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DR. KISSINGER'S BACKGROUNDERS - 1969

<table><thead><tr><th>No's</th><th></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>February 6</td><td>First Backgrounder</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>February 21</td><td>President's European Trip</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>February 25</td><td>President's European Trip</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>February 27</td><td>President's European Trip - Rome, Italy</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>February 28</td><td>President's European Trip - 6:17 - Paris, France</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>February 28</td><td>President's European Trip - 6:46 - Paris, France</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>March 14</td><td>ABM System</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>May 2</td><td>ABM - French Situation - Vietnam</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>May 14</td><td>President's Address - Vietnam - 5:05</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>May 14</td><td>President's Address - Vietnam - 7:55</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>May 26</td><td>Vietnam</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>May 27</td><td>Vietnam (re figures)</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>June 6</td><td>Re Groundwork for Upcoming Meeting Between President Nixon and President Thieu - California</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>June 9</td><td>Vietnam - California</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>June 28</td><td>President's Trip - New York (Asia and Romania)</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>July 18</td><td>President's trip to Asia and Romania</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>July 25</td><td>President's trip - Guam</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>July 29</td><td>President's trip - Thailand</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>July 30</td><td>President's trip - Thailand</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>August 1</td><td>President's trip - Lahore, West Pakistan</td></tr></tbody></table>

(Continued)

All referenced Nixon statements in bound Public Papers, Nixon...

NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION

This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER,
SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS;
AND RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT

5:45 P.M. EST

FEBRUARY 6, 1969

THURSDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: Ladies and gentlemen:

All of our backgrounders, of course, wouldn't take
on the same air of hospitality. However, a number of you
had indicated that you would like to meet Dr. Kissinger
and Dr. Kissinger, of course, wanted to meet as many of you
as he could. And we consider this a special occasion this
evening. That is why we are offering the hospitality to you.

It is not a precedent. I checked that out.

Q I think you could say it is a historic occasion.

MR. ZIEGLER: It is a historic occasion. That is
correct. We will toast to it, if you like.

Dr. Kissinger has requested that the ground rules
for this will be on a background basis. Dr. Kissinger understands
a background basis to be background which you can write from
but not attribute directly from the Doctor.

Q (Inaudible.)

MR. ZIEGLER: I would say White House sources would
be fine, which is what it is. He is a White House source.

DR. KISSINGER: This is only the second press conference
of this kind that I have given, so I don't exactly know how
one operates under these background rules. Why don't you ask
me some questions and I will answer them. I don't have any
formal statement for you.

Q Dr. Kissinger, why did the President want to
go to Europe so soon?

DR. KISSINGER: I think that he covered his reasons
quite fully in his statement that was released this morning
and also in his press conference. He wants to underline the
emphasis that he wishes to give European policy. He feels
that, as he has said several times during the campaign, that
Europe had been neglected during recent years.

But he also believes that in the period of relationships
in which we are now, we can't operate from strictly American
design. And, therefore, he is going to learn the views of
our European friends and put before them what views he may
have. And he looks on this as the first of a series of
consultations. He expects to meet the heads of government

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fairly regularly over his term in office.

He thought it was none too early to inaugurate
a dialogue, particularly as there is so much discussion about
possible negotiations with the Soviet Union.

I think one of the basic principles of his
Administration is going to be that we will not engage in
bilateral talks with the Soviet Union without full consulta-
tion with our European allies if the subject is a matter that
concerns him.

Q In connection with this, is the President concerned at all about the fact that he has not yet appointed his Ambassadors to the capitals that he is going to visit?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, it is a fact of which one cannot help but be aware. It was not thought to be an insuperable obstacle, obviously, or he would not have gone. But we are aware of it.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the President spoke this morning about the possibility of four-power talks after he comes back from this trip, at various levels, looking toward a possible meeting with the Soviet Union. Could you give us a rundown on this?

DR. KISSINGER: The President has indicated all along that this is going to be an era, insofar as he can make it so, he would like it to be an era of negotiation rather than confrontation.

He also said, in relation with the strategic arms
talks, that he will make a judgment depending on the
general political progress that is made in other issues.
For that reason, the Administration is going to be ready, after
we have had a chance to talk to our European allies, to begin
exploratory talks with the Soviet Union on a whole range of
issues looking toward alleviating specific points of tension.

I think his approach is going to be to concentrate
on specific areas, as he pointed out this morning -- and
I believe I know his views on this. He does not believe that
these tensions that have lasted for 20 years are going to be
fettered by one spectacular exercise in personal diplomacy,
but that they require some patient, detailed preparation
at lower levels and that they must be characterized by
precision and attention to details. This may not be
spectacular, but perhaps it is more permanent.

Q Can you tell us more about why the President
wants to have strategic negotiations and political negotiations
going forward on separately different facts?

DR. KISSINGER: I was lured here because I was
told you all could hardly wait to hear me expound on the National
Security Council system and my exerted influence on it.

To take the question of the linkage between the
political and the strategic environment. We have come through
two phases. In the 1950's, it used to be said that a
political settlement had to precede an arms settlement. It
was said that the arms race is the result of political tensions,
not the cause of them, and, therefore, the way to deal with

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the problem of arms was to solve first all the political problems
and then the arms would take care of themselves.

In reaction to that, they developed an arms control
school which you and I participated in various stages as
colleagues in which the argument used to be that the arms
race portion was essentially autonomous with producing tension
and in which the level of political tension was more or less
irrelevant to what could be done in the arms field.

This led to about ten years of negotiations in the
arms field which have had some successes, of which the Non-
Proliferation Treaty is one, but during which, I think it is
fair to say, that the level of arms has increased substantially,
both quantitatively and qualitatively and the level of tension
has also increased substantially.

Now, if you review the last 20 years and look at the
incidents that significantly increase the dangers of war,
I think it would be difficult to think of one that was caused
by the general balance of arms. But it is possible to think of
very many that were caused by the general balance of political
relationships.

Therefore, the President's view is not that there
must be a settlement of all political issues. He has
emphatically rejected that in his press conference before this.
His view is, if I understand it correctly, that there is a danger,
that if arms control and political issues become too much
disassociated that arms control may be used as a safety valve
to make political conflict safer rather than eliminate political
conflict.

He has, therefore, suggested that there be enough
movement in the political field to indicate that the arms
control negotiations do not unwittingly, instead of reducing the
danger of war, offer a means by which political conflict can
be intensified and yet managed. He is asking for enough
movement, not to produce a final settlement, but to indicate
that there is enough good faith in the direction of trying to
reduce the intensity of political conflict.

In short, he would like to deal with the problem of
peace on the entire front in which peace is challenged and
not only on the military one.

Q It was just about a year ago that the Vice
President was pelted with eggs in West Berlin. And West Berlin
is still a pretty difficult part of the world, there is still
much tension. Why now was it necessary to include West Berlin
for the President to go to?

DR. KISSINGER: Four Administrations since the war,
prior to this one, have committed themselves to the integral...
connection between the future of Berlin and the future of
freedom in Germany.

Here we are, at the beginning of a new Administration,
visiting Germany. And while the President has leaned over
backwards in his statements and will continue to lean over
backwards to indicate that we have no agressive intentions towards
the Soviet Union, and that we are sincere in our statements
that we are looking for negotiation rather than confrontation,

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it is also important that the Soviet Union understand that
any challenge to the status quo in Central Europe would have
serious consequences.

President Kennedy visited Berlin. President Johnson
visited it when he was Vice President. And it might have
been misunderstood if President Nixon visited Germany without
visiting Berlin.

But beyond this negative reason, there is the positive
reason that he wanted to express to the people of Berlin the
respect that the American people feel for their own.

Q Doctor, upon the point that you raised earlier
about your supposedly excessive influence.

DR. KISSINGER: I just happen to have a little statement.

Q If you have a long paper there, I don't know
if I want to ask this question, but there have been two news
articles recently about this influence. One of them referred
to what is described as a 50-page series of questions which
has people all throughout the Government busy answering these
questions from the White House as to what our foreign policy
ought to be. The other one pertains to a forthcoming
circular of some sort which, according to a morning journal
published in New York, was going to give you powers over
planning which were previously given to the Secretary of State.

Could you explain what the situation actually is
with both of these factors and your offices?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. First of all, when I was
appointed, President Nixon made clear that he would wish this
office that I occupy to take major responsibility for encouraging
planning throughout the Government. Therefore, it was
carrying out what had been announced from the beginning that
I have been given major emphasis in this office to plan.

Secondly, the common criticism that I had heard
previously was that there had been a lack of planning in the
National Government. And I think it is correct to say that
what my office is doing is not taking over the functions of
somebody else, but trying to get started functions which no
one had exercised before.

Moreover, my office is not doing the planning, itself.
My office, that has some 20 professional people, cannot do
the planning of the whole Government. The effectiveness of
my office depends on encouraging the Departments to do the
planning functions which the President wishes. And the job
of my office is to synthesize this process, and at every stage
of this process the Departments are involved.

Therefore, I don't think, I frankly don't agree
with the comment that my office has taken over functions which
the Secretary of State used to exercise. I think it is more
correct to say that my office is now attempting to do things
which have not been done before.

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Now, the second point, these 50 questions that were sent up -- I frankly have never counted them. The history of those is as follows: The President had decided that he wanted to do an annual review of the international situation similar to the annual economic review which he makes to Congress. He wanted to get started an annual international review which would make an overview of the general outlook of where the United States is and where it is going, partly as a report to the American people and partly as a device to get the American Government to look at the future and beyond the immediate tactical problems.

We spoke about this once in relation to next year. Then he said, "Wouldn't it be interesting to try to find out what we took over when we started? Wouldn't it be a good way to get this process started by getting a state of the union report, so to speak, of what the international situation was like on January 20th, 1969?"

So in pursuit of this Presidential directive, we then sent out questions -- you say 50, I have not counted them -- asking them in some detailed questions about each area.

The point of it was not to get their policy recommendations. The point was to get their statement of the state of the world as of noon, January 20th, and to give us a benchmark against which to compare notes and to get an agreed factual base within the Government against which to test our recommendations.

Now, obviously, if the original question of the President was to be validly answered, the deadline had to be reasonably short; that is, we could not say, "Tell us on April 1 what you thought the state of the world was like on January 20th."

Therefore, it is true that in the first few days after the inauguration we sent out these questions. It is true that the deadlines were very short. It is true that there was an imposition on the Departments insofar as it takes a lot of effort by the senior people to get this material togehter. But it is also true that this will give us the raw material against which we can frame our policy deliberations. Because unless we have an agreed factual base, we wouldn't even know whether everyone is talking about the same thing.

So I would have to say the story is true and our reason for doing it was as I gave it. I do understand the problems of the Departments of facing this transition and being hit with this. But I don't see what choice we would have had if we were going to carry out the directive.

Q Is that to come out next week specifying your areas for planning?

DR. KISSINGER: There is no circular coming out next week specifying the functions of the various elements of this process. The system will continue to operate as it is operating now. There will not be any change of which I am aware.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, what do we want to discuss on this European trip? What subjects are likely to come up?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, actually, an agenda for the individual stops has not been definitely fixed yet. We would not want to restrict the views of our partners, but I think what General de Gaulle in France, for example, and Chancellor Kiesinger, and Prime Minister Wilson, and others, will wish to raise, and certainly President Nixon is always asking his associates, "Where are we trying to go? How do we visualize Western relationships, East-West relationships, arms talks and similar ranges of issues over a longer period of time?"

Now, within the international discussions within the Government, as most of you know, and as President Nixon has said publicly, he always insists on knowing what the choices are before him. He strongly discourages, to put it mildly, attempts to confront him simply with a yes or no answer.

I am sure that what he will want to explore with our European allies is how they see the future of the alliance, the diplomatic problems and similar matters.

I don't think the purpose of the trip is to get an agreement on specific tactical issues of what to say at the next Foreign Ministers' conference.

I think the purpose of the trip is a more fundamental one of trying to see what common purposes we might have, what disagreements seem to be ahead, and also to see whether a relationship that grew up to prevent the fear of military attack can be based on other purposes as well.

Q Dr. Kissinger, can you tell us whether you visualize the talks in Paris developing into a sort of two-track negotiation, such as you suggested in your article?

DR. KISSINGER: On substantive matters, other than those that the Administration has already adopted a policy on, I am in a difficult position because my job in this Administration is not to be the chief formulator of policy. My job in this Administration is to make sure that the proper range of choices is available to the President.

I am not going to pretend that he doesn't ask me for my opinion. Of course he asks me for my opinion and those of you who know me know that excessive reticence is not one of my difficulties. I can't do anything else if both of the Departments and the President are confident that I am not loading the presentation in order to produce a particular result. Therefore, I go to considerable lengths to make sure that every point of view that exists within the bureaucracy gets a fair hearing from the President. Then I may add my own point of view.

On the Vietnam negotiations, if you will forgive me, I don't want to be evasive. I stated what was my opinion before I entered the Government in an article. I think it is a delicate problem of how to gear our military, diplomatic and other actions on Vietnam to produce the result we want.

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Therefore, on Vietnam diplomacy questions, if you will
forgive me, I will be evasive. All I will say is that I don't
exclude that this might happen.

Q Would it be fair to interpret the first stop at Brussels, NATO Headquarters, and the last stop at Paris designed to emphasize interest in NATO versus putting ahead the talk with the man who dropped out of NATO?

DR. KISSINGER: Certainly the first stop in Brussels indicates the interest of his Administration in NATO. Certainly one of the principal reasons for going to Brussels is that. But the other sequence of capitals does not indicate the priority that we attach to them. It is based on many considerations, but not to symbolize which country ranks first and which country ranks last.

Q Mr. Nixon left open the possibility today that he might talk to a representative from North Vietnam, at least I think that is a fair interpretation.

DR. KISSINGER: Not on this trip, certainly not on this trip. He left open the possibility of talking to somebody from South Vietnam.

Let me answer the question of why he goes back to Rome. The truth is that the Pope is in Lent retreat during the week of our stop in Rome and, therefore, since the President is very eager to see His Holiness, he decided on the way back to detour via Rome to be able to have the interview.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in the past there has been Europe and there has been England, a special relationship. Now we hear talk of a trip by Prime Minister Wilson here turned down in favor of a trip to Europe by Nixon. There seems to be an even-handedness in Europe as well as the Middle East. Is there any change in relationship or signals?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, I think I should correct the indication that a trip by Prime Minister Wilson to the United States was turned down in favor of a trip to Europe. The President, as he does in everything in which I have seen him function, does not like to make ad hoc decisions.

Therefore, it was always understood that Prime Minister Wilson would be one of the first foreign leaders, if not the first foreign leader, he would see. But he did not want to make a decision on individual visits until he had seen a whole program of visits and could bring about a schedule in which there was a possibility of meaningful talks. This was the only obstacle to a Wilson visit. It had no other significance and it was always understood that Prime Minister Wilson would be one of the very first British leaders.

Now, on the question of special relationship. This is something that had never been written down on paper. It is something that had evolved as a series of intangible relationships that have existed between American leaders and British leaders. My own personal view on this issue is that we do not suffer in the world from such an excess of friends that we should discourage those who feel that they have a special friendship for us.

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I would think that the answer to the special relationship of Britain would be to raise other countries to the same status, rather than to discourage Britain into a less warm relationship with the United States.

In short, there is emphatically no effort to encourage Britain to be less friendly to the United States.

Q Doctor, what will be the nature of your discussions this weekend in Florida aside from the obvious of preparing for this trip to Europe?

DR. KISSINGER: That will be one. And I think for the rest I really don't think it would be proper for me to announce the subjects that the President wants to discuss with his advisers.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, when does the President hope to visit the Soviet Union? Is he thinking about doing that this year?

DR. KISSINGER: I think any talks with Soviet leaders will depend on the specific progress that is made in other negotiations. If I understand the President's thinking on talks with the Soviets, it is that summit talks are not an end in themselves. Summit talks can register an agreement that has been arrived at at lower levels or symbolize an understanding that perhaps has been reached elsewhere. But I do not believe that a summit conference will be a purpose in itself of this administration, and therefore, you will almost be able to judge as well as we can whether a summit conference is probable because we will either make progress at lower levels or we will not.

I doubt seriously that there will be an effort to generate a conference unless there is some success in lower levels.

Q Do you mean starting at the ambassadorial level and going up to the foreign ministers?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to suggest that there is a master plan -- and really, these questions suggest what I said before that the summit is an inevitable concomitant of our policy. The President has indicated on many occasions that he wants this to be a year of negotiations. He has said he wants to have political talks together with these arms talks which can always be construed as an invitation to negotiation.

I think our belief would be "let's get these talks started and see what comes out of it."

Q Has the Soviet Union indicated an interest in a meeting with the United States of a summit type?

DR. KISSINGER: I really want to separate the question of the summit with the question of talks with the Soviet Union. I believe the Soviet Union has indicated certainly an interest in talking about the strategic arms talks and we will see in the next few months how ready they are to talk about political matters. I think the President has indicated he is ready for political talks.

Q Without belaboring this point of the conjunction or the simultaneous nature of strategic arms talks and political negotiations, how specific can you get here in two things that have been noted? For instance, the two lines of speculation have been that if the Soviets want us to agree to missile talks they must come through on a Middle East settlement, help or cooperate on that or put the heat on Hanoi to come to terms on a Vietnam peace settlement. Are we talking about a quid pro quo? Do we have this in mind? How far can you go on that?

DR. KISSINGER: When you say they must, it looks like we are trying to blackmail the Soviets to do something in one area in return for something we will do in another area. I think it would be correctly stated like this: Any agreement between two major countries, if it is to be lasting, has to be one that they both want to maintain. In other words, both sides must feel that their interests are sufficiently engaged.

Therefore, one has to assume that if both sides are interested in avoiding the danger of war they both have an interest in reducing the level of arms and in reducing the level of tension. We are not saying to them "We want no tension, but arms," We want no

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arms, but tension." We are saying to them, we believe that if there is to be peace and not just a series of armistices then we must work on these things simultaneously. As we work on them simultaneously, we recognize that agreements we may make, whether on the Middle East or other areas, and/or arms, must take into account the genuine interests of all parties.

Therefore, there is no attempt to blackmail them into a disadvantageous settlement in one area in order to give something in another area. Our argument would be that we would want to have a fair settlement in every area. Anybody who knows something about the Middle East or any of the other problems we are talking about must recognize that they cannot come across with a Middle East settlement because no one can do that because that takes the parties in the area.

What we have asked for, what we are trying to say, is that there should be some indication of a willingness to lower the level of political tension, some demonstration of something other than words that together with reducing the competition over arms there will be an attempt to reduce the conflict in the political fields.

This can take the form of a series of partial agreements, a series of proposals which indicate the possibility of agreements. We would be quite open-minded in seeing what this would look like, but there is this point in which the President has expressed interest in establishing a certain linkage.

Q In the Middle East, when we talk about preliminary talks prior to four-power talks, are we looking for some formula produced by the four powers which can then be put to the parties and using this as a Soviet interest in reducing political tensions? What do you have in mind specifically there?

DR. KISSINGER: Don't say what I have in mind because really, I am not conducting an autonomous policy here. As I understand the decision on the Middle East, it is consistent with the general style and approach of the President and of his attitude towards foreign policy. He believes that real progress depends not on dramatic moves, but on patient, detailed, careful work. One can always organize a four-power meeting, but if it raises too much euphoria or dispair on either side on an extremely volatile situation it may make the difficulty worse rather than better.

What he has suggested in this note and what he has decided in these meetings is to engage in exploratory bilateral talks with those countries that would be part of a four power country, to explore with them whether there is something worth talking about in a four-power conference and if there is any indication that there are some things that these four powers could usefully do, then, as he has said, we would favor an early meeting of these four powers.

In other words, we are not interested in any forum just to have a forum. We are interested in those forums that make a specific contribution. I think it is safe to say that if you read the public statements that this administration has made on various occasions we have always tried to avoid invective or spectacular statements and try to say those

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things that can be implemented and, of course, eventually
a settlement in the Middle East will depend on the parties
concerned.

Q Dr., I wonder if you can give us a further
definition of the exploratory talks the President mentioned
with the Soviet Union after his return. Does this look to
one session with the Russians, a broadly based session?

DR. KISSINGER: Don't read too much into it because as part of his Middle East proposal, part of the Middle East note that we sent the other day, exploratory talks with the Soviets on the Middle East have been invited almost immediately. They don't wait for the tirp to Europe. They will start within the framework of trying to arrange the four-power meeting.

After the return from the trip, no doubt we will be
willing to discuss other subjects. It depends in part on
what the Soviet Union is ready to discuss.

Q Which could be separate talks from the strategic
arms?

DR. KISSINGER: It would be separate, but if I understand
the President's statements and his views, he is serious
about wanting to see whether there can be simultaneous
progress on both grounds.

Q But not necessarily in the same set of discussions?

DR. KISSINGER: Oh, no, of course not. It would be a
separate set of negotiators from those who negotiate the
strategic arms thing.

Q Can you tell us just exactly how your staff works with the State Department staff?

DR. KISSINGER: My staff is organized as follows. There
are some things that my staff does which are designed to help
all participants in the national security process in having
adeqyate information at their disposal. For example, a small
group of my staff, three or four people, are engaged in what
is called "Program Budgeting". That is, they take in a
number of major countries and regions and they make a tabula-
tion of all American expenditures from whatever source in
that country without drawing any policy conclusions from
that. But the reason is, when the President is asked or the
National Security Council is asked to make a judgment they
will have before them the total picture of the American
effort in that country or region, rather than have to pass
on the individual merits of the program in isolation.

Now, this is an essentially neutral activity which is
designed to produce factual information.

The second part of my staff does roughly what the Bundy
and Rostow staffs used to do. I have about 6 or 7 people who
follow day-to-day operations. Their job is to keep informed,
to call attention to problems that may become of Presidential
concern and to help interpret to the Departments their best
understanding of Presidential decisions. That is a function

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that is familiar to you from the operation of the Bundy staff. They operate roughly like the Bundy and Rostow staff with what I think is a change in tone. Having been a consultant on the Bundy staff in 1961, I am aware of the dislocation that too many field marshalls from the White House can cause in the operation of the government.

I have urged the maximum amount of restraint and I have insisted that when the White House staff talks to the Department they speak for the President and not for their own preferences. In order to help this we have asked each Department to give us one clear point of contact for the transmission of instruction when we have instructions to give in order to minimize the danger of an entirely personal policy being conducted from here.

Then we have a third part which is relatively new, at least in this emphasis which has eight or ten people whose primary job is to correlate the planning activities of the government, to prepare for NSC meetings and to follow up NSC decisions.

You have to remember that in the previous administration the principal decisions were made at an institution called "The Tuesday Lunch" which met on the basis of no agenda, no background papers and no follow up.

Therefore, it was not always easy to discover, for a new administration, exactly what had been decided. It was not always easy for participants to agree on what had been decided, but I am not here to talk about the previous system.

I am simply trying to say that this function of having an orderly system of making decisions requires a staff to produce the background papers and to follow up on the actions. Now, this particular problem is made more interesting and more complex by the President's insistence that he does not want just one paper to which he has to say yes or no. In the administration of President Eisenhower the NSC system worked basically on the basis of a series of consensus papers which came up through various bodies and which the President approved or disapproved at a meeting. President Nixon does not operate in this manner.

President Nixon insists that the papers which come to him give him the choices, the consequences of the choices, the penalties of failure and the implications of adopting a certain course of action.

Now, in order to have these sessions meaningful, this requires a fair amount of staff work. I would say about half my staff is devoted to this.

Then I have a few people whom we use as pinch hitters to jump in where there is the greatest need. There is this function of the annual review which is a seasonal activity in the sense that it will generally be conducted in the fall, but if you look at my staff, if you add the people who in effect do the servicing functions of providing a factual basis for the senior officials of the Government and those who are addressing themselves to the planning functions related to the NSC, I think you will find that over two-thirds of them are doing those things and less than one-third are doing the operational business. I cannot believe

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that with seven people I am going to be able to take over
both the State Department and the Defense Department.

MR. ZIEGLER: I know the Doctor could go on all night.
Why don't we have two more questions?

Q I have two related mechanical questions. Are you
or any members of your staff going to be doing any advance
traveling on this trip or will this be handled by the State
Department?

DR. KISSINGER: I think the head of the advance party,
as I understand it, is the Counsel of the President. There
will be a junior member of my staff along, but there will
also be several State Department officials.

Q Will there be much of your staff going with you on
this trip?

DR. KISSINGER: On the advance trip?

Q On the final trip.

DR. KISSINGER: One person, probably.

Q I am not sure you made it clear on this annual
review, when it is going to come out.

DR. KISSINGER: Probably in January of each year. It is
not just foreign affairs. It is national security affairs.

Q But in light of the fact that you went back to noon
on the 20th of January, don't you intend to put it out this
year?

DR. KISSINGER: No. This is the one to give us the
common date from which to operate.

Q Is it a report to the American people?

DR. KISSINGER: When the President and I discussed having
a report for the American people next January he thought
that it would be useful to start with the other one. I
wanted to explain to you why we started with 50 questions
and fairly short deadlines, even though this is recognized
as a burden on the Departments and I think the Departments
are quite right in feeling that this is a heavy burden.

I think it will pay off over the months as we make
decisions and we don't have to go through that process again.

THE PRESS: Thank you, sir.

END (AT 6:30 P.M. EST)

NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION

This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

5:45 P.M. EST

FEBRUARY 6, 1969

THURSDAY

Q (Inaudible.)

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DR. KISSINGER: Four Administrations since the war,
prior to this one, have committed themselves to the integral
connection between the future of Berlin and the future of
freedom in Germany.

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DR. KISSINGER: My staff is organized as follows: There
are some things that my staff does which are designed to help
all participants in the national security process in having
adequate information at their disposal. For example, a small
group of my staff, three or four people, are engaged in what
is called "Program Budgeting". That is, they take in a
number of major countries and regions, and they make a tabula-
tion of all American expenditures from whatever source in
that country without drawing any policy conclusions from
that. But the reason is, when the President is asked or the
National Security Council is asked to make a judgment they
will have before them the total picture of the American
effort in that country or region, rather than have to pass
on the individual merits of the program in isolation.

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that is familiar to you from the operation of the Bundy
staff. They operate roughly like the Bundy and Postow
staff with what I think is a change in tone. Having been a
consultant on the Bundy staff in 1961, I am aware of the
dislocation that too many field marshalls from the White
House can cause in the operation of the government.

Then I have a few people whom we use as pinch hitters
to jump in where there is the greatest need. There is this
function of the annual review which is a seasonal activity
in the sense that it will generally be conducted in the fall,
but if you look at my staff, if you add the people who in
effect do the servicing functions of providing a factual
basis for the senior officials of the Government and those
who are addressing themselves to the planning functions
related to the NSC, I think you will find that over two-
thirds of them are doing those things and less than one-
third are doing the operational business. I cannot believe

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Q On the final trip.

THE PRESS: Thank you, sir.

END

(AT 6:30 P.M. EST)

This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING
(President's European Trip)

NOTE: This briefing is for background purposes only. No direct quotes can be used. Quotes should be paraphrased and attributed to administration sources.

AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(Indian Treaty Room)

WITH RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT, AND DR. HENRY
A. KISSINGER, NATIONAL SECURITY
COUNCIL.

3:55 P.M. EST

FEBRUARY 21, 1969

FRIDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: We will get started here on some of the details before Dr. Kissinger arrives.

Of the material you have in front of you, probably one of the most meaningful things would be the memo and the details regarding the airplanes and the customs, and the schedule which is on Page 4 of that memo, which indicates that press luggage should be brought to the corridor outside Room 87 at the Executive Office Building tomorrow at any time between the hours of 10:00 A.M., and 6:00 P.M.

You will notice that you don't have before you the detailed schedule. As I mentioned in the briefing this afternoon, the reason you do not have that is because we have just firmed up the times of the pooling arrangements this afternoon. That will be prepared over night. It will be available for you when you deliver your luggage tomorrow at the Executive Office Building.

O Does that mean it will be available at 10:00 A.M.?

MR. ZIEGLER: Yes, it will also be available at 10:00 in the West Lobby.

You will also notice on the schedule, if you do not desire to deliver your luggage to Room 87 tomorrow between the hours of 10:00 A.M. and 6:00 P.M., you have an option to deliver it at 5:30 A.M., at Andrews Air Force Base. That may be appealing to some.

The press buses will depart the White House at 6:00 A.M. from the West Executive Avenue entrance for Andrews Air Force Base.

For those of you who want to get another means of transportation to Andrews, the final boarding time will be 6:15 A.M. That is the check-in time. So if you are not going on the bus to Andrews, you should be there at Andrews and checked in by 6.15 A.M.

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As the schedule indicates, the President and members of the official party will depart the White House at 7:05 on Sunday morning and will depart for Belgium at 7:45 Eastern Standard Time.

The press pool for this flight to Belgium is listed: Gene Risher, UPI; Frank Cormier, AP; AP and UPI photographers; Chuck Bailey, Minneapolis Tribune; Jack Sutherland, US News and World Report; and Bob Pierpoint, CBS.

The schedule continues with some details on the press arrangements in Brussels.

If you did not get the material, the material will also be available after this meeting over in the West Lobby. We have correct spellings and titles for leaders and people that the President will be meeting with on this trip. Also, we have a list of the members of the President's party, a list of the travelling press, and Merriman Smith has been inadvertently left off that list.

We also have background notes prepared by the Department of State on each of the countries which we will visit.

I also mentioned in the briefing this afternoon that the only formal dress that will be required will be black-tie. There will be no white-tie occasions.

Because most of the dinners and black-tie affairs will be working gatherings, we will not have a press pool in those. However, just to protect members of the White House Press Corps in case a black-tie occasion does arise, we have drawn some 30 names here and have suggested that these people bring black-tie along and if this occasion does arise, then we will select the pool for the black-tie meeting while we are in Europe from this basic list of 30.

Those who should bring black-tie with them are:

Merriman Smith, Henry Keys, Gene Risher, Frank Cormier, Walter Mears, John Heffernan, Francis Lara, Richard Harwood, Jack Horner, Philip Potter, Robert Semple, Joseph Albright, Walter Ridder, Jack Germond, William Theis, Jerry TerHorst, Robert Young, James Deakin, Peter Lisagor, Charles Bailey, Saville Davis, James Dickenson, Robert Donovan, Lucian Warren, Bernard Cutler, Hugh Sidey, Charles Foltz, Dan Rather, Forrest Boyd, Herbert Kaplow, Thomas Jarriel.

Also, I would suggest if you do have a black tie you might want to bring it along beyond that list. If there is an occasion, you may have an opportunity to expand that.

Those are the details that I have. Dr. Kissinger will be here shortly. The groundrules for the BACKGROUNDER Dr. Kissinger will present to you are as follows:

The information in this BACKGROUNDER will be for Sunday, A.M. papers, which means that the information from this BACKGROUNDER is embargoed until 6:30 Eastern Standard Time, Saturday evening. Please take note of the Eastern Standard Time.

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Q Ron, before you get on to that, do we have to
bring carry-on baggage here to the transportation office?

MR. ZIEGLER: No, not a small carrying bag. Anything
that you can fit under your seat you can defer.

The groundrules for this BACKGROUNDER will be that
it is not attributable to Dr. Kissinger. It is BACKGROUND
information for use in writing, of course, in relation to the
European trip. It will be attributable to administration
officials. There should be no direct quotes but paraphrase
the information from the BACKGROUNDER which is to be
attributed to administration officials.

Q How about White House, Ron? Is that out?

MR. ZIEGLER: Administration officials.

Q Ron, what is the outlook for advanced texts
of the arrival statements at airports and particularly the
Berlin speech?

MR. ZIEGLER: We would hope that because of,
particularly in the case of PM papers, when we arrive in
Bussels we will arrive on a deadline, so that we would hope
that we would be able to give you an advanced text on the
Brussels statement in flight.

Q What about the other arrival statements?

MR. ZIEGLER: When possible, we will provide you
this in flight, yes. Also, we will have an advanced statement
before the NATO talk.

Q Ron, would you try to distribute those on Air Force One as well as on the press plane?

MR. ZIEGLER: We will distribute them on all three airplanes.

Q There have been slip ups in the past on that.

Q Will you have well in advance the Berlin speech text?

MR. ZIEGLER: We will have as many as we can and
as far as we can advance it.

Q Will any of this material be available for
tomorrow afternoon in the typewritten sheets or just the Dr.
Kissinger thing?

MR. ZIEGLER: This is available now.

Q As to the official party list, a lot of
people didn't get them.

MR. ZIEGLER: What you didn't get would be available
out here or over in the West Lobby following this briefing.

As I mentioned, and I think most of you were
informed, the President would like to meet with this group
following Dr. Kissinger's BACKGROUNDER at about 5 o'clock
in the East Room of the White House.

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Q Will we go over to the West Lobby and be
escorted from there?

MR. ZIEGLER: Yes; that is correct.

Q What are the groundrules on that?

MR. ZIEGLER: I will check one more time with the
President and we will announce it when we get over there.

Q Do you have a list of the Americans going with
the President?

MR. ZIEGLER: Yes, it is available out here on the
table. That is the official party. We are not releasing
the entire supporting itinerary.

Q Do you know approximately how many?

MR. ZIEGLER: Approximately 25 more, but a lot of that
includes support personnel for the press planes.

I was asked if the press plane would stop in
Shannon on the way back. The press plane will stop in Shannon
on the way back.

Q Do you have any idea about what the arrival
time is?

MR. ZIEGLER: We will probably get in here about
11:00 p.m. Sunday night.

Q Ron, do you know anything about the President's
plans to report on the trip to the country when he gets back?

MR. ZIEGLER: We have no precise time or format
planned, but he will present his report on the trip either
in a press conference format or in some other way sometime
shortly after he returns, yes.

Q You don't know whether that will be Monday,
Tuesday, or Wednesday?

MR. ZIEGLER: I don't think it will be Monday or
Tuesday, but it will be shortly after the return.

Q Is that on the record?

MR. ZIEGLER: You may use that for your BACKGROUND.

Q Have you worked up a schedule for briefings
in Europe?

MR. ZIEGLER: No, we don't have a briefing schedule,
but we will brief.

Dr. Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: Why don't I just answer questions?
I don't have any prepared statement.

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Q Why don't you give us a geographic rundown?

Q What are the issues and objectives?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, before I go into that, I think I ought to give you a brief idea about the extent of the President's preparation.

The State Department produced six heavy volumes of background papers, outlining the basic American objectives and positions, and then papers for each country which, I can say to my anguish, every bit the President read.

I say to my anguish because he might ask me a question about something I might not have read.

But there were these six volumes which he had over the weekend.

Q Were the six including the Vatican?

DR. KISSINGER: Five countries and one volume that dealt with the issues common to all of the countries; one volume for each country and then a separate volume that dealt with the problems that would come up in each country.

Then, starting Monday, the President has devoted every afternoon to briefings by the responsible officials in the State Department and the Secretary of State. I have attended all of them.

Q Every afternoon this week, Doctor?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, every afternoon this week except yesterday. Yesterday we spent the morning on International Monetary Policy which was done by the Treasury. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon were devoted to briefings; Thursday and Friday morning were also devoted to briefings. Thursday morning the briefing was by Treasury which dealt with the financial and monetary aspects and this morning it was again a State Department briefing.

As I said, the Secretary of State attended all of these briefings, and I attended all of these briefings. The Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs attended all of these briefings and the responsible State Department official attended the briefings for the particular area.

Q Was the Vice President there?

DR. KISSINGER: No. The President, the Secretary of State, Mr. Pedersen and myself attended all the briefings. For the rest of the briefings they were conducted by the various people responsible for the areas I have indicated.

The President has spent a great part of the time that he had left reading background documents, most of which were prepared by the State Department, some of which were prepared at my office. He would start every day with a session with me reviewing questions that had arisen in his mind.

I have gone into detail about these preparations because one of the results of this trip was that American-European relations has been in the forefront of the President's

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attention for the last ten days beyond what normally happens
in the conduct of Government.

Those of you who know the workings of the Washington
bureaucracy know that to get the attention of the highest
level is one of themost important aspects and one of the
most important concerns of anybody concerned with the making
of policy. In effect, we hav e been conducting a review of
European policy in the form of a series of briefings.

Now, so much for the technical side.

Q Did the Defense Department play a role in
preparing the briefings?

DR. KISSINGER: When the President visited the
Pentagon the schedule was such that two weeks ago there was
an hour and a half set aside for briefings. At the
President's request this was devoted to NATO. Then we
have had, within the framework of the NSC, certain discussions
which, as it happened, involved those issues in which the
Defense Department is interested that concern NATO. So it
was not necessary to set up special Defense Department
briefings since he had had those in the normal course of
business over the last two weeks.

Q Is there a special document on NATO at this
time?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, there is one document that deals
with NATO issues.

Q Doctor, could you give us your assessment
of the Administration's assessment of what is the situation
of NATO and European-US relationship as it exists now? That
is, what the President is going to encounter and run into
when he gets there and seek to correct or restructure by this
trip?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, let me make clear that
the President -- you must not expect that the President
is going to Europe to redo the fate of the world or to
reshape completely American-European relationships. I think
relations that have developed over a period of 23 years
are not going to be totally altered in one week.

What the President is attempting to do is to start
a process, not to complete a negotiation. He is not going
there with any dramatic overture. He is not going to offer
a grand design. He is trying to start a process that over
the period of his government may bring American-European
relations in tune with the realities of the contemporary
period.

So, we don't want to create an impression that we
are going there with a tremendous initiative that is going
to be put on the table on Monday morning and which we expect
to have accepted by the end of the week.

The problem is that the Atlantic Alliance which was
born 20 years ago has done very well in bringing about security.
But, as any human institution, it has to be adapted to the
realities of a new period.

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When the Atlantic Alliance was formed, Europe was just emerging from the most devastating war; all European countries were dependent on the United States to a greater or lesser degree and we were dealing primarily with a military threat and, in effect, a unilateral American protection.

Since then the European countries have changed enormously. They have recovered economically. The nature of the military threat has altered, as the President said in his press conference, the challenges to transform a relationship that was based on a common fear to a relationship that will be founded on a common positive purpose. That may not be an exact quote, but it is a paraphrase.

This means that we have to look structurally at what needs to be done to take into account this new found European, at least, economic power; and, secondly, what common purposes we can develop which are adequate to this period.

This seems to us to be the big challenge of this time. There is a feeling in Europe, which is not unjustified, that for the past few years the United States has been associated in other continents and has not been able to pay the degree of attention to European affairs that it did in the early days of NATO.

The trip of the President symbolizes that more attention will be paid to European problems. But his talks will attempt to express the fact that the time when we could lecture to Europeans about European problems is over.

When the President says that he is going there to listen rather than to preach, he means it, and not as a public relations device, but as a sincere expression of what seems to us to be the realities of the contemporary relationship; that is, that any common objectives that are to be realized must reflect the convictions of both sides of the Atlantic and that whatever happens cannot simply be the implementation of an American design.

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Are there any questions?

O Dr. Kissinger, could you give us a word on this French initiative that was in the news today, about this new four-power alignment that DeGaulle has suggested?

DR. KISSINGER: All I know about that is what I have read in the newspapers.

I think our position on these matters is that we are, of course, in favor of Britian's participation in Europe and Britian's participation in the Common Market, but that the particular forum which the European cooperation should take is a matter for Europeans to decide, and therefore, I don't think that the President is going to take the position about specific proposals that may have to be made by one side or the other since the internal arrangements of Europe seem to us to be a matter for the Europeans.

Our concern is the relationship of the United States to Europe, not the internal arrangements of Europe.

O Dr. Kissinger, is NATO the dominate issue? What are the other subjects that you want to discuss?

DR. KISSINGER: NATO as the dominant issue, as such, isn't an issue. The name, as such, isn't an issue. But this is the 20th Anniversary of NATO. There will be a meeting here in April which symbolizes the signing of the Treaty.

There are many problems in NATO, some of them highlighted by the French withdrawal last year from the integrated military commands, some by the perennial debate about military strategy, some by the confusion that always seems to arise when negotiations with the East are starting, all of which suggest first that there is an agenda of specific problems that need to be discussed and secondly, that particularly with respect to the non-military aspects -- there. some specific problem about strategic doctrine that will have to be discussed over the period of years, but not on one Presidential visit.

But another area that needs to be discussed is, one, how the various members of the Atlantic Alliance visualize the evolution of East-West relationships over the next few years and what purposes they are planning to achieve; and secondly, what forms of relationship the western nations can develop among each other in the non-military field to bring about some of the common purposes, to bring about some of the common purposes which the President mentioned in his Press Conference.

So I wouldn't say that NATO is, in a military sense, going to be the dominant topic.

O Dr. Kissinger, will this lay the groundwork for a later meeting, maybe a summit meeting with the Russians?

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DR. KISSINGER: Let me separate that into two parts.
One, so far there is no plan for a summit meeting with the
Soviets. The President has indicated that he believes that
for a summit to be useful, it must be preceded by a series
of low-level negotiations which produce or which lead toward
concrete progress.

Since these low-level meetings have not started yet,
it is too early to judge whether they will produce direct progress
to permit us to have a summit meeting. Secondly, we have reasons
for going to Europe other than our desire to talk to the Soviets.

The trip to Europe was not scheduled in order to
give us an opportunity to talk with the Soviets. The trip
to Europe was scheduled because closer relations among the
western nations is considered desirable.

The relationship with the Soviet Union is only
an aspect of this. However, it is true that one of the
demoralizing aspects of internal western relationships in
recent years has been a tendency of every western nation to
go off bilaterally and to conduct East-West relations without
full consultation with its allies.

It is our belief that the progress that can be
made in the East-West relations would be more reliable
if it reflects a common, at least, conception of where
one is headed. The debates the Nonproliferation Treaty
produced among the allies is a good example.

We are not going there in order to sell any
negotiating position to our allies. What we want to do is
to discuss with them how they envisage East-West relationships
and after we return, on the basis of what his colleagues
have told him, the President will then decide how he will
proceed on some of the issues that are now before him, some
of which we already have talked about.

O Dr. Kissinger, the President has repeatedly
endorsed or supported the idea of Britian's entry into the
Common Market. To get an idea of how specific his posture
may be on some of these issues, would he continue to support
that in his conversations with DeGaulle?

DR. KISSINGER: I can't go into detail on what the
President proposes to tell DeGaulle.

The President has repeatedly expressed the fact that
he is in favor of Britian's entry into the Common Market. No
doubt this has been one of the issues of European relations.
He may make this point to President DeGaulle. But I do not
expect him to make it a major article of American foreign
policy to describe the specific method by which these objectives
are to be achieved. I think this is primarily an issue that
the Europeans have to determine.

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O Just a moment ago, you mentioned that one of the things that need to be talked about in regard to NATO was structural reforms. Are you getting perhaps the idea that was proposed several years ago of an executive committee of NATO members which proposed most of the countries, as it happens, that President Nixon is visiting this time?

DR. KISSINGER: I didn't realize that this was the case, actually. We are not going to make any specific structural proposals of how NATO ought to be organized. What I had in mind, I have really already discussed in relation to other questions.

We have to discuss with our allies how we are going to handle, for example, the nuclear issue in a way that takes into account strategic relationships that exist compared to earlier. We must find a method of consultation by which our allies feel that when we negotiate they participate in the specifics.

Some relationship has to be established which would consider those concerns of allies that are outside the treaty area but yet affects them within the treaty area, and the immediate concerns of the allies.

O Could you give us one example of that kind of a problem?

DR. KISSINGER: One that is on all of our minds, of course, is sort of the problem that was raised by Vietnam. And one of the worries that we know of is the possibility of involvement.

All of these are questions of consultation, mood and setting a sense of direction. Perhaps I should give a brief rundown of some of the issues we may be discussing in the various countries. The issues that I have mentioned are likely to be common to all of the countries that we are going to visit.

One that has not yet come up, and I hope you won't press me on it because my knowledge on it is not very great, is the international monetary policy.

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But it is our understanding that almost all of
our allies wish to discuss this with us. We will
certainly be prepared to state our views on the subject.

On our visit to Brussels we will spend much of our
time at NATO Headquarters and at EEC and with the President
of the European Commission. Fortunately, our bilateral
problems with Belgium are not very great. We will, of
course, be seeing the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister
and the key officials of Belgium, but I think the primary
purpose there is to reaffirm our continuing close relation-
ship between our two countries.

I think I have stated the issues, the major issues we
confront at NATO with respect to Europe.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on NATO, Dennis Healy spoke this
week about the need for the United States to reaffirm its
readiness to use nuclear-weapons to defend. Do you see any
need to reaffirm that?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't see any need to reaffirm it,
but it has not been any problem because that is a basic
American commitment and one that this Administration is
prepared to reaffirm. I can't recall now whether a
formal statement to that effect will be made, but it is
quite possible there will be.

Q Further, on NATO, we have been pressing the
Europeans for quite a while to meet their assigned goals
on manpower. Lately, we have backed off on that quite a
bit. Are we going to renew that pressure to meet the
goals which have been longstanding?

DR. KISSINGER: I think you will find in the terms
of this Administration that public pressure on allies does
not happen to be the style of this President. What we
would like to bring about is a situation in which the
defense contribution to the Alliance develops as a result
of a process which so clearly reflects European wishes
that they would have an incentive to meet the assigned
goals.

This may mean that over the period of this Administra-
tion a greater opportunity will be given to Europeans to
formulate their own strategic views. But one of the
problems that has been in the Alliance has been to establish
some agreed position of the relationship between conventional
forces, tactical, nuclear and strategic nuclear forces and
the force levels and contributions that the various allies
make is an aspect of this general problem.

We hope to be able to discuss these issues in an
atmosphere in which we can deal with the substance of the
problem rather than the symbolism of it. As far as the
common market is concerned, the United States has always
supported it, continues to support it and continues to
support Britian's membership in the common market, but
again, the method by which this is accomplished, the actual
negotiations of it, is something that has to be conducted
by Britian and its allies

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Now, as far as Great Britian is concerned, we will, of
course, discuss these issues that I have already mentioned,
plus the fact of how to adapt the relationship that has grown
up between our two countries to the new circumstances of the
period.

We have always been close and intimate consultations
between senior American officials and senior British officials
have always taken place. The problem is not here to find
the institutions to get this effect, but rather to define
the subject matter in which we can usefully cooperate.

Britian, of all our European friends, is perhaps the
country with the longest tradition of worldwide concern so
that the agenda no doubt will include many items which will not
be discussed with people intensively in other countries. We
do plan to discuss the Middle East in both London and Paris,
partly because we have agreed to have four-power conversations
if the preliminary bilateral conversations indicate that there
will be something to talk about in four-power conversations.

One of the purposes that the President intends to
achieve on this trip is to see in his discussions with
Prime Minister Wilson and President DeGaulle and their
senior advisers with respect to the Middle East, whether the
four-power forum will, in fact, prove fruitful. Obviously
we will discuss in Britian the issues of NATO strategy and
East-West relations which we have already mentioned.

From Britian, as you know, we will go to Germany
and again, there is no sense in my repeating all of the issues
but I will, in each case now, just focus on some problems
that seem to be peculiar to each country.

I think Germany, more than any other European ally,
has suffered from the tendency, an occasional tendency,
of policy conducted as if it were a graduate seminar and
coming up with a new idea every other year. This has
been a great concern.

I think the basic problem in our relationship with
Germany has been the sense of insecurity produced by a
divided country and by the special conditions under which
Germany operates. It makes our German friends peculiarly
sensitive to certain tendencies and policies of their friends.

What we would hope to do is to use our trip to
Germany to establish the sort of relationship by which
we can talk about the real issues and not the symbolic
ones. Obviously the Nonproliferation Treaty will be of
greater concern in Germany than it will be in some of the
other countries we visit.

The President has stated that he is supporting
the treaty, but he has also indicated his understanding
for the special German problems and I expect that we can
have a constructive discussion about this, and above all,
from the point of view of how we can avoid misunderstandings
of the kind that lead to the tensions of the last months
about this treaty after it was signed.

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We have in Germany the problem of troop levels, offset agreements and so forth. Our attempt will be to avoid discussing such things as tactical, technical issues that have to be renegotiated every six or nine months, but rather to try to get an understanding which relates these various issues to each other and enables us to give our German partners the sense of security about a lasting American policy which they feel they have not always had in recent years.

In Italy we will, of course, discuss the relationships that I have already described, plus the special Italian concern for the Middle East and some Italian concern for Latin America.

Finally, we hope to establish a relationship with the French leaders as free from theological disputes as we can make them, and establish a relationship of mutual confidence that enables us to deal with the practical problems that confront us.

It has proved impossible in recent years to talk fruitfully about such concepts as integration and federation, so we are prepared to discuss practical methods of cooperation and means to help them, in fact, without giving them a precise theoretical label.

President Nixon is certainly cognizant of the fact that his opposite member has ideas firmly developed over a long and distinguished career, and we hope that we can conduct our relationships free of recrimination, free of discussions of the past, from our point of view at least, with an attempt for establishing a concrete formula by which measures of common interest can be stressed.

France being one of the countries that has asked for a four-power meeting on the Middle East, this is obviously on the agenda, and also monetary policy, and other issues.

As you can see from this quick rundown, none of these issues really lend themselves to any dramatic solution. I can only repeat that we are not going there with any great blue prints, but this is the main object.

O Has anything developed in the last few weeks which would particularly improve the atmosphere for the talks in Paris? What is the status of our real relationship in advance of this trip?

DR. KISSINGER: On our last day in Paris, we are going to spend time reviewing the Paris talks and we are going to meet with Ambassador Lodge for a full detailed review of the Paris talks.

O I am speaking primarily about the relationship with DeGaulle and the French, not the peace talks.

DR. KISSINGER: Our relations with President DeGaulle over the term of this Administration have been very good and very business-like.

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Again, while there has been no spectacular achievement to which one can point, I think the sort of exchange that has taken place on the matters we have developed gives us every hope that we will have fruitful discussions.

O In view of your review over the past two weeks, can you suggest the number of issues on which the Administration is reaffirming past policies, the desire to see Britian on its way into the Common Market and so on, are there any areas where we can expect a slightly new tendency on the American approach?

DR. KISSINGER: On some of the policies we are now in the process of indicating a review, of conducting a review. I think there will be, at least compared to some previous periods, if not the immediate past, at least some periods in the not too distant past, less of an effort to pretend that we alone have the correct disposition; less of an effort to structure things on the American design; more concern to find concrete issues on which to cooperate, and I think perhaps more of an understanding of the special sensitivities with some of our allies with respect to East-West relations and more of a deliberate attempt to find common purposes so we will have a yard stick with which to measure where we are going.

O Is there anything that President Nixon can do in Paris concerning Vietnam to accelerate those talks toward a satisfactory conclusion, or is he just going there for a more expansive fill-in from Lodge and his people?

DR. KISSINGER: I think it would be misleading to you to give the impression that President Nixon is going to Paris to make one great decision and the next day you will see some enormous progress. On the other hand, we think that we have positioned the Paris talks in such a way that we have every hope that progress can be made and can be made in a reasonable period of time.

He is going there at a period when the initial -- no matter what happened, the first few sessions of the talks were bound to be devoted to a repetition of the historical record. The key actors, and particularly those who had not participated in negotiations before, were under necessity to put their views on the record.

I might call to your attention that if you read the American statements at these talks, we have tried, and we have gone to great lengths to indicate that we were concerned with the future and not with the past, and our statements have been as free of invective and of repetition of historical positions as we could make them.

When we did speak about the past, it was almost without exception to rebut outrageous comments, but we never sought an opportunity to engage in this sort of dialogue that had become almost ritualistic in other periods.

I think we are now coming to the end of that phase of the negotiations and therefore, the President can get personally the feel of the people who have had an opportunity to deal with the opposite numbers for more than four weeks, and it will permit us to set the course for the

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next phase and also for a measured degree of optimism,
but I don't want to give the impression that you can
count on anything spectacular.

Q Would you talk about changing the nuclear relationships with Britian on the one side and with France on the other side bilaterally?

DR. KISSINGER: We have no reason to change the nuclear relationship with Britian. As for France, we have no proposal before us to change that relationship, so we don't expect it to come up.

Q Anywhere on the agenda, either France or London, does mainland China come up for discussion?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. Any review of the international situation must involve an assessment of the role of a country with a population of 700 million. Moreover, two of these countries, Britian and France, have diplomatic relations with mainland China. They have not been ostensively happy relations, but nevertheless, it will enable them to make their judgment of what they think the trends are and the President has always indicated that he favors a policy of maximum contact.

Q Will you comment on the concept of the student demonstrations? Are they irrelevant to the purposes of the trip, or is there a possibility of some wounded American prestige if they become exceptionally violent?

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DR. KISSINGER: We have had reports of possible student demonstrations and we have made the decision that the President of the United States, in dealing with his friends on urgent matters of NATO policy, cannot adapt his movements to these demonstrations.

The President has ordered minimum security for himself. He has prohibited taking the Secret Service automobiles and he has ordered that the Secret Service be cut to the absolute minimum consistent with legal requirements. He has every confidence that the friendly countries he is visiting are going to provide whatever security is necessary. Beyond that we frankly have not discussed it. We have not discussed it from the point of view of prestige.

Q What about what the allies do without consulting? Is this trip part of the consultation process? Will the President tell the Europeans that he plans to deal with the Russians?

DR. KISSINGER: The President has repeatedly stated that he considers this a period, insofar as his action and influence, of negotiation and not confrontation. So, obviously, the President intends, at a suitable moment, to negotiate with the Soviet Union, not at the highest level necessarily or immediately, but obviously negotiations are very definitely on his mind.

When we say we want to discuss arms control measures as well as political matters, it is obvious that we want to discuss a fairly wide range of issues. I can repeat that we are not going to Europe because we have a specific negotiation planned, but rather that we want to create an atmosphere and a set of relationships where, when we do have a set of negotiations planned, we can establish the practical consultations that will be necessary to give them very quickly.

There are a number of issues in which we may want to talk with the Soviet Union which do not directly affect our European allies. But certainly in any major negotiation with the Soviet Union and certainly in which major negotiations with the Soviet Union, and certainly in which major negotiations with the Soviet Union which the interests of our Western friends are involved, there would be consultation in advance and not as a fait accompli.

This is something on which the President is most consistent -- that we will not present our friends with a fait accompli, but give them a chance to comment on the formative stages.

Q What is the relationship of the visit to Berlin to recent developments there?

DR. KISSINGER: The visit to Berlin was planned because, in the light of the historic relationship that has developed between the people of Berlin and the United States, it would have been unnatural for the President of the United States to visit the Federal Republic without visiting West Berlin, a city which was sustained in 1948 by an American airlift and for which the United States ran major risks in two Administrations in 1959 through 1962, and for which we have pointed out we are prepared to run major risks again.

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This Copy For

AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(The Grosvenor House, London,
England)

WITH RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT; MARTIN HILLEN-
BRAND, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS;
DR. HENRY KISSINGER, ASSISTANT
TO THE PRESIDENT; AND ROBERT
MCCLOSKEY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

12:55 A.M.

FEBRUARY 25, 1969

TUESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: Gentlemen, I know it is late. I would like to just cover a couple of things with you. Under Secretary Hillenbrand is here, and Henry Kissinger, hopefully, will be here shortly. Mr. Hillenbrand will give you a rundown on Brussels today, including the NATO meetings, and the EEC meetings.

I would like to refer just briefly to the brief
briefing down stairs.

Q It is better not to.

MR. ZIEGLER: The President made clear before he
left, and I think Dr. Kissinger, in some of his backgrounders
did also, that there were going to be general discussions
occurring and that there was not going to be a full flow of
vast, world-wide decisions being made on this tour.

Therefore, when there are general discussions,
we are not going to always be able to get into all of the
specific details that are covered. These discussions here
just began tonight. The atmosphere at Chequers was very
cordial and informal. The talks will continue tomorrow.

As we progress here and as things begin to evolve,
we will be, of course, providing you with further information.
I think with this understanding you will find that detailed
matters will begin to evolve and begin to be provided to you
as we go along on the trip, and when we conclude it, when we
get back to Washington. I say this only because I know, of
course, the interest that you have and naturally would have
and the questions you would have in each and every meeting.

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Q The problem arose, I think, because your opposite number said he could only discuss the subjects they talked about.

MR. ZIEGLER: I have made my point.

Q Your British counterpart said they did not discuss the Middle East which seems incongruous when Mr. Nixon said this is one of the major things on his mind to discuss. You cleared it up a bit. Do you assume that they touched on it in the conversations?

MR. ZIEGLER: I will be very frank with you. I think the full gamut of discussions were not fully outlined. We generally discussed with the President and the Prime Minister what occurred but we did not get into specific issues because they covered a wide range. I think this is what Mr. Hughes was indicating.

Q The wide issues would take in Anglo-French relationships, would it not?

Q They must have touched on it.

MR. ZIEGLER: Mr. Hughes, I think, made it very clear that they did not discuss the Anglo-French relationship in terms of the subject which is on the top of everyone's mind.

Q In order not to discuss it, was there a point made that they would not discuss it among themselves? It seems unnatural that they are avoiding subjects that are so timely and certainly if they went into these talks with the general understanding ---

MR. ZIEGLER: No, there was no understanding.

I would like to introduce to you Mr. Hillenbrand, who many of you know. Incidentally, the groundrules on this, at Mr. Hillenbrand's request, are on a BACKGROUND basis not attributable to Mr. Hillenbrand.

Q US officials?

MR. HILLENBRAND: Or official sources.

Q Can we say American sources?

MR. ZIEGLER: US officials, I think, is best.

Q I have a question that arises out of the President's address this morning to NATO countries. It seemed to me and to two or three other people, reporters there, that his statement that the United States will undertake negotiations with the Soviet Union was an interesting statement and a very newsworthy statement. There is some debate about that within the press corps with some people taking the view that he said all this before and so he has not taken this any further down the road. Would you tell us what that paragraph meant?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think the interpretation you have given is probably the correct one, that it was not intended to lay down new policy or to project something beyond what he had said previously, but merely to indicate that there is

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an intention to negotiate with the Soviet Union, as you know, in the field of disarmament. That is one that has come up and a number of other subjects, some of them dating from the Johnson period. I think it would be going beyond the intent of the statement to read into it that this was a declaration of new policy beyond what had previously been said. This was an open meeting of the NATO Council and if the President were going to make such a declaration he probably would have chosen a different forum to make it.

Q Would you call it a declaration of anticipation?

MR. HILLENBRAND: You could. I don't think that is the aptest description.

Q I think he is saying that for the first time the President used the word "will." It sounded very definite. He has never said in his news conferences that we will have talks. He has said he hoped for talks.

MR. HILLENBRAND: As I said, I think it would be reading more into the statement than is intended to be read into it, a stronger indication of intent than previous statements that were made.

You will have to compare the language of each of these various statements, but I don't think that this was the purpose of that remark.

Q In that case, the Washington Post and the State Department are out of the swim.

Q Is the Soviet Union coming around on some subjects? Have we detected them becoming more interested?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think what has been said on this in the last few weeks -- there is nothing to add to what has previously been said on this subject. You know we are only at the beginning of this Administration. Preparations for this trip have been a major preoccupation in the last few weeks. As you know, we do not have an Ambassador in Moscow at the present time. He is just preparing to go there.

While Ambassador Dobrynin is in Washington and has had contact with both the State Department and the White House, I don't think there is any major new indication of Soviet intent, but there have been in the past, as you know, some indications that they are interested in discussing with us some subjects.

Q The question is not of Soviet intent. The question is whether the President's use of the word "will" indicates that the President has made an overture to the Soviet Union to have talks?

MR. HILLENBRAND: On what talks?

Q On any subjects since this administration came into office.

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MR. MCCLOSKEY: And the United States said it is
willing to enter into four-power talks. In the meanwhile,
it will have bilateral talks, which include the Soviet Union.

Q Mr. Hillenbrand, today the President pledged
that before the United States goes to talk with the Russians
and during those negotiations with the Russians, there will
be consultation with our NATO allies, and we have also
indicated that at every stage of the negotiations with the
Russians we will insist on linkage between political issues
and arms control so one cannot proceed without the other.

I wonder whether we are not complicating and making
quite unrealistic the possibility of any progress with the
Russians under those terms where they would be less likely
to engage in free discussion with us now than they were before.

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think I know what you are getting
at. This whole question of linkage has been introduced as
a commentary on what is supposed to be the position of the
U. S. rather than a word that is really being used in this
context.

As you know, disarmament talks have been held between
the United States and the Soviet Union on a wide range in
this field for many years.--there was an eighteen-power group
and within other frameworks.

As you know, last summer the Government
of the United States made certain proposals regarding certain
strategic missiles and on the ABM system. I think it is
quite clear that, for example, in the NP treaty which we have
signed, and which the President has now said, I believe
he will recommend for ratification, there is a certain
general obligation assumed by the signatories to negotiate
in the general field if disarmament.

The question of how much progress you can make on
disarmament while making no progress on other matters that
are controversial between the Soviet Union and the United
States is a question of common sense. It is quite clear that
if you have eruptions, say, in Berlin or elsewhere, which
sour the relationship between the United States and the Soviet
Union, politically speaking, then that makes more disarmament
negotiations, as happened with the events in Czechoslovakia
last summer, which make more difficult, and brought to a halt
the disarmament negotiations at that time.

I think this is essentially the kind of situation
you have and to think in terms of a rigid linkage or
stipulation of present conditions in one area as necessary for
progress in the other is to often emphasized in this aspect.

The important thing is the common sense aspect that
you cannot go beyond a certain point in one area if in the
other areas the whole atmosphere is fouled up.

Q In Brussels and elsewhere, do they recognize
any difference in what Mr. Nixon has said about added
consultation and what generally do you think has been
their reaction?

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MR. HILLENBRAND: I think the reaction generally to what the President said in Brussels is a very positive and favorable one. No, this idea that we have a certain obligation and desire to consult with our allies and all these matters is not new, but I think the reaffirmation of this by the new President was both reassuring and an augury of the kind of policy this Administration will follow in this connection.

MR. ZIEGLER: I think it would be a lot more efficient if we would hold your questions about Brussels.

MR. HILLENBRAND: Perhaps I might recapitulate the meetings that took place in Brussels to give you an idea of how they ran off. As you know, there were three separate meetings this morning, first the open meeting of the council, at which the President made the speech which you all have seen.

After that, the meeting resumed in Secretary General Brozio's private conference room. This meeting was presided over by the Secretary General. There were present only the fifteen permanent representatives of the various NATO countries of the North Atlantic Council and the President and Secretary of State and other members of his staff.

This, as you know, is one of a number of kinds of meetings that are held in NATO ranging from this broad, nearly open council meeting at which the permanent representatives are assisted by large numbers of staff members, down to this rather small grouping where the Secretary General meets privately with the permanent representatives for discussion on a wider range of subjects.

This is the kind of meeting that took place. At this meeting I think it is fair to say that all of the people present were impressed by the openness and the frankness with which the President discussed the various problems which the United States feels face the Alliance in the months and years to come.

There was the participation of the other permanent representatives and it was very open. Practically all of them spoke at one time or the other and asked questions. I think in summarizing the meeting, the Secretary General expressed the impressions of all of those present that this was an unusually fruitful type of meeting which was very much an implementation of the President's emphasis and desire for enhanced consultation in the Alliance.

All the subjects that were discussed were those you might normally expect to be discussed in a NATO forum. This was not a forum where you discuss at this particular time, although it does sometimes, a wide range of subjects outside of the NATO area, but at this time the subjects were of particular interest to the countries concerned.

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Q Was there any discussion of American troop levels?

MR. HILLENBRAND: No.

Q Mr. Hillenbrand, in the NATO meeting, was there any discussion at all of Defense Minister Healy's remarks about a reaffirmation of the United States' commitment on nuclear weapons?

MR. HILLENBRAND: No, it wasn't discussed.

Q Has it come up at all in any meetings so far?

MR. HILLENBRAND: Not to my knowledge.

Q Earlier, before you began your description of the Brussels meeting, you had said when the atmospheres go sour it is because of political discussions and it is very difficult to move ahead ---

MR. HILLENBRAND: Not because of political discussions, because of political disputes.

Q All right, political disputes. It seems to us here that we are now witnessing a political dispute of one type or another between Britain and France. Has this soured Mr. Nixon's trip?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MR. HILLENBRAND: The answer is no.

Q Can you carry that further? Could you tell us why not?

MR. HILLENBRAND: Simply because, as a matter of fact, this has not, in any way, so far at least, disturbed the atmosphere which is conducive to the most fruitful kind of exchange.

Q You don't expect us to believe that? Honest to God, you don't? Really, you don't?

Q What is the US view on this whole thing?

Q Let's be realistic.

Q Don't we have a view on this problem?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think at this point this is a subject on which we don't have a view. I don't have a view which I can express to you.

Q Can you or Dr. Kissinger tell us whether or not the British Government informed us of the French initiative of February 4 privately in the past couple of weeks?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think there was a statement.

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MR. MCCLOSKEY: The Secretary of State was informed of this several days before February 21. I don't know the precise date.

Q By the British?

MR. MCCLOSKEY: By the British Embassy in Washington.

Q Was there any other information that came in from American Embassies in Europe about this, either before, during or after the talks?

MR. MCCLOSKEY: I think that is possible. I don't think it could be specified right now.

Q Did the French Government have any conversations, before the British Government, with our Government?

MR. MCCLOSKEY: The answer is no.

Q Mr. Hillenbrand, to what degree did the present Berlin situation enter the talks, the possibility of a deal and the threat of the Soviet Union?

MR. HILLENBRAND: To my knowledge, this subject did not come up.

Q Could you give us some of the specific subjects that did come up?

MR. HILLENBRAND: As I said, the range of subjects which is normally discussed would normally be discussed at a NATO meeting as opposed to a bilateral meeting or those subjects that primarily are concerned with the Alliance.

Q You said the troop levels were not discussed?

MR. HILLENBRAND: First of all, there is the problem of consultation within the Alliance. Then there is the problem of the nuclear weaponry of the Alliance and all of the various problems that arise out of this.

Q What about the nuclear weaponry of the Alliance? What do you mean by that?

Q When to discuss tactical weapons and when not?

MR. HILLENBRAND: This is the sort of thing that is obviously not going to be discussed at the level of the meeting this morning in Brussels or within the time limits involved. This is a very complicated and difficult subject which is under discussion within the appropriate NATO parties.

Q In what context was it discussed, then?

MR. HILLENBRAND: Nuclear weaponry I used as a generic term to describe the whole range of problems that are associated with the nuclear deterrent and its operation within the Alliance and so on. You could call it nuclear problems of the Alliance or whatever.

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Q Were we asked to reaffirm our pledge to defend Europe by means of nuclear weapons? Is that what we are getting at?

MR. HILLENBRAND: This, I think as Ron has already pointed out, trip is not the kind of trip in which agreements or commitments are being negotiated or in which new commitments are being made. That is not the purpose.

Q We understand it. But we are trying to understand the context under which you discussed these things in these broad terms.

MR. HILLENBRAND: The third meeting that the President had of the three that I mentioned was with the senior military commanders of the organization, including General Lemnitzer? Obviously, this was both intent as a matter of exchange of information as well as a discussion of some of the problems.

This is the kind of thing where because of its sensitivity and its high classification where you obviously don't expect to get the kind of details that you would like to have. But the fact is that this was a subject of major consideration this morning. It is a subject which NATO is constantly dealing with. This is not something they trotted out merely for the visit of the President.

Q Is this a briefing for the President on the nuclear strategy?

MR. HILLENBRAND: No, it wasn't a briefing for the President. There wasn't time for a briefing. But I mean there was an exchange and certain problems of major significance in this field were touched on and discussed.

Q Did it deal with the conditions under which we would use the nuclear weapons in the event this would become necessary?

MR. HILLENBRAND: This is the kind of detail, again, that would not be discussed at this kind of a meeting. This is a problem that has been under discussion within the NATO Alliance every since the so-called McNamara guidelines of the Athens meeting in 1962.

Q Our situation now, though, is that we have no idea of how this subject came up.

MR. HILLENBRAND: It came up because this is a subject of major interest in NATO at the present time. This is a subject of consultation within NATO just as the subject of the NATO Ministerial meeting in April is of concern to the Alliance. The Alliance deals with subjects on an ad hoc basis as they come up. I might say that this whole question -- the President did express his anticipation that the NATO meeting in April, which, as you know, will be held in Washington and is in observance of the 20th anniversary of the institution of NATO, to express the hope and the belief that this would be a very fruitful meeting, not only in a protocol sense but in the sense that it would lead to a very useful substantive exchange of information on a number of problems which the Foreign Ministers ---

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Q In discussing the nuclear problems, did we
bring up the prospect of discussions with the Soviets on
arms control?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think what the President had to say on the arms control he has already said. This was not a major subject. As you know, this is a subject which is going to be under continuing discussion within the Alliance as a part of the process of consultation, because this is an area, obviously, of major interest to our allies within the NATO Alliance. If the negotiations begin on this subject, obviously this is going to be a matter of continuous consultation within the Alliance.

Q We begin with this on the 6th of March in Geneva under the 18-nation thing. Will anything new be put forward on the 6th of March that is now being cleared in NATO?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I think it would be premature to discuss that at this time.

Q It is only two weeks away.

Q It doesn't look like we will get very much further
on these subjects. Can you give us any enlightenment on the
discussions with the Prime Minister tonight and/or tomorrow?

MR. HILLENBRAND: I was actually doing something else this evening and was not at Chequers, so I can't throw any light on the meeting there. I can, if you are interested, discuss with you the meeting between the President and the Secretary and President Rey of the Community Commission and then subsequently with all of the Commissioners. There was a lunch, as you know, at the Palace given by the King as host, the Queen was hostess, at which a large number of distinguished Belgians were invited to meet the American delegation.

This was essentially a non-substantive, friendly
affair. After that, the meeting was held in the suite of
the President at the Hilton Hotel, first of all privately
between the President and President Rey of the Community, and
then subsequently all of the Commissioners were brought in
together with other members of the American delegation.

Perhaps I might cut this off because I understand
Henry Kissinger has to leave shortly. I think I would rather
expose him.

MR. ZIEGLER: You may have a few questions.

Q Can you throw any light for us on the discussions
with the Prime Minister here this evening and/or tomorrow?

DR. KISSINGER: What the President is trying to do in all of these discussions is to agree on some of the, or conceivably agree, or where we disagree on some of the basic principles, some of the basic principles of the Alliance and to see whether we can identify some of the basic problems before the Alliance.

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So it isn't an attempt to be evasive on our part when we don't answer the question, did we discuss at what point what nuclear weaponry. It genuinely doesn't come up that way.

What does come up is the relationship between strategic courses, tactical courses and conventional courses as a problem. And then various people state their views on this and then we discuss of how we might go about dealing with this, getting to the heart of the issue rather than the symbolism of the issue. I go into this long explanation because it will explain to you what went on in the morning better than if you ask individual questions, although we will be glad to answer those, too. Also, it will explain what went on this evening.

We didn't attempt this evening to go through a regular agenda. We have the regular agenda tomorrow. We don't have a regular agenda, but we have a form of meeting and we expect to go through them in a more systematic way.

It was a general review of the world situation which at first was quite rambling. That is, we would talk about the Middle East for five minutes and then we would talk about the European situation for a few minutes and we would talk about general problems of NATO. But towards the end of the evening, the discussion tended to focus in on east-west relationships and of the relationship between east-west, between relations with the Soviets, and NATO and then we had a fairly philosophical discussion of how one might assess Soviet motivations, what might the Soviets be intending in some of their policies, how should we interpret the long-term trend of the Soviet policy, what does this mean for the United States and Great Britain and for NATO in general?

This was the drift of our conversation from, say, the second half of the dinner on through the rest of the evening. And until then, to be perfectly candid, there were three people standing in one corner talking about the Middle East and three people standing in another corner before dinner talking about, in some cases, policy planning, the different approaches to policy planning, and then the thing coalesced and then we began to talk about NATO problems.

But, really, the way it was organized is before dinner the President and the Prime Minister were in a separate room. I really don't know what they talked about. And the Secretary of State, the Foreign Secretary, myself, Ambassador Bruce, Mr. Halls, and Michael Pallister were having drinks together. This is the part of the conversation that I am describing.

Then the President and the Prime Minister rejoined the group and then we all had dinner together. There the conversation was, at first, as I described it, somewhat rambling. The Prime Minister spoke about the Commonwealth Conference and some of his impressions of the Commonwealth. The President made some observations. It wasn't anything that got to a sharp focus until we began to discuss these various problems.

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Q Do you mean you assemble this group of politicians and scholars, and in the course of this friendly evening nobody even mentioned this thing about De Gaulle? Maybe you said, "You really stuck it to him, Harold," or something like that? I mean, the subject never even came up?

DR. KISSINGER: The subject never came up. It never came up partly because it is our view that this is a problem pursuant to European organization, which is primarily a problem for the Europeans to settle among themselves, as I already told most of you here on Friday, and that, therefore, we felt no need -- I don't doubt that we could have gotten the discussion started on the subject if we wanted to. But it really never came up. We felt no need for it. The British didn't raise it. If we raised it we probably wouldn't have used your phrase.

Q How can we take no view toward this when, as part of what we understand General de Gaulle is talking about, NATO would be eliminated? Since we are members of NATO and presumably interested in continuing it, it would seem to me that we do have a direct stake in this.

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make clear that, of course, De Gaulle never made a proposition to us. Our view would be, assuming that this is a correct -- I don't want to go into which version is correct. The United States is committed to NATO. The President affirmed it solemnly this morning at the NATO Council. He affirmed it at the private meeting of the permanent representatives.

I think I can take this much liberty with him to say that at dinner he said NATO is the bluechip in our foreign policy. So there is no question that we are committed to NATO. And if we take cognizance of a proposition that wasn't made to us -- we, of course, would affirm that we are committed to NATO.

The part of the proposition that we will not take a position on is the one that deals with internal European organization. That, we believe, is a matter that we will not -- that is primarily a question for the Europeans to decide.

At any rate, we have not raised it. I am not repeating now what we are saying. We haven't said it because it hasn't come up.

Q About this question that Dick Harwood is talking about, this paragraph in the NATO speech about negotiating with the Soviet Union, I think the context is what is bothering people, not necessarily the semantics of "will" or "would," but the context in terms of this French-British dustup. A lot of us interpret it that we are sort of saying -- or that the President is saying, "If you guys want to fight, we have got a little card here. We can always go and negotiate with the Soviet Union."

DR. KISSINGER: Absolutely not.

Q A lot of people took it that way, did you?

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DR. KISSINGER: I think I can speak to that subject. This speech was produced after the most careful consultations in the State Department and with the President. I can assure you that this interpretation never enters anyone's mind. If that is an interpretation that is possible, then I will have to say there was some inaccurate drafting.

The intention was that the President had announced in his campaign, since his campaign and in his Inaugural Address that the United States was committed to a policy of negotiation and not confrontation.

He had all the advice we had, plus the knowledge that those of us with experience with NATO matters had, independently of any advice, is that any time the United States negotiates with the Soviet Union, our European allies fear that we might make a deal affecting the vital interests without adequate consultation.

One of the major criticisms that was made, justly or unjustly, of the Non-Proliferation Treaty was that we had negotiated it unilaterally without adequate consultation with our European allies.

Without defending the wording of the draft, which I don't have in front of me, I want to assure you that the intention of the paragraph was really quite literally to say, "Yes, there are going to be bilateral negotiations" and this drafting started long before there was a Franco-British dustup. Maybe we should have looked at it again in light of that dustup.

Q. It meant something different last week than it means this week?

DR. KISSINGER: It was drafted last week and we didn't look at it at this point of view to be quite candid. Our intention was to say, "When we negotiate bilaterally with the Soviet Union, we will consult you first and during. We will not present you with a negotiated document and ask you then to criticize it because our feeling is that this then shifts the whole onus of the flavor of the negotiation to our allies and that is not a healthy position."

The intention, really, was just as I described it, and I can't say it emphatically enough. Your interpretation literally had never crossed anybody's mind who worked on the speech. I can say this because I worked on the speech with the President Saturday afternoon.

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Q Why do you say, Dr. Kissinger, there are going to be bilateral consultations?

DR. KISSINGER: I am not saying there are. I am saying there are no bilateral negotiations scheduled now. I don't know whether you were at the background briefing on Friday afternoon. What I said then I can repeat again today. We are prepared to have negotiations with the Soviet Union. We have indicated that and we have indicated that we are prepared to go forward on several fronts at once, political as well as military.

The Soviet Union has indicated that it is willing to go ahead, at least on the arms control negotiations. So I think it is a reasonable assumption, at least anyone planning the future of NATO will have to take into account that there is a strong possibility that there may be bilateral negotiations.

That would have been a better way of putting it, but we do not have now negotiations scheduled and we are not here to get concurrence on negotiations.

Q Is it a matter of policy that you are going to stay clear out of any discussion of British and French relations throughout the week, and you would reject it if it is brought up by any of the parties?

DR. KISSINGER: Oh, no. If it comes up we may express our views. But I think the basic position we will take is the one I have indicated.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you said late in the dinner at Chequers that there had been some sharpening of the focus on east-west relations. Can you tell us what that was?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think I should go into the detail of it. Various members around the dinner table were putting forward various interpretations of Soviet motivations, the Sino-Soviet relations and their approach to NATO.

Q The Czechoslovakian incident?

DR. KISSINGER: Actually not. It came up only in the context of what it did to NATO but not in the context of Soviet motivation.

Then another was discussing what these various interpretations might mean for NATO policy, and indeed there was some suggestion that some of the senior members, not the President or Prime Minister, might usefully spend some time away from everything discussing that particular aspect, because it underlines the NATO thinking, but there was no decision to do it.

I am trying to give you a flavor of some of the discussion that went on there.

Q Dr. Kissinger, are we prepared now to discuss with the British the question of whether to renew the 1958 Nuclear Arms Sharing Agreement, exchange of information and the Materials Agreement, and are we prepared to offer any sort of similar agreements to the French?

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DR. KISSINGER: Let me first of all say that I really should not discuss things that have not come up yet. Obviously, we are prepared to discuss with the British in this field any topic that may come up and that is not an illogical one to come up. In the past the French have not raised the issue of nuclear sharing.

Q Never?

DR. KISSINGER: Never formally. I may be wrong. Have they Marty?

MR. HILLENBRAND: Not at the political level, no.

DR. KISSINGER: Not at the political level. I think before one would reach that topic on a complete level, one would have to get some understanding about political issues. So it would really depend on how the conversations developed, but we have no concrete plan.

Q Do we have any plan about renewing the agreement with the British if it does come up?

DR. KISSINGER: I would only be giving my opinion.

Q You talked awhile ago about the philosophical discussion of how to assess the Soviet motivations and how you would interpret them. Can you give us a lecture on how to assess Soviet motivations?

DR. KISSINGER: You know the various theories. For example, are the Soviets primarily interested in disrupting NATO? Is that the primary motivation? Are the Soviets primarily motivated by the pressures of an emerging consumer society and by the desire to continue the 40 years of Communist rule? Are the Soviets so concerned about the Chinese that they need detente in Europe, this sort of thing?

Q Could you give us the latest information that you have on Vietnam and your assessment of it?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. The latest information we have is that there have been --- I am looking for the right adjective -- widespread attacks on Saturday night, including seven rounds of 122 millimeter mortar rockets into the fourth precinct of Saigon and other attacks throughout the country.

I think there were 33 in the Third Corps area, 20-plus in the Second Corps area, 10-plus in the First Corps area, and 20-plus -- don't hold me to these figures, but they are not far off. I am giving them to you from memory. -- in the Fourth Corps area.

There were about 130 casualties, but I am not absolutely sure. I know there were five or seven dead, something of that order, of civilians in Saigon, and about ten wounded. But I am not absolutely sure whether these other casualties are all American or whether this includes civilians. I have asked, but I have not yet received -- I expect to get it tomorrow -- a detailed breakdown as to the number and type of weapons that were used. I have it for Saigon, but I have asked for it for all other areas.

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Many of the attacks seem to have been concentrated on American military installations, but not all. What we are doing now is to make a very careful assessment of what this means. It is clearly more than the normal pattern, there is no question about that, and clearly the attack on Saigon is something that is not in keeping with the under- standings as President Johnson expressed them. But the degree of deviation from the normal pattern, whether it indicates the beginning of an offensive, whether it was meant merely as an embarrassment to the President just before he want off, quite frankly, we have not finished our assessment yet.

We have had reports from Saigon. We have asked for a judgment from Paris, but what we have not yet done is put all the pieces together.

MR. ZIEGLER: Gentlemen, it is getting very late. We will take one or two more questions.

Ω If it turned out that the pattern, that the 122 millimeter rocket, was repeated throughout the country and this meets the President's description of "shelling" as he stated on the airplane, what do you see happening?

DR. KISSINGER: If all these conditions were met, we would have to ask ourselves what has become of the general arrangements that were entered into last year. But we are in no way committed to repeating, to going back to any pattern that may have been established in the preceding Administration.

Our primary objective is to get an honorable peace there and not to score a point. Therefore, our motivation in assessing this and in taking action, if action is indicated, would be to take such action that would most support the objective of bringing about a successful outcome to the negotiations and not simply an automatic reflex action in which we go back to certain categories that may have been established by previous Administrations. We don't feel bound by those.

Ω So you don't feel that you would have to resume the bombing if this turns out to be a pattern of continual violation?

DR. KISSINGER: If foreign policy was only a question of legal problems, we can legally do it if this interpretation were made. All I am saying is that we don't have a computer which says, "If the number of attacks exceeds 'X', then we go." And we don't feel bound to repeat exactly the things that were done in the previous Administration.

Ω But you are interested in having the North Vietnamese maintain the understanding reached with the Johnson Administration?

DR. KISSINGER: We have an understanding that the North Vietnamese understand that they must, under the agreement made with the United States, because the possibility of coming up with a meaningful settlement in Vietnam depends on their realizing that an agreement must be honored.

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But how we bring this about, by what methods,
and above all, how we can gear our military actions so
they can support our political objectives, that is the
problem. It is not just the problem of tit for tat.

Q Henry, could you do the same thing that you
did on Vietnam on this question of the Soviet negotiations
with Germany over Bonn? What is taking place and what is
the significance of it?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me explain. I understand the
situation. The Federal Republic has scheduled a meeting
of the Federal Assembly in Berlin for the purpose of
electing a President as they have for the last three Presidential
elections. This would be the fourth successive Presidential
election held in Berlin.

The East German regime has taken the view that
West Berlin is not part of the Federal Republic of Germany,
and therefore these meetings should not take place there,
and has threatened retaliatory steps.

We have taken the view that the decision on where to
hold the meeting of the Federal Assembly is essentially a
German one, and all the more so that it is not an unusual
utilization of the City of Berlin compared to what has gone
before.

The decision of whether to hold the meeting in Berlin
is therefore a German one. It is not one that we took. Our
concern is with the consequences. Our obligation is to the
access to Berlin.

If the East Germans provoke a crisis, then, of
course, the Soviets may fear, too, that they will become
involved. It is conceivable that in order to head off this
or to help support the position of the East Germans, the
Soviets have made a certain offer to the Federal Republic on
Saturday, I think it was, or Friday, in which in return for
cancelling the meeting of the Federal Assembly there would
be Easter passes for the West German population.

This, as I understand it, the Federal Republic has
rejected. Then I have read newspaper reports, and quite
honestly nothing more, that the Soviet Ambassador in Germany
has called on the German Chancellor in Stuttgart to present
yet another proposition, or what is assumed to be another
proposition.

Because of the differences in time where messages
go back and forth, and I am at meetings all day, I have not
actually seen, if indeed we possess, the German version of what
went on at this meeting, and therefore I don't know whether
the Soviet Union made a proposition.

Our position is as follows: That we maintain the
right of access to Berlin and if access to Berlin is interrupted
then we will take the measures that are necessary to restore
access, but we have every confidence that the Soviet Union
realizes that there cannot be a crisis now over Berlin.

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This Copy For

AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(The Excelsior - Rome, Italy)

WITH RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT, AND DR. HENRY
A. KISSINGER, ASSISTANT TO THE
PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
AFFAIRS.

8:00 P.M.

THURSDAY

FEBRUARY 27, 1969

MR. ZIEGLER: As we indicated on the planes today, we originally had intended to meet with this group that was traveling with us from 7:00 to 7:30. Because of the situation that developed and the size of my room, and this type of thing, we have fallen substantially behind schedule.

Dr. Kissinger is very late now for a dinner at the palace and can only spend a few minutes with us, but we feel that this may be helpful to you. The schedule here is such that it will not provide for any briefings or backgrounders before we get to Paris, so this will have to be the only one we will have.

DR. KISSINGER: When I took this job, I said that I would have nothing to do with the press. I hope that I am keeping some of my other resolutions better than that one.

What I had wanted to do, and we will not have time for it now, is to sit down with a few of you on a background basis and to talk about what seemed to me some of the more long-range results of this trip. But Ron will try to set it up tomorrow in Paris and we will do it there.

All I have now, unfortunately, is about ten minutes. I have to get back to the palace and I have to change and find my room -- which is not an easy matter at this place.

Why don't I just answer questions to see what will be most helpful to you.

Ω What was the President trying to say, or what was in his mind in the Berlin speech beyond the reaffirmation of the American commitment when he was talking about the future of divided Berlin and divided Germany?

DR. KISSINGER: I think the President, obviously, wanted to reaffirm the American commitment to Berlin in the most solemn way he could. Secondly, he wanted to indicate that the status quo is not an end in itself and that we are prepared to attempt to find solutions to the outstanding problems

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that will lead towards a more permanent arrangement and
toward a more just arrangement. He wanted to make clear
that we are not throwing down a challenge in the event
of vital concerns, but he also wanted to make clear that
we were prepared to begin a new era if the other side is willing
to in the same spirit.

Q What has he heard from the other side,
informally or otherwise, as to how they received the quote?
What has the Administration heard?

DR. KISSINGER: On what basis are we speaking?

MR. ZIEGLER: This is a background basis,
attributed to U. S. sources.

Q What kind of responses regarding the President's
initiatives, or what prime talks has he had with the Ambassador?

DR. KISSINGER: We have only had very preliminary
discussions with the Soviet Union, but they have been of a
nature to make us believe that perhaps there is a possibility.
On the other hand, our approach, as the President has repeatedly
made clear, will be concrete, precise, unemotional and detailed.
So there will not be a great sentimental approach to the problem.

If the world has been burdened by conflict for 20
years, I think we must do ourselves justice by admitting
the problems have been serious. If the problems were serious,
they can only be solved in a serious manner.

Q What might this new era include that you
are speaking of? How might things be changed?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think the President has
indicated on a number of occasions that we certainly are going
to try to get a reasonable settlement for the war in Vietnam.
Certainly the world would be a safer place if arrangements
could be worked out in the Middle East in which logical rivalries
do not threaten to erupt into a general war. Even in central
Europe it is possible to think of arrangements for access to
Berlin and other measures that might improve the situation.

What we are trying to do at this stage is to get
clearer about objectives and not to talk infinity about tactics.

Q Could you tell us whether the President received
any reports from the Mayor of West Berlin on his conservations
with the East authorities yesterday?

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DR. KISSINGER: Yes, we had some rather full indication from the Mayor of Berlin of the conversations that have been taking place, but our position has been that the particular methods for dealing with this problem have to be largely a German responsibility. We will not indicate what the Federal Republic ought to do about the question of the Federal Republic.

Could you outline for us what you regard as the main results of the talks in Bonn?

DR. KISSINGER: I have worked on German-American relations for a long time in four Administrations. I have had the privilege of knowing most of the German leaders with whom we have been dealing for a long time. My impression is, which of course, you will have to verify in Bonn, has been that we may have made a contribution towards overcoming what seems to me to have been the major problem in German-American relations in the recent past.

The basic problem seems to me not to have been specific issues that caused a dispute, but a basic feeling of disquiet on both sides about the other side's objective.

So when there was an agreement it did not solve the problem and when there was disagreement it was intolerable.

I think that one of the results that will not show up in great headlines but will be more specific, technically, if you like, is offsets. That is the fact which I believe that, between the German Government and the President, there has developed a fairly substantial understanding about evolution of Western policy, the kind of objective it is reasonable to set, the kind of agreements that can be worked out; what we understand by consultation and this should enable us in the months ahead to deal with issues on their substantive merit rather than turn them into symbols of something bigger.

So from our side, at least -- and again I don't know what the German view of the matter is, although I believe it is very close to ours -- the meetings have been extremely successful. From my own personal experience in these relationships, I consider this the most fruitful meeting of this kind I have ever seen.

Can you give us your reaction to the developments of the Paris peace talks today?

DR. KISSINGER: I am going to disgrace myself. I will tell you I don't know what it is. I have not seen the cables yet.

We had news reports out of Paris saying that the American side complained about the offensive in Saigon and that the Hanoi side attacked the Nixon Administration in stronger terms than they have before.

DR. KISSINGER: I know what the American side said; I am not that much out of touch. I have not seen what the Hanoi reaction was.

Would this be unexpected.

DR. KISSINGER: I am quite sure that we will not let our policy be influenced by what Hanoi says from week to week. We have set our course and we are going to stick to it. I would not think that we are going to react very sharply to one statement.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, yesterday the President was quoted
as having said that he thought the Anglo-French crisis had been
exaggerated. Will he repeat this in Paris in his conversations
with General de Gaulle or take the same line?

DR. KISSINGER: I think the President is certain to take the same position in Paris that he took in London and Bonn because we don't have a foreign policy which is tailored to different countries on problems that are common to them. Our view is the one I have stated to you on several previous occasions which is that the particular issue between Britain and France is one which we consider essentially a European matter into which we will not inject ourselves and that the particular dispute and the manner in which it arose may well have taken on more extreme forms because of the manner in which it arose than the substance.

Q I was not suggesting that you were changing
your policies.

DR. KISSINGER: No. He will say the same thing in Paris if it comes up.

Q I noticed that you said he will say the same thing
in Paris as he said in London and Bonn. Does that assume
he discussed this same matter in Britain?

DR. KISSINGER: We have not initiated discussions on this topic anywhere. When it came up we would take this general line very briefly and then go on with something else and it will be the same in Paris, also.

Q In almost every public statement that the European leaders have made they have indicated that they consider the Presidents trip here as a prelude to negotiating with the Soviet Union. Have they jumped to conclusions in a disquieting way as far as the United States is concerned?

DR. KISSINGER: You know, we may be too quiet to be disquieted. But we are not disquieted in fact. We think we have achieved essentially what we came over here to do. When we left, we said we were not coming over to make spectacular news. We did not come over here to settle a set of specific issues.

I think the German side in Bonn was ready to discuss the offset question. The President said this is something for technicians and it should be discussed on the technical level later on. You know that the offset question has been high on the agenda of every high level meeting.

The reason we did not discuss it -- even though we were reasonably sure we would have come to some agreement -- is that we think the first thing we have to work on is a basic understanding of where we are trying to go.

Now, the other question was about how the European leaders

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have interpreted that there might be negotiations. We didn't have
to come to Europe for that. He said it in the campaign, in the
inauguration, and in both press conferences. The President said
we want this to be an era of negotiation rather than confrontation. So we
are in no way surprised that the European leaders assume that
we are going to negotiate with the Soviet Union. On the other hand,
we have said to the Soviet Union that we will negotiate on concrete
issues on a broad front, but if you are asking if we have specific
agreement for a specific conference at a specific time -- no, we
do not have that.

But we have the intention to negotiate with them. We will
negotiate with them if they will negotiate with us and we will try
to negotiate with them on a broad range and that is what we have been
saying all along.

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Q Would you say where these preliminary talks with the Soviet Union occurred?

DR. KISSINGER: They have been announced. The Soviet Ambassador saw the Secretary of State and he saw the President. Those are essentially the major things that have occurred.

Q Are there on the agenda talks with the Soviets in Washington on the Middle East or anywhere else?

DR. KISSINGER: At this moment? We don't have any specific talks scheduled now but we have indicated our readiness to do so and it could happen in the not too distant future.

Q Has not each President of the last two previous administrations indicated that they have been ready at any time to negotiate on a tactical basis with the Soviet Union?

DR. KISSINGER: It may be that the general conditions are different. It may be that we think that we are approaching the problem of East-West relations on a basis that promises to be more fruitful. I think the general international mood is such that we are on a basis of a greater degree of unity in the West and the approach of a conceptual negotiation might be possible. I was not criticizing the previous administrations.

Q I was just trying to get the content of your phrase, "the new era of negotiation."

DR. KISSINGER: Having been ready to negotiate and having a specific program for negotiation is a big step.

Q Could you give us a general outline of your approach and expectations for talks with General de Gaulle beginning tomorrow in Paris?

DR. KISSINGER: I think our hopes with respect to talking to General de Gaulle are the same as the talks we have had with other leaders, to see whether we can find some concrete basis of cooperation to attempt to break away from some of the slogans that have poisoned the debate in the past.

Our view is that internal arrangements in Europe are European matters. We are not going to lecture de Gaulle on how he should organize or what French policy should be.

Our preliminary concern will be to see what degree of range of American cooperation can be developed and to what degree that sort of cooperation can contribute to the larger objectives of European unity. But how that should be established is not our preliminary concern.

Now I am afraid I must leave.

Q One more question on Italy. Would you give us a little more background on what the problems are and what you hope to accomplish?

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Speaking with reference to the Middle East, also.

Via Vietnam.

DR. KISSINGER: I would suggest on Italy that we have a
public briefing which Mr. Ziegler or a member of his staff can
do. Then he can give you a fill-in of what went on at the
discussions today. I think this will be a better answer than
something that I could do very briefly now.

I am sorry that this has been so short, but I really must
go.

Q Will Mr. Ziegler brief on the Nonproliferation
Treaty as the main subject of the Bonn talks?

DR. KISSINGER: The Nonproliferation Treaty was not the
main subject.

Q The German side, that this should be followed
up by more high level talks on the NPT -- has anything been
set up?

DR. KISSINGER: We are prepared to talk to the Germans
on anything of major concern to them and the President has
promised full consultation to any of our allies on any of
the problems of major concern. We are perfectly willing to
discuss the German concerns about the Nonproliferation Treaty,
but we did not go into further detail at this time, even
though it was discussed.

I really must leave now. I am late for the dinner.

MR. ZIEGLER: Because the meetings are going on still
and had not concluded when I left, and I did not have the
opportunity to discuss any of the content of the meeting with
the President or the Prime Minister, I do want to say the same
ground rules to apply to what I am giving you now, even though
it is not as substantive as Dr. Kissinger's. That is "U. S.
Sources."

I think some people came in late so I will repeat. The
content of Dr. Kissinger's material was on a background basis
attributable to U. S. Sources.

As the pool report indicated, the President met privately
with President Saragat for about 50 minutes prior to going into
a much larger meeting.

Fifty minutes?

MR. ZIEGLER: Approximately. While this private meeting
was going on between the two Presidents, the Secretary of State
and the Prime Minister were meeting separately. The meetings
concluded and, as I said, the two Presidents went into a larger
meeting.

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President Saragat, of course, welcomed President Nixon to the country in what he termed as an important junction. He referred to our history and the history of the world and indicated that he wanted to speak very candidly with the President and cover a number of topics.

The topics that he indicated that he would like to explore in the conversations with European problems related specifically to European integration and unity, NATO, East-West relations, the Middle East, the Mediterranean area, disarmament, Nonproliferation Treaty, and the United Nations and Latin America.

Q What about China?

MR. ZIEGLER: He didn't mention China.

Because of the schedule running late, and because of our late arrival, it was agreed that the initial meetings that have just concluded would be devoted to only the first few topics.

The discussions began on the European problems and the President indicated what he has indicated to others and which has already been indicated to you and to President Saragat -- the need for a strong NATO, particularly, and a strong Europe, a strong alliance, particularly when we are entering into a possible period of negotiations.

They discussed NATO briefly. The President again covered the matter of a strong NATO and briefly suggested ways in which the NATO alliance could strengthen NATO.

President Saragat reaffirmed his support of NATO and his support of a United Europe, and European integration.

At this point, Dr. Kissinger and I excused ourselves from the meeting and then came over here. The discussions will continue tonight following dinner, which will be held at the palace, which would be beginning about now.

Following the dinner, the President will meet briefly with representatives -- Italian citizens -- at the palace, who will be at the dinner. He will be meeting with the various groups for about five or ten minutes apiece. We will hopefully have those names for you tomorrow.

The meetings then will continue tomorrow and it is my belief that the substantial and more full discussions will be held tomorrow.

Q What was the President's reaction to his reception in Berlin?

MR. ZIEGLER: He, of course, was very pleased. He indicated that he felt that the people were very warm and that you can tell by the expressions on the faces that they were a happy people, a free people. He was very pleased with the reception.

Q Did the President say you could tell by the expressions of their faces that they are happy people?

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DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE PRESS OFFICE

This Copy For

AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(George V Hotel, Paris, France)

WITH RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT, AND DR. HENRY
KISSINGER, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO
THE PRESIDENT FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

6:17 P.M.

FRIDAY

FEBRUARY 28, 1969

MR. ZIEGLER: Gentlemen, the ground rules, of course, are background, U. S. sources. The purpose of this backgrounder is to cover the trip up to this point, from the beginning in Brussels, on a background basis, to provide you with information on that.

We won't have anything, of course, on this visit because it has just begun.

Q Why not on this trip?

Q The French are giving one now.

MR. ZIEGLER: A backgrounder?

Q Yes.

Q We have got to straighten out the business of the speech this morning at the airport.

MR. ZIEGLER: I am talking about any information in relation to the meetings today. We will provide you with the general communication on the meeting that the two Presidents had after this backgrounder.

Q Can we go at least at this point into the one question about why there was such a difference between the prepared text and the as-delivered?

MR. ZIEGLER: That would be a legitimate question.

DR. KISSINGER: At the airport?

Q Yes.

MR. ZIEGLER: I was referring to the meeting.

Q Is there an embargo on the backgrounder as to us?

MR. ZIEGLER: Most of you will want to use this information for Sunday.

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Q I want to use the question about the speech.

DR. KISSINGER: The question of the speech you can use, but the other material, if there is going to be anything, you should use Sunday.

MR. ZIEGLER: That is what the President indicated.

Q I am talking about today, what has happened here or what has happened today -- what about that?

DR. KISSINGER: What has happened here is the news, but the general background you use on Sunday.

Q Could we have anything that has happened today?

MR. ZIEGLER: Other things are for Sunday.

Q How do you separate it from what you already know?

MR. ZIEGLER: We will make it clear.

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Q I am not clear. In other words, when Dr. Kissinger talks about the trip and reviewing it, that is Sunday.

MR. ZIEGLER: That is right.

Q When you start telling us about why they threw away the speech and other details of today ---

MR. ZIEGLER: Let's get started.

DR. KISSINGER: First, about the speech: I am always fascinated to read how profound we are when I read your interpretations and I always get the impression that there is a careful plan and design behind these moves, that they have profound significance.

It didn't have profound significance. What happened was that the President decided to use many of these ideas in the toasts, the two toasts he has got to make, and since the arrival statement was going to be extemporaneous, he wanted to be able to speak extemporaneously in view of the things he had most on his mind and not put himself through the process of memorizing a text.

This happens to be the truth. It is not very dramatic. I haven't compared, actually, what he has said with what is in that statement to see whether one can draw anything from that.

Q There was a vast difference, Dr. Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: At any rate, whatever difference there is has no significance.

Q Could I put the question in this way and I think this is what most of us are thinking, and perhaps this will go to your review: How is it square for the President to come here and say in the prepared speech, in effect, that President de Gaulle's vision of the future has great merit or he has praised his vision?

DR. KISSINGER: No, he said he is a man who has had great visions of the future. He hasn't said that every vision of the future is ---

Q In the afternoon newspapers, their quote was in bold faced type across the top of a front page because it is being read here as saying that what de Gaulle is saying in relation to the current swells in Europe is getting some backing from the President, as against what he has been saying about supporting NATO and the market and all the other capitals.

DR. KISSINGER: I don't believe that this -- I know that that was not the intention, and I don't believe it is a fair interpretation. What the President wanted to say was that here is a man who thinks in historic terms and whose views, whose sweep of history, is something that we should listen to with respect. He did not mean to endorse President de Gaulle's particular vision of the future.

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I think I have talked to this group several times about the President's position on that and the President's position on that is, as I have indicated: We are in favor of NATO. We are in favor of European unity. We will not inject ourselves into the precise details of how European unity is to be achieved.

I may be violating every rule of press relations by saying that these things are written under great pressure with short deadlines and are reviewed by harassed men. So it is quite possible that one can put interpretations on sentences taken out of context that they were never intended to have.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the words that the President is supposed to say don't really and truly reflect what you have told us.

DR. KISSINGER: I have told you what was intended. We can spend time on seeing whether it was insincerely phrased, but I can tell you what was intended. I don't happen to have the text in front of me.

Q It is the last two paragraphs of the first page. Here it is.

Q I think it is the last paragraph.

Q Beginning, "Few leaders of the modern world."

DR. KISSINGER: I don't even accept Europe's interpretation of this at all. I don't even think these paragraphs can be interpreted as an endorsement of President de Gaulle's position in the Common Market and, therefore, I can just repeat what I have already said.

Q Can they be interpreted as lavish praise of General de Gaulle?

DR. KISSINGER: They can be interpreted as respectful praise of President de Gaulle and that we are not backing away from that. But that does not mean an endorsement of his particular views.

Q In some other advanced text that we have been given on this trip there has been a little paragraph note up at the top that says that although the President likes to speak extemporaneously, he stands behind these remarks. That paragraph was not at the top of this advanced text. Can we assume, then, that this was accidental, or does the President stand behind those remarks?

Q They said on the plane that he stood behind the remarks.

DR. KISSINGER: He stands behind the remarks. I don't say they bear the interpretation that he does not stand behind that particular interpretation.

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Q Would you describe to us how these remarks are prepared? It is a very delicate situation, as we travel around Europe. How are they prepared; who reviews them and were those procedures followed in this particular case?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. I don't think I should discuss our internal operations, but the normal procedures were followed. But I don't, frankly, see how these remarks can bear the interpretation that has been given to them.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you say this is not an endorsement of de Gaulle's position on the Common Market. Do you want to go beyond that in terms of what it is not an endorsement of?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I really, I think, stated our position on this. It is no sense trying to put me into the position of saying that we are opposing his position on the Common Market. We are not here to argue with de Gaulle on his particular interpretation of the Common Market, but the President has to say to him privately, and there will be an appropriate briefing, if there is a briefing on that -- all I can say is it was not intended as an endorsement of specific policies. It was intended as a recognition of the historic contribution of a man's historic merit, which the President respects. And that was the intention.

You can accuse us of insidious phrasing if you wish, but I can only tell you what the intention was.

MR. ZIEGLER: We will take one more question on this.

Q Is this going to be said -- in effect, these two paragraphs -- in one of the toasts?

DR. KISSINGER: Some of the general ideas in here will be and things that will be said under various toasts.

Q But not these two paragraphs?

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DR. KISSINGER: We really should wait. Since these toasts are again going to be extemporaneous, I can't be sure. I don't want to mislead you. We are not backing away from these paragraphs. I want to emphasize this as strongly as possible. We are not backing away from them in terms of the interpretation I have given.

ZIEGLER: I believe there is a note on that release that indicates it.

Q No.

ZIEGLER: Then it was inadvertently left off, but

Q This is probably the most elaborate praise that an American President has ever given to De Gaulle, publicly. What is the motive in approaching De Gaulle this way?

DR. KISSINGER: I really don't think there is much purpose to be served -- at the beginning of a set of conversations that are still going on -- to characterize them beyond what I have said. I don't see what good it would do you to try to get implications out of me that simply are not there.

Q Did the President actually read that paragraph?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, he has read every word of this release as he does everything else that is going to be put out.

Q We are not trying to create mischief. We are just trying to find out why suddenly De Gaulle is being praised in these terms when some of us who have been in the foreign policy can't remember such comments.

DR. KISSINGER: I can remember them, but that is not the point. This Administration is trying to get its relations with France on a different basis. We would like to get away from old quarrels and old slogans which is something that might apply to both sides. We can only be responsible for our side of this relationship. That is the general approach.

Q Dr. Kissinger, maybe you would not feel it wise to agree to this, but isn't it just natural to try to maybe spread the flattering on with a heavy trough when you are trying to get along with a man who is noted for being hard to get along with?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I would not say that. It is the conviction of the President that it serves no purpose, it serves nobody's purpose for the United States and France to have avoidable bad relations. The one clear message we got in every country that we visited was -- certainly to every country on the continent that we visited -- that they do not want to be in the position of having to choose between the United States and France.

I think we are making it possible for every country to make their decisions on the merits of the issues, if we are not in an organic permanent conflict with France, if we can avoid it.

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This is the spirit with which we have come here. If
it should turn out that it cannot work, then we will know we
have done our best.

Q Dr. Kissing, can you tell us what transpired
this afternoon?

DR. KISSINGER: We will have a separate briefing
on that.

Q Can I ask you, the other day in Bonn you
quoted both Chancellor Kiesinger and the President, and I think,
Secretary of State Rogers, as talking about exaggerated differences.

DR. KISSINGER: I wasn't there.

Q But Mr. Ziegler and Diehl gave a report on
this. We are assuming it may have had to do with this.

DR. KISSINGER: I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have to
leave to go to the dinner.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END

(AT 6:45 P.M.)

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Third, in those relationships that affected our allies, we were eager to get the discussion toward the problems of the future rather than rehash the problems of the past, which, incidentally, was supposed to be the theme today.

Now, if you look over this catalogue you will find that almost all of it involves intangibles. Therefore, I must say I have great sympathy for a group like this. I said so last Friday and I have to say so again.

The most important things, in my view, that happened on this trip depend on things which you cannot express concretely. I knew most of the leaders that we have met personally, and I have known them for a long time, in relationships in which nobody ever dreamed that I would wind up in a Governmental position, so I can judge their reaction. We all know what views they had, what views many of them had about President Nixon before he became President.

We know also that they have a tendency to think of the Republican Party as the party of isolation, and we know that in general the United States in recent years in Europe did not have the image of a country that was particularly relevant to current problems and that was particularly sensitive to immediate concerns.

Now, it is my judgment, and here I have to give a personal one -- it cannot be an official judgment, but it is my judgment that many of these intangible concerns have been removed insofar as a visit of a week can remove them.

I attended, I think, every meeting that the President attended except those that were only between two people. I did not attend some of the private discussions with Prime Minister Wilson, and of course not the private discussions that went on this afternoon with President De Gaulle, but I think I have attended most of the other meetings, and it was striking to see how the atmosphere changed.

I would say, for example, that when we arrived in Britain, Prime Minister Wilson was wary -- I would have to say eager to be on good terms with us, but wary. By the end of the second evening, when we sat around the Cabinet table in 10 Downing Street, one could see that a close human relationship had been established.

No one should pretend that a close relationship is going to make senior leaders of another country act against their interests. The margin that it can be affected by this is relatively small, but I would have to give, as my personal impression, this: That we stood in great danger in Europe--and we may still--of being thought, not wrong, but irrelevant, which is worse.

When one is thought irrelevant, agreement with one's policies does not really reduce uneasiness and disagreement becomes unbearable. Now, I think we have made substantial progress in reducing this.

Excluding France, because I have no judgment on what happened in France, I think the greatest amount of difference up to Friday noon was made in Germany. I think our relations to Germany have suffered for a considerable period of time from the fact that the Germans have been so worried about things that we might do that it has never been possible to get a rational discussion on the things that we were trying to do.

Again, I believe that the sort of discussions we had at the formal meeting were extremely useful, but even more useful was the impact that the President had on the leaders.

Let me explain here why that is so important in Germany. I would think, as a general rule, that what I said is correct; that sentiment can affect the margin of decision in only a limited way. But one would also -- if one looks at Germany's past and I am being very frank with you - - - see a country that has lost two great wars in this century, has had four different Governments.

If you look at the personal history of most of its leaders, you will find that it has been enormously discontinuous in terms of the changes they have seen in their own life, all of which means that what Germany needs above all is a sense of steadiness on the part of its senior ally.

Therefore, in Germany, a feeling of reliability makes it possible to talk about many of the current problems in a concrete way.

Let me give you one example. I don't know whether there are gradations of background. We knew, for example, that the Germans were all set to get into the offset question with us and, as most of you who follow German affairs know, President Johnson twisted German arms and Secretary McNamara, in a rather powerful way -- this is DEEP BACKGROUND, DEEP BACKGROUND, no attribution at all.

Q It was understood.

DR. KISSINGER: But I am trying to be helpful to you.

The President sat down at the table and said, "Look, I want to talk to you about where we want to go. Offset is for technicians. Send a technical mission and we will find some way of talking about offset."

You may think this doesn't make a great deal of difference. I am willing to bet that we will have more fruitful discussions on offset with the Germans when their technical mission comes than if we had started haggling about $10 million here and there or which legal formula should be formed.

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I am trying to give you the flavor of some of the things
as to why I formed this judgment. At the dinner in Chancellor
Kiesinger's house, when toasts were drunk, the President, in his
toasts, said that he had experienced defeats in his life
and spoke of the meaning of defeat without drawing any
parallels, but they were very obvious. And I must say
it turned into a rather moving occasion because most of the
time the Germans hear from us what we want and what they
can do for their material achievement.

Again, this doesn't mean that if we want to
do something tomorrow that is totally against their conviction,
they will do it. We are dealing with serious people here.
We are not salesmen.

What I am saying is I think we have created a
basis where at least they will talk to us about current
problems without the fear that it will set a precedent
for something awful that we have in the back of our minds.

I believe that this has been the course of German-
American relations and of many American-continental relations
and I think we will see a drastic reduction in the somewhat
hysterical light in which some of the debates have been cast
on many things.

The reverse of this -- this was our effort. It
just isn't possible to produce concrete, detailed events
because what we did talk about most of the time were semi-
philosophical questions of the direction in which de Gaulle --
how we were going to approach the problem, what we were
going to do, and that was always our intention from the
first time we thought about the trip and planned the trip.

In Italy, the situation is different ---

Q Are we back on just BACKGROUND?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes,

In Italy, the situation is that the foreign policy
decisions Italy has to make are less painful and less
acute than, say, Germany's, but the domestic situation is of
great importance to them. And the domestic situation in which
you have a very strong Communist Party which, on some levels,
is becoming more respectable, but on other levels is exercising
great pressures on the political spectrum and where, therefore,
every foreign policy issue has complicated domestic
ramifications.

There, again, I think the particular approach
of laying out our general philosophical position was of
considerable consequence. We made it clear that we were for
the unity of Europe. Those who are in favor of European
unification are under no illusions that we are backing away
from that. But we also feel that European unification to
mean anything has to be a European construction. It cannot
be an American construction.

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To the degree that we inject ourselves into the details of this, it has always turned out in the past to be counter-productive. Here I cannot tell you what impression we have made because we have just started talking. I haven't even heard yet about the talks between the two Presidents.

Q On Italy -- excuse me.

DR. KISSINGER: Let me just finish this. We simply do not believe that it is in anybody's interest for the United States to lead a crusade against one of its allies, that if we are driven to that, we want to know that we have leaned over backwards to avoid it. It is our judgment and it has certainly been pointed out on this trip that no one in Europe really wants us to polarize the debate here and, therefore, as the President said, what we intend to do is to see what her there are concrete areas in which we can cooperate to everybody's benefit.

Wherever we have been, we have tried to explain our philosophy of East-West relations. We have a complicated problem here, both with respect to our domestic opinion and with respect to European opinion.

Let me say this is for DEEP BACKGROUND. The President has at every stop said something that applies to the United States, too.

Q Applies what?

DR. KISSINGER: That applies everywhere. We could be terribly popular by making some dramatic, immediate gesture of getting some immediate negotiations started and the higher the level the greater the reaction might be.

But what we want is to lay out the general program, first, to move forward on as broad a front as possible on political matters, as well as on arms control matters, and in doing this we have to have the confidence of our friends.

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Of course, we have to have the confidence of the American people, but on this trip our concern again was the confidence of our friends. From that point of view I must say -- and you know I am too close to this to be a good judge, but I hope also that I will never turn into a propagandist -- that my impression, as someone who has had a lot of experience with American-European relations, is that on this realm of the intangibles the President has made a really very deep impact on those leaders. You will have to check this with those leaders themselves, but this is my impression of the trip.

I can take a few questions.

Q Will we know what this impact is for some time to come? It is just this kind of generality and agreements on general principle which, in the past, have often led us into areas where we found ourselves over our head, when we don't get into specifics.

DR. KISSINGER: We got into specifics. We have also been very often misled by putting out special communications which then dissolved as soon as we attempted to give them operation or significance. Needless to say, we could have put out a communique at every stop if we had wanted to. We did not write down any agreements on general principles.

I think what we have done is to establish some common approaches. Now, if you find us in six months at each others throat again, then you will know that my judgment was wrong. My judgment today is that you will see on a whole range of issues, starting with the minor one of offset -- starting there only because that happens to come up within the next month or so -- that issues of strategic doctrine, of negotiations with the Soviets, and of the organization of Europe will be discussed -- as far as we are concerned, and as far as our friends are concerned -- in an atmosphere that permits a concentration on the substantive issues.

For example, on the Middle East -- and I am just picking an example again -- four weeks ago we had an offer of four-power talks, and we could have had a flashy meeting immediately.

The President wants to see if a sufficient community of approaches could be established that would permit us to advance. I must say that my impression, based on this trip -- and this is really an impression; this is not a firm commitment we have made nor does it mean that we have an agreement to go anywhere, but I would really think that over the next two or three months you will see that we can talk about that subject in a way that permits us to be more substantive, purely procedural and less emotional. I am giving this to you as a yardstick by which you will be able to tell.

Q Talks with the four powers?

DR. KISSINGER: We have always agreed in principle to the four-power thing, and I would not be surprised if over the next few months you saw that we could move ahead there perhaps more substantively than in the past, but this is my impression of it, and I am trying to give you some

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yardstick by which in six months it would be better to measure.
My foreign policy adviser here tells me to make it clear
it is not a fact. It is not a fact in the sense that there
are four-power talks now scheduled. It is an impression, however,
of something by which you can judge whether we have come
closer with each other.

Q Did you hope to get further, specifically
on the NPT, with the Germans on this trip?

DR. KISSINGER: Again, I believe that the NPT is a
example of something by which you can judge. I do not
expect that on the NPT we will get the bitter reaction from
the Germans in this Administration that you got in the last
Administration.

If you look at the German-American dialogue during
the last Administration on the NPT you will find a list of ten
German objections, some of which we would meet and then some
others we would not. The reason was they objected to the
treaty and partly it was because they thought it was a symptom
of something deeper.

I don't argue that the Germans now like the treaty.
They will never like the treaty. But I do argue that, at least,
given the fact of the treaty, they are willing, in my
judgment, with us, to talk about specific concrete issues
rather than about the symbol for which it might stand.

Q Dr. Kissinger, we have not had any information
about the degree of which the subject of Vietnam has been
discussed. Can you help us on that, and on which side?

DR. KISSINGER: We have, whenever asked, explained
our general approach to Vietnam, which is that we want an
honorable settlement and we are working energetically towards it.

I think on this issue there has existed, really, a
reasonable amount of confidence in our intentions so that we
did not have to do a huge thing. The point I would really like
to make is this: We did not go in there as often happens,
with a big brief and a huge selling job on particular things.
We went in there explaining our approach, say, on troop levels,
rather than arguing whether it should be 5,000 higher or lower
or who should to what.

We tried to talk about the strategy in terms of
which troop levels would make sense and the need to get some
position that everybody could defend to his own public opinion
and to himself.

Now this was the approach. I believe that in terms
of the objective it really went better than I thought could
happen on such a brief visit. I just hope you will be able
to judge that I have not become so wrapped up that I have
lost my judgment.

Q You made a rather severe indictment of American
policy in Europe in the recent past.

DR. KISSINGER: I have written on that subject at
length.

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Q Were we at Europe's throat in the past few years?

DR. KISSINGER: No, but I think that on the continent especially, there were serious reservations about the American policy on major areas and about our approach. This is a question of judgment. You will find many dedicated people who will question it.

Our judgment was that our relations to Europe required restoring. Let me say that this is a theme that the President has emphasized for years, long before he ever met me. This is not my invention. The theme that the relationship with Europe required high priority, that it had to be restructured, is one which you will find in the President's speeches for as long as I can remember. You will surely find it in many of his speeches in the campaign.

I want to make it emphatically clear that this is not something that I particularly invented.

Q Dr. Kissinger, do you think the President has succeeded in this series of talks in persuading his allies in the West that whenever he makes a move, whether it is in Vietnam or the negotiations with the Russians on hostile missile controls, that he is not going to act alone as has been done in the past, and will not act without consulting?

DR. KISSINGER: He has convinced them, I think, in two ways. One, he has spent a great amount of time at each stop to explain what he is trying to do. He has not said, "Go and sign one treaty, or let me negotiate the reduction of missiles to 634." What he has said is: "I am trying to do the following.' This is my view of where we should go."

Secondly, he has told them that he wants their views and has asked them to consult with him and promised them that we would consult with them. But I think both of these were important.

Q In view of the cancellation of the Warsaw talks on February 20, can you say whether China's policy was discussed with the Belgians and the Italians who are considering establishing diplomatic relations, and what our position was?

DR. KISSINGER: To the best of my knowledge, I know it was not discussed in Belgium. In Italy there were conservation with so many groups, I would not want to say something I may later have to retract, but we did not raise it anyway. I am, therefore, not absolutely sure whether it was raised in Italy or not. My impression was that it was not raised in Italy.

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MR. ZIEGLER: I have some notes coming on the meeting this afternoon between President de Gaulle and President Nixon. If you will wait here for about five minutes I will give you that and wrap it up for tonight.

Q Would you review again the groundrules?

MR. ZIEGLER: Yes. To review again what the groundrules are on this, the initial part -- and we will separate it in our record copy of the briefing, which is available to you if you have any questions -- the comments that Dr. Kissinger gave on a BACKGROUND basis, attributable to US sources, in relation to the Paris visit, are available for your use immediately.

Those remarks that follow are for Sunday papers which is 6:30 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, Saturday.

Q What arrangements have you made for us getting the toasts for tonight and tomorrow night?

MR. ZIEGLER: The toasts for tonight will be available for you at the press center here shortly after it is delivered -- as quickly as the mimeograph machine will run it off. The dinner starts at 8:30, so it would likely be 10:30 or 11 o'clock.

Q Will de Gaulle's be available here?

MR. ZIEGLER: Yes.

Q Not until 12 o'clock. There is an embargo until 12.

Q It is for use and embargo.

MR. ZIEGLER: It has to be translated.

We will get it to you as soon as possible. I think you all have the pool report from today that Bob Pierpoint did. That contains the information regarding the Rome visit. If you don't have it, it will be available.

Q Are there any further briefings this evening?

MR. ZIEGLER: No.

Q What section of the trip was that?

Q The category?

MR. ZIEGLER: From flying here from Rome.

Q You mean about the visits to the US -- working visits?

MR. ZIEGLER: That is right; there was some other information.

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Q For planning purposes, what sort of briefings are you planning tomorrow?

MR. ZIEGLER: I don't know at this point. We have to see how the meetings develop.

Q You will brief out there?

MR. ZIEGLER: We will brief at the Trianon.

Q Do you have any idea about what time?

MR. ZIEGLER: I have no idea at this point.

Q I was thinking, for instance, about driving out there at noon.

MR. ZIEGLER: I think you would be very safe on that.

I will have this other information in just a few minutes.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END

AT 7:15 P.M.