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Preface to Dr. Kissinger's Book

There are those who believe that the principal objective of this generation should be peace at any price. For such people the capacity of the Russians to bring on an atomic holocaust should not be particularly disturbing since peace can probably always be secured - on Russian terms. But for most of us the mere survival of ourselves and our children is not sufficient. We think more in terms of surviving in freedom and we believe that on this fast shrinking globe our freedom is somehow bound up with the freedom of all people and particularly with those who have it today or are determined to have it some day.

For those of us who hold this philosophy, the Russian military threat with all it entails in terms of nuclear weapons, fast delivery systems and long range missiles, does in fact pose the problem of the age. Abhorrent of war but unwilling to accept gradual Russian enslavement of other peoples around the world, which we know will eventually lead to our own en-

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slavement, we are forced to adopt a posture that, despite
Russian military capabilities and despite their long range
intentions, freedom shall be preserved to us. We face a
great dilemma and Dr. Kissinger analyzes this dilemma in
fine detail. In my own words and with over-simplification,
I would express it this way:

For all practical purposes we have in terms of nuclear
capabilities reached a point which may be called "parity".
We have long known that such a time would come. It is now
upon us. I do not mean necessarily parity in numbers of
large bombs. Numbers become less important when the point
is reached where both sides have the capability to annihilate
each other. So long as this condition is coupled with a fear
that any strong action on the part of the United States any-
where in the world may ignite a full scale nuclear war, we
find ourselves more and more reluctant to frame a strong
foreign policy or implement it so as to preserve the vital

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interests of the free world. We fear force as never before
and we even fear economic and political measures which might
lead to the use of it. In the meantime, however, the Soviets
do not seem to have been similarly deterred. They have spilled
across the territories of free and uncommitted countries, capital-
izing on unrest, using all the devices short of war to perform
the acts of conquest - infiltration, incitement to civil war,
threats of war and supplying materials of war to anyone who will
use them in the Soviet cause. This conquest has proceeded in
spite of our ominous atomic stockpile which for various reasons
we have been unable or unwilling to employ against conquests of
the Soviet variety. This, then, is our dilemma.

Three years ago the Council on Foreign Relations called together
a panel of exceptionally qualified individuals to explore all
factors which are involved in the making and implementing of for-
eign policy in the nuclear age. I was asked to chair this panel.
Among the members and invited guests were framers of our military

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and foreign policy, experts knowledgeable in the effects
of modern weapons, persons in responsible positions in
government, persons who had held such positions in the past,
persons less preoccupied with the day-to-day administrative
decisions of government who brought to us the benefit which
comes from reflective thinking within the confines of our
universities, persons who had been hardened by the realities
of the business world and upon whom we had so heavily relied
in past wars to help outproduce the enemy.

After almost eighteen months we decided that we had gone as far as we could by means of discussion. Before this time, however, we had secured the services of Dr. Henry Kissinger as study director. Recognizing that our mission was first to get the facts and secondly to explore the implications of these facts, we decided that we would not attempt to secure a consensus of the group, all of us having had experience with large committees which attempted to produce a draft agreeable to all.

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Instead we asked Dr. Kissinger, fully exposed to the facts and the views of the group, to write a book for which he alone would be responsible and we ended our deliberations fully respectful of each other and with a final exhortation: "Good luck, Dr. Kissinger. If you can make anything out of the efforts of this panel we will be eternally grateful."

Speaking, therefore, only for myself, I think that he has done just this. Certainly this book is not an end to thinking in this field. But if it will make people think it has been good in itself. I think that it has done much more than this. Dr. Kissinger ploughs right into one of the heart areas of our dilemma: Assume a situation where the vital interests of the United States are at stake, if for no other reason than that the U.S.S.R. is attempting to take over another small but strategic area of the world. Would the United States be prepared to use force? Would it be prepared to use tactical atomic weapons to prevent such a conquest if the employment of such weapons were best suited to end quickly a local aggression?

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Dr. Kissinger sets a frame-work for the evaluation
which must be made in such a situation. Today we have a complete
spectrum of weapons which could be used against the Soviet or a
Soviet inspired operation. These range from the bullet in a
rifle through machine guns and artillery, through small atomic
weapons and eventually up to thermonuclear weapons which because
of their destructive force can destroy deployed armies in the
field and entire cities. This spectrum is continuous. The
destructive power of some atomic weapons is less than that of
some conventional high explosive weapons. The destructive
power of some thermonuclear weapons is less than the
destructive power of some of our fission weapons. Many efforts
have been made in recent years to seek a break in the spectrum
and to produce rules of conduct in international behavior which
somehow recognize morality in one type of explosive and immorality
in another. But obviously immorality arises not from the type
of explosive or the explosive power. It arises from the use
to which weapons are put. I think it important above all that

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we convey to our potential enemies our determination that if we
must use force it will be used with discrimination; that our
objective will always be to restrict the area of conflict and
to destroy military targets which threaten the freedom we must
preserve.

Dr. Kissinger argues for much more communication
of our intentions to the enemy. He believes that they must know
that our strength is great or we have lost the asset of a deterrent.
He believes also that they must know that our objective is to end
the aggression quickly by eliminating military targets lest we
bring on an all-out thermonuclear war through a misunderstanding
of our intentions. He believes that if this message is not conveyed
to the Soviet leaders we shall give ammunition to the advocates of
peace-at-any-price who are ready to accept any fate which does not
involve force. I share this thesis with him.

Dr. Kissinger's book is not easy reading if for no
other reason than that the subject is highly complicated. He has

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produced, however, what is in my opinion the best single volume
on this the hardest problem facing us. There is a way out of
our dilemma if we keep our heads and Dr. Kissinger's book is
an appeal to the head and to the way to keep it.

Gordon Dean