith Piaf and Olivia Newton-John on her cassette player and nuzzling her cat Boris until he disappeared overboard off the coast of Africa.

More intimidating than the isolation were the storms. Once *Crusader* capsized in a howling Pacific gale, 2,000 miles from land. Moments later the yacht miraculously lurcheted upright again. Despite the danger, Naomi felt more at home on *Crusader* than she did five months later on a pleasure cruise to the West Indies. "The food and the wine were fabulous," she admits, "but my unsociability began to show. Cruising with other people wasn't nearly so enjoyable as doing it on my own."

Last March Naomi was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire—an honor she finds faintly embarrassing. Today she and Rob live in a rented cottage in Ireland and look forward to sailing against each other in a transatlantic race next spring. Naomi will return to *Crusader*, while Rob will be at the helm of a 31-foot trimaran, a faster boat except in bad weather. “We’re pretty competitive,” says Mrs. James with a grin. “I’ll be hoping for heavy conditions all the way.”

FRED HAUPTFUHRER

At home in County Cork, Ireland, Rob and Naomi pore over their charts in preparation for an Atlantic crossing in June.

TERENCE SPENCER

The other leading dictionary puts *tutu* under T, but relegates *Tutankhamen* to an appendix, and illustrates neither. You'll find them more easily—in alphabetical order—in *The American Heritage Dictionary*, along with a striking photograph of each. Photographs are unique to this complete contemporary dictionary, as are hundreds of usage notes, based on the opinions of a panel of 140 experts, led by Edwin Newman. Compare dictionaries. The only one with distinct opinions about how to use words offers some distinct advantages. From $10.95.

**Choose the best of all possible words.**

Published by Houghton Mifflin Company • Two Park Street • Boston, Mass. 02107

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105

**Words**

CONTINUED

es in the 1980s, Kissinger spoke with
Clare Crawford-Mason of PEOPLE:

**What should the U.S. attitude be to the takeover of our embassies abroad?**

First of all, we have to stop our self-flagellation. Not everybody who attacks us is doing so because we supplied a just grievance. Secondly, it must be made clear that challenging the U.S. is not for free. There has to be some penalty for opposing us and some reward for being friendly. Unless we can reestablish that balance, this trend will continue.

**What should the penalties be?**

It would be irresponsible for me to speak in the abstract. With Iran, the best way is to demonstrate to terrorists that, whatever our divisions, we are a united people in a crisis. After the crisis, we should develop a posture that makes it clear that the United States is not to be trifled with in the conduct of its foreign policy.

**Are you satisfied with the U.S. treatment of the Shah?**

I have held the position all along that the Shah was a friend of the U.S. for 37 years. Every President, starting with Truman, lauded the Shah's friendship and his modernizing tendencies and spoke of the gratitude we owed him. Even President Carter said in January 1978 there was no family with whom he would rather spend New Year's Eve than the Shah and Shah-banou. With those circumstances, I believe we owed them private humanitarian asylum, not political support, after he left office.

**Can you give specific examples of the Shah's helpfulness?**

When I was in office, he always kept Iran's oil production at its maximum. His was the only country adjoining the U.S.S.R. in the '73 Middle Eastern war that did not permit overflights of Soviet transports. He never joined the oil embargo, he fueled our fleets, he supported our negotiations. We, of course, should have the best possible relations which the present government of Iran permits, but we cannot give up our tradition of asylum.

**Did you personally intercede to have the Shah admitted to the U.S.?**

My original involvement with the Shah's domicile was in January. I was asked by the Administration to help find a residence in the U.S. in order to en-

CONTINUED

Produced by Freddie Perren for Grand Slam Productions, Inc.

POLYDOR INCORPORATED
A POLYGRAM COMPANY

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111

While writing itself is a chore, Kissinger finds autographing his best-selling *White House Years* for friends a pleasant pastime.

**Words CONTINUED**

courage the Shah to leave Iran, although I did not approve of that policy. Eight weeks later I was asked by Washington to go to Morocco to tell the Shah he was no longer welcome. This I refused to do.

**Did you take any private actions?**

I inquired whether our government was helping him get into any other country. I was told no. Over the next few weeks I made three telephone calls to senior officials, and I saw Secretary Vance twice to try to convince them to reverse their decision. They refused. In light of the Shah's help to our nation, I felt a duty to help. I called up the President of Mexico and encouraged him to grant the Shah asylum, which Mexico did.

**After the Shah became ill, did you intercede with the U.S. government?**

No, neither directly nor indirectly. As I understand it, the government was informed of his medical condition and admitted him, and I think they took the right decision.

**You have been mentioned as being instrumental in admitting the Shah.**

I do not want to give the impression of walking away from the decision. The fact is I did *not* intervene myself in October to get him admitted. I was out of the country. Had I known and had it been necessary, I would have made an appeal. Had I been asked, I would have strongly supported the government's decision. It was right and courageous.

**But former U.S. diplomat George Ball has said, "Had it not been for Mr. Kissinger and a few others making themselves enormously obnoxious trying to force the Shah into this country, maybe we wouldn't have done it, even for reasons of compassion." What is your reaction?**

Your readers can judge from what I have just told you whether I did generate pressure.

**How often have you seen the Shah since he came to the U.S.?**

I have seen him twice.

**Have you urged the Shah not to leave the U.S. unless or until the Carter administration directly asks him to?**

Absolutely not! It's a lie put out by those unwilling to assume responsibility for their own actions.

**Are you surprised at the anti-Americanism surfacing in Muslim countries?**

No, anti-Americanism such as we are seeing in Iran is partly the result of a government's using it to deflect attention from its own domestic difficulties. Envy of the richest nation is not hard to whip up, especially when you have Marxist-front organizations and PLO-type revolutionary activists who have their own reasons.

**Isn't it true that the Shah did not enjoy popular support?**

The Shah's government was certainly authoritarian, but it had the best educational system in the area. It spread literacy, sent students to the

U.S., wiped out malaria, eradicated locusts. It was a reforming government, but the process of economic development is unbelievably unsettling. It moves people from their villages and traditional societies into the cities, where they are rootless. They need some values to make the changes bearable. So we witness resentment against the West, which principally offers economic progress, and a return to religious orthodoxy and in some cases religious fanaticism. This is the fundamental problem in Iran.

**On your recent trips abroad, what was the mood about the '80s?**

There's a feeling of confusion. Everybody knows great changes are coming and feels uneasy about them. Nobody is quite sure what these changes will be, or how to master them, partly because there is a sense that America has given up its leadership role, and there is no substitute for it.

**What is the mood here at home?**

We've gone through 15 years of tremendous travail of a war we did not know either how to win or conclude, and a domestic crisis unrelated to any popular issue, but really to the personality of the President—I mean Watergate. There was a feeling that America should retrench. Now I think this post-Vietnam retreat syndrome has come to an end and we are prepared to play a larger role. We are essential to peace and progress, and I don't think the handicap to our playing such a role is the public mood.

**Then what is the handicap?**

We have developed impotence into a cult. It is one thing to say we must learn the limits of our power, which is true; it is another to concentrate foreign policy on our limits. We also must know the scope of our possibilities.

**What would you say will be the spiritual keynote to the '80s?**

A search for faith, but without definition as yet. Indeed, there is a great danger that the nihilism of the early '70s could turn into an irrational faith for its own sake. Jonestown would be the absurd extreme. Our necessity now is to give the search for faith a content that is also rational.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 117

112

In Austin, Kissinger told Republican governors, including Texas' Bill Clements (left) and Vermont's Richard Snelling, that the U.S. had not been "willing to offer the Shah support or even understanding."

## Words CONTINUED

### You say that America is looking for a spiritual center. Where is yours?

I have no doubt been profoundly influenced by my experience with totalitarianism as a young man. I remember what America meant to us. With all the imperfections of American society, I know that they are relatively trivial compared to the hope that we give the rest of the world. Having lived in a truly totalitarian society, I can distinguish between flaws in a healthy society and real oppression.

### Have you been consulted by private industry about its investments in the world?

My position with regard to private industry is the following: I will not make introductions. I will not establish contacts. I will not give commercial-type advice. If somebody asks for my assessment of political circumstances and foreign policy trends, I will give that judgment, but I will not apply it to any concrete cases they may face. I don't want to know what those cases are.

### From your days in government, what do you recall about the moments of crisis?

One consolation is that you are doing something that makes a difference to your country's future and hopefully to the future of mankind. The disadvantage is, of course, that your decisions become irretrievable. Therefore people who are obsessed by the uncertainty of events become exhausted emotionally. Everyone aspiring to high office probably needs a touch of

CONTINUED

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**Words CONTINUED**

monomania; in uncertain situations,
without that self-confidence you
will destroy yourself.

**Did Nixon have such self-confidence?**

Yes, and so does Carter, although
he doesn't know how to apply it, at least
not yet to concrete situations.

**How do you foresee our relations with
the Soviet Union in the decade ahead?**

I would say that history will be on our
side by the late 1980s. But in the first
half of the '80s the military balance
could be against us. Sometime in the
decade the Soviet Union is going to
face the problem of all Communist so-
cieties, namely, that you cannot run the
modern industrial state by a system of
total planning, and you cannot encap-
sule your population into a rigid
orthodoxy which leaves no scope for
human personality. Before it turns to
its internal reforms, the Soviet
Union will have a very great temptation
to dominate the external environment.

**During this period, what should U.S.
foreign policy be?**

If we can keep the global turmoils
from turning in a pro-Soviet, anti-West-
ern direction, we can have genuine
coexistence. We have no clashing in-
terest with the Soviet Union as a
national state, only as an expansionist
power. If we can get through the first
half of the '80s without an international
collapse, then I would be very optimis-
tic for the second half of the decade.

**Are there potential Vietnams ahead?**

Right now in almost every continent

the situation is sliding out of control. In
Southeast Asia, since our withdrawal
we face the same problem of the threat
of Vietnam to all surrounding countries.
In the Middle East, Iran is only a symp-
tom of the overall situation of radicals
intimidating the moderates. In
Central America, we are at the begin-
ning of great turmoil. I hope both
presidential candidates in the cam-
paign will tell the American people that
there are crises to be dealt with.

**What techniques did you evolve for per-
sonal relaxation while in office?**

I am a bad person to ask. I'm fun-
damentally a workaholic. I like to listen
to music, see friends. I'm a sports nut
and a ballet fan. In office when I had
time to read, I read classified docu-
ments. Now I read books a lot.

**You said you have become more secure
since your marriage.**

I have never had such a close re-
lationship with any person. It sounds
corny, but trust and love are freely giv-
en by Nancy. And this makes me more
secure in all other relationships.

**Will there be a Senator Kissinger in
the '80s?**

I expect Senator Javits to run from
New York in 1980, and I expect to sup-
port him. I will under no circumstances
oppose Senator Moynihan in 1982.
So ask me about 1986—in 1986 I might
be tempted. ☐

At their Georgetown house, Kissinger romps
with labrador Tyler, wife Nancy and his son
by his first marriage, David, 18.

KISSINGER'S
TRACK BACK

by David Watt

Last September in Brussels, Henry Kissinger offered a highly theatrical recantation of his old and sensible but now unfashionable views on nuclear deterrence. No one who listened or read the text could have much doubt that the last American secretary of state intends, if he can, to become the next secretary of state. Nor does there seem to be much doubt that if a Republican should win the White House in 1980 Kissinger would have a good chance of pulling it off. His belief in a global balance of power, now suitably refurbished in a more anti-Soviet form, fits in neatly with the alarmist mood of the Republican party and (who knows?) the American people. His vast experience will be attractive to any president anxious to establish a quick contrast with the much-lamented amateurism of Jimmy Carter.

It is as well to be clear about this, because the realization makes a reassessment of Kissinger's past record at the summit of American foreign policy making a regrettable necessity—regrettable because from a historian's point of view a reappraisal is hopelessly illtimed. There is no way an unbiased account of the Nixon presidency and the Vietnam war can be produced by contemporary writers. Outsiders like David Halberstam and William Shawcross, overwhelmed by the superfluity of sources, fall back on preconception and occasionally prejudice as the framework of discourse. Kissinger himself, an insider who has the ability and the historical sense to write a great history of his times, has been forced by pride and ambition to expend his information and experience 10 years too early and in defense of a dubious case, thereby dodging the most difficult parts of the record.

DAVID WATT, former Washington correspondent and political editor of the Financial Times, is director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

59.

One looks in vain in *White House Years* (his account of his period as Nixon's national security adviser in 1969-1973) for a breath of criticism of any of the front runners for the Republican nomination in 1980, or indeed of any section of the right, though their attitude to the Vietnam war and other issues was often not much less demented, even from Kissinger's point of view, than the left's. There is no real attempt, either, to face squarely the constitutional propriety of Nixon's attitude to the Congress. Very little about telephone tapping (though we are promised more in the second volume). A gingerly and often tendentious discussion of any issues likely to be politically sensitive in 1980, notably arms control and Israel.

WHITE HOUSE YEARS. Henry Kissinger.
1,521 pages. Boston. Little, Brown and
Company. 1979. $22.50.

Yet polemic has its advantages. Kissinger may not have written a very good history of Nixon's foreign policy, but he has produced an astonishing tour de force. This enormous volume—its convoluted narrative, its grim humor, its diplomatic gossip, its philosophical diversions—is really one long argument with historical illustrations. It presents a view of the world that, whether one agrees with it or not, is coherent in itself and an important indication of how Kissinger will behave if he returns to power. A less biased and self-interested account 10 years on would presumably have shared the same virtues of stylistic felicity and psychological insight, while avoiding the more blatant distortions contained in his existing text; but it is unlikely that it would have had the same revealing emotional and intellectual force behind it.

The argument, though presented in the Kissinger memoirs with unusual vigor and consistency, is not in itself unfamiliar. It is not even, in the historical sense, revisionist, since there is every reason to believe that Kissinger embraced it from the moment he first

60.

Watt

set foot in the White House. It was, and is Kissinger's basic assumption that world peace can only be assured by a stable balance of global power. Since the most important power today is in the hands of the United States and the Soviet Union, the first task of the United States is to insure that in the main theaters of the world and overall the Soviet Union is confronted with a firm assertion of American interest backed with sufficient force to insure that negotiation can take place on equal terms. After a while it should be possible on this basis to build up a framework of balanced agreements that not only assures stability and even cooperation between the adversaries, but also keeps lesser powers and unsettling influences in their proper places. But woe betide the system if either side forgets that it is ultimately founded on an equilibrium of force.

This simple, bipolar model is the starting point of the Kissinger doctrine, but his memoirs are also concerned with the application of two important refinements. The first is "linkage"—the notion that once a serious dialogue between the superpowers is in train it is not necessary to have physical confrontation in all parts of the globe. Providing that the overall balance is secure, one can trade off unwanted advantages in one field in order to improve the position in another, or refuse concessions in one area (say, arms control) in order to insure Soviet cooperation in some remote part of the global arena (say, Vietnam).

The second variation is the modification of
of a bipolar structure by the addition of
China to the exercise. Kissinger's most endur-
ing claim to the thanks of the human race is
often said to be that he reopened China to the
world, but his memoirs make it perfectly
plain that his and Nixon's primary motive
was a rather less altruistic desire to put the
screws on the Russians. The new system
hardly merits the title "triangular," since
China is not for the moment in the same
class as the others and is cast by Kissinger in
a role that is basically ancillary to U.S. pur-
poses; but there is little doubt that if Kis-

61.

singer returned to power he would exploit
Soviet fears of the Chinese for all they were
worth, undeterred by accusations of risky
provocation of the Soviet Union.

Cutting Corners with Nixon

So much for the theoretical substance of
Kissinger's foreign policy. Its practical opera-
tion is harder—not, he thinks, because it does
not work if resolutely applied, but because
the traditions and exigencies of American
domestic politics make the application so dif-
ficult. "There is in America," Kissinger says
quite rightly, "an idealistic tradition that sees
foreign policy as a contest between evil and
good. There is a pragmatic tradition that
seeks to solve 'problems' as they arise. There
is a legalistic tradition that treats interna-
tional issues as juridical cases. There is no
geo-political tradition." His chief objective in
office was to establish such a tradition, that
would "found American foreign policy on a
sober perception of permanent national inter-
est, rather than on fluctuating emotions that
in the past had led us to excesses of both in-
tervention and abdication."

Kissinger and Nixon were constantly frus-
trated in this aim by the Congress, by the
press, and by a considerable part of public
opinion that persisted in being emotional,
particularly about the war, and whose per-
ception of American national interest did not
comprehend the Nixon/Kissinger insistence
that a collapse of the American position in
Vietnam would upset the balance of the
global structure and possibly bring it crash-
ing to ruins. Nevertheless, the Nixon White
House pressed on with its policy undeterred,
giving the absolute minimum of information
to the Congress; attempting constantly to
hoodwink, if not manipulate, the media; and
relying on the confused, uneasy patriotism of
the majority of the voters for support.

Kissinger is more than a little ambiguous
in his memoirs about whether the implemen-
tation of this Grand Design would have been
easier or cleaner under a different president.
One of the chief lessons of the book, of course,

62.

Watt

is intended to be that most of Carter's foreign
policy is a hopeless relapse—sweeping Wil-
sonian moralism combined with weakness
toward the Soviet adversary. But are we to
assume that a strong, dynamic Republican
leader like John Connally would be able to
operate without subterfuge and manipula-
tion? The picture of Nixon that emerges
from *White House Years* implies for much of
the time that his peculiar frailties accounted
for a lot. The Nixon of the Kissinger portrait
is a timid, tormented figure, experienced, able,
and often desperately courageous, but petri-
fied in the face of almost all human contact
and only able to function on powerful doses
of Walter Mittyish fantasy administered, and
to some extent realized, by devoted but sinis-
ter personal attendants. Such a personality
was virtually bound to cut corners.

But there is something more systematic in-
volved here. Kissinger has the gall to remark
at one point that "Congress is in no position
to make coherent tactical decisions because its
knowledge of the mosaic of foreign policy is
so fragmentary." As he admits elsewhere, a
notable cause of this lamentable ignorance

—Thomas Reed

63.

lay, in his day, in the deliberate policy of the White House, and in fact there are a number of crucial moments in Nixon's first term when Kissinger implies that any president would have been right to disregard the open tradition of the American Constitution and to pursue a secret and devious course.

The Cambodian bombing of 1969 is one such incident, for although Kissinger concedes that it might have been better to take the congressional leadership into the administration's confidence, he does not regret his determination that the press should not discover the truth, and when the story leaked he allowed a witch hunt among his own staff to proceed. He is similarly unrepentant about the covert attempt by the CIA to prevent the election of Salvador Allende in Chile. We may assume that the leopard would not change his spots during another term of office.

*Modified "Hands-Off"*

What, then, are we to make of this as a prospectus for the next (Republican) administration's foreign policy? Would it work in 1981? With the best available will in the world, it seems doubtful, due to the nature of the world today and to U.S. opinion.

So far as the world is concerned, the obvious question looming over the Kissinger strategy is whether the kind of understanding with the Soviets hammered out between 1969 and 1972 is any longer a sufficient condition of balance. In Europe, no doubt, it is because military forces are already arrayed against each other there in some kind of equilibrium that it is strongly in the U.S. interest to maintain. But elsewhere, the slippage (that is, the lapse of countries from the American sphere of influence) that the U.S. geopolitician laments can hardly be prevented by these means.

Kissinger may well be right in assuming that his brilliant, great power diplomacy in the early 1970s gained the United States a free hand to conclude the Vietnam war on slightly less humiliating terms than might otherwise have been the case, though he overestimates the long-term significance of this

64.

Watt

particular achievement. But from Angola through the Horn of Africa and South Yemen to Iran, Afghanistan, and the latest Indo-China war, it is, to put it mildly, very hard to be sure that pressure on the Soviets actually could have led to a different outcome by removing the "source of trouble" or permitting America to settle matters to its own satisfaction by a series of coups de main.

What can certainly be agreed with the Soviets is a modified "hands-off" policy for both sides, but if, as seems probable, the forces of nationalism and anti-colonialism continue, notwithstanding, to upset Kissinger's geopolitical balance with no more than general encouragement and a few arms from Moscow, some means of learning to live with the situation will have to be devised.

This will not be easy—and in reading *White House Years* one realizes that this is to some extent the fault of Kissinger himself, who told the American people years ago that if they conducted their external affairs according to his *realpolitiker* precepts he would devise a system that would in effect make the world stand still for them. He now disowns authorship of the exaggerated rhetoric of the early Nixon foreign policy reports—"an era of world peace" and so forth—but still sticks to the substance of them. When the status quo is disturbed, it can only be (a) because his geopolitical hand is not on the tiller and (b) because the subtle and ruthless Soviets have outwitted lesser men. The net result may well be to propel Kissinger back to the summit of affairs, but it will produce expectations that he could not possibly fulfill under present conditions and that he and his president would be sorely tempted to appease by irrelevant showdowns and international tantrums.

The situation is likely to be made even worse by the baleful inheritance of Lyndon Johnson's and Nixon's (and Kissinger's) earlier handling of public opinion. The most striking lesson to be gleaned from the Kissinger memoirs is that the United States is paying an exceedingly heavy price for the violence done to the proprieties of the American

65.

Constitution from the Tonkin Resolution onward. Kissinger is quite right that a democracy cannot conduct foreign policy unless it is prepared to give some tactical discretion to the Executive. But for the Executive to proceed regularly in secret, as it did in the Nixon/Kissinger era, because it dared not put its case to the test of public opposition, was a blunder even more than it was a crime, and it was also the origin of the present paranoid skepticism of the Congress and the press in the face of all external activities of the U.S. government.

If, as Kissinger implies, foreign policy cannot be conducted effectively on any other basis, so much the worse for Kissinger and foreign policy. But I do not believe it. A sober perception of American national interests in the next decade suggests, certainly, that the U.S. government should maintain rough parity with the Soviet Union in strategic armaments and improve the conventional capabilities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It does not demand the staking of American superpower prestige and influence on the outcome of every regional struggle in which Russian interest can be detected.

The problem is to get the American people —confused, worried, and bruised as they are by decades of conflicting exhortations from their leaders—to take a more balanced and less Manichaean view of the world and to recognize that many changes and some losses are not only inevitable but actually cause more trouble to the Soviets in the long run than the inappropriate assertion of U.S. power.

In some moods Kissinger seems to agree with this cool view. Yet in his attempt to make a comeback, he cannot resist the temptation to strike heroic attitudes; and instead of taking the laborious and politically hazardous course of trying to educate the voters to the new realities of America's limited power, he tries in office to bypass them and in opposition to play on their fears. His book is in many ways superb; but it will not make it any easier for him to lead American foreign policy through the perils of the 1980s if he is called to do so.

66.

HOLD THE

by Chester L.

During the Election Day challenges to a state of free expression as "a relative doubt about the ability of the government to function as a state of free, but not two-ulcerated, democracy" were spurned by a grace and year. Jimmy pound the fellow Anarchist condition "indefinite" months after it took the on it. I have assumed no over result of the election, suffering up immaterial points, the promotion of the platform of the man who has my support and protection, and the prevention of disease.

Now, a year later, the fellow has changed his mind. The "indefinite" months have come to an end. The platform of the platform of the man who has my support and protection, and the prevention of disease.

Not in the Constitution. The Constitution, for its time, was a superb document. It is not in the Constitution for the protection of the individual

in the Constitution.

for its time.

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ARMENIAN ART TREASURES
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which had been kept in the dark, was
informed of the text of what became the
Shanghai communiqué, it demanded a
host of changes—and obtained some, be-
having exactly as Thieu was going to do,
a few months later, when he was finally
informed of the text of the peace agree-
ment Kissinger had negotiated alone
with Le Duc Tho.)

When Kissinger was charged with ex-
ecuting a policy, the sluggishness and
opposition of the bureaucracy could
complicate and delay, but no more.
When responsibilities were shared, or
supposedly belonged to the State De-
partment but were subject to White
House review, policy could become in-
coherent: for instance in the Middle
East in 1969-1970, when Rogers
launched peace plans which Nixon and
Kissinger did not endorse, or during the
Bangladesh crisis when Rogers opposed
the "tilt" toward Pakistan. The
bureaucracy, in what it deemed "its"

Kissinger was more than willing to
overlook those risks, both when in of-
fice and in writing most of his memoir.
For the brand of diplomacy he wanted
to perform cannot tolerate pluralism in
the various institutions concerned with
foreign policy, or the long delays that
building a consensus among them would
entail. He concentrated on the games to
be played with foreign interlocutors, not
domestic bureaucrats. For him the job
of the US bureaucracies was to give him
the data for the decisions he and Nixon
would make, and to carry out these
decisions.

Bureaucratic maneuver annoys him. What fascinates him is diplomatic maneuver, as he makes clear in countless maxims and comments on the art of relating force to goals, on the advantages and perils of crises. These confer "an unusual capacity for creative action" (p. 597), but they must be "over-

domain, often failed to consult the
White House! Nixon's startling an-
nouncement of August 15, 1971—the
monetary and economic measures that
provoked a crisis with Western Europe
and Japan—was made without either
Rogers or Kissinger being consulted.

The Nixon method of government
worked well when the military
problem was relatively straightfor-
ward and could be carried out in
one daring move.... It was effec-
tive also for purposeful solitary
diplomacy conducted by a trusted
associate working with a small
staff.... Difficulties arose when a
sustained military effort was needed
...or when the diplomacy was too
complex to be handled by the
security adviser's office.... Then
the absence of consensus or even
understanding inhibited coherence
and commitment. [P. 997]

Nixon's reluctance to impose his will
perpetuated the lack of discipline, and
drove him increasingly into secrecy and
distrust. Thus his methods made possi-
ble some remarkable initiatives, but also
led straight to the crisis which destroyed
him in 1974, and weakened the pres-
idency.

powered early" (p. 890). "One's actions
must be sustained; they must appear re-
lemtless, inexorable" (p. 604). In the
final phase one must resist "the natural
temptation to relax and perhaps to ease
the process by a gesture of goodwill...
The time for conciliation is after the
crisis is surmounted" (p. 629).

He tells us the requirements of secret
diplomacy, the way of linking issues in
a bargain so as to extract advantages,
and the way of delaying agreement on
the issues which one's opponent is in a
hurry to settle until he has given in on
the others. One must never appear too
eager, yet one should not (as the Soviets
tend to do) compromise one's gains by
being too greedy or by asking for some-
thing unattainable; one should not make
any unilateral concessions, yet one
ought to avoid excessive haggling.

Kissinger also instructs us on triangu-
lar diplomacy (which "must rely on the
natural incentives and propensities of
the players" and "avoid the impression
that one is 'using' either of the con-
tenders against the other," p. 712), on
giving an opponent "a formal reas-
surance intended to unnerve as much as
to calm; and which would defeat its
purpose if it were actually believed"
(p. 712), on the error of raising too soon

*The New York Review*

# The Divine Comedy

in the great, 6-volume, modern edition of Charles S. Singleton

Yours $1950 (Value $105)
for only when you join The Readers' Subscription

The Divine Comedy
of Dante Alighieri

The Edition in six
volumes includes the
Italian text and
Charles S. Singleton's
prose translation and
commentary. 2,932
pages, with maps,
diagrams, and plates.
Publisher's price
$105.00.

The Italian Text is the
critical edition of Giorgio
Petrocchi, Italy's leading
editor of Dante.

The Translation faces each
page of text. "A splendid
translation. What trium-
phant joy it is to see the
honest light of literality
take over again."

—Vladimir Nabokov

The Commentary: Three of
the six volumes consist of
Charles S. Singleton's mas-
terly analysis of the poem's
meaning. His commentary
on such subjects as
Dante's vocabulary, his
characters, and the his-
torical sources of incidents
is a fascinating work of
literature in itself.

"Now our main thoroughfare to the great poem."

—D.S. Carne-Foss.
*The New York Review of Books.*

Singleton is the great contemporary interpreter of Dante. It is clear that his work...supersedes everything else of its kind." —Francis Fergusson

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December 6, 1979

# Symbols of Eternity

## *The Art of Landscape Painting in China*

蘇州吳山吳水圖
元代吳孟頫作

MICHAEL SULLIVAN

CHINESE landscape painting is one of the world's great artistic traditions. In this beautifully illustrated book, an eminent British art historian leads the general reader through the development of this distinctive art form over nearly 2,000 years. Professor Sullivan takes as his theme the responsibility of the artist both to society and to his own vision of nature, relating landscape painting to its political and social setting and to the complex philosophical climate in which the painters worked. This theme is treated historically, partly because Chinese artists have a powerful sense of the past as a source of inspiration, and partly because only a historical perspective could show the profound changes that have taken place in the aims and styles of the painters over the centuries. Illustrated with 115 handsome reproductions, 23 of them in full color. $18.50

Stanford

The MIT Writing Program hopes to appoint an Associate and Assistant Professor of Writing, beginning September, 1980. The persons' main responsibility will be to teach essay writing. All candidates should have written extensively, and should have relevant teaching experience at the university level. Candidates for the position of Associate Professor should also have published extensively. We welcome applications from people whose background is in, for example, social science, history, or political studies. The application deadline is 5 December 1979. Please send *curriculum vitae* and recommendations or dossier to:

Professor Emma Rothschild
Director of the Writing Program (E)
MIT, Room 14E-310D
Cambridge, MA. 02139

MIT is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.

Kissinger the realist sounds more like:

Hans Morgenthau writing on the balance of power. But Morgenthau has often been severely critical of Kissinger. The drama of this doctrine of realism is that, while it conceives of world order as the product of a careful balancing of power, as a set of restraints on excessive ambitions, and as a compromise between conflicting interests, it allows for many different versions of nirvana, and different evaluations of threats and opportunities. Containment too—as described by George Kennan, and as executed (not to Kennan’s satisfaction) by Acheson and (not to Acheson’s satisfaction) by Dulles—had been an attempt to teach realism to Americans. But Kissinger is critical of containment: it “treated power and diplomacy as distinct elements or phases of policy” (p. 62); by concentrating on building “situations of strength” at a time when we were strong and the Soviets weak, we allowed them

what it might have been.¹ Maybe it is Kissinger's horror of grand designs mass-produced by "the wayward representatives of American liberalism" (p. 1089) which explains this reticence. At any rate, he is much more mysterious about his purposes than about his method, about his destination than about his approach.

Secondly, the approach itself reminds one that geopolitics was a German school of thought based on the notion of constant and inevitable struggle. And Kissinger now reminds one of Karl Schmitt's fundamental distinction—in which he saw the key to politics—between friends and foes. Kissinger recognizes that the nuclear stalemate between the superpowers results in a kind of fragmentation of world politics: there is both a global balance of nuclear power, and a series of regional balances (or imbalances). But at the heart of his conception there are two propositions.

The first is that the decisive and

to catch up, and thus to be in a much more favorable position on the distant day of negotiation. "Treating force and diplomacy as discrete phenomena caused our power to lack purpose and our negotiations to lack force" (p. 64). We had to learn a better integration of power and policy in an age of nuclear weapons, competing ideologies, and diffusion of political power.

The question remains: for what purpose? What was the "geopolitical design"? It is here that surprises begin. In the first place, Kissinger's repeated assertions about the need for a policy purged of emotional excesses and reconciled "to imperfect choices, partial fulfillment, the unsatisfying tasks of balance and maneuver" (p. 1089) are nowhere accompanied by a description of the kind of world Kissinger was trying to bring about. If there was a vision beyond the geopolitical game, if the complex manipulation of rewards and punishments needed to create equilibrium and to restrain the troublemakers was aimed at a certain ideal of world order, we are left free to guess

dominant issue is the conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. This extends to every part of the world and, given the nature of Soviet ideology, includes "the internal policies and social structures of countries" (p. 117) as well. Soviet policy, whatever its "ultimate aims" or the Soviet leaders' "real intentions" (wrong questions, says Kissinger), wants "to promote the attrition of adversaries by gradual increments." Soviet strategy is "one of ruthless opportunism" (p. 119). There is no "terminal point to international tension" (p. 123) that could be achieved by "sentimental conciliation" or "liturgical belligerence," for we are "dealing with a system too ideologically hostile for instant conciliation and militarily too powerful to destroy" (p. 123).

The second fundamental proposition is that "to foreclose Soviet opportunities is thus the essence of the West's responsibility" (p. 119). It is a permanent task, not (as containment was thought to be) "an exertion that has a foreseeable end." The nature of that task is the management of the balance

The New York Review

22

## The New History of England

General Editors: A. G. Dickens and Norman Gash

Harvard University Press announces the latest work in this series which encompasses 500 years of English political and social history.

### Aristocracy and People

Britain, 1815-1865

Norman Gash

This new interpretation of the years 1815 to 1865 takes industrialization off center stage as the great dramatic event in national life. It has been hailed by John Clive as "A most impressive work. A volume of distinction, individuality, and power." $20.00

Other books in the series:

### Reform and Reformation

England, 1509-1558

G.R. Elton

$6.95 paper, $15.00 cloth

### Country and Court

England, 1658-1714

J.R. Jones

$6.95 paper, $15.00 cloth

### Stability and Strife

England, 1714-1760

W.A. Speck

$6.95 paper, $15.00 cloth

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

## Mussolini and the Jews

German-Italian Relations and the Jewish
Question in Italy 1922-1945

### MEIR MICHAELIS

"Formidably researched and utterly absorbing book."

—The New York Times Book Review

In this first full-scale work in English on Italian Jewry under Fascism, Meir Michaelis considers the impact of the Axis alliance on Fascist racial policy and concludes by affirming that the importation of German racial theories into Italy marked a major turning-point in the history of Fascism.

1978

526 pp.

$39.00

## The Social and
Political Thought of
Leon Trotsky

### BARUCH KNEI-PAZ

Department of Political Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

"Baruch Knei-Paz has immersed himself in the vast corpus of Trotsky's writings, published and unpublished, and produced a long and erudite analysis of every aspect of his thought." —The New York Times Book Review. First published in cloth in 1978, *The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky* is now available in paper.

December 1979

656 pp.

paper $19.95

### OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016

not to sharpen domestic opposition as to the desire to protect Sihanouk. The tools of Kissinger's strategy—linkage, the unrestrained use of force for specific objectives—could be effective only in the hands of one person. Yet their very nature tempted others, in Congress or in the public, to try to impose different ways (more crude or more moderate) of using them.

The style of Kissinger's strategy was itself an invitation to damaging leaks, which in turn would provoke more or less legal retaliation, such as the wire-taps or the onslaught on Daniel Ellsberg; and these measures in turn would make Congress and the public more restive. In this sense, Kissinger cannot escape all responsibility for Watergate, if we mean by Watergate a pattern of Executive abuses. Watergate became a personal tragedy for Kissinger not only because it was the price of having served Nixon but also because it symbolized the revolt of the very democracy on whose behalf the geopolitical battle was being waged.

We have assumed so far that the design at least made sense abroad. But

est, the notion of indivisible credibility and of a strategy geared exclusively to the Soviet Union becomes eminently questionable. A Soviet presence or privileged position is not necessarily permanent. We may have a good reason for being occasionally on the same side as the Soviets in order to prevent them from capturing a cause or movement. And we may have many incentives to deal with Soviet clients while they still are beholden to the Soviets, precisely because they may not want to mortgage their independence, or because their radicalism is rhetorical, or compatible with our concerns. Looking to Moscow for a key (as Kissinger did, in early 1969, when he wanted to send Cyrus Vance there with a peace plan for Vietnam) can be a mistake. On the other hand, as we discovered in Vietnam, some "proxies" are of such a hostile will of their own that neither Soviet pressure nor Soviet political disengagement helps us much.

Kissinger's conception can thus be criticized in the first place because—strange as it seems—it limits America's flexibility and may turn into a set of self-fulfilling prophecies. It obliges us to

this too is open to challenge. The problem is not whether Soviet designs ought to be thwarted; the debate is over how to do it, and about the conception of the world that underlies Kissinger's strategy. To Kissinger, the struggle between Moscow and Washington is not just global in scope, it absorbs, so to speak, every other conflict or issue. Peace, or containment, is therefore indivisible. Every crisis anywhere tests our ability to stand up to the Soviets. And the credibility of the US depends on our capacity to meet every test. Thus, in case after case, Kissinger's policy was to make the Soviets squarely responsible for what was happening, and to act in such a way that they would either put pressure on their clients to cease and desist, or dissociate themselves from their clients.

Is this the real world? Or does it not substitute for the real world an artificially simple and tidy one, in which friends and foes, radicals and moderates are neatly lined up, and in which nationalism—surely as important a force as communism—gets thoroughly discounted? If one sees the world as more complex and fluid than in Kissinger's scheme, if one realizes that most states are not simply the superpowers' proxies—India and Syria are described as waging "proxy wars" for the Soviets (p. 1255)—but pursue their own inter-

treat practically all unfavorable events as confrontations, and yet it may be very wise to avoid confrontations one can't win—and some situations (as in the Horn of Africa) offer little or no scope for American success. Kissinger wanted us to establish priorities. Yet in his design every incident must be treated seriously, since even if it has no great intrinsic significance, losing the test would encourage our adversary to test us again. But if the Soviets are indeed intent on seizing every good opportunity, why would they fail to exploit one just because we blocked them elsewhere earlier?

To treat countries allied to Moscow (for their own national reasons) merely as Soviet proxies risks tightening their bonds to Moscow (it was Chou En-lai who wisely advised Kissinger to end the Vietnam war rapidly so as to reduce Soviet influence in Indochina), or putting oneself on the losing side (as in the Bangladesh crisis), or missing opportunities (as with Sadat). Indeed, to treat one's own allies as proxies may bring rude awakenings: Thieu, in the last part of 1972, derailed our negotiations by asserting his own interests. And Kissinger has some trouble defending, in a footnote, our friend the Shah's decision to press for high oil prices through OPEC.

The New York Review

26

Kissinger's conception is one which, in its obsession with Moscow, discounts the internal problems of other countries, and dismisses local circumstances. This is a recipe for disaster. Thus he reduces the Chilean domestic situation of 1969 to a simple choice between revolutionary communism and democracy, either ignoring or misreading the complexities of the Allende coalition and the opposition to it. In 1972, Kissinger refused to support Brandt—who was having trouble getting his Ostpolitik treaties through the Bundestag—because the Soviets weren't helpful in Vietnam: had Brandt lost, there would have been a major crisis in US-West German relations (Schmidt has been more generous in trying to help Carter with SALT II).

In the case of Bangladesh, Kissinger blames "the majority of informed opinion" for having "sought to judge the confrontation on the subcontinent on the merits of the issue that had produced the crisis" (p. 914). We had to stay associated with Pakistan because dissociation would have been tantamount "to the US-Soviet condominium so dreaded by Peking." There would therefore have been no Peking summit, and without it there could be no Moscow summit (p. 886). But the one thing, it seems, we could not do was to ask Yahya Khan to release Mujib, without whom Kissinger's dream of a "peaceful" solution of the Bangladesh problem (after so much bloodshed) was bound to remain a mirage, at Indira Gandhi's mercy. "The merits of the issue" not only produce a crisis: they are also the key to a solution.

The signing by Sadat of a treaty with Moscow was wrongly seen by Kissinger

as evidence of Soviet domination and confirmation of the conviction he expressed to Rabin (see the latter's *Memoirs*, p. 201) that no settlement could be concluded without a Soviet-American understanding—on our terms. The geopolitical vision Kissinger advocates looks above all at military balances. Yet in the Middle East, where the US provided huge military assistance to Israel, William Quandt rightly notes that "the military balance proved not to be the key to regional stability and the prevention of war."¹⁰

Kissinger's conception can be criticized for another reason as well. Like Metternich, he is caught in a contradiction. He seeks an order of restraint, yet his global view obliges him to universal intervention. He wants the Soviets to separate their domestic ideology and practices from their external conduct, yet his very recognition of the fact that "a domestic upheaval in any country can cause a major shift in international alignments" (p. 68) leads him to justify as blatant an intervention in another nation's affairs as the attempt to prevent Allende from becoming president. Indeed, he regrets that the US did not use arms and economic assistance as political weapons earlier and better in Chile. Our failure to do so "transformed us by 1970 from the dominant element of 1964 into a sort of mother hen clucking nervous irrelevancies from the sidelines" (p. 664). Kissinger wants to "shape events in the light of our own purposes" (p. 683)—those events may be another nation's own political life. But of course, in Kissinger's view, nobody's af-

¹⁰Decade of Decisions (University of California Press, 1977), p. 163.

fairs are exclusively his own.

The third criticism arises from the human cost of such a strategy—admittedly a “sentimental” concern. Kissinger’s conception turns people into pawns, countries into tools. Kissinger and the CIA encouraged the Kurds to agitate in Iraq so as to divert Iraqi forces from the Arab-Israeli conflict. When, in 1975, the Shah decided to “settle the Kurdish problem with Iraq” (a nice unsentimental euphemism), we approved. Chile’s General Schneider was killed as a result of a half-comic, half-serious confusion produced by the famous Forty Committee’s orders (Frei, the former Chilean president, whom we had financed in the past, refused to play the part Kissinger had assigned to him). And the classic case of a people sacrificed is of course Cambodia. Had we not intervened, Kissinger writes, “Vietnamization and American withdrawal would then come unstuck” (p. 475). “Cambodia was not a moral issue… What we faced was essentially a tactical choice” (p. 515). “Strategically, Cambodia could not be considered a country separate from Vietnam” (p. 486).

This does not mean that Kissinger presents his strategy as amoral: morality is defined as the defense of our values and the resistance to totalitarianism. But this is an ethics of intentions, or purposes, which neglects consequences, and makes of “credibility,” in effect, the highest value. Whether a nation ensures its credibility by fighting unwinnable wars, by intervening blatantly in the affairs of others, by turning secondary issues into tests of strength, and by sacrificing others to its design is, at least, an open question. De Gaulle

asked Kissinger in 1969 why the US did not leave Vietnam; he answered that "a sudden withdrawal might give us a credibility problem." De Gaulle asked where; Kissinger mentioned the Middle East. "How very odd," de Gaulle replied. "It is precisely in the Middle East that I thought your enemies had the credibility problem" (p. 110).

Indivisible credibility is a recipe for political hubris, military overextension, and moral callousness. "Those without strong values cannot withstand the ambiguities, pressures, and anguish that are inseparable from great responsibility" (p. 1033). But "strong values" can apparently carry you anywhere. In Kissinger's conception, the ends justify the means, and the end (in both meanings of the word)—the stable, balanced world where the radicals and the Soviets will have been tamed—is attractive enough to vindicate a great deal of misery on the way. Kissinger wanted to put an end to America's oscillations from one form of idealism—isolation— to another—crusades. But he fails to see both how his division of the world into friends and foes resembles the crusaders' itch to divide it into good and evil, and how the way in which he proposed "to teach our people to face their permanent responsibility" (p. 125) was bound to produce a new swing toward the sentimental liberalism he despises.

If Kissinger's book is, at times, oppressive, it is because the "historian's perspective" (p. 54) he says he brought with him to power is both so grim and so thin. This is a world in which power is all: equilibrium is not just the prerequisite to order, the precondition for justice, it is order, it amounts to justice.

## SEVEN SERPENTS AND SEVEN MOONS

By Demetrio Aguilera-Malta
Translated by Gregory Rabassa

An exceptional cast of characters—including wizards, demons, ghosts, and a talking crucifix—cross paths and swords in Aguilera-Malta’s novel. It is a steamy, fantastic tale full of magic and wry insight. 314 pages, $12.95

## BREAKING THE MAGIC SPELL

Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales

By Jack Zipes

Everywhere one turns today fairy tales pop up like magic—the motif is common in films, television commercials, posters, T-shirts. This book delves beneath our "Walt Disney consciousness" to provide a clear view of the fairy tale and its role in our society.
180 pages, $13.95

## JEAN RHYS

A Critical Study

By Thomas F. Staley

This is the first comprehensive study of the extraordinary literary career of Jean Rhys. It traces her major themes and the development of her unique portrayal of modern feminine consciousness from the early short stories and novels to *Wide Sargasso Sea* and the recent fiction. 160 pages, $11.95

## THE ARCHITECTURE OF JOHN F. STAUB

Houston and the South

By Howard Barnstone

For five decades, John F. Staub designed houses for the elite of Houston and the South. This lavish volume is a portfolio of his finest work and a study in the eclectic style.
400 pages, 28 color and 317 b&w photos, 177 line drawings, 7 maps, $35.00

## POLLUTION AND REFORM IN AMERICAN CITIES, 1870–1930

Edited by Martin V. Melosi

Rapid industrialization of American cities at the turn of the century created an unprecedented environmental crisis. These essays examine the response of early reformers and show how they laid the foundations for today's environmental activists.
240 pages, $15.00

TEXAS

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS
Post Office Box 7819 Austin, Texas 78172

December 6, 1979

27